As someone who played/plays a lot of MMOs and stuff like Destiny/The Division: You’d be amazed at the number of people who don’t get to step two of that simple statement.
People who are just downright angry at a game but still actively playing… “Man, I can’t believe they’re forcing me to go into PvP to get [some arbitrary weapon or cosmetic item]!” they grumble, not realizing that they don’t need to tick that little check box in their collection.
People who say things like “I grinded out this holiday season and bought the event pass and I didn’t even like the stuff it offered!” is perhaps not technically ‘common’, but that kind of situation happens often enough that I’m a bit worried for gamers as a whole.
Its some kind of weird combination of a hoarder’s mentality, a sunk cost fallacy, and probably some FOMO sprinkled on top… all mixed together by some psychologist on a company’s payroll to maximize profits.
Dude is spot on with Starfield. I’ve played the shit out of so many Bethesda games. I was SO excited for Starfield. But I just didn’t have the time. I didn’t even get to that planet where he does the quests, I just quit and I’m afraid that if I pick it up I’ll accomplish nothing in the little time I have.
I always considered myself a dedicated gamer, like gaming was my sole hobby. Lately the last game I really could get fully into was stardew valley because I could fit in a single “day” or two in my schedule and finish on a hype every time.
Last RPG I played I had to make note of what was happening because by the time I picked up the game again I forgot what was happening.
Sure, if you don’t have time to binge play anymore it’s harder to get into genres that depend on following a narrative for tens of hours. Have you tried going back to Daggerfall or Morrowind? Because those weren’t bite-sized then, either, you just had five hours after school to sit down and play.
Which is fine. It’s perfectly acceptable to say that you no longer have time or energy to get into long-winded stuff and prefer faster paced games. I agree. But that’s not because modern games are poorly designed.
Hell, these days I can boot up a PS5 and be right where I left off in 20 seconds. When I was a kid loading up a game was a 15 minute proposition before the damn thing even rendered anything on-screen.
(Preface - I’ve not yet picked up Starfield, though I have hundreds [far too many] hours in other Bethesda games; Cyberpunk 2.0, though, has thoroughly captured my attention.)
I hear what you’re saying, but the YouTube commenter apparently loves Elden Ring, which I found to be an awful game and painful to play. Man, I love complex, deeply explorable games, but I played Elden Ring for 8 hours and never felt like I was making an inch of pleasurable progress. The commenter complains about games being a chore, but what about games like Elden Ring that aren’t chores, but are literal punishment?
I guess I had trouble accepting the commenter’s point of view after he rah-rah’d for Elden Ring…
The point of elden ring and its siblings is the feeling of earned progress through effort and skill. You learn how to kill a boss slowly, and you fight and grapple for every level to build that strength. You do a similar thing with the environment.
The complaint of chores is one of tedium, not challenge. You dont learn to complete the chore list, you just fill time with it.
If you dont enjoy the challenge souls games offer you, its not your type of fun. But I feel the same way about car games, doesnt mean theres fault in the racing genre.
You’ve just described a chore you enjoy vs a chore you don’t. If you enjoy it, great, it’s not a chore for you! If you don’t enjoy it, it’s a boring tedious chore.
I found Elden Ring to be aggressively, intentionally designed to waste my time. At no point did I feel any sense of enjoyment. I found Starfield to be a bit lacking in depth and variety but otherwise OK-ish.
Elden Ring really scratches that exploratory game itch for me. Every meter felt worth visiting. You never really know what awaits in the next corner. If you’re lucky it might be the entrance to a completely unique area, all with its own set of enemies and bosses. It’s a game that dares to put an optional secret area behind a secret area behind another secret area.
Even on second play through I was caught off guard by some new surprises.
Compare it to Tears of the Kingdom for example. Wherever you go, you will find the same sets of enemies and often even the same environmental assets. After you’ve visited a few of the sky archipelago islands there’s few other surprises to see there. Encountering the first Flux Construct is a fun challenge, but after the 20th one it has turned into a mindless chore.
Modern gaming? I’m playing war thunder since 2016 (with interruptions) and it feels like a chore since 7 years. Now as I think of it, the chores began for me back in the 90s in a point and click adventure on a 286 PC.
If a game even remotely looks like a chore, I’m passing. I don’t have time to just mosey around limitless planets, mining for resources to build a gun or some shit.
Unless you let me swing around like fuckin Spider-man. Nothing’s a chore when you get to swing from chore to chore like fuckin Spider-man. Fuckin cool ass bitch with the pendulums and zipping and swinging and shit. Fuckin love Spider-man.
Did you remember to collect all the backpacks around New York and take pictures of all the landmarks though? Plus, you gotta beat all those Screwball challenges if you want all the suits.
In a game where running is fun, running all over the place won’t feel like a chore. Well, only if you don’t use the metro. Once you start fast travelling it begins losing appeal.
If you want to be a completionist, you can’t blame the game. Spider-man is perfectly playable without finding every single collectible and completing every challenge.
Spider-man games are one of my favourite. I really liked the recent one and the 1.5 featuring miles. I’ve lost count of how many I have blown days on. Prototype, hulk, etc., were decent but I generally prefer the spider-man games with spider man in them. That said my favourite spider-man game is gravity rush. I included the ‘-’ in spider-man because he told me to in at least one of the games.
Shit I’m so so so sorry when I wrote that I thought it was obvious I was making a joke about Spider-man being an entitled millennial but now, looking back that obviously was not clear. That’s 100% my bad!!!
While I agree with the title, this particular analysis is kind of shallow. It’s one thing to analyze predatory game design, but here it’s mostly “I don’t like this so it’s bad”. It’s also very narrowly focusing on AAA open world. Old AAA open worlds were much worse. Remember how empty and soulless the first Far Cry and AssCreed were?
I laughed when the author makes a bunch of examples where he calls cutscenes a waste of time. I don’t like action games for example and I can’t find any enjoyment in Dark Souls, but I’m not going to argue that it’s a waste of time or ignore the fact that people genuinely like it.
And then he goes on to say that modern games are made by random people in tech that aren’t into gaming. I mean, bro, have you tried applying for a fucking job as a game developer?? Participated in a lunch break at a gaming company where 90% of people only talk about videogames?
There was another video post to this community last night at around the same time (although was later deleted) saying “Why aren’t games fun anymore?”
This entire thing feels shallow as hell and just one angry dude who’s pissed about things not being like they used to be so he’s whining about it to other people who are angry.
There is literally nothing objective about this. It’s all using heavy skewed data to try and prove its point. He has absolutely no clue what he’s talking about. He’s just angry and saying things that he thinks are intelligent to try and back up his point.
Only thing I’ve discovered from this post is another “analyzer” to avoid at all possible costs.
This type of nostalgia porn is pretty popular on Youtube, but usually they at least make some valid point. Not in this case though.
It’s also funny how Skyrim is presented as one of the ‘cool’ games, glossing over the fact that it has a massive, slow exposition dump at the beginning, which was criticized ever since it launched.
And then he goes on to say that modern games are made by random people in tech that aren’t into gaming. I mean, bro, have you tried applying for a fucking job as a game developer?? Participated in a lunch break at a gaming company where 90% of people only talk about videogames?
Yeah. I guarantee there’s nobody in game develop that isn’t into gaming. Not only is game development much harder than regular web development you also get paid less and are usually treated worse. I love gaming but I wouldn’t go into game development because it’s just not worth the effort for me. I’ll much rather do my cushy regular tech work and have more time playing games.
It depends. There are some people here and there. But also, you don’t need to be a hardcore gamer to do a LOT of the technical work in gaming. Mostly you just need to be really good at coding and somehow prefer decent snacks and a lax dress code to money and job stability.
Technically you don’t need to be a gamer at all to work in gaming if you’re a good developer, but the question is why? Because my experience has been that you get decent snacks and lax dress code in addition to money and job stability. From my experience the only reason to go into game dev is because you want to work on games. If that’s not the reason you’re just better off doing tech work elsewhere.
Yeah, no, we’re not disagreeing here. Absolutely go spend a decade sorting out a single form in a banking software thing. It is objectively the better choice.
All I’m saying is the few people who get into it non-vocationally are mostly there for the vibes.
Bro, banks are one of the worst places to work. I would rather work as a game dev than go into banking. There are infinitely better places to work at but if your experience is only between banking and game dev then I can see how game dev could look much more appealing.
I’m having just as much or even more fun than I had 30 years ago.
I do however refrain from buying any overhyped AAA game when it comes out and wait maybe a year or two until people’s reviews on it are out.
Then under those conditions I can avoid heavilly monetised games like the plague: not just microtransaction crap but also things with Season Passes and even games with lots of DLCs as lots of those are usually a bad sign.
In the last few years I also just avoid MMORPGs because I don’t really want to have responsability towards other people (such as guild members to go on scheduled raids) and prefer setups were I can do things when I feel like it and can do it.
Basically give yourself time to find out from others how the game really is, then avoid anything with even the slightest wiff of having a business model that gains from people spending a significant proportion of their life in the game as those tend to have lots of grindy stuff, scheduled events that you “cannot miss” and lots and lots of disguised (and not so disguised) sales push - for the whole work for a living whilst being constantly under pressure from sales pushes trying to sell you useless shit, there’s already Real Life.
Funnily enough, I end up mainly playing Indie games and older AAA games and I do mean it when I say I have as much or even more fun as I ever did gaming - it probably helps that I’ve long transcended being dazzled by whatever passes for hyper-realistic graphics at the tech level of that time (I’m from the days of Pacman) and care way more about gameplay since that’s were the fun is and I play games for fun, not for artistic appreciation.
So much on point. Gaming is about content these days, so stretch it out.
How many got annoyed with Diablo IV nerfs which Activision adopt on every game they release. Suck people in then nerf it to make you spend more time doing the same thing over again. I didn’t invest time or money into this, and I have to admit I felt very smug when I read about them doing this.
Gaming should be about entertainment, today’s triple A efforts just aren’t.
I feel like the word content itself is completely wrongheaded. How much “content” does Tetris have? What would more content in a game like that even be?
Somebody hasn’t gone back to play mainstream games on the PS2 era recently, when large developers had a fraction of the money and any game below 30 hours was ruthlessly slammed online for being “too short” and “not good value”.
I swear, people use the term “triple-A” just to refer to bits of gaming they don’t like, regardless of who made them or for how much money. The term is meaningless by now.
I have never played any PS2 games. Maybe that is the problem. What was acceptable for a console has become the norm now on a PC. But, if you are happy with the bloatware that games have become then good for you. I will not be supporting them with my cash.
Then you either expressed it confusingly or you aren’t understanding my reply. Because it sure sounded like you were saying modern PC game design tropes were console-specific back in the early 2000s and that’s why you don’t remember grindy games existing back then.
You’re openly saying you didn’t play older games. You don’t get to say what something has become when you’re not familiar with the originating form. Games ALWAYS had “bloatware”. Console and PC. They were always designed to be padded and stretched out.
No one’s saying you have to pay for games you don’t like. They’re saying you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about because grindy games have been a popular mainstay of the medium since its inception.
There have always been grindy games. BUT there has always been other options for the more popular non grindy games. Now we see a prevalence of the grindy games, 4and a lack of content in the other area. This is due to cost. It is cheaper to hype up a game with advertising than it is to add content. You clearly don’t even realise you are being conned, clearly.
First off the idea that “other people share this opinion” is some form of validation of said opinion is…less than persuasive. “The earth is flat and you can find lots of people online saying the same thing” is an example of why you can’t just rest on other people agreeing with you as being the primary support of your positions. And it’s one of the first things brought up in the video so clearly this person feels it’s important to bring up.
Secondly the idea that older games respected your time or weren’t grindy is ridiculous. From core MMO designs, to JRPGs there are plenty of examples of old games that waste your time in some way or another.
It also sounds like he is saying that all games need to be simple games like Tetris. No story/cutscenes and no complicated game design that someone had to spend time learning. That’s certainly an opinion, but I don’t agree that game developers should only make games that target one specific person’s taste.
Opinion arguments, like “gaming feels like a chore” require different support from fact arguments like, “the world is flat.” You absolutely can not prove the world is flat, gravity works, or birds are real with an opinion poll, but a poll will support whether newer games are less fun or Coke is better than Pepsi.
IMO, the best argument against the video is that he’s focused on old games that he still plays - he’s comparing the best of old games with whatever has just come out. I’d argue that there’s something special and unique about a game you can still play a decade later - it’s not the story, which is definitely going to get tiring after 10-20 playthroughs; it’s not the quests for the same reason. Game mechanics, decent pacing for that one-more-turn feel, and maybe just aesthetic appeal. Where would he put games like Minecraft or Valheim, both of which rely heavily on resource farming and repetitive building?
I think that many of the new, big titles have tried to capture all possible niches - part FPS, part RPG, part basebuilder - and it’s hard to make all of those seem important to the game without forcing FPS players to do basebuilding and basebuilders to do RPG. That takes away from each person’s enjoyment of their preferred mechanic and imposes tedium.
Opinion arguments, like “gaming feels like a chore” require different support from fact arguments like, “the world is flat.”
Sure, but “other people say this” isn’t going to hold much sway in pretty much any context. It’s not really worth bringing up at all.
I think that many of the new, big titles have tried to capture all possible niches - part FPS, part RPG, part basebuilder - and it’s hard to make all of those seem important to the game without forcing FPS players to do basebuilding and basebuilders to do RPG.
Some do, but plenty don’t. Just like there are plenty of indie games not worth playing, there are plenty of AAA games you can avoid if you don’t think you’ll enjoy it. And the reverse is true for both cases as well.
You can get a lot of mileage out of what other people say by paying attention to the ones who give reasons for those opinions and focusing on the one whose reasons correspond to what you value in a game.
Overall I think a good review of a piece of media doesn’t even need to say if it’s good or not; what it needs to do is describe that aspects someone might find compelling or annoying so they can make an informed decision about whether it’s a good fit for their taste.
Yeah this is me. Tell me “Find 10/25 Bloblins in the area to continue” and I get upset, but instead tell me “There are 25 Bloblins on this map”, and if there’s an cool optional prize with it then you bet I’ll spend time scouring the map for Bloblins.
I enjoy things the most when I can set the goals with just some hinting from the game. If it’s just something trying to manufacture attention to the game it’s a big turn-off.
I rrally dont have much time for it but I love gaming. But over the past years, I started to play less and less because most of the games requires so much time and patience. Sometimes, you litteraly have ti spend hours learning stuff before you can actually start playing and enjoy. Or you need to spend half of the games managing inventory. I cant invest dozens and dozens of hours in games anymore, and I feel like simple, easy to play for short session games are disappearing… So even if I’m often tempted by AAA games, I usually now go for snall indie title, and it’s a good thing in the end. I’m still gonna play the shit of Baldurs Gate 3 next Summer tho.
Or you need to spend half of the games managing inventory.
On the other hand, I enjoy this (to a certain degree, mind you). Going through all the random crap I’ve picked up off the ground in Skyrim to maximize selling potential, moving things around in Diablo II for the same reason, picking through my vault in Destiny 2 to figure out which guns to keep and which to dismantle, organizing my various bits and bobs in FFXIV:ARR across my retainers so that everything is where it should be… I kind of dig that kind of stuff because its a bit of a management game within the regular game and a nice break from mindlessly murdering everything (and a bit of a “ooh presents on Christmas” kind of feel when you dig through all the stuff you’ve acquired).
On the gripping (third) hand, sometimes it does become more of a second job almost… Destiny 2, as an example again, feels like a chore sometimes keeping on top of all the various currencies and whether this random gun/armor that dropped is an upgrade over one of the multitude of other options I’ve had collecting dust for the past couple of years. “But maybe I’ll use it if they buff [gun type/perk/build]!” I think as I toss it into the pile, only to forever become an icon I ignore in DIM.
Pretty much yeah, there is a reason why Madden and FIFA (formerly) were top sellers every year with extremely minimal changes. It’s a safe game that sold like crazy. Same with Call of Duty. If we want something fresh, indie games for the most part try not to fall into the saturated market and stand out above their peers
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I’ve boycotted all GaS and live service games. I’ve never been happier and now I play the games I want to play not because I have to
Very complicated way of saying “I didn’t like this, so I stopped doing it.”
Well, duh.
As someone who played/plays a lot of MMOs and stuff like Destiny/The Division: You’d be amazed at the number of people who don’t get to step two of that simple statement.
People who are just downright angry at a game but still actively playing… “Man, I can’t believe they’re forcing me to go into PvP to get [some arbitrary weapon or cosmetic item]!” they grumble, not realizing that they don’t need to tick that little check box in their collection.
People who say things like “I grinded out this holiday season and bought the event pass and I didn’t even like the stuff it offered!” is perhaps not technically ‘common’, but that kind of situation happens often enough that I’m a bit worried for gamers as a whole.
Its some kind of weird combination of a hoarder’s mentality, a sunk cost fallacy, and probably some FOMO sprinkled on top… all mixed together by some psychologist on a company’s payroll to maximize profits.
Dude is spot on with Starfield. I’ve played the shit out of so many Bethesda games. I was SO excited for Starfield. But I just didn’t have the time. I didn’t even get to that planet where he does the quests, I just quit and I’m afraid that if I pick it up I’ll accomplish nothing in the little time I have.
I always considered myself a dedicated gamer, like gaming was my sole hobby. Lately the last game I really could get fully into was stardew valley because I could fit in a single “day” or two in my schedule and finish on a hype every time.
Last RPG I played I had to make note of what was happening because by the time I picked up the game again I forgot what was happening.
That’s a you problem, not a game problem, though.
Sure, if you don’t have time to binge play anymore it’s harder to get into genres that depend on following a narrative for tens of hours. Have you tried going back to Daggerfall or Morrowind? Because those weren’t bite-sized then, either, you just had five hours after school to sit down and play.
Which is fine. It’s perfectly acceptable to say that you no longer have time or energy to get into long-winded stuff and prefer faster paced games. I agree. But that’s not because modern games are poorly designed.
Hell, these days I can boot up a PS5 and be right where I left off in 20 seconds. When I was a kid loading up a game was a 15 minute proposition before the damn thing even rendered anything on-screen.
(Preface - I’ve not yet picked up Starfield, though I have hundreds [far too many] hours in other Bethesda games; Cyberpunk 2.0, though, has thoroughly captured my attention.)
I hear what you’re saying, but the YouTube commenter apparently loves Elden Ring, which I found to be an awful game and painful to play. Man, I love complex, deeply explorable games, but I played Elden Ring for 8 hours and never felt like I was making an inch of pleasurable progress. The commenter complains about games being a chore, but what about games like Elden Ring that aren’t chores, but are literal punishment?
I guess I had trouble accepting the commenter’s point of view after he rah-rah’d for Elden Ring…
The point of elden ring and its siblings is the feeling of earned progress through effort and skill. You learn how to kill a boss slowly, and you fight and grapple for every level to build that strength. You do a similar thing with the environment.
The complaint of chores is one of tedium, not challenge. You dont learn to complete the chore list, you just fill time with it.
If you dont enjoy the challenge souls games offer you, its not your type of fun. But I feel the same way about car games, doesnt mean theres fault in the racing genre.
You’ve just described a chore you enjoy vs a chore you don’t. If you enjoy it, great, it’s not a chore for you! If you don’t enjoy it, it’s a boring tedious chore.
I found Elden Ring to be aggressively, intentionally designed to waste my time. At no point did I feel any sense of enjoyment. I found Starfield to be a bit lacking in depth and variety but otherwise OK-ish.
I tried Elden Ring because the kids were loving it. I gave it about 3 hours and I still didn’t really know what was going on.
Elden Ring gave me the most buyers remorse I’ve ever felt
Elden ring was such a great game for me, I’m really sick of these movies with extra steps kind of game. To each their own I guess.
Elden Ring really scratches that exploratory game itch for me. Every meter felt worth visiting. You never really know what awaits in the next corner. If you’re lucky it might be the entrance to a completely unique area, all with its own set of enemies and bosses. It’s a game that dares to put an optional secret area behind a secret area behind another secret area.
Even on second play through I was caught off guard by some new surprises.
Compare it to Tears of the Kingdom for example. Wherever you go, you will find the same sets of enemies and often even the same environmental assets. After you’ve visited a few of the sky archipelago islands there’s few other surprises to see there. Encountering the first Flux Construct is a fun challenge, but after the 20th one it has turned into a mindless chore.
Modern gaming? I’m playing war thunder since 2016 (with interruptions) and it feels like a chore since 7 years. Now as I think of it, the chores began for me back in the 90s in a point and click adventure on a 286 PC.
Starfield has too many loading screens to be fun. I have the game on an SSD, but it’s still way too much.
I feel this way too, I’m currently doing all the riddles in Batman Arkham Knight, and although some are fun, most of them are boring.
I think most current games don’t even consider the fun factor anymore 😆
Remember when we could wreck the game with cheats like in GTA San Andreas or alike?
I used to just mess around with a buddy in the city doing whatever we wanted in the most uncomfortable form of local multiplayer that the PS2 offered.
If a game even remotely looks like a chore, I’m passing. I don’t have time to just mosey around limitless planets, mining for resources to build a gun or some shit.
Unless you let me swing around like fuckin Spider-man. Nothing’s a chore when you get to swing from chore to chore like fuckin Spider-man. Fuckin cool ass bitch with the pendulums and zipping and swinging and shit. Fuckin love Spider-man.
Edit: Spider-man
Did you remember to collect all the backpacks around New York and take pictures of all the landmarks though? Plus, you gotta beat all those Screwball challenges if you want all the suits.
Yup, and I loved every minute of it. Traversal and combat in that game were so much fun that none of it felt like a chore
In a game where running is fun, running all over the place won’t feel like a chore. Well, only if you don’t use the metro. Once you start fast travelling it begins losing appeal.
If you want to be a completionist, you can’t blame the game. Spider-man is perfectly playable without finding every single collectible and completing every challenge.
Spider-man games are one of my favourite. I really liked the recent one and the 1.5 featuring miles. I’ve lost count of how many I have blown days on. Prototype, hulk, etc., were decent but I generally prefer the spider-man games with spider man in them. That said my favourite spider-man game is gravity rush. I included the ‘-’ in spider-man because he told me to in at least one of the games.
I dunno. If anyone knows how to spell Spider-man correctly, it’s probably not some entitled self-righteous millennial
Edit: OH NO I’M SO SORRY I was making a joke, saying that Spider-man is an entitled millennial, not the commenter above
I only know because at least the Peter Parker spider-man frequently tells people how to spell it.
Shit I’m so so so sorry when I wrote that I thought it was obvious I was making a joke about Spider-man being an entitled millennial but now, looking back that obviously was not clear. That’s 100% my bad!!!
That’s because that’s how you spell Spider-Man.
Did you just say you love spiderman. That part wasn’t clear…
No, he wants to swing around while fucking Spider-Man. And who doesn’t?
While I agree with the title, this particular analysis is kind of shallow. It’s one thing to analyze predatory game design, but here it’s mostly “I don’t like this so it’s bad”. It’s also very narrowly focusing on AAA open world. Old AAA open worlds were much worse. Remember how empty and soulless the first Far Cry and AssCreed were?
I laughed when the author makes a bunch of examples where he calls cutscenes a waste of time. I don’t like action games for example and I can’t find any enjoyment in Dark Souls, but I’m not going to argue that it’s a waste of time or ignore the fact that people genuinely like it.
And then he goes on to say that modern games are made by random people in tech that aren’t into gaming. I mean, bro, have you tried applying for a fucking job as a game developer?? Participated in a lunch break at a gaming company where 90% of people only talk about videogames?
There was another video post to this community last night at around the same time (although was later deleted) saying “Why aren’t games fun anymore?”
This entire thing feels shallow as hell and just one angry dude who’s pissed about things not being like they used to be so he’s whining about it to other people who are angry.
There is literally nothing objective about this. It’s all using heavy skewed data to try and prove its point. He has absolutely no clue what he’s talking about. He’s just angry and saying things that he thinks are intelligent to try and back up his point.
Only thing I’ve discovered from this post is another “analyzer” to avoid at all possible costs.
This type of nostalgia porn is pretty popular on Youtube, but usually they at least make some valid point. Not in this case though.
It’s also funny how Skyrim is presented as one of the ‘cool’ games, glossing over the fact that it has a massive, slow exposition dump at the beginning, which was criticized ever since it launched.
Yeah. I guarantee there’s nobody in game develop that isn’t into gaming. Not only is game development much harder than regular web development you also get paid less and are usually treated worse. I love gaming but I wouldn’t go into game development because it’s just not worth the effort for me. I’ll much rather do my cushy regular tech work and have more time playing games.
It depends. There are some people here and there. But also, you don’t need to be a hardcore gamer to do a LOT of the technical work in gaming. Mostly you just need to be really good at coding and somehow prefer decent snacks and a lax dress code to money and job stability.
Technically you don’t need to be a gamer at all to work in gaming if you’re a good developer, but the question is why? Because my experience has been that you get decent snacks and lax dress code in addition to money and job stability. From my experience the only reason to go into game dev is because you want to work on games. If that’s not the reason you’re just better off doing tech work elsewhere.
Yeah, no, we’re not disagreeing here. Absolutely go spend a decade sorting out a single form in a banking software thing. It is objectively the better choice.
All I’m saying is the few people who get into it non-vocationally are mostly there for the vibes.
Bro, banks are one of the worst places to work. I would rather work as a game dev than go into banking. There are infinitely better places to work at but if your experience is only between banking and game dev then I can see how game dev could look much more appealing.
I’m having just as much or even more fun than I had 30 years ago.
I do however refrain from buying any overhyped AAA game when it comes out and wait maybe a year or two until people’s reviews on it are out.
Then under those conditions I can avoid heavilly monetised games like the plague: not just microtransaction crap but also things with Season Passes and even games with lots of DLCs as lots of those are usually a bad sign.
In the last few years I also just avoid MMORPGs because I don’t really want to have responsability towards other people (such as guild members to go on scheduled raids) and prefer setups were I can do things when I feel like it and can do it.
Basically give yourself time to find out from others how the game really is, then avoid anything with even the slightest wiff of having a business model that gains from people spending a significant proportion of their life in the game as those tend to have lots of grindy stuff, scheduled events that you “cannot miss” and lots and lots of disguised (and not so disguised) sales push - for the whole work for a living whilst being constantly under pressure from sales pushes trying to sell you useless shit, there’s already Real Life.
Funnily enough, I end up mainly playing Indie games and older AAA games and I do mean it when I say I have as much or even more fun as I ever did gaming - it probably helps that I’ve long transcended being dazzled by whatever passes for hyper-realistic graphics at the tech level of that time (I’m from the days of Pacman) and care way more about gameplay since that’s were the fun is and I play games for fun, not for artistic appreciation.
So much on point. Gaming is about content these days, so stretch it out.
How many got annoyed with Diablo IV nerfs which Activision adopt on every game they release. Suck people in then nerf it to make you spend more time doing the same thing over again. I didn’t invest time or money into this, and I have to admit I felt very smug when I read about them doing this.
Gaming should be about entertainment, today’s triple A efforts just aren’t.
And then sell a pass to speed up your progress. It’s a terrible gaming model. It’s apparently a great business model though.
I feel like the word content itself is completely wrongheaded. How much “content” does Tetris have? What would more content in a game like that even be?
Yeeeeah. No padding in old games. None at all.
Somebody hasn’t gone back to play mainstream games on the PS2 era recently, when large developers had a fraction of the money and any game below 30 hours was ruthlessly slammed online for being “too short” and “not good value”.
I swear, people use the term “triple-A” just to refer to bits of gaming they don’t like, regardless of who made them or for how much money. The term is meaningless by now.
I have never played any PS2 games. Maybe that is the problem. What was acceptable for a console has become the norm now on a PC. But, if you are happy with the bloatware that games have become then good for you. I will not be supporting them with my cash.
Oh, like PC games in 2001 weren’t just like that as well. This isn’t a platform thing, this is a development cost vs budget vs technology interplay.
So yeah, PC games were just like that, too, except back then the console ports were much, much worse than they are now, so that part also sucked.
You have just reiterated what I have just said.
Then you either expressed it confusingly or you aren’t understanding my reply. Because it sure sounded like you were saying modern PC game design tropes were console-specific back in the early 2000s and that’s why you don’t remember grindy games existing back then.
You’re openly saying you didn’t play older games. You don’t get to say what something has become when you’re not familiar with the originating form. Games ALWAYS had “bloatware”. Console and PC. They were always designed to be padded and stretched out.
You are talking to someone who enduring the tape decks during the commodore era. The grind then was just getting the game to run.
No one’s saying you have to pay for games you don’t like. They’re saying you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about because grindy games have been a popular mainstay of the medium since its inception.
Did you even bother to read what I said?
There have always been grindy games. BUT there has always been other options for the more popular non grindy games. Now we see a prevalence of the grindy games, 4and a lack of content in the other area. This is due to cost. It is cheaper to hype up a game with advertising than it is to add content. You clearly don’t even realise you are being conned, clearly.
First off the idea that “other people share this opinion” is some form of validation of said opinion is…less than persuasive. “The earth is flat and you can find lots of people online saying the same thing” is an example of why you can’t just rest on other people agreeing with you as being the primary support of your positions. And it’s one of the first things brought up in the video so clearly this person feels it’s important to bring up.
Secondly the idea that older games respected your time or weren’t grindy is ridiculous. From core MMO designs, to JRPGs there are plenty of examples of old games that waste your time in some way or another.
It also sounds like he is saying that all games need to be simple games like Tetris. No story/cutscenes and no complicated game design that someone had to spend time learning. That’s certainly an opinion, but I don’t agree that game developers should only make games that target one specific person’s taste.
Opinion arguments, like “gaming feels like a chore” require different support from fact arguments like, “the world is flat.” You absolutely can not prove the world is flat, gravity works, or birds are real with an opinion poll, but a poll will support whether newer games are less fun or Coke is better than Pepsi.
IMO, the best argument against the video is that he’s focused on old games that he still plays - he’s comparing the best of old games with whatever has just come out. I’d argue that there’s something special and unique about a game you can still play a decade later - it’s not the story, which is definitely going to get tiring after 10-20 playthroughs; it’s not the quests for the same reason. Game mechanics, decent pacing for that one-more-turn feel, and maybe just aesthetic appeal. Where would he put games like Minecraft or Valheim, both of which rely heavily on resource farming and repetitive building?
I think that many of the new, big titles have tried to capture all possible niches - part FPS, part RPG, part basebuilder - and it’s hard to make all of those seem important to the game without forcing FPS players to do basebuilding and basebuilders to do RPG. That takes away from each person’s enjoyment of their preferred mechanic and imposes tedium.
Sure, but “other people say this” isn’t going to hold much sway in pretty much any context. It’s not really worth bringing up at all.
Some do, but plenty don’t. Just like there are plenty of indie games not worth playing, there are plenty of AAA games you can avoid if you don’t think you’ll enjoy it. And the reverse is true for both cases as well.
You can get a lot of mileage out of what other people say by paying attention to the ones who give reasons for those opinions and focusing on the one whose reasons correspond to what you value in a game.
Overall I think a good review of a piece of media doesn’t even need to say if it’s good or not; what it needs to do is describe that aspects someone might find compelling or annoying so they can make an informed decision about whether it’s a good fit for their taste.
There are definitely games that are designed to pull as much money from the player as possible, just avoid them. Don’t buy them, don’t play them.
I clicked it and the ad (Before my ad blocker kicked on) was for Eve online.
So slightly less modern games are chores as well!
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Yeah this is me. Tell me “Find 10/25 Bloblins in the area to continue” and I get upset, but instead tell me “There are 25 Bloblins on this map”, and if there’s an cool optional prize with it then you bet I’ll spend time scouring the map for Bloblins.
I enjoy things the most when I can set the goals with just some hinting from the game. If it’s just something trying to manufacture attention to the game it’s a big turn-off.
I rrally dont have much time for it but I love gaming. But over the past years, I started to play less and less because most of the games requires so much time and patience. Sometimes, you litteraly have ti spend hours learning stuff before you can actually start playing and enjoy. Or you need to spend half of the games managing inventory. I cant invest dozens and dozens of hours in games anymore, and I feel like simple, easy to play for short session games are disappearing… So even if I’m often tempted by AAA games, I usually now go for snall indie title, and it’s a good thing in the end. I’m still gonna play the shit of Baldurs Gate 3 next Summer tho.
On the other hand, I enjoy this (to a certain degree, mind you). Going through all the random crap I’ve picked up off the ground in Skyrim to maximize selling potential, moving things around in Diablo II for the same reason, picking through my vault in Destiny 2 to figure out which guns to keep and which to dismantle, organizing my various bits and bobs in FFXIV:ARR across my retainers so that everything is where it should be… I kind of dig that kind of stuff because its a bit of a management game within the regular game and a nice break from mindlessly murdering everything (and a bit of a “ooh presents on Christmas” kind of feel when you dig through all the stuff you’ve acquired).
On the gripping (third) hand, sometimes it does become more of a second job almost… Destiny 2, as an example again, feels like a chore sometimes keeping on top of all the various currencies and whether this random gun/armor that dropped is an upgrade over one of the multitude of other options I’ve had collecting dust for the past couple of years. “But maybe I’ll use it if they buff [gun type/perk/build]!” I think as I toss it into the pile, only to forever become an icon I ignore in DIM.
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Stop buying exclusively AAA games then. They rarely try anything new and their primary design goals are to get you hooked so you buy more crap.
Pretty much yeah, there is a reason why Madden and FIFA (formerly) were top sellers every year with extremely minimal changes. It’s a safe game that sold like crazy. Same with Call of Duty. If we want something fresh, indie games for the most part try not to fall into the saturated market and stand out above their peers