Is gaming dead? Review Or Summary

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Azuwi Apr 2, 2024 @ 6:40pm

Is gaming dead? Review Or Summary

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.

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Showing 16-30 of 191 comments

BJWyler Apr 3, 2024 @ 1:38am

No, gaming is not dead. And using Twitch as a metric is laughable at best. The truth of the matter is that gaming is alive and well, and has never been better.

At least half the games on my wishlist are ones thatbI am looking forward to coming out in the next year or two. There is a plethora of choice right at my fingertips. The Indie is thriving with thousands of quality games and more coming out every week.

We have continued to push the boundaries of technology to bring about the most amazing games. I can drive a load of TVs to California in the morning and slay a band of orcs with people from all over the world after dinner. I can top the leader board and pull out a win in a battle on the sea with a bunch of random noobs, or fight a robotic dinosaur in a post apocalyptic world on my own.

No, my sweet summer child. Gaming is far from dead. In fact gaming has never been more alive. And the more trolls that come to complain about only prove that point.

Last edited by BJWyler; Apr 3, 2024 @ 1:40am

#16

D. Flame Apr 3, 2024 @ 1:39am

Publisher Greed, Dev Laziness, and Crunch + Layoffs means that the industry is in a trash period now.

No company is willing to take chances on new games. Upper level devs are lazy so we never see anything new. Low level devs get burnt out by crunch, then laid off once the crunch is over, so the industry is lacking in know-how. And Publishers are Greedy, so they are demanding more and more money despite record profits.

#17

Start_Running Apr 3, 2024 @ 1:47am

Originally posted by D. Flame:
Publisher Greed, Dev Laziness, and Crunch + Layoffs means that the industry is in a trash period now.

So You're saying that what amounts to 10% of the industry , the extreme outliers are what define the state of the whole industry?

Yeah see this is one of the real problems with gaming. The disconnect between what the gamer population says and how they act.

Originally posted by D. Flame:
No company is willing to take chances on new games.

Except you know, the hundreds of indie developers out there.

Originally posted by D. Flame:
Upper level devs are lazy so we never see anything new.

The more money you have in the pot, the more you cautious you're gonna be m8.

Originally posted by D. Flame:
Low level devs get burnt out by crunch, then laid off once the crunch is over, so the industry is lacking in know-how. And Publishers are Greedy, so they are demanding more and more money despite record profits.

There's always more devs and it's not an issue of know-how.

Originally posted by BJWyler:
No, gaming is not dead. And using Twitch as a metric is laughable at best. The truth of the matter is that gaming is alive and well, and has never been better.

At least half the games on my wishlist are ones thatbI am looking forward to coming out in the next year or two. There is a plethora of choice right at my fingertips. The Indie is thriving with thousands of quality games and more coming out every week.

We have continued to push the boundaries of technology to bring about the most amazing games. I can drive a load of TVs to California in the morning and slay a band of orcs with people from all over the world after dinner. I can top the leader board and pull out a win in a battle on the sea with a bunch of random noobs, or fight a robotic dinosaur in a post apocalyptic world on my own.

No, my sweet summer child. Gaming is far from dead. In fact gaming has never been more alive. And the more trolls that come to complain about only prove that point.

I think this is coming of the same self-centred and vaguely narcissistic mentalities that doomers have. Their interest is flagging, likely due to a fixation on a very small subsector of the industry, and since they have no interest they'd rather the industry die as opposed to seeing other people who aren't them continue to have fun and discover new fun in the thing they don't like anymore.

#18

Komarimaru Apr 3, 2024 @ 2:31am

One thing I've noticed over the decades and these "Gaming is Dying" Posts.

They are always the same, and gaming never dies.

And the fact someone is trying to claim, hey, look at the fall off of players! Ya, ok? It's because they are playing another game...

For gaming dying, sure is a lot of games to keep playing over and over and over, so not stuck on one game forever.

#19

Loom Apr 3, 2024 @ 3:04am

There is a financial crisis going on in the west for a large majority and a lot of people are not interested in buying expensive new games or investing in smaller games with content that is monotonous or short term. Attention spans due to byte sized information dumps via youtube ect are having a negative effect on many hobbies. Gaming addiction is slowly turning into "buy more games, play them less" which is having a prolonged influence on staring at a huge amount of things to play but not investing in them and moving on to something else.

Steam had far less bloat in prior years and interest in the fewer titles was much higher. Gaming isn't dying, the type of games people play is changing though. Mobile gaming had such a negative and long lasting influence on all types of gaming media yet remains far more popular and accessible than sitting at a computer unfortunately because its a case of get what you want quicker and then move on to the next thing.

Positively though, more old titles are getting played and enjoyed as nostalgia will always be a present force.

#20

Seraphita Apr 3, 2024 @ 3:05am

Originally posted by Komarimaru:
One thing I've noticed over the decades and these "Gaming is Dying" Posts.

They are always the same, and gaming never dies.

And the fact someone is trying to claim, hey, look at the fall off of players! Ya, ok? It's because they are playing another game...

For gaming dying, sure is a lot of games to keep playing over and over and over, so not stuck on one game forever.

I'd even argue that gaming is still going strong. I mean, on both PC and consoles. There is a lot of great games coming out that isn't really affected by all of the negativity. I am still not feeling like I am losing out on games. I always have tons and tons to play so yeah.

Last edited by Seraphita; Apr 3, 2024 @ 3:05am

#21

D. Flame Apr 3, 2024 @ 3:58am

Originally posted by Start_Running:
There's always more devs and it's not an issue of know-how.

This tells me all that I need to know about your opinions.

Originally posted by Komarimaru:
One thing I've noticed over the decades and these "Gaming is Dying" Posts.

They are always the same, and gaming never dies.

It has died multiple times, such as the crash after ET on the Atari.

Last edited by D. Flame; Apr 3, 2024 @ 4:00am

#22

Seraphita Apr 3, 2024 @ 4:04am

Originally posted by D. Flame:
It has died multiple times, such as the crash after ET on the Atari.

I feel like you're reaching... The atari has no importance to the argument made. Gaming always had an evolutionary path here and there. Just look at what we had lately, how indie games created so many beautiful things. I feel like gaming is doing alright as it is.

#23

Boblin the Goblin Apr 3, 2024 @ 4:08am

Originally posted by D. Flame:
Originally posted by Start_Running:
There's always more devs and it's not an issue of know-how.
This tells me all that I need to know about your opinions.

Originally posted by Komarimaru:
One thing I've noticed over the decades and these "Gaming is Dying" Posts.

They are always the same, and gaming never dies.
It has died multiple times, such as the crash after ET on the Atari.

That crashed happened when gaming was much newer and was much more fragmented with the various computer systems.

That fragmentation was a big reason for the crash.

#24

Start_Running Apr 3, 2024 @ 4:59am

Originally posted by D. Flame:
Originally posted by Start_Running:
There's always more devs and it's not an issue of know-how.
This tells me all that I need to know about your opinions.

That's just the numbers m8. There's always more people than jobs.
Those devs that rtruly have drive and know-how, generally go on to found their own studios and do their own thing. I believe that's how we got the likes of Black Isle, Beamdog, Wayforward, Inticreates, and many others.

Originally posted by D. Flame:
Originally posted by Komarimaru:
One thing I've noticed over the decades and these "Gaming is Dying" Posts.

They are always the same, and gaming never dies.
It has died multiple times, such as the crash after ET on the Atari.

Yeah that wasn't gaming dying because it was thriving everywhere that wasn't NA. It was a retail collapse. I.e Retailers simply decided to stop stocking and selling games and consoles.

Demand didn't waver in the slightest. Which is why Nintendo took off the way it did when it came to NA, and why Arcades were still going strong, as well as home computer gaming.

And it had nothing to do with quality so much as the market was just over saturated. In the time you had like 5 different home consoles. Each with their own hardware, and non interooperable games.

This.. was not a good scenario for retailers who really didn't know anything about the matter. They basically just sayw the whole thing as another 'Fad' and were just looking to cash out the minute things levelled off.

So once things levelled off. they pulled out. Leaving the consumers high and dry.. in Northa America.

Heck Nintendo had to sneak onto the shelves via the toy aisle rather than the electronics aisle.
DIdn't you ever wonder why Nintendo in its early days had so many gimmicky third and first party peripherals that were barely supported.

The Zapper, The Power Glove, the Power Pad, ROB, etc. That's basically how they sold it to retailers in NA..

It pays to actually learn about these things before you parrot the widely heldmisinformation and misunderstandings m8.

Gaming never died.
And ironically has only gotten stronger.

And funnily enough. ET wasn't a terrible game. I mean if you actually bothered to read the manual it wasn't much worse than any other mid tier game. But you know. Reading Manuals was a lot to expect from a kid.. Now PacMan for the Atari.. yikes that was a real stinker.

#25

Amaterasu Apr 3, 2024 @ 5:01am

Yes, gaming is finally dead. No one plays video games anymore. It's all about pogs now.

/s

#26

Sleepy Yoshi Apr 3, 2024 @ 6:03am

For the most part it just seems to me that there's so much choice now that people are spread out all over the place in a way that you wouldn't have seen 20 years ago.

#27

ReBoot Apr 3, 2024 @ 6:24am

Originally posted by Sleepy Yoshi:
For the most part it just seems to me that there's so much choice now that people are spread out all over the place in a way that you wouldn't have seen 20 years ago.

... and that is wonderful. Everyone can find a game that suits their specific taste.

#28