What happened to gaming? No game is true fun anymore..

[szatanica]

I was scrolling through the immense list of games I managed to gathered over the years and for some reason (and I've been observing this for many years now) nothing really looks attractive and exciting anymore. Sure, there are so many "amazing" games out there, a lot of indie productions into which developers pulled their hearts and souls but somehow games don't give this "THING" that they used to. These oldies, with really bad graphics had something in them, something which makes me want to go back to them over and over (like first and second Fallout or Discworld Noir from the 90s , Fahrenheit, or first Neverwinter Nights, the list goes on). Like they lost something inherently special.Sure, there are some exquisit exceptions like Papers Please or Papetura or Mass Effect but it's a tiny percentage. The rest is just...meh...

Is it the games or is it us/me?

[Boblin the Goblin]

Zefar님이 먼저 게시:

szatanica님이 먼저 게시:

I was scrolling through the immense list of games I managed to gathered over the years and for some reason (and I've been observing this for many years now) nothing really looks attractive and exciting anymore. Sure, there are so many "amazing" games out there, a lot of indie productions into which developers pulled their hearts and souls but somehow games don't give this "THING" that they used to. These oldies, with really bad graphics had something in them, something which makes me want to go back to them over and over (like first and second Fallout or Discworld Noir from the 90s , Fahrenheit, or first Neverwinter Nights, the list goes on). Like they lost something inherently special.Sure, there are some exquisit exceptions like Papers Please or Papetura or Mass Effect but it's a tiny percentage. The rest is just...meh...

Is it the games or is it us/me?

Out of those titles you mention only Papers Please and Papetura has been recently released. The others are anywhere from 10 to 20 years old. Or even older.

SURELY there must have been some other games these past 10 years that you have remotely enjoyed?

If not your "Things I like" are extremely narrow.

Papers Please was released in 2013.

[Blitzwing]

The market did change,

in 90tes you had to sell a physical copy, so you had to convince a real person publisher
there was no actual data what people wanted,
so creative games had higher chance to get greenlighted
and there was no common internet, to fix products later on
your company had to be in same place


Today anybody with 100 dollar can go ahead and upload anything on steam,
so we are flooded with many amateur products.

Industrial games get a lot of flack
-overhyped reviews from paid media
you never see a paid review to call out a bad game to be a bad game.

- games are forced to be released while they are not ready
- games are forced into DLCs, micro pay and other shenanigans
- games are forced to be online, even those that are for single player
- games are forced to have DRM, despite it does not work and slows down games
- games are forced to chase trends, so by arrival they are outdated
- a lot of management problems,
like game is made by several companies across continents

- shareholders:
they force games to be released too early and to be abandoned shortly after

[Crazy Tiger]

Blitzwing님이 먼저 게시:

in 90tes you had to sell a physical copy, so you had to convince a real person publisher
there was no actual data what people wanted,
so creative games had higher chance to get greenlighted
and there was no common internet, to fix products later on
your company had to be in same place

The shovelware of the 80s and 90s disagrees with that.

Rose tinted glasses, that's what it is.

[TGC> The Games Collector]

Gaming... has changed.

It's no longer about gameplay, fun, or stories. It's an endless series of micro-transactions, bought by whales and npcs.

Video games--and its consumerism --has become a well-oiled machine.

ID-tagged gamers carry ID-tagged mobile phones, use ID-tagged software. Nanomachines inside their bodies enhance and regulate their abilities...

[Tito Shivan]

TGC> The Games Collector님이 먼저 게시:

It's no longer about gameplay, fun, or stories. It's an endless series of micro-transactions, bought by whales and npcs.

You're looking for games at the wrong places if that's all you find.

[Blitzwing]

In 90tes -2000 you could rent for 2 Euros any game CD for 3 days.

Finding good games is just today much harder.
It was a big mistake to allow internet requirements to take over.

[V3LTA]

Blitzwing님이 먼저 게시:

In 90tes -2000 you could rent for 2 Euros any game CD for 3 days.

Finding good games is just today much harder.
It was a big mistake to allow internet requirements to take over.

Xbox game pass, gog, epic games, games amazon prime and game keys from various websites.

I bought a lot of great game for less than 5 euro on huge sales. Or free or when ever option a and b were not available i bought a key

Btw if you would buy a game similaor to the old games it would be also much cheaper then an up to date game :) its kinda weird to compare

[TGC> The Games Collector]

Tito Shivan님이 먼저 게시:

TGC> The Games Collector님이 먼저 게시:

It's no longer about gameplay, fun, or stories. It's an endless series of micro-transactions, bought by whales and npcs.

You're looking for games at the wrong places if that's all you find.

Yup, google play store. Really a dark place for gaming.

[Jamebonds1]

TGC> The Games Collector님이 먼저 게시:

Tito Shivan님이 먼저 게시:

You're looking for games at the wrong places if that's all you find.

Yup, google play store. Really a dark place for gaming.

There is no guarantee that they advertised is real games. I had downloaded some and it is not the same.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Jamebonds1님이 먼저 게시:

TGC> The Games Collector님이 먼저 게시:

Yup, google play store. Really a dark place for gaming.

There is no guarantee that they advertised is real games. I had downloaded some and it is not the same.

The Play Store advertises games all the time.

[Crazy Tiger]

Blitzwing님이 먼저 게시:

Finding good games is just today much harder.

What? I find good and fun games WAAAAY easier than I ever did in the 80s and 90s.

Heck, there is too many of them, whether they're older titles, current titles or yet to be released. I'll never be able to play them all before I kick the bucket.

[Arlequino]

I believe greed, agile methodology and MVP's (minimum viable products) took the soul out of the gaming industry. We have been flooded with unfinished soulless games for the last 5+ years.

[TGC> The Games Collector]

Crazy Tiger님이 먼저 게시:

Heck, there is too many of them, whether they're older titles, current titles or yet to be released.

Apparently that's what makes it so hard to find a good game. There's so many you gotta dig deep into the pile.
And not every game that's advertised well is fun, just like fun games are often enough not well advertised.
Then there's also personal taste, making it even harder to refine the search.
It almost becomes a quest in itself. lol

[V3LTA]

i have some favorite small and honest content creators for specific genres, most games they like i will like too probably

but i do a lot of my own research as well ":)

[Blitzwing]

Em guys, did you notice how everybody does do make a game for that elusive and non existing "wide big main modern audience" and fails horribly?

It also depends on the main genre you play. Real-time strategy was trown first under the bus of E-Sports. RTS games for example had their peak in year 2007 with Tiberium Wars, from 2010 between Starcraft 2 and Age of Empires 4 from 2021 we had no good AAA games.

It gives a lot of time to catch the games you did miss out. Especially with the big discounts you have on Steam and on GoG for old games. Some games are also meanwhile abandonware.