Is gaming dead? Review Or Summary

[Azuwi]

Have gaming become dead or reached it's stale period? Here is my thoughts, opinion, review, and summary on why.

Based on TTV and Steam Charts, among others, let's go through the stats for the games (period) of April 02/03 2024.

The most played games on Steam right now is:
1. Counter-Strike 2, with 468000 players, where it has peaked up to 1.5 mil previously (less than 1/3 of it's peak rate), this game was also released (CS:GO) in 2012, with minor/major updates depending how you see it, a 12 year old game.

2. Dota 2, 231k players, also had over triple amount of players during it's peak rate and a 11 year old game, released in 2013.

3. Helldivers 2, this is the first new game on the list, released this year 2024 in February, but has already lost over half of it's max player since then, is it gonna be like most other new games and die out?

4. Stardew Valley, came out in 2016, a 8 year old game, recently had a major update, so many players returned, but already about half have stopped since the big update, went from ~260k to 130k. Couple more months, and will be back to normal(?)

5. Tom clancy rainbow siege, released in 2015. A 9 year old game.

6. Call of Duty, well it's CoD.. maybe never dies out but not the biggest game either.

7. Baldur's Gate 3, came out in 2023, have dropped about half it's player base since the release

8. PUBG: Battlegrounds, released 2017, 7 years old, not also the biggest game, guess it's always gonna keep the player numbers around 70-80k, but far from it's peak one time at 750k+

9. Path of Exile, just recently had a new league launch, sitting at 71k players online, but will fade away as the league gets older. maybe to 15-30k. Came out 2013, 11 years old.

10. Apex Legends, came out 2019, 5 year old game, sititng at 64k players, always gonna have around I guess 70-80k players aswell (including the ones on EA platform)

That's the top 10.. Summary:
Most games are 5+ years old, exception new CoD, Baldurs Gate 3, Helldivers 2, odds are Helldivers 2 and Baldurs Gate 3 are slowly gonna lose player numbers as time goes on, all numbers in the list have lost over double of it's peak time. 7 games out of the 10 is 5-11 years old.

Twitch.tv:
Popular streamers who use to have 20k+ viewers have now only around at top 10kish viewers, including summit1g, shroud, etc. The most mainstream played games are GTA 5, released 2013, again a 11 year old game, rainbow six as mentioned earlier, Valorant (2020), League of legends (2009), Fortnite (2017), talking about Fortnite, who also had to use it's old OG map and game to draw in players from losing most of it's peak, Cod, Dota 2, CS2(GO), WoW (2004 - 20 years old) who had to bring in WOW Classic because also lost a big playerbase, TFT (part of LOL), Dead by daylight (2016) which is nothing more then a horror among us game in a mediocre unreal engine where all you do is repair generators or play as the killer, Apex legends, Minecraft (2011) , and others like Path of exile, Rust, depending on if there is a new league/launch event or a Twitch drop/Rust event ongoing on raising the viewers for a week or so.

Epic Store / EA Games / Ubisoft :
I think only a small fraction use these clients where Steam is the majority.

Conclusion: There is not a single new game that is "main stream" today that have came out in the last 3-4 years, exception Helldivers 2 which I think is not gonna be mainstream anymore in 1 year. Twitch viewers have dropped 100-200%, and majority of games that are being streamed is old games between 5-10 years old, Steam most played games aswell.

Example:
Go back in time to 2012, we had a major game came out that became main stream (and still up to this date) CS:GO, year after Dota 2, same story, plus Path of Exile, GTA 5, we had just some year earlier Minecraft came out, League of legends, fast forward 2-3 years, Rainbow siege, Stardew valley, Dead by daylight, year after PUBG, Fortnite, only 2 year later, Apex legends, year after Valorant.

What did we get the last 3-4 years? Nothing.
Revamp of CS:GO > CS2, revamp of Overwatch > Overwatch 2, revamp or reintroduce of WoW > WOW Classic, revamp or reintroduce Fortnite > Fortnite OG. Still most played games are 5-10 years old and lost alot of players since then, player numbers at peak low, viewers on twitch at peak low.

Still waiting for the "Next big game" that will make the list and stay there.

[xBCxRangers]

There is no doubt , there's a brain drain going on with gaming today. The Triple A's are just awful. F2P is taking over a large gaming space, and if those aren't your thing, gaming today does in fact seem it's dying.

But i think folks have to see this a chance to explore, other types of games. Maybe games they never thought of playing or getting into. Genre's of games. Older games.

Changing systems. Maybe try console gaming and see what they offer. Or handhelds.

I'm at PC gaming via stream service, and having the time of my life, on these PC exclusives i can never play on a console, and yes they're pretty old as well.

But i def don't blame you for feeling the way you do. It's just this generation of gaming bombed.

[Chika Ogiue]

Every year people ask if (or even outright declare that) gaming is dead. And every year, the answer (and truth) are the same: gaming is alive and kicking. If you're bored of the games available, etc., that isn't gaming being dead, that's you being bored.

Take a break. Find a new interest. Try something different.

Also, looking at narrow stats such as a single streaming service or a single store is never going to reflect the true picture.

[xBCxRangers]

Originally posted by Chika Ogiue:

Every year people ask if (or even outright declare that) gaming is dead. And every year, the answer (and truth) are the same: gaming is alive and kicking. If you're bored of the games available, etc., that isn't gaming being dead, that's you being bored.

Take a break. Find a new interest. Try something different.

Also, looking at narrow stats such as a single streaming service or a single store is never going to reflect the true picture.

I remember when Bad Company 2 came out, and they totally butchered the campaign, that on the first game, was this huge world, now down to a linear COD like model. I cried to my young milennial friends back then i think it was Gamespot, that "this Mulitplayer fad is going to kill our games".

Of course, my hey day, was the 98 to 2010 era. The PS1, 2, and early 360. Most everything was SP Campaigns for me.

And here came the mics, the competition, and i knew before long, i was going to be on the outside looking in, very quickly.

Well needless to say, they laughed at me.

Now 20 years later, my now "older" Milennial friends, are on YT acting as i did.

"What is happening with gaming today". It's over. They're not listening to us. These games suck".

Like anything else, i sit back and chuckle, at these once engaged youngsters, now acting as i did, in their older ages.

But i suppose in a way, in the end i was right. MP killed gaming imo.

The great thing about Steam however is, there is such a vast library, of so many different types of games, even today games i never heard of.

Folks should use that to their advantage to try other things.

[Doctor Zalgo]

So just to be clear, you think gaming is less stagnant when a game hits the top 10 and never leaves?

Originally posted by xBCxRangers:

There is no doubt , there's a brain drain going on with gaming today. The Triple A's are just awful. F2P is taking over a large gaming space, and if those aren't your thing, gaming today does in fact seem it's dying.

But i think folks have to see this a chance to explore, other types of games. Maybe games they never thought of playing or getting into. Genre's of games. Older games.

Changing systems. Maybe try console gaming and see what they offer. Or handhelds.

I'm at PC gaming via stream service, and having the time of my life, on these PC exclusives i can never play on a console, and yes they're pretty old as well.

But i def don't blame you for feeling the way you do. It's just this generation of gaming bombed.

I don't think its this generation. It's just that AAA devs/publishers leadership have lost their minds and would rather back 'the sure thing' over something new that might be a bit risky (even if the sure thing is just more of the same thing that lost them money before).

Gamers didn't ask for insanely large maps, or over the top world systems (RDR2: the horse testicles change size when it gets hot!) but because these are things you can advertise they'll go in. Conversely, spending a month of dev time on test and refinement to make sure your core game loop is fun doesn't look sexy on a poster so its not a priority.

Of course. these big, elaborate, non-fun games being made now cost way too much (because modelling all those huge horse testicles is time consuming) so new mechanics or IP are suddenly too much of a risk. The end result is that all AAA games are turning into either copies of themselves 'but bigger' or a generic assassins creed clone attached to whatever IP they can dig out of the box of IP's not run into the ground yet. (I rolled my eyes so hard when the AC publisher said 'Mirage won't be as big as Valhalla' when almost no one wanted the 200 hour long game in the first place.) *

All that aside, gaming isn't doomed. You just need to head over to the indie/early access space where games are still being made by people who actually enjoy games and recognise they're meant to be entertainment products. You've got teams of 1-10 enthusiastic coders, designers and artists making novel games by pulling something together out of chicken wire and bubblegum. The trade off is often the lack of experience, and the risk that the game will just implode one day, but they're a lifeline for anyone who doesn't just want to play another Assassins Creed clone.

* I like to remind people that for the money spent on Starfield, Bethesda could have funded 500 3 person teams for 3 years to just churn out new IP, new game designs and new mechanics but instead they spent it on the worlds first RPG built entirely by people who didn't know they were making an entertainment product.

[Azuwi]

Yes I still enjoy gaming, but not necessarily the games that are today's "standard" or "most played", for example I think a older Battlefield game is far much more fun then the most played shooters today, and is it that people today just play the "wrong" games or it's true also that new games that come out today also "suck" because the developers don't really know what they are doing or have dry out of ideas?

[ezwip]

Most of us already know that if we start pointing out the issues with gaming today we'll end up banned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piVnArp9ZE0

[Seraphita]

Originally posted by ezwip:

Most of us already know that if we start pointing out the issues with gaming today we'll end up banned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piVnArp9ZE0

Assuming it goes toward the political theme I think about, I would say you're right.

[DRfeelGood(AKA_Major Payne)]

YEP

[The nameless Gamer]

Oh, another "gaming is dead" thread. Just because people are forfeiting mainstream titles? Sure, if you're only looking at the mainstream, there's a lot of gloom and doom. But if you're looking into niche games, things are looking a lot better. Games created for a specific target audience have a decent chance to succeed if they have something to draw an audience in.

If anything is hurting gaming, that's people being lazy to search and expecting good games to jump into their face without them bothering to figure out what is it they want. Gaming is dying only for those who don't search and/or don't know what they want from a video game.

[stmpunk]

Originally posted by xBCxRangers:

There is no doubt , there's a brain drain going on with gaming today. The Triple A's are just awful. F2P is taking over a large gaming space, and if those aren't your thing, gaming today does in fact seem it's dying.

But i think folks have to see this a chance to explore, other types of games. Maybe games they never thought of playing or getting into. Genre's of games. Older games.

Changing systems. Maybe try console gaming and see what they offer. Or handhelds.

I'm at PC gaming via stream service, and having the time of my life, on these PC exclusives i can never play on a console, and yes they're pretty old as well.

But i def don't blame you for feeling the way you do. It's just this generation of gaming bombed.

there's nothing to explore, 99% of the hyped indie games are pixel arcade copies from classics, which if I'm to play pixel-galore, I'm firing up the old stuff, no reason to buy something that can be made solo in under 1 month of hardwork.

MP games are a disaster, the conceptually creative almost always become lootbox RNG simulators, some nice ones like Conan Exiles are ruined by disgusting business practices, on top of that most MP games that feature any form of competitive nature equates to cheater's hubs, which basically turns said games into a complete waste of time.

Due to stupid creative direction and/or business practices, no MMO has ever managed to achieve WoW levels, and WoW's still there, but it sucks arse now.

The few sparks of the last decade that could equate into really rich games on possible sequels are all failures or "dead" with no news (Kingdom Come, Mount and Blade - BL is total crap, "nEmEsIs System" - IE Shadow of Whatevers) And the champion of the 2010's (Witcher 3) was a fluke, once they got money they went for Cyberfailure 2077 and it's still struggling.

And the last nail in the coffin has been the dreadful ESG scores which have been completely destroying all media, games included, not even Baldurs Gate 3 got rid of it and shoehorns the same absurdities Hollywood does, the only redeeming factor being that the game design wasn't deeply affected by it, but it's still a bad sight which shouldn't be supported (meaning that ideally everyone should boycott the game)

What I have been doing is hopping between old games, the best ones often are no longer supported and won't run properly on Wackindows 11, to compensate I play the "half-arsed" ones that are (many of those nearly a decade old), I've also switched into playing sandboxes and occasionally I revisit the current "failures" like Bannerlord or CS2 or Valorancid, but it never lasts longer than a couple weeks due to how bad they are. And when I'm in tune with Tibetan Monks, I go for highly moddable games like Skyrim and mod the dev's incompetence out of it, but that requires lists of over 300 mods minimum so it does take Tibetan Monk patience because stabilizing a mod-list can take up to a couple months...

[Chompman]

Steam keeps hitting record numbers so I am unsure where you are coming up with this.

It's not always about the newest games only as we have seen for a long time or just a select few that have been popular for a long time.

There is far more options then ever and this can simply mean the community is split all over across multiple games.

You can view twitch numbers at sites similar to this:

https://twitchtracker.com/statistics

Streamers at 20k viewers are very rare and really you cannot rely on just those for many reasons.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Azuwi:

Yes I still enjoy gaming, but not necessarily the games that are today's "standard" or "most played", for example I think a older Battlefield game is far much more fun then the most played shooters today, and is it that people today just play the "wrong" games or it's true also that new games that come out today also "suck" because the developers don't really know what they are doing or have dry out of ideas?

There's no "wrong games". Not even with quotation marks. There's games you enjoy and games others enjoy. Maybe there's games you and others enjoy, maybe not.

You need to widen your horizon either way. There's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of games coming out in recent years which are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ amazing. Y U ignore them?

[MonkehMaster]

gaming is still going strong, we just have tons of triple A and "fake" quadruple A games flopping left and right, because those companies cant be bothered to produce quality games, majority are low effort cash grabs, with anything and everything possible to ask for more money.

not to mention for the above, a good deal of them shoveling ads, politics and more, which majority do not like in the slightest.

though its fair to say, some good indie games have tried shoveling ads, with some removed due to complaints.

but luckily we have loads of really good indie games, that are pummeling these companies into the dirt, some even topping the charts, more popular and played, with much better pricing and sales, not to mention the quality put into them and most without the bs mentioned above.

in any case, gaming isnt going anywhere and when these big companies learn what their customers actually want, then they might bother themselves to start making good games again, without all the nonsense and trying too picking our pockets clean.

[MonkehMaster]

Originally posted by ezwip:

Most of us already know that if we start pointing out the issues with gaming today we'll end up banned.

nope, you can discuss any issues in gaming all you want, its the manner in which you voice your opinion that matters, lots of people like to use inappropriate language and wonder how/why they get punished...

also joining in spam in forums being hassled about politics, ect.. is also not something one should do and shouldnt be hard to understand.

-----------

edit: tbf as mentioned by another, false reports/false bans due to malicious reporting are a thing, no matter how polite you are, but one can take it to support and if you get past template responses, you may find a human, who will research and find that you did nothing wrong.

as for game hubs.... good luck

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by Azuwi:

Have gaming become dead or reached it's stale period? Here is my thoughts, opinion, review, and summary on why.

Based on TTV and Steam Charts, among others, let's go through the stats for the games (period) of April 02/03 2024.

The most played games on Steam right now is:
1. Counter-Strike 2, with 468000 players, where it has peaked up to 1.5 mil previously (less than 1/3 of it's peak rate), this game was also released (CS:GO) in 2012, with minor/major updates depending how you see it, a 12 year old game.

2. Dota 2, 231k players, also had over triple amount of players during it's peak rate and a 11 year old game, released in 2013.

3. Helldivers 2, this is the first new game on the list, released this year 2024 in February, but has already lost over half of it's max player since then, is it gonna be like most other new games and die out?

4. Stardew Valley, came out in 2016, a 8 year old game, recently had a major update, so many players returned, but already about half have stopped since the big update, went from ~260k to 130k. Couple more months, and will be back to normal(?)

5. Tom clancy rainbow siege, released in 2015. A 9 year old game.

6. Call of Duty, well it's CoD.. maybe never dies out but not the biggest game either.

7. Baldur's Gate 3, came out in 2023, have dropped about half it's player base since the release

8. PUBG: Battlegrounds, released 2017, 7 years old, not also the biggest game, guess it's always gonna keep the player numbers around 70-80k, but far from it's peak one time at 750k+

9. Path of Exile, just recently had a new league launch, sitting at 71k players online, but will fade away as the league gets older. maybe to 15-30k. Came out 2013, 11 years old.

10. Apex Legends, came out 2019, 5 year old game, sititng at 64k players, always gonna have around I guess 70-80k players aswell (including the ones on EA platform)

That's the top 10.. Summary:
Most games are 5+ years old, exception new CoD, Baldurs Gate 3, Helldivers 2, odds are Helldivers 2 and Baldurs Gate 3 are slowly gonna lose player numbers as time goes on, all numbers in the list have lost over double of it's peak time. 7 games out of the 10 is 5-11 years old.

Did you notice that all but one of those games are multiplayer online?
Did you notice that most of them are team based?

There's a reason.
The simple truth is. Gamers as an audience, as a market are growing more diverse in their tastes. Gamers are more apt to sink time in a game that the find specific and unique enjoyment in as opposed to something generic and designed for mass appeal.

Yes BG3 will drop players over time...because eventually people will get bored of the content. As is the case with every single player game. And as for multiplayer. Well people stick to the game sthey have the most friends in, the most time in, and the most experience in.

It's not unlike what was noticed with MMO's. People will jumpui into a new MMO when it launches but eventually they will just jump back to the one they've sunk the most hours in already.

Gaming is fine.
Gamers are justb becoming less interested in the gamuing Equivalent of 'McDonald's. Because a game made to appeal to mass market is kinda gonna look like every other game made to appeal to mass market.