Are Video Games ACTUALLY Getting Worse??
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- čas přidán 20. 06. 2024
- There seems to be a growing sentiment that video games have gotten worse over the years, especially when it comes to large AAA releases. My question is this; have video games ACTUALLY become worse?
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:43 Industry Explosion
05:42 Older is better?
11:55 Strength of Eras
15:41 A way forward
17:27 Outro
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Sources and Credits:
Gaming stats:
venturebeat.com/games/newzoo-...
Far Cry Gameplay:
• FAR CRY 6 Gameplay Wal...
Fallout Bugs:
• Fallout 76 Funny Bugs ...
Cyberpunk Bugs:
• 10 Minutes Of Cyberpun...
OOT Gameplay:
• 10 Minutes Of Cyberpun...
Doom Gameplay:
• DOOM 1 - Gameplay Walk...
Beat Saber Gameplay:
• Beat Saber | Camellia ...
Undertale Gameplay:
• UNDERTALE (Full Pacifi...
FNAF Gameplay:
• FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'...
Fall Guys Gameplay:
• No Commentary, Uncut, ...
Among Us Gameplay:
• Among us - Full Impost...
Returnal Gameplay:
• RETURNAL PS5 Gameplay ...
• Returnal - Hyperion Bo...
Elden Ring Gameplay:
• ELDEN RING Gameplay Wa...
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Hashtags:
#videogames #gaming #videoessay #indiegames #indiegame #gamingcommunity #gameindustry - Hry
FPS games are actually really poor representations of "video games" in a general context. It's a VERY specific genre, with a VERY specific focus and requirements. "Game balancing" might seem super important when designing a competitive online multiplayer game. But when making a single player game, it's not really that important. So what if one item is over powered? Does it make the game more enjoyable? Does it make it less FUN? I mean, after all, "FUN" is the only metric that genuinely matters in gaming. It doesn't matter if it's the most realistic, or best balanced or most complex, if it's not fun. And honestly, there are SO many modern games that aren't fun. They are addictive, because they are engineered to trigger that dopamine response that causes compulsive behavior, but when we "snap out of it" after 3 hours of play... We realize that we didn't actually have FUN, but were really only feeding the addiction.
And that's the big problem with modern games. Too many are designed for compulsion, not for enjoyment.
Thank God there’s still people out there who DO accept the fact that there’s a difference between fun and addictive
Dude no i’m sorry but your just wrong about cod and let me tell you why yes they had the same play style but the “fun” of the game had been taken away over the years with 30$ micro transactions for skins and weapons , battle pass , gun attachments you can pay real money for etc.. The companies got greedy and monetized the game the most they possibly could . The whole game has changed you have to have played it since to see or noticed the small minuscule changes that have driven the franchise into the ground. Not to mention COD on release now is basically unplayable for most people with packet loss or packet bursts etc . Old cod was buy the game it works and you play to unlock and see more mabey there will be a dlc for 5$ now it’s pay for the op weapons , pay for the battle pass , pay for the game , pay for the same game again , pay pay pay pay money money money . Now i’m not a COD fanboy i don’t play it anymore but I had to write a comment because new cod is not better or the same only thing that has improved is graphics
I appreciate hearing other takes, and I do agree that the monetization system took a huge downturn. On the gameplay side of things, I'm willing to admit I don't have as much experience as much more veteran players. There is probably some truth to what most people say, I just tend to find the basics of the game relatively unchanged in many years. Anyway, thanks for watching the video and I appreciate the feedback!
@@Thalnose your not wrong in that aspect at all thanks for reaching back out man i subbed to you and am exited for your next video (:
Personally as someone who’s just came back to cod recently after not playing since ww2, I get what you mean abt the cost of things but please don’t forget their is plenty of free content to offset the paid content in cod. New guns can be unlocked through challenges now as well!
@@saki.yo there is no free content in cod
@@saki.nerd
AAA games are getting worse, sure. The rampant "profit over everything" business acumen that was not as ubiquitous in earlier times has taken a firm grip now. There was a time when you could walk down the video game aisle of your local store, point to a random game, and most likely have it be a fun, engaging experience straight out of the box. It had to be that way; competition was fierce and there were no patches. Your game studio could literally go out of business after a single bad release.
It's certainly not like that for AAA games now. Pressure makes diamonds, and there's not enough pressure on those big publishers nowadays.
Gaming as a whole, however, is better now almost purely because of the indy scene. Not only are indy games being made in similar pressure contexts as those older titles, breeding innovation and refinement just to stand out of the crowd, but they're more accessible now than ever before. Finding a limited release of a cartridge game was a matter of being in the right place at the right time, now you can just browse Steam.
That's not to say we're speaking in absolutes; there are still banger AAA titles and a lot of crappy Steam games. But the thing that made gaming great before is still alive now, only shifted away from the bigger studios. Personally, I would go so far as to say that if another video game crash happens, and a lot of the AAA studios finally went under, it would end up being a good thing in the long run. As sad as that is.
Totally agree with this take, I think that's why this topic is so fascinating to me, it's so much bigger than people seem to realize. There's a lot of gray areas and it's not all one sided, but overall I think we're still living in a great time for gaming, you just have to know what to look for. Thanks for watching the video!
" There was a time when you could walk down the video game aisle of your local store, point to a random game, and most likely have it be a fun, engaging experience straight out of the box."
I don't ever recall that time existing and i've been gaming since the 90's.
Hell, i even remember buying Jowood games that you literally couldn't install from the disc.
That's pretty spot on. Whenever I here people complaining, its almost always about the state of the big AAA gaming industry, not the smaller thriving indie scene. I've been saying this for almost a decade now. If you are gamer and you aren't paying attention to the indie offerings then you are doing yourself a disservice.
All those established studios started off indie. And really successful indie games turn into studios that care only about money. Looking at you Mojang.
games arent getting worse,theres just more of them so bad ones are ofc more numerous,its the same braindead argument people make about music,
As someone who's been playing games since the mid-80's, absolutely not. There are more garbage games in absolute numbers yes, but there are also a lot more amazing games and in a far wider spectrum of genres. Sure I miss Civ 1&2, the old Lucasarts SCUMM games, OG Sim City and so on. But these days there's BG3, Elden Ring, Cyberpunk (yeah it's actually really good now), Rimworld, Path of Exile and so much more. In fact there are considerably more absolutely amazing games than I could possibly find the time to play.
And people tend to forget that back then, for every Civilization there was a ton of shovelware crap, we just don't remember it because it was a long time ago, and who wants to fill their brain with irrelevant crap from 30-40 years ago?
I think it's always important to look back at the games that brought us where we are today, but I also think by doing that you can gain a much better perspective and appreciation for the games we have today. Sure, they aren't perfect, and the industry has its issues. But the fact we have so many options for great games, indie or the solid AAA titles, is really incredible.
It's the same with everything media. Music for example. Was it really that much better in the 80s? Or did we just forget about the bad stuff and still listen to the same 20 to 50 songs we enjoyed back then? And for every Star Wars original trilogy there are dozens of forgotten flicks worse than every MCU/DCEU flop from today.
When the majority percentage of garbage games is higher than the old games, means yes they turned garbage.The 3 first games you mentioned are pitiful excuses for games and are absolute horrible abominations. Really pathetic "games". And that's not subjective, they only got hype due to bot voting.
Finally a single good comment.
I too am from that time and is baffling how many 2000’s kids don’t remember how many bad games existed back then. Or how trend chasing games were
That’s not true. There’s no genre diversity, only soulsborne and shooters (or platformers for indie gamers)
Shareholders during alpha state of a game: Is it possible to move the character?
Developer: Yes, but there is 1000 bugs to fix.
Shareholders: What are bugs? Release the game next week.
Games aren’t getting worse as much as they got too big for their own good. Sometimes I miss PS1/PS2 era were you have a complete games that you can finish in 3-4 hours.
I currently have been running through a bunch of bite-size games right now because I just don't feel like going after another 50+ hour game. On one hand I love having a game I can play for hours and hours, but it's necessary to have that time in between, and nearly all AAA games these days are 20+ hours easily. So yeah I feel this, having games that can be finished in just 1 or 2 sessions is extremely nice, and can honestly be a blast.
The very notion that mobile is a real gaming platform is preposterous
I totally understand it's one of the most scummy platforms. Gatcha games run rampant, the ads, it's not great, no. But why isn't it a gaming platform? There are people all over the world that don't have access to or the money for a console or a PC setup, but they do have a phone or tablet. In my opinion, if someone has a passion for video games they can still interact with this passion on mobile. And even those with console and PCs can and honestly should as well. If we want good games on all platforms, we should support them, right? There are some genuinely good mobile games, it's just that they're so obfuscated by all the garbage. Papers please has a great mobile port, dead cells is on mobile, monument valley 1 and 2 are beautiful and phenomenal bite size puzzle games on mobile, there's alto's adventure and Odyssey, cats are liquid, etc. there's actually great mobile games, they just aren't always the easiest to find. But it is a gaming platform, and I believe respecting it as one is something that's important to the gaming community as a whole.
Except it is…you can play games on it. Yeah 99% of the games are bad but they are what still games lol. Some people can’t afford pcs or consoles (I’m not saying this because I can’t lol so don’t assume that).
@@DaShanky Consoles are an interesting case. They have one of the biggest barriers to entry that PCs and smartphones don't have: the platform itself. You probably bought your PC to do something else besides gaming, but a console is crippled to do nothing else, and it can't tap into your existing library either, because it's locked down with DRM and maybe also a proprietary architecture that nothing else uses. You have to shell out hundreds of dollars for a single-purpose device AND start your library from scratch when you buy one.
There is a ray of hope, however: the Steam Deck. Valve is showing the way consoles should be: a form-factor, not a platform. Fundamentally, it's just a PC running Linux, and you can plug in a keyboard and mouse and use it for any desktop task you like, and the library issue is gone, because you can run anything in your Steam library that'll run on Linux (which in my case is just about everything, though I don't have a Steam Deck because Valve won't make it available in Australia). It just needs to be applied to the box that goes under your TV now.
@@Roxor128 bro is a steam deck ad😭
But I def would get a steam deck over a ps5 any day so I can just play my steam library
@@DaShanky I like the concept, and would have bought one to support it, _had they been available in Australia around launch time,_ but it's been so long, I've given up any hope of ever being able to buy one. Would it kill Valve to just stick the thing in the post?
many souls vets has mixed feeling about ELDEN RING. because the game is being unnecessarily too big.
I can actually see this. I'm one that definitely doesn't always love games being unnecessarily large. It takes a very special game for me to desire putting in 100+ hrs, so I can see how this would be a controversial game within the main souls community itself.
@@Thalnose many vets has drop the game because it was very exhausting, meanwhile the newcomers loves it. then i guess the game rly is designed for newcomers in mind. although i still think newcomers better start the series from DS1 and entering ELDEN RING later, because both games just aren't the same category, i consider ELDEN RING to be a "souls-like with open world twist". while dark souls is dark souls a dark-fantasy game that would test it's player if they're going to struggle and persevere or not.
@@LyllianaTV If I never played Elden Ring, I still would think DS1 is that stupid game that is way too hard for someone like me. But after playing Elden Ring, I fell in love with Soulslikes, bought DS1, 2 and 3 and Bloodborne and still have Sekiro in my wishlist. I am not entirely sure what is is about Elden Ring that changed my mind, but if I had to guess, it was this giant open world that just took my breath away and forced me to "git gud" to explore it even more. Elden Ring helped me to find my playstyle in Soulslikes and it will always be my favourite for it (even though Bloodborne is the better game overall).
@@Lumberjack_Linnie i get that but the issue with the game is the replayability there's too much bloats. And some levels just doesn't feel polished enough. Sometime some side dungeons just doesn't worth exploring again in second playthrough because the reward doesn't align with your build. Meanwhile in dark souls most spells and weapons are obtained through exploration, farming and buying it off a NPC merchants and you don't have to kill a side boss to get it. Then ofc elden ring is suffering from the same shit that ds1 is suffering which was the rushed late game areas. But this time the damage are overtuned in these late game areas, the late game areas just became the ick that mirror the ds1 late game areas.
Another person nailed what I wanted to say about the cod section already, but I do want to add that I’d love to hear your takes on the zombies side of cod
I may look into talking about that at some point, although I'll be honest when I say that I don't have a lot of experience with zombies. From what I've seen though, it genuinely does seem to be a game mode that has taken a hit from what it once was. Might be an interesting video idea to take a deeper look into that mode, even just for my own knowledge.
@@Thalnose it’s such an interesting, up, to down, back up, to godsend, then proceeds to gradually become completely unrecognizable. It’s a story of dev crunch and tossed brilliance, mismanagement and mislead. I’ve been following this shit since I was very little and it has been a WILD ride, would love to see a video on it!
Man, gotta be honest. I dont even need the 'triple A' industry anymore.
Calm down now, there won't be Bloodborne 2 without triple As
It seems like games are getting worse because a lot of companies are getting worse, but a lot of new ones kinda balance it out
It's the smaller studios and indie devs that really still have the heart of gaming in mind, and still create amazing games. You just have to know where to look, and shift eyes away from the large publishers like Ubisoft and EA.
Pretty good video with a decently nuanced take. I find a lot of critiques of modern gaming always sit on the extremes, it’s either the best or worst it’s ever been. The truth is that it sits somewhere in the middle. There are a lot of problematic practices that deserve the criticism, but also many achievements that deserve praise.
Definitely the truth here! Just like anything controversial people like to sit on a specific side. I think though like everything it's got positives and negatives, which ultimately balance out to not be nearly as crazy as people make it seem.
Good Video! I think people always forget the annoying stuff about gaming earlier. Also the novelty of the first video games you ever played cant possibly be recreated. Going back to the first games I ever played and liked some of them hold up really well (Pokemon Emerald, Tony Hawks Pro Skater 4, Unreal Tournament 2004, Mirrors Edge) while some of them absolutely dont (Pokemon Diamond, CoD 4-6, some GTA games..)
Thank you very much! I definitely agree with you and think you're spot on here. Glad you enjoyed the video!
Very good Video was baffled when I saw how small This Channel still is
Thank you so much! It's support like that will keep the channel growing despite how small it may be now. Thanks for listening to this silly guy rant about video games for 18 minutes 🫡
Everyone that told me cyberpunk was a bad game was a liar. I played both versions of the game and like them both better than half the other games that released since 2021when it first released
It had a rough launch, but they've done a lot of work to fix it, and the core game was always solid. Definitely much better than a lot of other big releases.
It was a bad game, I pre-ordered before the next Gen was even Announced so I expected a game on par WITH RDR2, and what I got was a joke, eventually after a year I pirated it on PC when they reworked the perks and added the Phantom Liberty DLC and main story additions THAT'S when the game got good. And even then the world is dead nothing happens barely any life in the so called worst city to live in 2077
It's a good game but not classic material
@@TheManudo00 the game was good way before the DLC after they fixed the main game-breaking bugs and got rid of the old driving the game was really fun to play.
I played on a series x on launch and had no problems except for 1 little side quest that was completely bugged and locked me out of getting all the achievements which pissed me off haven’t played since. Recently bought a ps5 thinking about going for the platinum
Man...your content is better than a lot of bigger channels. Keep up the good work!
Big thanks to you! Super glad you enjoyed the video!
The simple answer is yes when I was a kid you bought a game on a disk or a cartridge put it in your console and it worked now you need a 50-100gb patch and things like battle passes and don't even get me started on microtransactions and things like loot boxes. Gaming Should be amazing but it's not greed from the big companies that have got in the way of me enjoying some games completely
I agree that monetization systems have gone drastically downhill. But to me, I guess the point I'm trying to make with this video is that the market has much more shifted and changed rather than getting worse in my opinion. The AAA space may be a lot more hit and miss, but the indie market and mid size developers are still producing some wonderful games with the same charm as older titles. Maybe call me an optimist, but I don't think games as a whole are getting worse, I think one aspect (AAA) has, and that there's still plenty of incredible games out there to discover. Thanks for leaving your thoughts! I know this is a topic that people have plenty of opinions on, and it's great to see what others think.
@@Thalnose No, you are right. When you see people crying about the state of modern gaming, they are almost always complaining about AAA gaming. There is a LARGE portion of the gamer audience that pretty much plays nothing but the big AAA games and for those people video games really are slipping in quality. Aside for the occasional rare gem that defies the odds or smaller AA games that go viral enough to make it onto the mainstream radar, most of what these gamers end up playing are soulless corporate rehashes of IPs that were long ago milked to death.
I think where the huge production companies and legacy IPs fail, the smaller AA and Indie Developers are picking up the slack and going through something of renaissance. There are amazing, fun, innovative, and highly polished indie titles getting dropped left and right in every genre under the sun and these smaller but far more engaging titles almost never fall prey to the same corporate greed and microtransaction bloat you see in the AAA scene.
Right now I would rate mainstream AAA gaming as a whole at about a C- and the only reason I am being that generous is because there are still some AAA gems that come out occasionally propping up the average, but I would give the indie and mid sized dev scene a strong A. There are great gaming experiences to be had if you are willing to do a little searching and play smaller more niche titles.
Damn, dude really said " Old games are great!" Then really named Bioshock T^T
Bioshock is universally beloved, tf are you talking
@@Mshari-the-grey-warden That Bioshock is now considering an old game.
Wow this small channel feels much better quality then i expected. Keep making amazing content.
Thanks so much! I really appreciate it!
homie called black ops 2 "the classics"
lmfaoo what ?????????
@kreenbopulusmichael7205 Black Ops 2 is a 12 year old game now. It's nearly old enough to be considered "classic"
@@Bearded.Jim1989 nah I dont agreee
@@kreenbopulusmichael7205 The game is old now
@@Bearded.Jim1989 doesnt mean its a classic smh
@@kreenbopulusmichael7205 It is compared to recent cods
great video, didnt know you were even a small channel. keep up the great content!
Thanks so much!
Love to chat with you on and off. I have been there since 1977. Part of our local industry. Christchurch, N.Z. :) Nice review. My Steam Account will be 20 next year, first title was Half-Life 2 (I go back and play that, every time I upgrade my hardware). Been playing 'Black Mesa', recently. Find very little that is new, these days. Why I now enjoy talking to modern developers. :) I find myself writing the basics of a game in 5 minutes these days. I tend to focus more on story, character development and perhaps every-now and then an untested mechanic or under a new technology (Like V.R./A.R.). Space invaders as a V.R. experience? Game play, is and always will be more important than cosmetics, we did for quite awhile in the industry get hooked on just delivering technical demos. So it is now to be back here, even with all the resources we have today. :) It is okay to iterate, but if you are truly paying homage be familiar with your source material, intricately. Still the example that sticks in my mind the most "Duke Nuke'Em Forever', by Gearbox. As you mention at the end thanks for online updates. Still not perfect (Yes you God of War IV-Ascension, bug) on PS3.
The last couple years of game releases are what convinced me to become an indie developer. After playing starfield I was like... forget this, i'll make my own open world game. with black jack. and hookers.
6:07 did it?
6:40 i think a huge distinction that people fall into when discussing graphics is that attempting a style for your game instead of attempting realism make it age exceptional well, directed art style makes a huge difference. You have to factor in as well that the source engine has had changes that have affected all games since their original releases. i do think those games are timeless and i think its very much down to the style valve games go for.
this is is a v good vid but you miss one major aspect about the future of gaming, while you do mention that AAA titles are genuinely too big to fail or take risks now you and you mention the slack that indie games are trying to make up for; but you neglect to mention mid sized teams of developers and publishers things like Team Reptile and Bomb Rush Cyberfunk or even just Devolver Digital, Paradox or Chucklefish that will in the next 10 years start having their own second party development teams due to long standing partnerships and generally growing business.
I will admit that mid size studios and AA games were something that I mostly left out of the video. Partially because a lot of those get lumped into "indie" in my head due to the nature and style of those games, even if that's not entirely true. But you're totally right, there's a whole conversation to be had right there, and it's another major area of the game market I didn't really discuss here.
Even if a great and unique game is released today, it is always so riddled with bugs and game breaking server issues or optimization and sometimes the problems are not even ever fixed! Helldivers 2, jedi Survivor, the last of us(pc), battlefield(all of them), red fall, skull and bones, diablo 4, forspoken, suicide squad, starfield, hogwarts legacy... These are more than 50% of the AAA games released in 2023 or the past year and they all released in poor states. That is not even including the disgusting monetization most of the publishers are trying to push on gamers while still giving us broken games that they never fix!
"Video games have not gotten worse" They might not have become better/worse products but the amount of money these companies are hoarding from people with spending problems and the amount of time it takes for these games to get released is just sad! The games that are great get the respect and praise they deserve, and the games who fumble deserves every second of critique it gets!
The costumer is always right and if they do not manage to give us at least what we expect then they are in the wrong business!
I completely agree with you. There are plenty of amazing games from indie, AA and AAA studios.
What worries me is the seemingly unpredictable success or failure of AAA games that do something wholly unique and are amazing but underperform commercially. Games like Prey, Returnal, Alan Wake 2 (which still hasn't recovered dev costs) and Armored Core. You'd think AC6, although still profitable, would sell way more after the success of Elden Ring but it was decent at best. Most players according the Steams Achievement metrics dropped it during or after the Balteus boss fight. I would to see these studios go or not be able to get the funding for future niche projects.
I totally feel this as well. I only recently played Returnal within this past year and I was blown away at how great of an experience it was when I had heard so little of it. I also worry about the future of these studios and games when the monetization of live service games seems to do so well. All we can do is try and support the great games when we get them, and put the word out there for others to hear. Glad you enjoyed the video!
biggest problem with games is they are either microtransaction schemes or are movies with a few minutes of actual gameplay. A story is fine but if that's all you got your game stinks.
Indie games are where it's at if you're tired of AAA narrative-driven. They do definitely tend to follow that formula these days, and if you're looking for some solid gameplay driven games I suggest looking into some AA and indie titles. Tunic, inscryption, Deaths door, and Hob all have some great gameplay and interesting worlds.
idk how the channel is this small man ur great
Thank you so much! While it is small, it's definitely been growing, and these last couple videos have really helped to start that. Every bit of support helps push this channel higher!
Chaos of the algorithm. CZcams is all luck
Well done, and a refreshing new perspective. Hats off to you.
Big thanks!
I think it's a combination of many things.
1: The market is constantly saturated with new games.
2: A hyper fixation on obtaining / retaining a casual audience has led to "streamlining" depth out of modern titles.
3: A focus on visuals and animation above all else has bloated development times (and costs), while leading to lesser gameplay experiences.
4: As worn-out as the topic is; using political rhetoric as a means to generate outrage for free marketing has led to a bad relationship between developers and their audiences.
5: The same thing that's been trending in the film industry; A focus on sequels and remasters over new properties- particularly in the AAA space.
6: A prioritization of investors/shareholders over the customer-base.
Thanks for your thoughts! I agree, it's a massively complex topic that has the industry in a weird spot right now. I think it's great to ponder on the myriad of ways the gaming market is both negatively and positively impacted, which can allow ourselves to still get the most we possibly can out of it despite some of the challenges.
This is all wrong and a absolutely delusional take
To pretend all you listed weren’t a think 20 years ago shows how young many people here are
@@Indigo_1001 cry harder, boomer. 🥱
@@Indigo_1001there was DLC 20 years ago?
Your takes are spot on. Stopped playing cod when it became a choir and no longer fun. Only cod I truly enjoyed was blops1 which cod was my first was blops 1! I have more hours in to a simple 2d game from a decade ago. That reminds me of childhood memories Terraria.
If we talk about AAA games, yes no doubt. A franchise with a big name and long legacy is likely under control by people with power that makes decisions for profit and care less about video games and how fun they are. There are still great new games, but the big titles usually end up being a forgotten mess or take too long to be finished. Let's look at cyberpunk, it's among my favorite games in the past 10 years but damn it took a while to fix it. I appreciate what they did, but like many AAA titles they release unfinished products. I want a good halo game again, i always go back to halo ce and sometimes 2,3 reach etc and same for doom. Surprisingly good content, your channel has good growth potential.
Big thanks for the kind words, it really does mean a lot. I totally agree when it comes to AAA titles that there's a lot of issues in the modern landscape. Primarily I wanted to make this video to point out that it's important to not focus on AAA titles as the whole gaming market, and that there's tons of great games still out there, they just may not have the name recognition of big franchises.
@@Thalnose Exactly, we're in a era where many video game franchises that we value are now nothing more than the name. Just sold because of the name and nostalgia. Some people buy the product hoping it will be better than last time and it usually isn't. Now i do agree that a lot of games are ''overrated'' because of nostalgia. Not all of course. but there are plenty of games that were good at the time but give it a remaster and people will forget it after a week. Nightmare reaper was one of those titles that were made by a small group, but damn that game was one of the more fun games I've played and you could see the passion in creating it.
Sounds like an interesting game, I'll have to check it out!
indi-games are usually WAY more fun than these...
Since my first console indie game purchases of Braid, Fez, and Spelunky, indie games have gotten much better. While AAA games have gotten more technically impressive, the experience of playing the final product is inferior to 10-15+ years ago. I would say there are more time-sensitive gamers who feel they’re wasting their time while playing since the average age of gamers is now a lot older and people have less time as we age.
I think this is a big factor for sure. I know that I can't spend loads of time on games as much as I'd like to, and many AAA titles are just a bit too repetitive and bloated to be worth my time compared to smaller indie games that offer more unique experiences.
A very well-made video. Great job and keep up the good work.
Thank you so much! I've got plenty more planned!
Are triple A studio games getting worse? Absolutely, however smaller indie studios are producing stuff that may not look great, but play amazing.
This might be because Triple A studios believed they are way too big to be flawed and their fans are zealous, which is true, but there is an issue, their zealous fans do tend to enter the embrace of the grim reaper one way or another.
However smaller indie studios have the mind set of "quality of game over visual", there was a time when a lot of games by triple A studios were being made and produced, they all looked amazing, but when played however, its bad.
Infact, some time ago, I was playing Assassin's creed odyssey on normal difficulty and I couldn't help but noticed my parry ability became less reliable after 2 hours of normal game time. Origin was like this, and then later, I came to hate Odyssey because its story wasn't appealing, its gameplay wasn't just repetitive but it was tedious.
Now another example, on a personal note, I will say that battlefield 2042 is a terrible battlefield game, I played it when it was free and I had to press several buttons to use the bipod when previous it was just one button with a slight condition. Battlefield 2042 has elements for a battle royal but the gameplay is battlefield, yet nothing felt like battlefield, but then when I played battlebit, I say that Battlebit remaster is a better battlefield game.
I know this is becoming an aborted thesis, so I will cut it short, there gaming community can be a mixed bag, the Horizon Zero dawn where Alloy has peach fuzz in forbidden west. I think that is fucking stupid, she is human and lets be honest, the shit she is doing to make sure Humanity doesn't get into a state of almost avoiding extinction, in short, if I am stopping a nuke from launching, I am not thinking about if I shaved or not.
Commenting for the algorithm. Hope your channel blows up soon!
Big thanks! This video has definitely been doing good for growth, and I think the level of interaction could very well be a part of that. Everything helps!
I think when they say the past games were better, it was when you considered the bar back when they released. A sequel to a game release today needs improvements but sometimes we don't have even that. Are devs trying? Is the hiring process at fault, what is going on?
I definitely see your point, but this is where I also believe our own expectations can worsen this feeling in us players. We've made so many advancements that improvements aren't as obvious as they used to be. Now of course there's still tons of sequels that improve systems within the game itself. Whether it's narrative, combat, performance enhancements, etc. And yes, there's lots of series like CoD and Assassins Creed that don't really change much at all between releases on the other side. I think those games not really changing are more of a certain formula working and there being no reason to change that formula for the people making money at the top. While smaller teams that are more in control of the final product tend to want to see these improvements as much as the player.
It's not the games themselves that are getting worse.
It's the game companies that are getting better at trying to exploit those games for profit.
Thus making the gaming experience, and the original intent of playing a video game, overly soured.
For sure a big issue with a lot of AAA games, especially from publishers like EA and Ubisoft.
I don't think the argument that there are plenty of good games you just gotta find them is valid. Especially when you consider what if I don't like games like God of War. I don't get a good game because I don't want to play that? One of the biggest reasons people praise back in the day is because there was way more emphasis on just trying things and seeing if they worked out well. Nowadays there's 500 Battle Royales and 1000 shooters and 200 rpgs, etc and largely they're extremely similar to the point where it might as well just be a story and skin swap. The lack of variety within every genre is the problem. At stages they found out a game was popular so everyone started making that game type without examining what people actually enjoyed about the game.
I'm not saying there aren't any good games or there is absolutely no innovation but it's largely stagnated to the point where it's painfully obvious. They've turned gaming into a cool kids club, "If you don't enjoy these games you're not a real gamer and you don't matter", essentially. Just because there are game awards and people "collectively" decide what are good games doesn't really mean anything. Good is a subjective term, and what's good to you might be trash to me, and vice versa. They've turned gaming into a battle field of opinions when back in the day the only opinions that seemed to matter was did you enjoy it.
The only part of your vid I take issue with @4:03 - I do think player expectation and criticism has grown, but this is only because of how let down gamers have become by AAA games. The more you let someone down the more agitated they become and/or the better they expect you to perform next time.
Specifically, what I took issue with was the "did I have fun" bit. Fun is a low bar of standards to have - Battlefield 2042 was fun, but it was also the worst gaming in the franchise's history and not as fun as previous Battlefields. Our bar of standards has to be the games of the past. I'm not saying that every facet of the game has to be as good or better than in the previous release, but at least overall has to be better or at least no worse.
Great video, well researched and put together, u should be proud of this. I did watch to the end so hopefully you read to the end of this comment, it's a bit long. You're very right, games are not worse or better now than they were, as it's primarily a matter of perspective. I started gaming in the late 80s, and a game known as Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe (1991 LucasArts flight sim, notably one of the only games for a very long time to allow you to role play as a pilot for the German air force in WWII) was my favourite game. It certainly hasnt held up well but I have fond memories of racing home after school to have a quick snack and play it for hours. More recently my favourite games are ones like Prey (Arkane) and Skyrim, GT7 and Crusader Kings 3. They are my favourite games because of how they make me *feel*, not because of any technical polish (or lack thereof). Games are indeed art, and I think nowadays it's more important to remember that. As we mercilessly criticize game studios and publishers because their games are released in an unfinished state or have "gone woke", we should remember that for every game, whether it's a AAA behemoth like Starfield or a tiny indie mobile game, quietly creative and talented people are working hard to deliver the best games they can. Liked and shared, good luck with your channel!
Thank you so much! I did indeed read to the end of your comment. Your support means the world, and hearing your take on this is really awesome. I'm finding through the comments on this video that this is a pretty controversial topic (no real surprise). It's so interesting hearing everyone's takes and feelings. I really respect how you're giving props to developers no matter what project they're working on. I think we can all agree that no matter what age of gaming we're talking about people wouldn't put the time into their craft unless they were passionate about it, and that's something special.
Honestly I agree for the most part. Many indies and JRPGs have been consistently great. It is just unfortunate that many AAA games are just not great. Sure they have the technology and resources but many of these developers put emphasis on things that doesn't matter. For example many AAA games are heavily monetized. And most of the time it feels that these games mechanics are built around these monetization structures instead of the fun aspect of the game. For example lets look at a game that uses premium currency vs a game that doesn't. GTA online is one of those games that is structured around premium currency. Many of the missions in game have unfortunately become very annoying and tedious. And sometimes the missions are extremely hard. For example in GTA online there was a mission where they intentionally gave you a very weak and slow vehicle where you had to deliver stuff in around 30 minutes all while avoiding other players (this is because a notification is sent to other players incentivizing to destroy what you are delivering). And you did this to earn ingame money. The thing is that you can purchase this money for real life money. And because of this it feels that the missions were designed to frustrate players in order to make them go to the store and purchase one of the money packs. To add to that they make the items so expensive to the point that you have to grind hours just to get some of the best stuff in game. Not only that it adds a stress factor when purchasing in game items because now you are trying to make sure you are spending the currency wisely. Now you have to be stressed as to whether you want to save or purchase an item. You have to worry about bad purchases. Now lets look at another game. In this case I will use the JRPG Trails Of Cold Steel. In that game you have in game currency but you cannot buy that currency with real money. It pretty is much how alot of old games were. Well anyways whenever I bought items and equipment in game I never felt stressed. The reason for this was if I made a bad purchase I could simply reload a previous save. And sure GTA online may be an online multiplayer game so you can't reload that. But this is even true for life service single player games such as Genshin Impact. There is now a scarce currency that you have to be very careful where you spend it on since you won't be able to get it back.
Another thing that they tend to focus on is things like graphics. And while graphics are great, they become bad if it sacrifices other aspects of the game to the point they are not good. For example just look at Hellblade 2. The game looks great. But that's it. The story is mid and the gameplay is nonexistent. And to top it off, the game is only around 5 hours. And yet they are charging $50? And sure we can argue that gameplay has never been the center of the game but in that case the story should be great. Because I have seen games that don't much gameplay but an amazing story. And one example is Clannad. I put in around over 100 hours into that game. And the story was very amazing for those 100 hours. And yet you can get it for less than Hellblade 2 or even cheaper on a steam sale. And this game came out in 2004. And it can't be nostalgia because I first played the game recently. And I know that this is a visual novel so the graphics aren't as good but it still focused on the story. Which is what Hellblade 2 was doing. But instead they decided to focus mostly on graphics and as a result we got a 5 hour $50 unreal engine tech demo. Maybe if they focused more on the story instead of graphics we could have at least a 50-80 great story. But now it offers nothing, no story and no gameplay, just graphics.
i disagree on the nostalgia with battlefront 2 cause i played it for the first time in 2021 and loved every second i think its just a genuinely good game and there is more merit to the argurment that modern games in the triple a are worse by either being unfinished or just not making games properly from either spending way to much money on making games spending time on unnecessary things wasting money invested into the game so needing in return a higher money made then without the unnecessary focus on every second pimple the latest jedi has
I appreciate hearing your opinions, as I know this is a pretty controversial topic. To clarify a bit on my end: I never would say battlefront 2 is bad, it's a great game. I just believe nostalgia makes people look at it as flawless, when it isn't. I feel I came off a little negative against it in the video, which really wasn't something I was intending. I was more trying to get across the idea it is not a perfect game, and there is a large group of players (myself included) that have a large amount of nostalgia for that game that could influence their overall view of it. In terms of AAA games getting worse, that's not necessarily my full point of the video, its games in general. I think AAA titles have definitely gotten worse in some ways, especially when it comes to monetization. However, I believe the rise in independent titles and titles from small studios has taken the place of what used to be many AAA games. The AAA has gotten bloated and has fewer opportunities to create incredible games, so the indie and small studio space is picking up the slack. Or at least that's how I see it. Again, I appreciate seeing other opinions and thanks so much for watching the video! I think we all can learn a lot about this topic by just having these kinds of conversations.
i agree with most of you synapses of the gaming industry i just don't think our standards have gotten too high i think often it falls at times with modern games letting them stagnate in the sense we allow predator microtransactions and we'll at times be all over mediocre games but i think lately as you've said how the standards have risen but i think that's a new thing to be had where you'd see buggy messes of games be released and once it gets and update after release people fawn over the game like there was no problem like cyberpunk or how ac fans did with unity after awhile i just think the standards has risen cause the customers have gotten burned too much but that also doesn't mean we shouldn't check if our standards border on insanity with our wants from the product but i thought your video was overall good even though i had a few disagreements
The expectations on games are waaaaaaay higher than 10-15 years ago. If Skyrim would release today with modern graphics, people would be disappointed and shit on it just like on Starfield.
I also feel like the maps in open world games are often much too big. For example Horizon Zero Dawn Forbidden West or Assassin Creed Odyssey. It's so tedious to go to every location and doing all the missions. There is bascically no variety in the fighting mechanics and quests. It would be much better to have a map half the size, but with actual good gameplay, quests and AI.
In fact Assassin Creed Odyssey was so boring and soulless, I will never buy anything from Ubisoft ever again.
I agree that expectations are getting too high as the medium has become larger and larger. I also massively agree on open worlds being too big most of time. I actually made a short a month or 2 back going over that, and I've contemplated making a full video about that topic as well. So many games (especially Ubisoft) have bloated worlds with the same handful of side quests that get so tedious. Suddenly what should be a 20hr experience becomes 80hrs.
I'd argue yes, and one of the largest reason is that now more then ever we're seeing entire section of a game being chopped off and sold back to us as either DLC, or as microtransactions to keep people playing, and thus buying, the microtransactions. Sure, we get a gem maybe once or twice in a year, but by and large we're being nickel and dimed for less overall. Even ignoring that, more and more games of the AAA variety are releasing in broken, buggy messes that can barely deliver without needing a full year of patches and fixes before they can even be considered "complete". Many people will lean on the Indie and AA market and say "things are going great, you just have to go out of your way to find these games that you've likely never even heard of" but in many ways we're in the same position the industry was at in the 80's. A flood of poor games, high prices, and quality control more a suggestion then a hard fact.
If anything, we need another industry crash, but with how insanely profitable certain titles are and how they can prop up entire publishers alone, then it's unlikely for that to happen anytime soon. Or perhaps it might, as Microsoft, Bethesda, Sony, and so many other larger companies are just buying out as many smaller development teams to gain more control of the overall market share despite repeated failures.
I think you've got some pretty good insights, and I tend to agree that the AAA scene right now is not in a great place. I do understand your point about having to search for indie and AA games that you've never heard of, as I've definitely done that. Although, it typically doesn't take a lot for me to find games that I know I'll fall in love with. I know for me, as I've expanded my horizons on what genres I want to play and what experiences I want to have, I've found countless phenomenal games. Thanks for putting your thoughts here, I really appreciate the conversations that can be had here in the comments.
*I disagree that the new Battlefront II is better than the old one. Shotguns are DESIGNED to be overpowered, even in real life.*
*As video games, here's the issue:*
*1) There were bad games in every era. The difference between then and now is that shitty games didn't sell well in the vast majority of cases.*
*2) OVER-emphasizing graphics at the expense of gameplay leads to perpetual disappointment.*
*3) Microtransactions lead to extreme laziness and greed from publishers. 13-25 years ago; you made money from video games and video game merch. That's it.*
*4) Bloated video game budgets. Instead of churning out small to mid budget titles that can turn a profit even if they don't sell well, these companies put 10s-100s of millions of dollars in ONE game, which gives them no margin of error. Hell, they'll even kill indie studios with well-reviewed games (ex: HiFi Rush) just to put that money towards their megaprojects.*
*5) Corporate simping of modern day gamers. WAAAYYY too many gamers are corporate simps that are slaves to FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), and refuse to boycott publishers that put out bad games because of their fear of being "left out". Which is ironic, because as the Helldiver's II debacle has shown, ganers can move the market when they grow a fucking spine.*
*Overall, the reason why the 5th-early 7th generation of video games are being held in high regard is because of three basic things they got right:*
*A) Wide variety of video games*
*B) Fun/functional gameplay and gameplay mechanics*
*C) Publishers understanding that giving people what they want = profits*
Yeah a lot of triple a games are launched terribly, but a lot of the time after 12 months it's fixed. Should you have to wait 12 months to play a game? No. But normally in 12 months you can get it cheaper than on launch so it saves you money and if you just don't ride the hype trains it can be good.
I have friends who refuse to play games even after they got fixed as "it launched bad so I'll never buy it or play it" the main one is Cyberpunk that comes to mind. Man that 1.6 update and then 2.0 with the Phantom Liberty expac is one of the most fun games I've played in recent times. And even more recently, "well it's not rated as good as Baldur's Gate 3 so why should I play it?"
I've yet to get to cyberpunk, (more out of time than anything) but I find its story honestly really fascinating. Nothing gives it the right to launch the way it did, that was awful and always will be. But man, turning that launch around to now be a game where I see reviews on steam saying it's a necessary game experience and one of the best gaming experiences of all time, is really something. And there should be something to be said about that rather than just being upset at the way it started. I'm also very much one that get games post launch on sale, it's totally worth waiting those few months to get the deal if you don't feel like waiting full price, and I have enough games to get through as is. Thanks for the comment and I hope you enjoyed the video!
I guess the real videogames are the friends we made along the way.
This is true
And that’s why I appreciate studios like Larian
JRPG bros be like: yall mofos act like you're being starved when there's no burger around but plenty of empanadas on the table, I swear. Eat something other than burgers for once.
Definitely a lot of great games out there! And I definitely think there's something to be said about playing a variety, I love just seeing what the medium at large is capable of.
I've been playing games since the NES and I certainly feel like they have been getting worse since around 2014. To me the peak was either the Dreamcast/PS2/Gamecube/Xbox/GBA gen or the 360/Wii/PS3/DS/PSP gen. So I'm going to disagree with this being a nostalgia thing.
Totally fine to disagree! I think this is a pretty complex topic overall, and I don't disagree that there are at least elements that have gotten worse, specifically in the AAA space. My opinion is that when looking at gaming as a whole, including the loads of AAA and indie games available, there's still countless great games out there.
we see more slop then ever nowadays and i think it’s because the industry pushes for shitty business practices like crunching employees while still rushing out unfinished games, micro and macro transactions (1/3 the price of your $60 game for a skin is certifiably insane) but as a general rule i think good compelling art will stand on its own. we see games like elden ring, ghost of tsushima, super mario bros wonder, helldivers ii, doom eternal (and hopefully gta 6) proving that games don’t have to be soulless.
I completely agree here. There are some real gems that still stand out even in the AAA space. Supporting those games is important, and supporting smaller projects with passion behind them as well.
More slop?
Guess the Wii didn’t exist and didn’t have like 30k games no one will ever remember ever again
@@doctorgrubious7725bait?
@@Timmy-mi2ef tell me that there isn’t thousands of games no one will ever play that are all low quality garbage shoveled out on any Nintendo device
@@doctorgrubious7725 Thought you were trolling since it's wii u that's known as the flop
We really are living in Dark times in gaming. ~Our Tech has advanced but making games has gone out the window. Bring back making games in a similar style as previous gen games but utilize modern day advancements. Game projects like that will cost less $, take less time to build. We drastically need an array of different unique game types to select from. Right now consoles are almost useless. Unless you play COD only 1 or 2 games come out. We hardly see the amount of games we used to see and the different types of games we used to see. We need games that harness art design. Designs that have proved to be timeless. Cell shaded, low poly effects, pre rendered backgrounds, 2D, 2.5D, creative 3D that's not trying to be hyper realistic. Inspiration from previous gens should not stop, just because new consoles have come out. Timeless games don't need hyper realistic graphics. Some of the best games have creative art styles such as Sly Cooper. Anytime i say this someone in the comments always says: "well we have indie games" but that's not my point. I wish the gaming industry would recalibrate their focus & start making games for consoles with all sorts of styles & designs. Just look at current Gen consoles Game Library's? It's NOTHING compared to the N64, PS1, Xbox, GameCube, dreamcast, 360, PS2, Sega Saturn, classic PC games, etc. Life would be amazing If game companies will start making games that are inspired by these previous gen designs. We shouldn't leave those unique aspects of gaming in the past. Hopefully the struggles of the modern triple AAA games will organically transition the gaming industry back towards a better direction. It's exhausting how long it's taking for most games to be made. Just for a lot of those games to end up being total let down projects anyways. It's crazy. Idk how these game companies have been able to keep getting away with this BS.
I totally feel you, and I understand that your point isn't necessarily about indie games, but I question what exactly is the difference? I understand there's some people out there that just play AAA games, and ultimately those large companies lead the charge. They should dedicate more time to making great games, something that rarely happens but does occasionally like Hi-Fi Rush. But also, everything you mentioned is what indie games thrive from, so I fail to see where your thoughts don't apply with indie games. If players want artistic, well made, and expectation-defying games, then they should support indie games more than AAA. I guess my thoughts are that the odds are AAA publishers and producers just aren't going to make this shift, they will milk the current IPs for all they're worth. So I choose to focus most of my gaming towards indie games that give me the experience I'm wanting, and the very selective AAA that got a little more freedom than the typical. I guess I would also say because of the access to indie games, I don't see it as much of a dark time in gaming, if not even a golden age in some capacity. Anyway, thank you for watching the video and posting your thoughts here, I think having these kinds of conversations is super fun and can help us all grow.
Amazing video, keep up the content and I'm gonna keep watching
Thank you for your support!
I think if it's getting worse, we are part to blame. Why are horse balls growing and shrinking in a video game. We love details in games. We want details we want good graphics we want a good story and smart npc a.i but we still want the game to have some heart and fun.
The problem gaming companies have is do they keep the details that will chew up space or add a few more missions. I would rather missions, but those horse balls took too much space up, so they had to ditch the extra missions.
This is pretty funny for one, and two you're totally right. I don't want to totally blame gamers, but they can't be removed from the equation. Ultimately even large titles that people complain about year after year like COD are also still being purchased and are plenty successful. I get it, it's hard to walk away from nostalgia and the series you grew up with, and ultimately it's not the largest problem in the whole system. But it does give some more incentive to put out low effort games if players want that. Or in your scenario focus on the graphics and small details while dropping gameplay. Good thoughts, and thanks for watching!
@@Thalnose Well my first game was Pong so i go back a long way. My recent thought was that games today are kind of boring to be honest. What happen to the fun in gaming.
I think it depends on where your looking. There are a lot of really fun games, but I tend to have the most fun with indie games. There are some AAA titles that are purely fun, but not as often anymore as a lot of those are going for a more story-forward aesthetic. Returnal is one more recent AAA that I definitely found genuinely fun, and tends to get overlooked.
Yup, they are getting worse because they are all becoming first person shitters, same as it was during the 90's. Also, now they're all fancy colors and no soul. In older games, you can notice small details that add character to the game. Now, it's all colorful explosions around a huge walking gun that kills everything in it's path. Doesn't feel like something better, more like brainless.
HUGEST EXAMPLE : 2003's Star Wars Galaxies. Sandbox adventuring in the Star Wars universe, people loved it. Then in 2004 we got WoW and the suits in SOE did try to model SWG after WoW. Failed miserably and the game was ruined and short lived. Like i said "games don't have soul anymore". It's all about money now and nothing else.
Wonderful script, voice, and videography!!
Thank you so much!
Okay, you lost me at 0:13
Saying 'the good old games" and showing Bioshock is a SIN
I'm unsure if you're trying to say if Bioshock is bad or if it's not old. I agree it's definitely not the oldest game I could've shown footage of, but we're talking about a game from 2007, by technology and game standards that's pretty old. I mostly chose footage of that because I adore Bioshock. Of course when I'm talking about older games I mean everything, Atari on up. In terms of BioShock, you better not be saying that's a bad game, for THAT is a SIN. All in jest, and I hope you enjoyed the video!
Expectations for AAA games all time low rn
EIGHTY DOLLARS
YOU NEVER MENTIONED EIGHTY DOLLARS
I'm my region AAA titles tend to be $60-$70, and there's a reason I didn't go deep into pricing. When factoring in for inflation video games remain to be one of the cheapest entertainment sources, despite the price bump in recent years. Along with that, games go on sale all the time, if you wait even just 3 months after release most games are 25%-50% off unless they're extremely successful. It's nice that indie games are typically a much lower barrier to entry when it comes to price, and that is a factor, but I generally find this to be a pretty small factor in the current state of things. That doesn't go for the monetization systems in live service games, I despise those, but that's another topic for another time. Thanks for watching!
I wish I could buy a game for $80, it's like $130+ now for triple a games on launch where I live :(
I'd say, yes. Definitely. Video games are getting worse- ESPECIALLY in the triple-A space. Greedy companies prioritize making money~ which, sure, they always have, but now they're forcing devs to crunch and rushing out shoddy games. Putting out greedy, insidious practices to make money, like battlepasses, or the glorified gambling that is lootboxes.
And don't say 'oh, those bugs can be fixed nowadays, Cyberpunk is better now, unlike a game like ET' Sure, they can be fixed- But anyone who's bought a game at day one, and finished the game in its buggy state, isn't really going to care that now it exists in a non-buggy state. They've already beaten the game. There's no new content, and nothing to really draw them to play it again. Just because it exists in a playable state now, doesn't take away the suffering people who have played through the buggy version of the game have endured.
And don't just shrug off the greedy practices and go all 'I'm only focusing on the actual gameplay' like you did at 9:14. THE GREEDY PRACTICES ARE A PART OF, AND EFFECT, THE GAMEPLAY. If someone wins a god gun that insta-kills everything from a lootbox, and then kills all of the enemy team, then the result of that lootbox, just effected the mechanical gameplay.
That said, of course, it isn't all bad, even in the tripple-A space. Games like the latest God of War, and Zelda exist. But the existence of diamonds in the rough do not negate the existence of the rough, or mean that rough is not getting worse.
But while I'd definitely say video games are definitely getting worse- I'd also say video games are definitely getting better. Of course, again, there are the occasional triple-A example like god of war or whatever, but ESPECIALLY in the indie space. The tools for making games have only gotten more accessible with time, and the quality of the game the random guy working at a Denny's who has a dream for a game they could make, a passion to make it, and the determination to actually put in the effort of learning to code, make the music, and art for it~ (hell, not even that much is necessary, with free assets and music being available for anyone to use.) ~has only grown.
And even outside of the indie space, and outside of the good of the triple-A, the consumers, and the community, have been pulling together more and more lately and showing the triple-A studios EXACTLY what they REALLY want. Have you heard of what happened with Helldivers, as soon as Sony pulled some scummy shit? Do you think they haven't noticed how a game like Baldurs Gate 3 got so big, and became game of the year, while games like overwatch 2 got massively review bombed? Is the gaming community being more critical and pessimistic? Sure. But that isn't meaningless- It's having an effect. Are games getting worse? Yes, but we are letting studios know LOUD and CLEAR that we are aware of that fact, and are NOT going to just keep rolling over and accepting it. And where does that get us?
...sometimes, nowhere. Let's not lie to ourselves- some greedy companies are just going to continue being greedy, and going with what the suits in a boardroom say is 'safe' and 'will earn the most money'. But, sometimes? Sometimes, we get results. Sometimes, we have situations, like what happened with Helldivers, or the whole... everything, with No Man's Sky, or even (though this is a movie thing and not a video game thing, it's still a relevant example, and hey, it's a video-game movie, soo...) what happened with the sonic movie, and the entire community basically forcing paramount to remove Sonic's teeth... and succeeding.
The complaints of the community isn't just grumpy pessimism. It's a voice. Our voice. And sometimes, that voice might even be listened to.
Any piece of media goes in the cycle of cult niche, profitable mainstream, and then heavily monetized degeneration
It just so happens that video games have a wider appeal compared to cartoons, Anime, movies, sitcoms...etc
For sure, the big studios see the profit and that's the driving factor now when it comes to these big budget games. Thankfully we're in an era where smaller studios can also share the storefront and still give us phenomenal games when the AAA studios let us down.
@@Thalnose Absolutely, the indie market is thriving and that's how it should be
17:22 i fundamentally disagree with like 62.420% of your points in this video, but good video nontheless! I think its provable that video games have gotten worse, one clear area of example of this would be launching with incomplete games.
I appreciate your support no matter where you fall on this, thank you! For me, I totally understand a lot of the frustrations with the AAA industry. It's no secret it's had a lot of issues as of late. More than anything I wanted to bring to light the fact there are numerous AA and indie games released all the time that have a ton of passion put into them. People tend to default to thinking about AAA when talking about games, but that's neglecting a massive part of the industry that typically fits exactly what they're looking for in a game. Again, thanks for watching, and I appreciate the support. I knew this wasn't going to be a video everyone was going to agree with, and that's okay.
@Thalnose yea but this conversation is ABOUT triple a games and game studios. It isn't about indie games, and nearly everyone knows and admits indie games and double a games have been doing GREAT. This whole complaint about gaming getting worse is specifically about triple A.
Fantastic video dude. Very interesting perspective.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
You make some good points and arguments, but I think it's impossible to decide objectively if games have gotten worse or not as too much of the parameters are based on personal opinions. Also you skipped monetization, it's is such an immense sin that you really should have included it.
First off, how do you qualify what is better? Graphics? Impact? Story? Something else? You can't really lump everything together as peopole have entirely different priorities. For example you mentioned multiplayer in your COD part of the video. I could not care less about multiplayer, I only care about the single player experience.
I also disagree on counting in games that were fixed later to the "better" category. If you publish a game riddled predatory monetary practices, your game already falls to the "bad" category as NONE of the older games did this crap so you already have a "things were better in the past" situation. Even bugs, that did exist in the past, have really exploded in modern games and even if you fix them later, you still get the situation where older games were shipped in better condition. Also I don't think you can count "internet made it possible to patch games later" as a positive in this context because it actually the reason why they CAN ship games in such horrid states. Sure I prefer to have that option of getting a patch through the internet, but it does not make the game it self better.
For me it boils down to the general state of the AAA industry, which definitely has gotten worse over the time. Sure there are some exceptional games out there, but if I think about all the truly disgusting practices of today (mirco transactions, day 1 dlc, pre-order bull, gold/platinum/whatever versions, micro dlc, etc) then the overall state is so much more worse than before. And no, you can't separate the crappy practices from the game play when judging if the games are better or worse, because the games get designed around these crappy practices.
Now Indie games are a tricky one. When I play them I really get the "good old days" feeling from them, but better. However I don't know how to fit them to the overall state as they are so different from AAA games and the sins of the modern AAA games are truly so great that it wights really heavily on my mind.
Oh and finally, no, you cant count mobile games in this, they are too new, too different and 95% of them are a cancer to the world.
I really appreciate comments like these, as this is such a nuanced topic and obviously I was unable to capture everything in one video. As you mentioned, I did not mention monetization tactics, which I can't argue against the fact that's abysmally worse in its current state. This is the one oversight I really do wish that I had added into the video as it's clearly a large issue in the current AAA scene. Thanks for watching the video and putting your thoughts here, I find it really interesting to see everyone's opinions on this topic based on their own experiences and insights.
Yes we are spending more for equal or less content and the only publishers consitently turning profit per game are indie publishers like devolver and tiny build
I'm interested in your opinion on this, and have some thoughts as well. In terms of who's turning a profit I haven't done enough research to know definitively, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's correct. However in terms of paying more for equal or less content I would say I kinda disagree. I'm not saying I agree with the current monetization system on games, (especially live service), but as a whole games have kinda only gotten cheaper over the years. Sure, they can cost up to $70 now, but that's a minor increase when we're talking 40-50 years of inflation since gaming's inception. Games have always been expensive (or at least feel that way), and we get games that now can have hundreds of hours put into them. They still are one of the absolute cheapest forms of entertainment. I'm not saying every game follows this perfectly. There are a lot of games that could be seen as expensive compared to others, but I think overall they still offer a lot of content, especially since they go on sales so frequently. Anyway, I find this topic fascinating especially as so many gamers come from so many backgrounds; it's so hard to come up with a real answer. Thanks for watching the video and sharing your thoughts, I always love to hear from others with these kinds of topics.
@@Thalnose tripple AAA games are suffering from large quantity investments with lofty return expectations. they are over spending in development and suffering catastrophic losses. inde studios haven't been having this problem because they only have to please their publishers. Tripple A games are dying for the simple fact that they have become unsustainable and riskty investments with the way the industry has treated them.
No but don't tell Dreamcastguy he'll swear blind they are.
A few games breaks the curve and is indeed very good. The vast majority is not very good, though, with fairly genereic graphics, systems and gameplay loops.
There definitely seems to be a majority of very narratively driven action games with RPG elements and then the basic FPS genres. It has been nice to see that roguelikes have started to see a bit of a bump in the AAA space with a couple games having either a roguelike mode like God of War Ragnarok. There's also Returnal which is fantastic. But yeah, a lot of AAA titles follow pretty similar formulas which can oversaturate the market.
@@Thalnose Yes, I was primarily thinking of the games with nonsensical progression systems that only serves to make the games worse because they're just forced in without any underlying balancing plan. Pure RPGs suffers from this as well, quite frankly. I mean, putting perk points into shotguns, increasing their effectiveness sounds fun until you realize every other weapon in the game is useless for you.
It's as if game developers doesn't have a broader perspective on how these "progression" systems harms the overall game experience, and quite honestly makes the games stupid.
Take Fallout 4, for example, which is what it is in terms of story and writing. If you mod level systems and weapon perks out of the game it's a damn fun action adventure. Just ignore the main story for as long as possible...
The craft of making games has progressed a lot, but the business of releasing videogames has gotten awful.
The golden age of videogames happened when, on one hand, the industry got big enough to get big budgets, and was able to be home to a lot studios of different calibres, and on the other, the people funding games were so unfamiliar with the concept that they didn't even try to understand it, meaning they didn't interfere with the development process.
Nowadays, AAA games switched from the model of hiring talented people to hopefully make a product people will like to designing for a statistical average, always aiming for the absolute mainstream, and looking for ways to take more money from the player with complete disregard for the morality of it and how it affects the quality of the overall product. Because of this, AAA games ARE worse - they contain many elements that are better than the old games (and a ton that somehow aren't), but good pieces of design aren't important to the end goal of extracting the most money while putting in the least effort.
Outside of the AAA industry, things are different. For the medium, they're much better - indie games are the only part of the industry with actual products competing through quality and appealing to niches, but since they're so plentiful and live-service games pull people away from new titles, only the very best can survive in the market for the most part. That means there are two ways to work in the industry - go indie, which means you have to be a world class dev, because the product needs to be exceptional and the team making it needs to be small, or go AAA, which means you need to somehow get hired over the thousands of people with lots of experience that keep getting fired from studios making successful games as the companies gladly sacrifice their employees to fake the appearance of a healthy, growing business.
There's just nowhere to actually start your career at this point, world class is the only type of employee that's in demand in games.
Very thoughtful and insightful comment, I really appreciate it! I think you've got a lot of great points here as to the big issues with the AAA side of things. I also do agree that unfortunately because of how large the AAA market is, it can make it more difficult for smaller studios and indie developers. Thanks for watching!
I want to say a few things, at first I was on the back foot? I was a bit skeptical near the beginning but I'm now 11 mintues into the video and I feel like you've missed your shot? Like your not even talking anyone in circles but just jumping from point to point without going any further into it. Like an example being CoD, it has changed at both a gameplay and monetization level with the gameplay being tide to time to kill which has been slowed down in some newer games or speed up in others. As for the monetization well man that is a rabbit hole of greed that amazes me so much it makes me question the well being of people. Another thing would be when you mentioned people playing video games which I feel is somewhat of a misleader because of the mobile market and it being so different from the rest of gaming. Mobile is kinda in it's own bubble kinda like Indie market but even then there still a difference because the Indie market is more heavily tied to PC and Console. You even mentioned that mobile is a conversation we need to have a talk about but you go no further in that conversation. Overall you have something here but it's so scattered and give so little detail it feels like your going nowhere.
Games aren't getting worse when it comes to design, art or anything to do with the development itself.
It's people's standards that keep going up (which isn't a bad thing) by virtue of gaming being a very widespread hobby.
There are way more great games releasing today than there were 10-20 years ago because the generations that grew up on video games in the 90s-2000s are now old enough to see video game as a career path.
What changed is our perception of games and of the industry. People are starting to become litterate in the inner workings of game development, and things like budget are now a common topic of discussion in a lot of circles.
The people making games are more competent than ever, the industry has more funding than ever, what fucks up some of the more high-end projects is corporate meddling. But even then, this represent such a small fraction of the games that come out that it's not even worth mentioning.
But unfortunately people keep mentioning them, a lot, because they can't get out of the corporate hype machines and actually see the dozens other smaller games that released at the same time and that are all interesting to fantastic.
These days you can spend entire days playing games and still don't have time to finish all the great ones that come out each year. That's how stacked the current industry is.
Edit: Just an example of May this year on PC
Hades 2
Indika
Cryptmaster
Animal Well
Little Kitty Big City
Mullet MadJack
Manor Lords
Fabledom
20 minutes till dawn
Hellblade 2 in a week
I enjoyed reading your take, I think you're definitely right that the corporate side of things tends to be the downfall, and people tend to look at the games with issues over all the great games coming out all the time. May alone has definitely been stacked with some great games just as you mentioned.
I guess some games are good and some are bad. Cyberpunk was terrible on release, like alpha test level of completeness. But sone games released more or less complete from the start. It's worth waiting for the real user reviews to come in before you buy.
Great video man!
Hey, thanks!
I am often critical and I can ofc critique everything but this is just a fact that i enjoy indie games and old games way better than what is there now. And this is not nostalgia factor too as many older games i picked up even this year and I enjoyed them. The gaming industry as for AAA games, has gotten worse.
I think the biggest downfal was the end of last generation.
WIth each year having less and less to offer.
The problem with the gaming industry is also not the fact that back in the day there were no bad games, but there were games to choose from.
besides that a lot of older games even if not perfct, had some sort of pottential in them, newer games tend to be just soulles, sometimes better to play but worse to experience
and there is a lot lot more, graphics have lost their style, because more fidelity does not mean better graphics, monetisation, price and the scummy tactics that started out together with the rise of good internet.
but i am going to say out quickly
remember fable? burnout? test drive? medal of honor? deus ex? mirror's edge? midnight club? bully? half life? crysis? batman arkham? FEAR? Max Payne? Dishonored? Prey? Bulletstorm? Just cause? Bioshock? L.A Noire? Ridge Racer? Sleeping dogs?
so much series gone, almost compeletely gone or watered down so much it is just sad (ekhm, ubisoft)
I totally agree with you on a lot of this. I think the drive for "better" graphics fidelity has created a massive drawback to games having unique art styles, and I do think the AAA sphere has grown a little narrow, creating a lot of heavy narrative based games for the most part. I think it's great if you enjoy going back and playing older games or play indie games for the most part, it's what I tend to do too. I'm much more selective of modern AAA titles, but there are still some good ones (I thought Returnal was great). With this video I really wanted to highlight the gaming industry as a whole, rather than just the AAA market. So I think you hit the nail on the head. AAA releases are indeed much more selective nowadays on when a really solid title comes out (seems to be just a couple really solid titles most years), but we still have just as many great games from smaller studios and indie devs. Thanks for leaving a comment! I hope you enjoyed the video.
i don't things have gotten worse, I think its just that there are less risky games in the modern age. that and we have gotten older and use to a lot of what we use to think was wacky
I think this definitely is a big factor in our perception of modern games! AAA specifically is definitely less risky than it used to be without a doubt. And I do think we've become accustomed to so many games that it's harder nowadays to really knock people's socks off.
i was here when the channel had only 187 subs
And your support means you're helping the channel grow even more!
Too bad [the industry] is a fabrication.
Too bad games have never, and will never reach their true potential until we [get our shit together].
What is also ironic is the fact that [the industry] is basically a part of a [real life game] that we play with our own lives on the line. 🤦
Getting worse hands down. I am having more fun playing old games which is until I die so i play a good solid 10/30 minutes on my kid's switch and my kids love the old nes, snes, game boy games when you get the yearly nintendo membership. They don't play online or barely touch the new games that I bought them. My son beat link to the past andlink's awakening replaying them a bunch of times then breath of the wild or tears of the kingdom which he's not really into at all. They have a lot of new games on their and they are 10/10 games, but they rather play the old games I grew up on. I don't play them with them, but I love hearing about their adventures and thinking back to my time with them 30 years ago. Honestly the switch is the best system for kids IMHO.
Switch is definitely the best system for kids hands down. I do like that they've added a lot of the classic titles on the online service. It's great your kids like the classic games! They may come around to games like breath of the wild later on, it's a truly incredible game but the size of it can be quite daunting. I hope they continue enjoying games no matter what they play; new, old, or in between!
13:10 every game trying to be unique and stand out and have something special is part of the problem. Nothings wrong with just sticking to a formula. The heros journey is a story thats been told for thousands pf years. Like cmon man....gosh just by how youre talking im assuming ypure under 20
Yeah, I don't think some points in the video are that well-thought out - in particular, chucking a lot of perception to just nostalgia factor. A lot of these older games were the ones, ho introduced some of those features and mechanics now taken for granted, as standard. So naturally when someone goes back now and replays those games, they don't see the innovative parts of these games that formed their reputation as better titles, compared to the people who played them at or near release and got to experience the improvements they brought to gaming.
I do think this is a fair point. There's a lot of games from the past that introduced tons of new mechanics that have become mainstream, and from that don't seem as special now. I also will be the first to admit I'm far from an expert on all of this, but ultimately this wasn't a video I thought of as ultimate truth but rather my own opinions on the matter. However, while I may not have dove too deeply into this, this was the point I was getting at with the benefit of eras. Early games got the chance to be revolutionary on a much larger scale. That isn't to discredit them, but I think we have to keep in mind that it's much harder to create brand new mechanics these days 50 years into this medium. I also do believe nostalgia is much more powerful than people tend to realize. I don't think it answers every question at all. And for as much as nostalgia influences us there tends to be a real reason why a game resonated with someone, new or old. But I still think that factor of nostalgia can lead to us having a harder time accepting the new and wanting to continue with the old. All things considered, I really do appreciate comments like these. When it comes to these types of videos, I do want to do more research in the future as they can be so complex. I hope you still enjoyed hearing my thoughts, as this video is really just meant to spark some thought more than anything else. Thanks!
One AAA studio that is still successful to the word is Rockstar Games. They make sequels but with each iterations there are more things than the last, there are innovations, a game like GTA IV went ahead of its time, the first GTA Online was not GTA V Online, it was infact GTA IV Online. Can't wait till 2025 to see if Rockstar Games still stay ahead for another decade or they can't do it anymore. My main worry for a Rockstar Games is not the story, the characters, the 'woke' or DEI, not even that. But the scripted, linear story telling. It limits the interactions gamer can do to the open world, undermine gamer's problem solving skills which is one of the core point of playing a video game: solving problems and feel good about it. RDR2 story is good, it's memorable but at the same time when people try to do a niche challenge, only then will you see just how lock down the game really is and it doesn't have to be this way. Like think, why do I have to kill the NPC with melee only when that NPC importance to the main story is to be killed, and I could have just switch to my revolver and end him. It's absurd and very worrysome.
I definitely think rockstar is one of the very solid AAA devs out there. I can see your point on the narrative side of things possibly limiting potential, but personally I don't think there's anything massive to worry about. Narrative does give purpose to actions, and I do think that's important to some extent. However, I do agree that sometimes depending on the game that narrative can become too limiting, so that's a very interesting point to bring up. Thanks for watching the video!
@@Thalnose Teach the player how to use the tools, and after that just start handing out objectives while leave the details to the player. That is one thing Control did well, it just throws problems at the players and nothing else, the player has to figure out the solutions. GTA V and RDR2, they are checklists, to be done in a very specific way so specific sometimes that it’s more like watching a movie, there is 0 problems, 0 to feel good about. Older GTA games used to be a lot less forgiving but that ironically created problems to be solved, including git gud at the game. In GTA V you can die without losing your platoon size arsenal, there is nothing to worry about. Just do what the yellow text says and you won’t fail the mission guaranteed and if you don’t that’s an instant fail so you do what the text says anyway. Just activate Trevor’s ability and you won’t ever be wasted again, or Franklin’s so you won’t crash again. It’s…it’s too easy. And that’s a problem. It’s not all bleak. RDO have a lot of liberty in regard to how you can accomplish things, and Rockstar actually built upon it. It just, I don’t want another GTA V experience again.
Great Video your underrated
Thanks for the kind words!
9:35 .... "i dont think thats true" followwd by "i didnt start playing until black ops threee" uhhh buddy, WaW and mayyybe up to black ops 2 is when it started falling off.
I don't use anything but G.O.G so not a single game you mentioned will ever matter to me.
I hate DRM's & Steam is the reason this shyt happening. The better a game does on Steam the less they take from the developers, they've incentivized making what the deem to be "good triple A games" to a minim of "10 million copies". 10 million copies sounds like a lot, but when you split the thousands of gerne that there are for gaming even in PC game, it's infinite money for crappy games. When Games were good triple A games, they would sell 5 times that amount like in the 60 million total. Thats why we're getting saturated with crap. When you make it easy for crap to make money the crap will reign supreme. You're full of crap to think they haven't gotten worse.
Very good video!
Thank you! I appreciate the support!
Love you voice. Great and calming. But we all disagree, high ratio of bad games now
Thanks for the compliments for one, lol. And also that's perfectly fine to disagree. I knew my take wasn't going to be something that everyone would agree on, it's just too controversial of a topic for that. For me, indie games and small studios are constantly creating games I enjoy, so it's a pretty good market in my eyes even for that reason alone. But I also know others have different experiences, and there's obviously a lot more to the gaming market than that. Wherever you land, thanks for watching the video!
you started this video by defending alloy (and or her beard). i dont know if i can watch it. ill get back to you.
video games have definitely gotten worse look at Battlefield, me and all my friends switches from COD to battlefield 3, now the franchise is irrelevant
It's a quite good video keep up the good work
Thank you so much!
No, games have become better. There are more scummy practices though.
there are plenty of good games if you know where to look, but the industry itself is much, much worse than what it was 10-20 years ago
The AAA space specifically has a lot of issues, but there are still countless great games out there, especially in the indie sphere. Thanks for watching!
monetization is getting worse , games are getting better
great vid btw
Thank you! I agree, the monetization sucks, and I think that's the part most people latch onto. Definitely worth criticism and trying to change that system, but it's not the full equation.
Oh my god. This is an absolute perfect video. I am so, so glad to see this sentiment starting to pop up. I have been forming this same opinion for about a year or so but never thought I'd see others start talking about this. Would love to collab a podcast like discussion with you on this topic. "Games aren't getting worse, gamer expectations have become too unrealistic".
I would love to talk more about this subject! I definitely think there is a lot more I could research, I know there are a lot of generalities that I use within this video that I just didn't have time to go extremely in depth with. Glad you enjoyed it!
Black ops 2’s legacy neglected, opinion rejected.
Jk, very good video with some quite spicy hot takes I must say.
Lol thank you. I know I have some pretty hot takes here that not everyone is going to agree with, but I thought it was a fun video to make that would hopefully give something to think about when it came to this topic. I think it's such a complex topic that I definitely don't have all the answers to, but it's nice to get some of my thoughts out there.
probably
I've said this before, and I think it'd be good to say it again here:
The thing that's making modern gaming so bad is capitalism. Indie games are still amazing, and so are games made by passionate developers.
The corporate side of things in the AAA scene is definitely one of the largest factors in a lot of its issues. The constant push for profit leads to a lot of the issues they face. Thankfully indie games and small studios now have just as much opportunity to create great games as the AAA studios. That's what makes me feel that gaming is still in a great place overall, the market has just shifted and our focus on what games we play should shift with it.
Videogames are not getting "worse". They are getting more PRICY, a true PREMIUM comodity if you want to have ALL the content of a game. You could allways rent them with a subscription, but to OWN a game you will need a LOT of money; and piracy is a possible way to consume the product, but while killing the medium in the process, in some extent. But piracy is not well spread as corporations wants you to believe. With the necessity for more money, videogame now need to cater to a bigger audince, and a bigger audience mean (and I'm sorry to shatter your reality) DUMBER users. That's right; we as a species are still very stupid, and with new generations (specially in the western world) we are getting even more dumb. So we need to make DUMB games, not accessible in the way of making people with disabilities play videogames, but "accessible" in the way of "since he/she does not know what to do, we need to simplify the experience". And this became very, and saddly, true in the early 2000 with the development of Half Life 2, when ENTIRE portions of levels, puzzles and encounter had to be SCRAPPED because of "not very bright" people in the test groups. This is reality folks, if you want to gain more money (a thing that is needed in this industry) you need to ponder to the most dumb, mentally instable, uncultured, and void people in the world; and guess what, that's the majority of us. Enjoy the future, I guess.
Bioshock is my favorite game ever!!!
It's a phenomenal game!
Elden Boring 🤮 God Of War 2018 and 2022 🤮 CyberBug 🤮
I bought a PS5 and regret spending that much money on it. I had more fun during the PS4 era.
Nothing wrong with not enjoying the current games, but I think it's important to remember that a lot of people still do. Also, don't forget there's a lot of indie games and games from smaller studios now available on the PS store. If you're wanting to get some use out of the PS5, check some of those out. If you have PSplus and haven't played Tunic, it's one of the free games this month. A fantastic little game. Check it out if you haven't already!