The Sad State of Gaming

I recently packed my game collection up for a move and one thing came to mind, gaming is nothing compared to what it was. As I packed away each console with the games I have for it I thought man this generation of gaming sucks. Video games used to be fun and unique. Company's took chances and there was a variety to games. Now they are mostly fps and crap indie games. Each generation of consoles had new fresh idea's and new game series. There were risks taken and we as gamers benefited. I think gaming has become to mainstream and now we get yearly releases of uninspired awful games but people still buy them. Call of duty bo3 is awful yet it gets rated highly by almost everyone. Alien isolation is great but it gets trashed. I miss the days of Resident evil, shining force, mega man, dino crisis, soul calibur (before it was dumbed down) , grandia, skies of arcadia, marvel vs capcom and other games that were unlike any other. Metal gear solid v, tomb raider and alien isolation are the only new games this gen for Xbox one that are good the rest are crap. Hopefully something happens to make gaming become uncool so companies has to put forth more effort to win people back.

Off topic on off topic.

For a PC Gamer like myself, 1997 - 2000 inclusive was the golden age. PC gaming led everything then, thanks to games being made native to windows '95, the rise of CD rom games, and 3dfx graphics. Hell, there were even 3 dedicated PC Mags!

It all started with the original Diablo at the end of '96, which provided the framework for RPG'S to follow....and GL Quake, which showed what accelerated graphics and death match could do.

@kfk28: Your thread has been moved to Games Discussion since Off-Topic Discussion is for non-gaming related conversations.

Ugh the fact anyone even thinks that unfinished slap in the face that is Metal Gear solid 5 and it's prologue, is deserving of being one of the tittle of one of the better games speaks wonders at how fucking horrible this generation has been at making quality tittles that will stand the test of time. Like The worst metal gear ever made and because there literally is barely anything out there that varies off from the norm that even when the game releases unfinished and with micro transactions people still praise it.

Personally I'm still having a great time gaming. I've been an avid gamer for over 35 years. I enjoyed the classic Castlevania, Mega Man, Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, Super Mario Bros. etc. However I love the games of today as well like Call of Duty, Halo, Forza, new Tomb Raider, Fallout 4, The Witcher 3, Batman Arkham Asylum, Dragon Age 3, Dead Rising 3, Bayonetta, etc. I find tons of great games to enjoy.

@Archangel3371: You just listed sequels and sequels and sequels. More of the same, More of the same, More of the same.... Proving the OP or TC's point that there really isn't much innovation or unique experiences. I'm not saying things like the witcher 3 aren't a cut above or even with it's major glaring flaws and issues that fallout 4 isn't a fun game to play. But he's right, I used to go to a store find games that had nothing to do with previous tittles pick them up and play whole new experiences and types of gameplay. Now that's damn near impossible in this age with call of duty 18 forza 11 etc..etc.. I have too go looking specifically for games that don't feel shallow or a cut and paste of other peoples ideas and game mechanics or of their previous games in the sereis.

This generation is perfectly fine.

Admittedly though, this generation might suck if you only have a PS4 or Xbox 1. They are both trailing behind in great games.

@ribstaylor1: Well he wasn't just talking about sequels it sounded like he was saying gaming just wasn't fun for him in general. Anyway most of the games that I mentioned are still relatively new having only been started last gen plus I could have named many more.

Agreed. Gaming has become such big business and publishers are no longer wanting to take risks with new ideas and innovations. They'd rather just stick with what they know sells.

games are still fun. unique is not a prerequisite for quality. there's barely been any fps beyond the annual cod or battlefield this year. mainstream gaming's fps phase is over, we're now in the era of open world games. if those kind of games or the console lineup in general don't appeal / isn't varied enough for you, invest in a gaming pc

There are tons of unique games these days. Are they all in the AAA retail space? Of course not, but to say there aren't unique and interesting experiences in gaming today simply shows your complete ignorance of this medium.

Rocket League, Undertale, Soma, Invisible Inc, Ori and the Blind Forest, and Her Story are a handful of the hundreds of original experiences released this year alone. This medium is bigger than dime a dozen big budget releases.

Yes, and you know why it has become stale? Because when a demographic expands to include millions upon millions of undiscerning individuals to the point where they become the main component of it, the industry will start catering to them, and creativity and innovation will suffer.

Well the problem is that with the internet there is always a gamers that scream about their problem while the gamers that like it will not say much. People defend the horrible perk system in Fallout 4. It hard to stop these problem and things when someone else screams yea about it.ITem seem any game with guns is beaten down by gamers until it is just a shooter. It hard to make games that are creative and unique ideal when gamers scream and keep beating those ideal until they fall inline. Look at every game with gun it them. They are beaten down to where they are just shooters. Look at Mass Effect 2 and Fallout 4.

AAA game still have creative and unique ideal but they are often more in the detail and does not throw a flag up for it. THe CoD singple player are always coming up with new way to stage their shootout. Staging of a shootout is the most important element to a shooter and yet gamers never talk about it while screaming every CoD is the same.

Oh, guys, you just get older that's why it seems like the previous games were much better than today's.

That's too bad for you. I'm having a lot of fun, though, so I can't really agree with you. Videogames do indeed seem limited if significant innovation is something you desire and if you're mainly focused on big budget titles, but there are plenty of unique experiences out there. They may not be AAA, but well, AAA or not shouldn't determine the amount of fun you have. The problem with indie games is that it requires some effort to find the gems among all the stuff you think is crap. As for bigger titles and established genres, at some point an FPS can't really be revolutionized any further, or it stops being an FPS. It's about subtle tweaks and changes that improve an already established formula. Completely changing the formula or coming up with an entirely new one is going to be harder and harder as time progresses.

Also, emphasizing innovation and fresh ideas and then naming three games that, while undoubtedly good, don't look particularly innovative or revolutionary seems a bit questionable. Is it really about a general lack of innovation or do you simply feel that you're not being catered to enough?

THE PERK SYSTEM IS FIIIIIIIIINE! STOP IT ALREADY! ;-P

Thread title -

The Sad State of Gaming

Translation = I've gotten older so games from my childhood are better than today, because reasons

A perfect example of my point. A system that as nothing good about it but maybe for a bad simplistic and yet someone will scream that about it.

Well, that was the joke.

And all that originated with the Xbox and the PS2. Prior to those two consol, consols had their own games and more often than not exclusive to the system even if it was from a 3rd party and PC had their own games.

PS2 started the craze of reusing the same buttons configuration gen after gen and Xbox started to introduce PC games to consol. Now only Nintendo doesn't share the same games ... also games like Halo and Guitar Hero brought a lot of Bro and casual gamers. From that point on, gaming wasn't a nerd thing anymore.

My biggest problem with modern gaming are the people who consider themselves game enthusiasts yet all they do is convey negative energy towards the industry. These are the same people who think they single-handedly have the power to decide what is a good game for everyone else. Also, the same people who complain about indie games even though those are the games that most resemble the ones they nostalgically cherish from way-back-when.

I present to you a proposition, either become a game developer and make the games you want to see being made or find a new hobby that makes you happy.

Gaming has never been better than now. You can still play most of the old games, sequels to old games, and new games. The games look and play better every generation. The consoles keep improving and have so many features it is hard to use them all. There are numerous innovations, but they are not appreciated by all gamers: Wii Remote and Wii U Gamepad for example (big risks). It looks like Virtual Reality (VR) is not going to be a big hit (and I will admit that I am not interested in it in any shape or form). There are troubling signs that Always On-Line (AO), digital only, and unfair micro transactions are going to become the standard. There have been other really good innovations that are still with us such as wireless controllers, rumble, speakers in the controllers, and voice chat. The Near Field Communication (NFC) in the Wii U Gamepad + Amiibo has been fun. Skylanders and Disney Infinity are fun; and Lego Dimensions is probably going to be big too.

Spot on.

The problem is not gaming, the problem is that we all get older and "Grow our tastes" and that the older we get the more nostalgic, we becomeabout those childhood memories.

It's been improving significantly if you ask me.
Far better than it was 5-6 years ago.

I agree with this!

If you think gaming is in a bad state your playing the wrong games eg Playing Call of Duty and Ubi soft games every year.

I like the "new games". Some of the newer games I love are DAI, EUIV, Divinity OS, Witcher 3, Fallout 4, Legacy of the Void. There are more to come like Horizon ZD, HoI4, Dishonored 2, Star Citizen and my personal most anticipated - ME Andromeda*. I will go even further and say there are better games today (or at least games which I enjoy more). It is all subjective at the end of the day. Imo people should take a break from wearing the nostalgia googles.

+1

*I hope the games in 2016 deliver.

games today used to be made by gamers that got together with an idea they all used to agree would make a good video game and were working from inspiration and a grass roots community and made small companies. Then wall street figured out that the video game industry was making more money than movies, and all of a sudden all these capitalist economists showed up and started making games based on target demographic numbers and this means they are now trying to mass produce art (which by nature is impossible). Then what do you do when your company is in trouble or having a rough time competing? just buy out the competitor!

and then phones came along and half the video game companies jumped ship and tried to go over there where they proceeded to make some of the crappiest products in history and rely on microtransactions etc which straight up is a conflict of interest to gaming itself and are catering to a new generation that wouldnt know their heads from their rumps if their lives depended on it (sry kids, but your generation is an abomination).

Overall there just isnt the demand for better games. Why would you bother when you can spend a quarter of the time and energy on something crap just as many people will buy because they dont know any better, and throw away in a week but have a few shiny movie sequences?

Its all about dollars and sense...

Well I'm still having a lot of fun playing games, as are many of your repliers.

Sounds like a you problem.

I'm still having fun playing games these days. I've been gaming on pc since 1991. One thing i miss though is good turn based games like Silent Storm, Jagged Alliance, Civilization. There aren't many of these now adays. And the ones i've played didn't addict me. The last good turn based game i played was Civ 5.

And RPGs are hit and miss these days. Sure Skyrim is still fun even to this day. Even witcher 3 is very good in some ways. But despite gaming getting bigger than ever, there seems to be very few games that i like enough to go back to over and over.

And i'd like more real time strategy games, Starcraft 2 is done now. And hopefully some good rts games come out soon... so few good ones have been made other than C&C, red alert and starcraft/warcraft.

Like others have mentioned, these newer generation gamers don't know any better. They think all these games coming out now are amazing. These kids grew up playing Halo and COD with a controller. Any serious FPS gamer knows this is a joke. Most FPS games have to be dumbed down these days to accommodate the weak console controls. God forbid you actually have to think in a game or solve a puzzle. Everything is so dumbed down. A lot of these kids haven't even played the Half-Life games. This is truly sad.

It is like what has happened to the auto industry. How many kids these days know how to drive stick? Most kids drive automatic and they don't know any better. They don't know the pure joy of driving with a stick shift and banging through the gears and being one with the car. It is just a dumbed down experience. FPS with mouse + keyboard = stick shift. Controller = automatic.

Publishers cater to the masses. Big budgets require less risk, and if people keep buying the same shit, publishers will keep shoveling it in their direction because there is not much risk involved. Sadly, it is more about marketing a game and generating hype than actually making it good now.

The loss of the mid-tier publishers has certainly hurt diversity as well. The indie scene is a bright spot, but there are not too many stand out bigger budget projects. A game like SOMA is an example of the type of indie game we need more of. I am not saying that exact style or genre, but that level of quality and production values.

Gaming is great. You are just focusing on bad games only and think that, that's the only thing that gaming has to offer. A lot of amazing stuff is coming out in 2016. You are only looking at over hyped cash grabs from Activision, EA and Ubisoft.

I can't wait for Shadow Warrior 2, Kingdom Come Deliverance, Inner Chains, Everspace, Eve Valkyrie, Squadron 42, Divinity Original Sin 2, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Dirt Rally, Total War: Warhammer and so on. Let casuals play their cash grabs like COD, and idiots at IGN bash games like Alien Isolation because "AI is too smart", we'll continue to get great games.

Great games targeted for fans of the specific genre are never as famous and dumb games for wider audiences. But that doesn't mean these games don't exist anymore. Now I understand that the problem with Consoles is the lack of mid tier devs, but if you can, I'd say get a PC and try different genres.

Yeah,,, I agree with this. But I think there are still plenty of "By Gamers For Gamers" devs on PC. I think digital distribution played a big part in bringing back mid-tier devs.

Your complaint is that games lack variety and you miss the days of Megaman, the series with 20+ games where the large majority feel the same? Okay.

I think diversity in game genres or types is the biggest issue in gaming today.

I certainly miss 8- to 32-bit games and those early to mid 90's PC games. I think they were creatively better games than today's games. However, I think the underlying reason is that there was just more variety in the games of that era. Variety in settings and characters is a big one. We have the term dude-bro now, for example, for how many games are similarly themed with the buff military-type protagonists.

Variety in themes and genres are another area where today's games are lacking. We no longer get quasi-educational games like Carmen Sandiego; puzzle games like Myst are all but gone (I've yet to try the Talos Principle, but that looked like a modern take on something like Myst); and what happened to flight sims? I'd love to play one on PS4 or even "PS360".

Today's gamer commands more and more realism and immersion and that's what the developers are trying to deliver. And I believe that in doing so, developers are offering less unique experiences because they're all trying to hit (the same) bullet points in their game design documents. Realistic graphics? Check. Realistic gun sounds? Check. Tutorial level with pop up instructions? Check. Huge cinematic set piece? Check.

It's called the industry getting too big for it's own good and AAA just trying to appeal to kiddies/casuals who only want awesome action game/shooter #8979873978530903589.

Obviously, if you want some diversity in games/genres, PC is the only place to be.

I think the "gaming sucks now" issue is overblown. I do think there's a natural stagnation that has come about in AAA gaming as games have become so complex AND start to tread more ground that was covered when games were a truly new thing (unavoidably, I would argue). But it doesn't mean the new games are bad - in fact many are fantastic. And the indie scene is pushing the truly whacky ideas for those who simple must have something more unique (or more old-school, depending on the title).

I think it's a fantastic time to be a gamer. And as someone who avidly retro games, I can assure you that the vast majority of the old games are turds. History has just shined its lights on the gems that have stayed afloat. Even games that were fantastic back then - only some of them have aged well. Don't believe me? Go indiscriminately buy as many SNES/Genesis/DOS/whatever titles you can find and try to work through the library you acquired. Big pain awaits ;-)

some of the biggest issues in gaming is, microtransactions, and moble gaming

Necromancer!!

In my opinion this is the best era of gaming in my 36 years of gaming.

Its just not happening in the so called AAA market. a LOT.. I mean a TON a lot of fantastic games constantly coming out

For me 2001-2007 was the golden age of gaming the problem with this gen is there isn't enough new IP's and also games like Battlefield have been dumbed down it use to be a amazing series. I miss more then anything AAA PC exclusives that push the tech but also had amazing games like Half Life 2, Max Payne and MP2, Battlefield 2, F.E.A.R., SWAT4, Crysis ect... also no greedy microtransactions and lootboxes. I also miss the days with good expansion packs. This gen isn't complete trash though there is some great singleplayer games but for me MP gaming is the worst it use to be better less greed and better gameplay I do feel like we lost something special in gaming.

Don't bump old threads