What are you opinions on video games - more specifically what has come to be known as eSports.
I grew up playing some video games and I always felt they were very close to art, but near the end of 2010 I feel like the medium was suddenly a cash cow. And art was less the point as was serial releases with ever increasing DLC and faster release times but with less content.
Then mobile dominated the discussion for a while and loot boxes showed up.....
I now see subscribe to play becoming more fashionable and less and less on the front of ownership...
They heavily attacked the after markets when they went towards online subscription and DLC models.... But now....it's like they are destroying the market.
All popular games also seem way less innovative than anything I was playing. Battlefield back on the PS2 was the same gameplay but with no pay to play bs....
What are your thoughts. Is this just the way things go...or has something happened to the art form?
Games got greedy, because Microsoft made a console. Achievements came out as means of forcing you to buy DLCs. DLCs were a means of forcing you online away from the shops and arcades, forcing you into buying extra services often at increasing premiums. The games got worse and worse by becoming franchised, selling you the same game code with slightly better pixels and skins as their next release, while buying out rivals. Newer consoles there are far less games, and even more consoles, games all being made by the same franchises, using lessening innovation. The gambling industry moved in sponsoring games and they started exploiting micro transactions to sell even more ingame crap and lootboxes. Until phone games are being made by nations under sanction and even by criminals. The games on Googleplay are made by China for the most part and can potentially swindle millions and millions, no limits of purchase, every single thing in the game can be purchased because the game is pay them to win. And it is against an office of shills, they pretend to be women and children and whales, rigging the game off your investment. These of course have some western investment, gaining a cut, like Google. Now there's Esports, being completely rigged by the industry, as a means of indebting and addicting gamers into paying its shills. Where your poor dumb kid hasn't won shit, will never win shit. But is convinced they will be at the Olympics playing a game where the AI is far smarter. Any programming simply gets you to pay them.
There are a few good ones today. But nothing like that pinball machine, street fighter machine from those 80s. Or that final fantasy 7, etc etc.
And PC games, Blizzard has killed them, that same game, die already.
Interesting - I agree there was a shift around a bit after the time that microsoft got involved with their Xbox Gold. I was never an Xbox owner so I never bought into their subscription - for exactly that reason - I saw no point in paying for a service which was not much better (though the fanboys at the time would have you believe otherwise)
I think it ramped up though in the xbox 360 and beyond. Even PC games have degraded imo - graphics is the only thing which I guess has been steadily improved - but at the cost of everything else it seems like a stepbackwards.
Blizzard was great until they got addicted to WoW and online everything.... Everything before that was great from Warcraft etc.
I have hope we will see a resurgence of ownership - but I feel like we haven't yet hit the darkest parts. You are spot on about the sinking of money for naught....especially where the heavy investment actually discourages any further innovation because players get too financially attached to an old game with no gameplay and just gambling characteristics.
Specifically, ingame achievements, a marketing exploit. Further moved the content online destroying an entire ecosystem of services and entertainment. What happened to the video rental store, the game store, the gaming arcade became gambling machines, but a knock on effect to the surrounding comic shops, sweet shops, music shops, etc etc also started faster disappearing. Until they're further and further away to find, and are becoming relics of a different age. Replaced by greed, the dumb phone, it connects you virtually, not as socially above, often causing an increasing disconnect today.
PC games were always a con to force hardware. Your computer became redundant on the day you bought it, because of the software. Although they have often always been better and inflation hasn't caused them to increase in price by the same comparison. Better in certain formats not necessarily the beat em up or the platform or the driving game, sometimes the shooter, these tended to play better on consoles, or dedicated machines. But there are few titles in strategy, sim, rpg especially that are always top quality. Degraded because of crappy internet freemiums, and emulation from the consoles.
No regulation from GOV unless it was adding dystopia, these cunts even used shills and bots to promote vaccination on steam and discord. But they policed speech. Instead of regulating exploitative content, like micro transactions and lootboxes, completely stopping pay to win games, and the online gambling industry.
There's profit and there's greed, a big difference to what gaming has become.
I felt the same particularly with the walking dead. It was like they made it get retarded on purpose. And other TV shows, movies, games, just seemed like these great franchises suddenly turned dumb for no reason. Its probably just diversity hires and the woke agenda at large. But specifically I felt it was some kind of demoralization tactic.
Yes, lots of series went sideways around the same time. In general a lot of QoL has gone down. It really does feel demoralizing.
It's the Google effect in a way. - massive disruption, initial convenience, followed by concentration and then dissolution
Everything is now about money. We are living in the end times.
Everything always was about money
“Everything is only about money now” is the right way to phrase it I think.
T’was not always so.
Modern videogames are largely being made by people with game degrees from degree-mill schools. The results speak for themselves.
t. Game Degree Graduate from a degree-mill school
PES AND FIFA ARE SHIT SINCE 2010 OR 2014. SAME FOR NFL, NBA,. agreed
Just as software as a service became big in the last 15 or so years, Microsoft is attempting to make that the dominant business model in the video game industry with their Gamepass service, to the detriment of almost everyone but themselves. And with MS just having bought Activision Blizzard for a tidy sum, they really are monopolizing the “western” side of gaming anyway.
Yes, taking over massive IP like that is tantamount to Disney version of the screen.
$$$$$$
Competitive games definitely have a longer lifespan - I wonder how much strategy of that competition plays an effect. For example chess vs fortnite
It seems like the old games which have survived are all competitive as well.
you know you may be pretty spot on about the timing. I remember that was heavy news when gamer tags were super popular and teams were all about their custom tags. Many were offensive and then they started to ban everything.....
It stopped being entertaining in America because in America AAA+ Gaming is collapsing alongside everything else.
But if you go check the Japanese or the worldwide Indie gaming development industry, it will look a bit different. Maybe it isn't fully dead after all.
SHOVELWARE. Cool that indie developers can make some money, but 95/100 indie games are total trash.
My thing is this, I just can’t invest much into long 70 hour games that cost 70 dollars. I like games I can hop in and hop out of, slowly build stats, and go for weeks without playing at all.
I recently picked up Clubhouse Games for switch as my Christmas gift to myself. Well worth the $30. Especially if you have to entertain kids, because the 30 games included are classics like chess and connect 4.
The metaverse is not for us. It’s for kids growing up now who have been conditioned to wear shit on their face. We have to turn the metaverse into myspace, and by that I mean not use it.
I definitely feel like a lot of games feel derivative and many don't even seem to be unique in any way except perhaps the assets.
Story is almost always an after thought these days
Honestly, it’s because i’m old, but i like running patterns on old arcade titles on emulators—and finding the best way to be the most efficient. MAPPY and MEGAMANIA are some old school gems. I can’t wait for the ADVANCED WARS remake. Tower defense and strategy are my faves... And Mario Odyssey was the best Mario Platformer since Super Mario World. ...these are all opinions. 😅
I am hopeful about video games as an oasis from woke culture. Gamer Gate, if you know anything about it, was a successful pushback from wokeness infecting gaming and gamers.