Have videogames technically regressed? or are modern devs not as skilled?

[AdahnGorion]

I often see debate focused on "woke this" and "anti woke that" when videogames and their quality is debated. But I wanted to talk about something else.

Have videogames gotten to a point, where they are less technical than they used to be?
It seems like many modern games (not all ofc) even more so when we talk about AAA games and AA+ by large corporations are less technical and advanced than older games par graphics (but even in that situation often artstyle is odd now a days, bright and happy in everything, even dark fantasy)

Maybe its because videogames have become less of a passion project and more of mass products for the mainstream. Maybe the younger generation staff is not as skilled? (that could be a fault of either education or the work exeprience as well)

It really boggles me how so many huge budget games can be so far off technical and gameplay wise compared to much older games.


To list an example, you can see newly released Avowed vs Oblivion below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhL1NZugsBk

We already had the debate about other games such as Dragon Age: Origins vs Veilguard (and how the entire IP have gone from a Dark, Gritty cRPG with lots of agency, to a simplistic action adventure in a bright glowing and almost happy setting....

Writing is severely dumbed down in many games where that used to be a core (RPG´s primarily) and I often think about if it really is AI that made up the stories.


What do you think? What could the reasons be? Do you have examples of this yourself?
Again I am full aware that some great passion videogames are still created, they just seem to be a minority compared to the older days.

Have fun all. Remember to be friendly towards eachother.

[Punished Rusty Shackleford]

well there was that finding that most people are playing older games compared to newer ones.

https://kotaku.com/old-games-2023-playtime-data-fortnite-roblox-minecraft-1851382474

Also certain "remasters" who bloat their games and remove features previously available is another reason why players hate newer games.

[TGC> The Games Collector]

AdahnGorion님이 먼저 게시:

Maybe its because videogames have become less of a passion project and more of mass products for the mainstream. Maybe the younger generation staff is not as skilled? (that could be a fault of either education or the work exeprience as well)

With AAA games it seems a mix of those two. Big publishers seem to desperately want to make everything by a safe formula, which means the design will probably already start out boring.
And they demand everyone to work on the next big thing after release, even if there's bugs to fix.

Also no idea what's up with some of these designers, writers and other parts of the dev team, but a few of them just seem to hate what they're making, and they love to scream that on xitter, which they also hate but still use for some reason.


With indie games it seems mostly a lack of experience. Obviously small starter teams won't know all the tricks of the trade, or where to look for answers when they face annoying and persistent glitches...

There's also probably less inhouse engines. Or a long use of the same game engine that everyone's familiar with, which also makes it a bit more difficult to get things done.

[AdahnGorion]

Punished Rusty Shackleford님이 먼저 게시:

well there was that finding that most people are playing older games compared to newer ones.

https://kotaku.com/old-games-2023-playtime-data-fortnite-roblox-minecraft-1851382474

Also certain "remasters" who bloat their games and remove features previously available is another reason why players hate newer games.

But people playing older videogames is caused by the modern games having lower quality (regression) but what I am trying to get more opinions on is what said cause could be for the regression.

Indeed the whole take remasters and remove features is odd.. that make no sense to me, albeit some remasters and enhanced editions do put more on instead. But it depends ofc.

I still find it odd.. that games such as ie. Avowed can even sell.. (yes its not doing well, but still what makes some people accept this quality?)
Almost every new title in a old IP have failed..

To list a few new ones.

Civ7
Avowed
Veilguard

Sure there are games that do well.. we could list KC:D2 as an example.. but the vast majority are regressions of their former iterations.. I feel like I have to wait ages on good games, as compared to older days where I would have too much to choose from.

[76561198422372648]

Videogames today are nothing but bloatware made by people who Do not care, Do not want to put in the time and Do not play videogames.
It's blunt but it's the truth.

[Heitor Villa-Lobos]

AdahnGorion님이 먼저 게시:

Maybe its because videogames have become less of a passion project and more of mass products for the mainstream. Maybe the younger generation staff is not as skilled? (that could be a fault of either education or the work exeprience as well)

Those are the main reasons.
Its a very strong point on why we should boycott the large conglomerates. They've become too large to even exist in a classical capitalist sense. They're anticompetitive and sterilize their fields.

We can only hope that the independent studios grow and remain independent.

But the second part is also a major issue:
When people programmed in middle-level languages, created their own engines, etc, they were a lot more careful with the use of resources. Now people just build games without understanding the underlying technologies.

I believe that we can accomplish great things by having libre games, that allows for modifying/hacking the sources, and improving the code and gameplay.

I believe gamers can participate more of the gaming experience, as individuals, and as community.

We already see fan translations. Its time we have fan spinoffs, and dojinshi.

[Q-T_3.14.exe]

I don't think no one is pandering for anyone. Just fancy suit business men afraid of losing profits.

[Devious]

Part of it is down to nostalgia. Simply put, there was slop in every era, it's just forgettable by definition.

But it's also because making a game is extremely expensive these days. You can't take risks on a 150M $ project, so studios are incentivized to play it safe, and that means making sacrifices.

Why hire writing talent when most people skip the cutscenes? Why implement deep mechanics that the average player can't wrap his head around? Why spend two more months on optimization if most setups can run the game passably?

Anything that doesn't offer a guaranteed return on investment is immediately suspect to publishers, which has actually started to bite them in the ass in recent years. Of course, AI will make it quicker and cheaper to make large games in the future, but it's still hard to say who will be the winners and losers of that development.

[AdahnGorion]

Myag B님이 먼저 게시:

Videogames today are nothing but bloatware made by people who Do not care, Do not want to put in the time and Do not play videogames.
It's blunt but it's the truth.

That is certainly true for some games, but I don´t think it accounts for all.
But if we look at society in general, you see lots of younger generation (compared to me) that are more focused on themselves and work is just a means to get money... I personally see work as a passion.. (but that has its faults too, nothing is perfect btw.. nor me)

[Alliesaurus]

The newer games lack a sense of humour and replayability and just focus on the latest graphics or want to appeal to a certain audience. Or try to appeal to too many people and it becomes a mess. A still play ancient games and rarely buy games now.

[AdahnGorion]

TGC> The Games Collector님이 먼저 게시:

AdahnGorion님이 먼저 게시:

Maybe its because videogames have become less of a passion project and more of mass products for the mainstream. Maybe the younger generation staff is not as skilled? (that could be a fault of either education or the work exeprience as well)

With AAA games it seems a mix of those two. Big publishers seem to desperately want to make everything by a safe formula, which means the design will probably already start out boring.
And they demand everyone to work on the next big thing after release, even if there's bugs to fix.

Also no idea what's up with some of these designers, writers and other parts of the dev team, but a few of them just seem to hate what they're making, and they love to scream that on xitter, which they also hate but still use for some reason.


With indie games it seems mostly a lack of experience. Obviously small starter teams won't know all the tricks of the trade, or where to look for answers when they face annoying and persistent glitches...

There's also probably less inhouse engines. Or a long use of the same game engine that everyone's familiar with, which also makes it a bit more difficult to get things done.

There really is a big focus on "safe" in large corporations/conglomerates
They also often seek to try and catch all audience (not specific target groups)

I reckon there is less room for being creative at the big corporations as well, as they have guidelines on what to do and what to add..
That might account for some of it.. but you still see independent studio doing these odd things as well..

But you have some good points.

[NW/RL]

When you make media of any sort you are making it for a certain cohort of people. If you're trying to make as much money as possible, you want this cohort to be as large as possible, as that way you can sell it to more people. This means the business people managing larger gaming companies will practically always command from on high that the game needs to be made more accessible and generic so a wider audience can pay for it

[AdahnGorion]

Heitor Villa-Lobos님이 먼저 게시:

AdahnGorion님이 먼저 게시:

Maybe its because videogames have become less of a passion project and more of mass products for the mainstream. Maybe the younger generation staff is not as skilled? (that could be a fault of either education or the work exeprience as well)

Those are the main reasons.
Its a very strong point on why we should boycott the large conglomerates. They've become too large to even exist in a classical capitalist sense. They're anticompetitive and sterilize their fields.

We can only hope that the independent studios grow and remain independent.

But the second part is also a major issue:
When people programmed in middle-level languages, created their own engines, etc, they were a lot more careful with the use of resources. Now people just build games without understanding the underlying technologies.

I believe that we can accomplish great things by having libre games, that allows for modifying/hacking the sources, and improving the code and gameplay.

I believe gamers can participate more of the gaming experience, as individuals, and as community.

We already see fan translations. Its time we have fan spinoffs, and dojinshi.

Very good points. Those are most likely some reasons for sure.
The issue is that the vast majority of independent studio will be gobbled up (if they don´t want to, then hostile takeover sometimes) by the larger corporations.. its very rare cases where they can fend off if they get enough success.

[AdahnGorion]

Devious님이 먼저 게시:

Part of it is down to nostalgia. Simply put, there was slop in every era, it's just forgettable by definition.

But it's also because making a game is extremely expensive these days. You can't take risks on a 150M $ project, so studios are incentivized to play it safe, and that means making sacrifices.

Why hire writing talent when most people skip the cutscenes? Why implement deep mechanics that the average player can't wrap his head around? Why spend two more months on optimization if most setups can run the game passably?

Anything that doesn't offer a guaranteed return on investment is immediately suspect to publishers, which has actually started to bite them in the ass in recent years. Of course, AI will make it quicker and cheaper to make large games in the future, but it's still hard to say who will be the winners and losers of that development.

While nostalgia sure has an impact on us all... I still can find games that are insanely good.. they are just very very very rare compared to the older days.. not because of nostalgia, but because of the fact that modern games seems to be much more safe, more simplistic and its rare to find ones where you have to think deeper or even philosophical.. its like most are just "happy joyful all is great" and we are all friends etc....

If your logic was true about most people skipping cutscenes, would dislike complexity (albeit streamlined in our modern day) then games such as BG3 would not exist.. but they do.

[Tito Shivan]

Myag B님이 먼저 게시:

Videogames today are nothing but bloatware made by people who Do not care, Do not want to put in the time and Do not play videogames.
It's blunt but it's the truth.

If you think that you're looking at the wrong videogames.

[TGC> The Games Collector]

AdahnGorion님이 먼저 게시:

While nostalgia sure has an impact on us all... I still can find games that are insanely good.. they are just very very very rare compared to the older days.. not because of nostalgia, but because of the fact that modern games seems to be much more safe, more simplistic and its rare to find ones where you have to think deeper or even philosophical.. its like most are just "happy joyful all is great" and we are all friends etc....

Those Fear & Hunger games definitely don't seem like happy games...

If you want anything that's not done by the standard formula AAA likes to churn out, you really have to look at the indie games.

Although thanks to the sheer volume, it's also a lot of digging to find a game that appeals to you. Because there's simply a whole lot of them too, and if the majority isn't to your liking, it does make it seem like there's hardly any good games around... but it's only a few in comparison of the large total of games.

Basically, in absolute numbers there's more good games made these days, but relatively, it seems less under the heap of the rest of what's made.