2024 a weak year for new games?

[M4cR1II3n]

Is it just me, or does this year seems to unusually weak when it comes to new good games? Looking over the list of announced games so far on my wishlist, there seem to be a lot fewer releases than normal (I typically play around 40-50 new games per year) - and of the games that have been released, not that many of them seem to actually be good.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - kind of a niche title, not helped by the insane amount of Yakuza games released on PC since 2018, have not even finished Yakuza 7 yet.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League - major flop
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden - seems to be a bit of a flop
Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance - niche title
Outcast 2 - A New Beginning - niche title, seems to be a flop
Alone in the Dark - niche title, seems to be a flop
Horizon Forbidden West - 2 year old PS-game
Dragon's Dogma 2 - tons of performance issues
Ghost of Tsushima - 4 year old PS-game
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II - hopefully good
Black Myth: Wukong - another soulslike, could be decent
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl - could either be great, or a bugfest - if it ever gets released
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 - hopefully good

Then there are the other games which are supposed to come out this year, but does not have release dates:

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn - will likely suck because of SBI
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 could either be great, or a bugfest - if it ever gets released
Age of Mythology: Retold - remaster of 23 year old game
Steel Seed - niche indie-title
Commandos: Origins - niche title
Judas - hopefully good
Avowed - hopefully good
Until Dawn - 9 years old PS-game
Men of War II - hopefully good, probably superbuggy
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - hopefully good
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess - niche title
NEO BERLIN 2087 - will likely suck
Unknown 9: Awakening - will likely suck because of SBI

And that's it, 25 games total, with only 10 games expected to be released in the first 6 months of the year. Remains to be seen how many other titles are coming out that are not announced yet I suppose, but still seems short of the usual number of games I normally play. I reckon some of the above games will get delayed until 2025 as well.

[AustrAlien2010]

So any of these games bring anything nnew to the table, or is it all old, same old?

[inpurpleshadows]

Publicado originalmente por M4cR1II3n:

Is it just me, or does this year seems to unusually weak when it comes to new good games? Looking over the list of announced games so far on my wishlist, there seem to be a lot fewer releases than normal (I typically play around 40-50 new games per year) - and of the games that have been released, not that many of them seem to actually be good.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - kind of a niche title, not helped by the insane amount of Yakuza games released on PC since 2018, have not even finished Yakuza 7 yet.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League - major flop
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden - seems to be a bit of a flop
Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance - niche title
Outcast 2 - A New Beginning - niche title, seems to be a flop
Alone in the Dark - niche title, seems to be a flop
Horizon Forbidden West - 2 year old PS-game
Dragon's Dogma 2 - tons of performance issues
Ghost of Tsushima - 4 year old PS-game
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II - hopefully good
Black Myth: Wukong - another soulslike, could be decent
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl - could either be great, or a bugfest - if it ever gets released
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 - hopefully good

Then there are the other games which are supposed to come out this year, but does not have release dates:

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn - will likely suck because of SBI
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 could either be great, or a bugfest - if it ever gets released
Age of Mythology: Retold - remaster of 23 year old game
Steel Seed - niche indie-title
Commandos: Origins - niche title
Judas - hopefully good
Avowed - hopefully good
Until Dawn - 9 years old PS-game
Men of War II - hopefully good, probably superbuggy
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - hopefully good
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess - niche title
NEO BERLIN 2087 - will likely suck
Unknown 9: Awakening - will likely suck because of SBI

And that's it, 25 games total, with only 10 games expected to be released in the first 6 months of the year. Remains to be seen how many other titles are coming out that are not announced yet I suppose, but still seems short of the usual number of games I normally play. I reckon some of the above games will get delayed until 2025 as well.

I think 2024 seems like a "weak" year for gaming because most big games usually don't get released until the holiday season (Q4). It's like this for pretty much every year in gaming. Until then, I usually play some older games as well as some indie hits to pass the time for later releases.

I should also mention that I don't buy every major game that comes out in a given year as I don't have the money or time. Because of that, I only purchase games I'm interested in.

[Eagle_of_Fire]

Publicado originalmente por Nite69:

how is it a weak year? its only 3 months in so far, also you are forgetting new dlc releases for existing games too

New DLC for existing games (especially games which are already far older than 5 years old now) is actually a big part of why the game industry is dying right now.

It is like they can't produce anything new and they seem content to sell you overpriced snippet of things which should have been included in the base game since the start. You pay 20$ for something which I would barely pay 2$ on a good day...

[inpurpleshadows]

Publicado originalmente por Eagle_of_Fire:

Publicado originalmente por Nite69:

how is it a weak year? its only 3 months in so far, also you are forgetting new dlc releases for existing games too

New DLC for existing games (especially games which are already far older than 5 years old now) is actually a big part of why the game industry is dying right now.

It is like they can't produce anything new and they seem content to sell you overpriced snippet of things which should have been included in the base game since the start. You pay 20$ for something which I would barely pay 2$ on a good day...

Expansion packs are and have always been a mixed bag in gaming. Some expansions (or what the current generations call DLCs) are actually pretty great as they improve upon the formula of the base game while adding loads of new content. Some examples of this include Half-Life: Opposing Force, Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course and the various expansions for the Mass Effect trilogy. On the other hand, you have ♥♥♥♥ like Oblivion's horse armor, fighting games which lock half of the game's content behind a paywall (despite the base game being full price) and anything having to do with microtransactions.

[Eagle_of_Fire]

Publicado originalmente por inpurpleshadows:

Publicado originalmente por Eagle_of_Fire:

New DLC for existing games (especially games which are already far older than 5 years old now) is actually a big part of why the game industry is dying right now.

It is like they can't produce anything new and they seem content to sell you overpriced snippet of things which should have been included in the base game since the start. You pay 20$ for something which I would barely pay 2$ on a good day...

Expansion packs are and have always been a mixed bag in gaming. Some expansions (or what the current generations call DLCs) are actually pretty great as they improve upon the formula of the base game while adding loads of new content. Some examples of this include Half-Life: Opposing Force, Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course and the various expansions for the Mass Effect trilogy. On the other hand, you have ♥♥♥♥ like Oblivion's horse armor, fighting games which lock half of the game's content behind a paywall (despite the base game being full price) and anything having to do with microtransactions.

Every game can benefit for one or two good DLCs. No game is going to benefit when you're releasing your 25th DLC and everybody tell you that you need them all to have the "full game"...

[AustrAlien2010]

I am looking for a great horror sea fishing game, where you can fish at night in a stormy dark ocean, and where there can be towering waves, lights and crew on the boat that you can train and upgrade, torrents & tornadoes, and Eldritch horrors from the deep sea, and exploration & survival.

Just make me both executive producer and creative director, give me unlimited resources, a competent development team, and I'll make you a sublime game.

[inpurpleshadows]

Publicado originalmente por Eagle_of_Fire:

Publicado originalmente por inpurpleshadows:

Expansion packs are and have always been a mixed bag in gaming. Some expansions (or what the current generations call DLCs) are actually pretty great as they improve upon the formula of the base game while adding loads of new content. Some examples of this include Half-Life: Opposing Force, Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course and the various expansions for the Mass Effect trilogy. On the other hand, you have ♥♥♥♥ like Oblivion's horse armor, fighting games which lock half of the game's content behind a paywall (despite the base game being full price) and anything having to do with microtransactions.

Every game can benefit for one or two good DLCs. No game is going to benefit when you're releasing your 25th DLC and everybody tell you that you need them all to have the "full game"...

What I meant to say is that DLCs aren't inheirently a bad thing, but releasing one of a low quality is a problem. And yes, I agree that games that contain dozens of DLCs are more expensive than what they're actually worth. Stuff like that is why I avoid anything made by EA.

[Eagle_of_Fire]

Publicado originalmente por inpurpleshadows:

Publicado originalmente por Eagle_of_Fire:

Every game can benefit for one or two good DLCs. No game is going to benefit when you're releasing your 25th DLC and everybody tell you that you need them all to have the "full game"...

What I meant to say is that DLCs aren't inheirently a bad thing, but releasing one of a low quality is a problem. And yes, I agree that games that contain dozens of DLCs are more expensive than what they're actually worth. Stuff like that is why I avoid anything made by EA.

Or any AAA companies?

[crunchyfrog]

It's been trending this way for a few years and the blame lies squarely with incompetent large triple A publishers.

Time and time again we've seen lacklustre, trend-chasing banal, pap games that are filled with busy work and nothing of meaning. And then later find out how horrific the development and management are.

Look at the recent expose about Bungie. I've always banged on about how I felt there was someothing severe missing at that company as they seemed to lack management and were awful at writing stories. Case in point when the first Destiny came out it was technically great and smooth, but lacking in everything. You'd fly across empty maps to find your next objective.

That SCREAMS "I don't know to make compelling content".

And the least said about Ubisoft the better.

So you should abolsutely expect things to continue this way for some time until either things collapse or change.

Sad to say but I've been around since the dawn of gaming, building my first computer in the 1970s. I was instantly hooked and have tons of computers and consoles I still use.

And yet this current generation is the first one where I haven;t bought any of the major consoles (except the Switch which doesn't really count).

[crunchyfrog]

Publicado originalmente por A no-brainer:

We had already great surprises, like Balatro for example. Backpack Battles has stormed Twitch and sold like crazy.

On Steam about 40 games a day get released. That's about 14.600 games.

I expect more good games, Indy and AA games, to just come out of nowhere. And I think that's the games where the money they had went into making the games instead of a comically overblown marketing campaign that can only pay out with also overly predatory microtransactions. But we only know about those heavily marketed ones upfront.

Then there are older games getting huge updates, Stardew Valley being one of them. I will definitely revisit some games this year to see what has changed and to play the new content.

How good a year is for gamers (tm) will only be decided on Dec 31., that 2024 is a bad year for people working in the gaming industry is already a given.

The silver lining out of triple As incompetence and crap practices is that by pushing out developers, they often end up creating their own studios and going alone.

Which has started to make quite a nice number of decent indie games blossom.

[AustrAlien2010]

They also come with terrible game-launchers that stop working offline after some time. And you have to connnect to the internet. That also drives customers away. But they do not know that.

If only there was a way to get through to them...

[Nite69]

Publicado originalmente por Eagle_of_Fire:

Publicado originalmente por Nite69:

how is it a weak year? its only 3 months in so far, also you are forgetting new dlc releases for existing games too

New DLC for existing games (especially games which are already far older than 5 years old now) is actually a big part of why the game industry is dying right now.

It is like they can't produce anything new and they seem content to sell you overpriced snippet of things which should have been included in the base game since the start. You pay 20$ for something which I would barely pay 2$ on a good day...

you are only willing to pay $2 for a map expansion pack or new storyline part of the game? good luck with that, your $2 price would only be something like a skin pack, weapons, maybe a few vehicles, etc, its players like you that is making the game industry fail then

[Eagle_of_Fire]

Publicado originalmente por Nite69:

Publicado originalmente por Eagle_of_Fire:

New DLC for existing games (especially games which are already far older than 5 years old now) is actually a big part of why the game industry is dying right now.

It is like they can't produce anything new and they seem content to sell you overpriced snippet of things which should have been included in the base game since the start. You pay 20$ for something which I would barely pay 2$ on a good day...

you are only willing to pay $2 for a map expansion pack or new storyline part of the game? good luck with that, your $2 price would only be something like a skin pack, weapons, maybe a few vehicles, etc, its players like you that is making the game industry fail then

Because I'm only willing to pay the actual worth of things instead of their inflated price? Please go back to your cave.

[Ben Lubar]

It seems like 2024 only has a quarter as many months where games were released compared to other years. I wonder why that is.

[Lystent]

Publicado originalmente por AustrAlien2010:

...that stop working offline after some time. ...

At first, I misread that as "online"... which may also happen.

Also, just because it doesn't have a launcher now, doesn't mean it won't in the future. Gotta love Steam!

Edit: A launcher besides Steam, to be clear.