Video games today

[Dan]

Gaming is just too cookie-cutter nowadays. It's not that the generation has gone on too long, it's that the generation has been pretty lame from the get-go. Walk into any game store, and it's shelf after shelf of very few genres, with little variety within as well as outside of those genres. Even other genres (especially RPGs) are starting to look like shooters (Fallout 4 is a prime example). Gameplay has been severely dumbed-down, to the point where there's hardly any actual play left or skill needed. Too many aspects are automatic and too many games lead the player by the hand far too much. There's no such thing as a game over screen any more. Players just spawn and continue from wherever they left off. Given enough time (not skill or growth), anyone can beat any game.

Another thing is that developers are compromising the core game-play for the inclusion of multi-player. Here's just one small example... Forza Motosport. Not that Forza is that realistic or the AI even mildly good, but if you know anything about racing, you know that drafting is a legitimate part of it. In Forza 3 & 4, there are even achievements for getting perfect drafts. That's all well and good, but if the player actually drafts during a race, he/she is penalized for cheating. Drafting is not cheating, it's a legitimate part of racing. It has been made cheating in an attempt to keep online players from using it to get better lap-times. Anyone who has drafted gets their lap-time flagged with a little "dirty lap" marker and sent to the bottom of the leader-boards. There's an achievement for it, yet doing it is cheating. Developers need to start concentrating on making either great single or multi-player games, but trying to do both is simply watering both sides down.

But back to my original point, there's just too many of too few types of games. Not everybody wants to play 100 different shooters and nothing else (though sadly some do). I like variety and I like diversion. To me, there is no difference in walking around shooting soldiers as opposed to walking around shooting zombies, aliens or whatever else developers want to throw at me, calling it a "different" game. Even outside of shooters, other genres are extremely stagnant, with each game trying to be a clone or "better version" of some other game. Where are the one-off titles that don't look like anything else? They hardly exist any more. Sure, there have been a few, but they are few, far between and go largely under the radar. I'd love to see some great point-n-click adventures, platformers or anything other than the shooters & shooter hybrids that litter store shelves today. The thing is, if you've played a handful of games today, you've played them all.

One huge issue (especially at Microsoft) is the lack of exclusives. This has severely cut down on variety, creativity and the development of new IPs. It has also homogenized the industry. There used to be differences (game-wise) between gaming on a Sega as opposed to a Nintendo or a Sony console. Sega had Sonic, while Nintendo had Mario & Sony had Crash, or Nintendo players would be playing Final Fantasy while Sega players would be playing Phantasy Star. Had Nintendo not had Mario, Sega would probably never have developed Sonic... And that's the real issue. From a game standpoint, the rivalries are gone. There is now very little separating or special from one "camp" to another. Seeing that you play on the Wii U, you can say Nintendo does have exclusives and is different from Sony & Microsoft... And you'd be correct. Unfortunately, Nintendo has different issues. Just as Sony & Microsoft have concentrated too heavily on too few genres, Nintendo has focused too heavily on cute, colorful games. Not that I have any issue with cute, colorful games. Remember, I like variety and love a game like Animal Crossing just as much as I love one like Dragon Age Origins. But Nintendo has it's own narrow focus issues. It also has the Wii-mote, which IMHO is an asset turned liability that has separated the Wii from gamers.

Yes, Ubi & a few other developers churning out sequel after sequel is a big problem, but today's sorry state of gaming goes well beyond just that.


TLDR - What are your thoughts on the state of gaming today?

 

[Browen]

**** that's what they are. It's usually money not quality.

 

[Dio]

There are still good games being made but having played so many now it is rare for one to have the same impact that an older game had on me. There is often the feeling of things having been done before.

The some of the best games of this generation for me have got to be the Witcher 3, Life is Strange and Fallout 4.

 

[CrimsonCavalier]

I said this in another thread before, but the answer, I feel, is fairly simple. It comes down to money. Not just the money that is being made by these games, but by the money being put into game development. With incredibly advanced visuals comes higher costs. When you spend millions of dollars or euros into the development of a game, you don't want to take risks. You want a return for your investment. And today, what is bringing returns is cookie-cutter games like the ones you are talking about.

It's safe to do the same thing that everyone else is doing. Safe means more profit. Taking a chance after investing $1,000,000 means the potential to only make $400,000 and that is a net loss. And what sells today? Shooters, Assassin's Creed Rehash IV, Halo But With A Different Skin, Another Watered-Down Western RPG 3, etc..

I think when game costs start coming down, we'll see a little more creativity. But until then, why? Why bother when you have people eating up the mass produced clones? I wouldn't bother, if I were making millions off of them.

 

[Lozjam]

Indie games and small studios are the salvation for gaming I think. Witcher 3, for example, was made by an extremely small studio relative to the size of the game. There were only around 100 developers around, and the same is for Monolith Soft. That is extraordinary for those who make such a huge game.

Even disregarding that, even smaller studios are the ones that are indeed taking the risks. I think that once perception changes that Indie games automatically means a bad thing, is when things start to get better for Gaming.

Once studios such as Playtonic, and the studio making Bloodstained gets a few titles under their belts as well. I think we will see brand new treatments of gaming.

However, there is always the outlier. Mighty Number 9. **** inafune. He deserves to crash and burn, after all that he has done. It's sad however, as it damages the reputation of indie studios in general.

So if you want this to change. Go and support some indie developers! Try to find high quality games that you want, and see how you like it!

 

[Turo602]

I honestly hate the notion that games today aren't varied enough. That's complete bull****. Yes, shooters are very prominent today more than ever and that's only because the times have changed. Back when we had our Marios, our Sonics, our Donkey Kongs, our Crash Bandicoots, and whatever other obscure anthropomorphic character platformers, no one complained that the gaming industry was over saturated with platformers. As much as I hate to say this, Call of Duty is the new Mario and as long as it's around, there are going to be other companies trying to topple it over and take its place. There is nothing more cancerous to the gaming industry than the internet. Before the internet, people played games and enjoyed them, loved them, or hated them and now everyone has to have an opinion on something that was never a problem before. Gaming back then had just as many issues as we do today. Nothing has changed. Just because one genre is prominent over others at the moment doesn't mean there aren't plenty of other options. I saw a yearning for more point-n-click adventures yet Telltale Games has had lots of success doing exactly that and have been churning out games like The Walking Dead, Back to the Future, The Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands, and are even tackling the likes of Batman. It's not like these games along with platforming, sandbox, hack 'n' slash, rpg, or action/adventure games have taken a huge back seat or have even been under the radar. Not to mention we have all these digital arcade games that are very much a huge part of modern gaming. It's also unfair to expect every new release to be as ground breaking as the games that broke ground to begin with. No game should be criticized for not being revolutionary or innovative enough. Games should be judged based on fun and quality.

 

[Emma]

You shouldn't let a few sour tasting franchises like Forza, Call of Duty, and those mindless yearly sports games ruin the rest of gaming for you. Yes there are some really bland games they kept getting re-released with a new name constantly. And multiplayer can be overdone. But there's still a lot of good games now and not every developer is so shallow.

I also disagree with the notion that exclusives are so necessary and critical. I actually think they hold gaming back. Releasing to more platforms means they will make more money. Which means developers will have more breathing room with their budgets. At first glance it seems bad for console makers, but actually it's the opposite. Because it encourages higher quality games. Producing a game is getting more and more expensive and simply selling whole games for more isn't a palatable option for gamers. Among other options, having it available it more places will increase profits and allow developers more time and money to include features in their games that otherwise wouldn't make the cut as well as having more money to debug their games.

I see it only as a good thing that exclusives are dying. As far as the term means, there are so very few on Playstation and Xbox that it really doesn't have any bearing on reality. You're not sane if you choose your console on just one or two games when there is so much more to it. These days only Nintendo does real exclusives on a scale where it makes any difference. And really I think that should end too, and they should go software-only. But please, that's a big issue that deserves its own thread if people want to discuss it further so let's not derail this on that here.

 

[hctitS]

There were always tons of bad and copycat games being made basically since the start of video games. Very little has changed in the few decades that they've been around other than the quantity being made and how they are advertised. That being said, I've seen a lot of creativity in video games in the past few years, even if I'm not much of a gamer these days.

 

[ectoBiologist]

AAA games are going down in quality and up in price, yet people keep supporting the companies, me included in some cases (For example, Destiny, Call of Duty, etc) Indie games have gone up in quality, and pretty much the same in price (For example, Undertale (Not quality as in graphics, but quality as in story and character wise), Life is Strange (With the company creating it, not publishing it), etc). Mobile games with excessive micro transactions suck, and they are even leaking out over into AAA titles (Have you seen all the memberships and stupid extra currencies in games recently?).

So, to sum up, only independent developers who are actually looking to make good games and aren't afraid to take risks are making good titles. The rest is complete and utter trash, save for a few gems here and there. Meaning, to me, the gaming industry is going on a constant downward slope. Gaming won't ever really disappear, but the standard of gaming is going to be so distorted that I don't know if gaming will be worth it anymore.

 

[Zonda]

Halo 5's Multiplayer is one of the best in the series (albeit too competitively focused). Sea of Thieves and Yooka Laylee also both look to have a spark of creative inspiration driving their projects too.

I don't have much of a problem with it because I have more old school (and modern) games/consoles than is justifiable, and I don't have a shortage of games to play. The FPS genre and indie platformers have been flooded beyond belief, sure.

 

[the8thark]

TLDR - What are your thoughts on the state of gaming today?

Every era has it's trash and it's good games. You just have to search for the better games.

Multiplayer FPS games are flooding the market now. In the mid to late 90's single player shooters flooded the market. In the late 80's and early 90's point and click adventure games flooded the market. Every era has a type of game that is the in thing and floods the market.

 

[Emma]

For everyone saying indie games have improved lately..... I just don't see it. Just in my own personal opinion that is. They're just as uninteresting and uninspired to me as they've been for a while now. At least on consoles. I've had better experience with ones on PC. But there typically only free ones. And the best actually being fan remakes. For instance, OpenTTD. One of the best independent games ever made in my opinion, far superior to the game it is a fan remake of. I know everyone won't see it that way, but I just don't see how paid console and handheld indie games are so amazing. Though I should say that I vastly, overwhelming prefer indie music over mainstream music. Even indie covers of mainstream songs. So I can understand how it can be appealing. I just wish it wasn't presented so objectively. Used as leverage in a discussion. I am passionate about indie music but I would never intentionally imply it's objectively better and that everyone should like it. Different strokes you know. And by all means I want indie games to keep going. You never know where the next great idea is going to come from and it should be expressed however it can.

 

[CrimsonCavalier]

For everyone saying indie games have improved lately..... I just don't see it.

I'm actually among those that don't really like indie games at all. I haven't played many, to be fair, but the reason is, the ones I have played have been boring and uninteresting. No, I haven't played Shovel Knight, but I do plan on it eventually. But all of the others I've played have been incredibly meh, at best.

What I think turns me off the most about them is how rabid indie game supporters can get.

 

[Lozjam]

For everyone saying indie games have improved lately..... I just don't see it. Just in my own personal opinion that is. They're just as uninteresting and uninspired to me as they've been for a while now. At least on consoles. I've had better experience with ones on PC. But there typically only free ones. And the best actually being fan remakes. For instance, OpenTTD. One of the best independent games ever made in my opinion, far superior to the game it is a fan remake of. I know everyone won't see it that way, but I just don't see how paid console and handheld indie games are so amazing. Though I should say that I vastly, overwhelming prefer indie music over mainstream music. Even indie covers of mainstream songs. So I can understand how it can be appealing. I just wish it wasn't presented so objectively. Used as leverage in a discussion. I am passionate about indie music but I would never intentionally imply it's objectively better and that everyone should like it. Different strokes you know. And by all means I want indie games to keep going. You never know where the next great idea is going to come from and it should be expressed however it can.

Shovel Knight, for example, is one of the most well crafted platformers out there. It rivals that of Mario 3 even.

Oddworld New 'n Tasty as well, is genuinely a AAA styled game made by an indie studio.

Then there are upcoming studios. Those of the like of Playtonic have already shown incredibly more potential than any "AAA" studio as well. The developers of Bloodstained are also completely reviving an entire genre of games.

 

[Dan]

There's certainly some great indie games out there but I can see why they leave a foul taste as well.
Steam greenlight for example is rampant with "simulation" games that use no more than stock elements from unity. Many indie developers are imitating their childhood favourites but aren't adding any new elements to really make it there own so the games come off as rather bland and are seen as poor imitations of more popular classics.

It's harder to find a good indie game.
I recommend checking out indie games like Zeno Clash, Super Meat Boy, Binding of Issac, Hotline Miami, and Shovel knight, and staying away from most indie games that carry simulator in the title.