Industry Trends and New Releases

[Dehumanizer]

Where are the new games?

TL;DR: It feels like industry only makes a dozen flavors of live service games. Or Souls like trash.

Looking back over the last 10 years the industry, from the small indies to the big AAAs, seems to have adopted a new development strategy that is specifically designed to piss me off. As if they had a marketing profile of me. This dude only plays story driven singleplayer games that are complete, patched and finished on release. Let's stop making those games and instead fully focus on releasing multiplayer games or games that don't have a story, that are barely complete enough to be sold, that we update and overhaul for years and that run like ass even on a 13700k/4090 machine.

I love video games, i really do, but i usually don't replay them and i usually don't return to them either. Which in the past wasn't an issue because there was a steady stream of new releases that were tonally and artistically to my liking. They were pretty much done on release, save for maybe an expansion down the line and if the game was trash there would be another one coming out in a couple weeks

But all that changed. All my favorite franchises(square enix, bethesda, cdpr, IO, ubi, bioware) are either dead or take well over a decade for a new one to come out and there are no new franchises that replace them. So, checking my steam history, there were a grand total of 5 new games last year, of which 2 were remakes and 1 was an expansion and 2 came out of Early Access, that i liked enough to play them. And this year, so far it's Dragons Dogma 2 - that's it.

To make matters even worse, there are lots of new games that look really interesting but they are so deep in Early Access that they are many years from the finish line if they ever reach it.

And the AAAs aren't any better. They release in a broken and unfinished state, incorporate live service elements into singleplayer games and on top of that i have to do my best to ignore certain thematic and tonal elements that i really dislike.

Over the last 6 months i picked up 2 new hobbies, and it's summer after all, but every time i look at my PC(which i built spring 2023) i see nothing but 3500 euro waste.

[The nameless Gamer]

Plenty of good games off mainstream as long as you know what you want. Searching is the key, but you have to know what to search for.

[talemore]

On the shoulders of giants.

Videogame industry started thanks to socialism.

Since nobody want to work for free they release the same game over and over again and waiting for some low IQ to give them free games to them. Buys up the IP or the company and expect the same result over and over again.

Any software becomes public proterty as soon released that they want online to be security against piracy.

The only reason why they gave North Korea computers is by knowledge that they wouldn't be able to sell any software on their own.

Computers are identitcal that there are no benefits of encryptions as this was cracked.

The military goal behind solving enigma was to crack all encryptions.

Since there is nothing that keep what you write from being taken the main reason why they keep selling the same game over again is because it's a religion.

[Dehumanizer]

Originally posted by The nameless Commander:

Plenty of good games off mainstream as long as you know what you want. Searching is the key, but you have to know what to search for.

Plenty huh? Okay, let me set some requirements and you recommend some that fit.

No live service of any kind(game that is continuously updated)
No multiplayer
No Early Access
Has to be complete, finished and optimized on release
No anime/cartoon aesthetic
Strong focus on a story with full voice acting
Released in the last 5 years
Bonus points for a pre-2016 tone and evil choices

Shouldn't be that hard for you, right?

[The nameless Gamer]

Originally posted by Dehumanizer:

Originally posted by The nameless Commander:

Plenty of good games off mainstream as long as you know what you want. Searching is the key, but you have to know what to search for.

Plenty huh? Okay, let me set some requirements and you recommend some that fit.

No live service of any kind(game that is continuously updated)
No multiplayer
No Early Access
Has to be complete, finished and optimized on release
No anime/cartoon aesthetic
Strong focus on a story with full voice acting
Released in the last 5 years
Bonus points for a pre-2016 tone and evil choices

Shouldn't be that hard for you, right?

OK, challenge accepted
I'll have to go by review score, since many of my own games from 2016 and beyond have at least one of your red flags, mostly anime and not being story-driven

- Black Myth: Wukong: 96% of 354.316 reviews are positive.
- Baldur's Gate 3: 96% positive reviews out of over half a million
- Tactical Breach Wizards
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Disco Elysium
- Devil may cry V

Regrettably for you MANY good games have anime/cartoon aesthetics and/or don't necessarily have voice acting.

I probably failed your challenge, but it's hard to please a person as picky as yourself. Hard, but not impossible. Try actually searching instead of having other people who can't know your own preferences as well as you do do it for you.

[sleeps]

Originally posted by talemore:

Videogame industry started thanks to socialism.

https://youtu.be/CjrbAt9IHLU?feature=shared

[sleeps]

at this point, i have more hope for asian gaming industry more than western one, even though i know for sure they are more capitalist in their approach than their western counterpart.

[The nameless Gamer]

Originally posted by sleeps:

at this point, i have more hope for asian gaming industry more than western one, even though i know for sure they are more capitalist in their approach than their western counterpart.

Mostly because the industry giants in the west are trying to push some weird monetization trends while trying to cut costs everywhere (story writing, gameplay, design, voice acting, music...). Asian games for the western market are not heavily monetized, they have specifically tailored OSTs, actually good gameplay and decent or better stories. But many of them also have anime or otherwise stylized aesthetics, as opposed to the attempts of the western mainstream industry to achieve hyper-realism.

If you're looking for actually good western games, gotta try your luck with AA or indie studios. But most indie and AA games fall into rather small and specific niches, hence people mistake them for "bad" games.

[Dehumanizer]

Originally posted by The nameless Commander:

- Black Myth: Wukong: 96% of 354.316 reviews are positive.
- Baldur's Gate 3: 96% positive reviews out of over half a million
- Tactical Breach Wizards
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Disco Elysium
- Devil may cry V

I set up this "challenge" by going over my favorite games(basically ever) and what they have in common.

- Elder Scrolls(4 and 5, didn't like Morrowind)
- Fallout(the old and the new)
- Baldur's Gate(yes all 3 of them)
- Tom Clancy titled games just in general
- Far Cry
- Resident Evil
- Witcher
- Dragon Age Origins
- Fable
- Mass Effect
- Tomb Raider(both OG and reboot)
- Deus Ex
- VTMB
- XCOM
- GTA
- Red Dead
- Metal Gear Solid
- Hitman (OG not the reboot)
- Saints Row 2
- State of Decay
- Dragon's Dogma
- Gothic
- Metro

And looking ahead those game series' are either dead, broken or have changed in ways that i do not appreciate which leaves me wondering what games can replace them.

[sleeps]

Originally posted by The nameless Commander:

Originally posted by sleeps:

at this point, i have more hope for asian gaming industry more than western one, even though i know for sure they are more capitalist in their approach than their western counterpart.

Mostly because the industry giants in the west are trying to push some weird monetization trends while trying to cut costs everywhere (story writing, gameplay, design, voice acting, music...). Asian games for the western market are not heavily monetized, they have specifically tailored OSTs, actually good gameplay and decent or better stories. But many of them also have anime or otherwise stylized aesthetics, as opposed to the attempts of the western mainstream industry to achieve hyper-realism.

If you're looking for actually good western games, gotta try your luck with AA or indie studios. But most indie and AA games fall into rather small and specific niches, hence people mistake them for "bad" games.

i actually love AA games i found more than indie ones. why? mostly because in my opinion it hits the right spot that actually allows them to be creative and experimental of their own. but most AA devs tend to double down to become indie.

[The nameless Gamer]

Originally posted by sleeps:

Originally posted by The nameless Commander:

Mostly because the industry giants in the west are trying to push some weird monetization trends while trying to cut costs everywhere (story writing, gameplay, design, voice acting, music...). Asian games for the western market are not heavily monetized, they have specifically tailored OSTs, actually good gameplay and decent or better stories. But many of them also have anime or otherwise stylized aesthetics, as opposed to the attempts of the western mainstream industry to achieve hyper-realism.

If you're looking for actually good western games, gotta try your luck with AA or indie studios. But most indie and AA games fall into rather small and specific niches, hence people mistake them for "bad" games.

i actually love AA games i found more than indie ones. why? mostly because in my opinion it hits the right spot that actually allows them to be creative and experimental of their own. but most AA devs tend to double down to become indie.

That's because publishers treat developers VERY unfavorably. Most of the developers who don't self-publish games don't see a penny from their game until the publisher breaks even on the costs of making it. So it's better to take chances without a publisher.

[sleeps]

Originally posted by The nameless Commander:

Originally posted by sleeps:

i actually love AA games i found more than indie ones. why? mostly because in my opinion it hits the right spot that actually allows them to be creative and experimental of their own. but most AA devs tend to double down to become indie.

That's because publishers treat developers VERY unfavorably. Most of the developers who don't self-publish games don't see a penny from their game until the publisher breaks even on the costs of making it. So it's better to take chances without a publisher.

i mean on how they call themselves as, or rather how those anti-capitalist pro indie silicon valley dude frame these devs are who definitely play dark souls and hollow knight and view them as peak video game that everyone should follow suit. /s

some publishers respect their works which are indeed rare. it's more of the mentality here. i don't care if the game is AAA or indie, as long as i give a damn to play those games. why should i support something when the market hates my taste in favor of others?

[The nameless Gamer]

Originally posted by sleeps:

i don't care if the game is AAA or indie, as long as i give a damn to play those games. why should i support something when the market hates my taste in favor of others?

An excellent attitude towards video games. They are first and foremost entertainment. What matters most is how many of your checkboxes they tick.

[Vince ✟]

We've got a number in the oven but its stale summer right now. Things will pick up in late October and into November. It helps to watch a few yt to show whats coming, as the store doesn't reflect this well enough. Don't feel like its wasted on your account though, as you'll go back and play those games as long as they are available. I still play my Sega games afterall.