I’ll bite. If you want to pick a singular thing to point at and say it’s ruined gaming you should be more upset about micro transactions, especially those in mobile gaming. We live in an era where so many people have a device that is physically more capable than the handheld gaming devices of the past but the entire mobile gaming market is just slop meant to be addictive and extract as much money from you as possible. Imagine a world where Nintendo was making mainline Pokémon games for phones. What if X, Y, Sun, and Moon weren’t made for the 3ds but for phones (or both).
Honestly, in a way, (ubiquitous fast) internet ruined gaming. When you had to buy physical disks, there was no way to continuously monetize a game. Studios had to make new good games and they did.
Back then, there were awesome games for phones as well. I still have an old phone with just to keep galaxy on fire 2. N.O.V.A. 2 was basically Halo game on phones. Before that, there was awesome java games for dumb phones.
I think you’re right, but I’d say it goes wider. Things like Steam sales and Game Pass subscriptions also has favored a bunch of shovelware indie titles and AAAA games: either a game is cheap enough to make the cut/be catalog fodder or it has to be monstrous in scope
Balatro
Hades & Hades II
Dead Cells
Astro Bot
Hollow Knight & Silksong
Stardew Valley
Plenty of evidence of mid-budget games that are hugely successful. “Indie” is now a pretty large and unhelpful term. Supergiant is a fairly large company, not just “a single guy” like in the case of Stardew Valley. Even Concerned Ape hired on a team for ongoing support and ports for Stardew. And Team Cherry may be small, but also not actually just 2 people like is the common understanding. And Astro Bot may be made by a fairly large studio owned by the biggest console platform owner but you couldn’t seriously call last year’s GOTY a “quadruple A game”. Hell, even Triple is generous.
I get the malaise and disappointment around the top 5 games all being like a decade old live service games that all make up ,ore than like 80% of the industry’s play time and revenue, but I’m pretty sure LocalThunk is feeling pretty good about their success right now. There are plenty of really great games that are not just bargain bin junk while also not being massive industry stompers like Fortnite.
I’ll bite. If you want to pick a singular thing to point at and say it’s ruined gaming you should be more upset about micro transactions, especially those in mobile gaming. We live in an era where so many people have a device that is physically more capable than the handheld gaming devices of the past but the entire mobile gaming market is just slop meant to be addictive and extract as much money from you as possible. Imagine a world where Nintendo was making mainline Pokémon games for phones. What if X, Y, Sun, and Moon weren’t made for the 3ds but for phones (or both).
You’re not wrong. Microtransactions ruined gaming, too. :P
Dark patterns too.
Honestly, in a way, (ubiquitous fast) internet ruined gaming. When you had to buy physical disks, there was no way to continuously monetize a game. Studios had to make new good games and they did.
Back then, there were awesome games for phones as well. I still have an old phone with just to keep galaxy on fire 2. N.O.V.A. 2 was basically Halo game on phones. Before that, there was awesome java games for dumb phones.
You can argue that enabled bad practices but it also enabled many good things in gaming.
Yes.
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I think you’re right, but I’d say it goes wider. Things like Steam sales and Game Pass subscriptions also has favored a bunch of shovelware indie titles and AAAA games: either a game is cheap enough to make the cut/be catalog fodder or it has to be monstrous in scope
Now that’s a WILD take.
Balatro Hades & Hades II Dead Cells Astro Bot Hollow Knight & Silksong Stardew Valley
Plenty of evidence of mid-budget games that are hugely successful. “Indie” is now a pretty large and unhelpful term. Supergiant is a fairly large company, not just “a single guy” like in the case of Stardew Valley. Even Concerned Ape hired on a team for ongoing support and ports for Stardew. And Team Cherry may be small, but also not actually just 2 people like is the common understanding. And Astro Bot may be made by a fairly large studio owned by the biggest console platform owner but you couldn’t seriously call last year’s GOTY a “quadruple A game”. Hell, even Triple is generous.
I get the malaise and disappointment around the top 5 games all being like a decade old live service games that all make up ,ore than like 80% of the industry’s play time and revenue, but I’m pretty sure LocalThunk is feeling pretty good about their success right now. There are plenty of really great games that are not just bargain bin junk while also not being massive industry stompers like Fortnite.
So yeah, that was a WILD take.