@angry_walrus:

I'm shook every day how small the teams were that made Mass Effect, Morrowind, Dragon Age, etc. and these are among the best games that spawned legacies that live on today with 3x to 5x the staff that made them, and even then don't capture anymore what had made them so good to begin with.

I keep mentioning RPGs, but also look at how laughable Battlefield 2042 was or other modern shooters. They just aren't the same.

This. Yes, the scope of games are bigger than ever, with huge teams, and better dev tools than anything else money can buy and still, games take 5 years, fraught with delays, and release underwhelming. It's gotten kinda out of hand.

It has generally affected my mood in games. Like, I don't expect StarField to have a good release. And any game with an online component? All doomed to a horrible launch day/week. Every. Time.

Elden Ring is the first game in a long time to be relatively well received with a decent release week. But I think the work ethic of Japanese companies are a bit different than Western companies.

Hey, I agree with many of these things. I do in fact agree that an ultimate conclusion is that big publishers just want to print money these days rather than invest in cool ideas. It's the whole concept of being 'risk adverse'. In fact, EA has more to appease with their shareholders than with their customers. They used to use these tentpole franchises to win customers over, like Mass Effect, which did get progressively worse by ME:3, but people went along with it because ME1 and 2 were so good. It has eroded now, to the point that I fear ME:4 will not be the same game we want it to be.

To your list, I'd add:

• Valheim
• Hades
• Grounded
• Slime Rancher
• Stardew Valley

But a lot of these are from newer publishers, or indie. Which at one point BioWare and CDPR were. It's like once they get so big, they lose the ability completely on what made them so good to begin with.

We can see a more modern day erosion of this with Techland between Dying Light 1 and 2, and with CDPR between Witcher III and Cyberpunk 2077.

@Maroxad: But that's my point, Greek Mythos is in Diablo? I mean I guess there are Minotaurs, right? So Greek mythos is Diablo mythos?

@osan0:I think you may be right about that. I guess I haven't paid attention lately to Nintendo's use of middleware, I just remember back in the day seeing game boxes filled with them, but Nintendo's games were always really cleanly packaged, as if everything was proprietary.

But yeah, Nintendo may just simply have better policies.

I'm going to start off by saying this is seriously a huge issue and going forward with any online content, this is something people seriously need to think about. GameSpot editors need to cover this (or update their coverage) in greater detail, because if left unchecked we can expect more of it happening to us.

So as many of you know it's now been several years since Games For Windows Live has been shut off. This in of itself may not sound bad, in fact, moving forward I think they realized they could offer different and/or better services. But, to say the least it does not excuse their poor customer support to games - and DLC - people have purchased with the system.

My gripe is currently with the Fable III GFWL for PC. It is, as we all know the last and latest major (read: numbered) installment in the Fable game series. Not too long ago Fable Anniversary came out, and of course it is freely available on Steam right now. Fable III however, for the love of all that is good and holy has unceremoniously been left to the sidelines. You can no longer get more keys for the game and you can no longer download the DLC for it even if it's content you have paid for and used once before. Sure this was the major gripe back then, but it is 2015 and STILL there has been nothing done to make it an enjoyable experience.

This is a sickening example of how customers are treated in the games industry. Still, to this very day, issues abound. I know the GFWL service has been shut off, of which includes an agreement that you knew this might happen, but that does not mean the game itself gets to be shut off. Game developers have to be aware that there are other platforms and other methods of sending a game out there. They, for example can move all game achievements and DLC straight into steam. They have this ability, even if it means taking the time to strip out the old GFWL code and replacing it with the Steam API. It is in the very least the most ethical thing to do.

I mean for a game to get a somewhat anticipated sequel this year, it sure does put a killer, stinking blow to the franchise to know that the latest installment in the series can no longer be bought and can no longer be effectively used in game on the PC (I think 360'ers are still good here). I have to this day, not seen such a game series get knocked off the radar much like this one. It is one thing if the game came out 10+ years ago, and it is entirely another thing for it to have been the latest game that came out about 4.5 years ago and still relevant to this day.

Sure other games were shut off, such as Age of Empires Online, but it was an online multiplayer game. I think it's still unethical in the sense that you can't play it in an offline mode (which should be possible). But... I digress since a game can be seen as entertainment and - much like going to the theaters - you can't really re-experience it as it was during it's run. Or can you... because it's on a computer it can be re-executed and so therefore you should have complete right to play it again and again. Owning a computer in this regard is much like owning the theater, you can watch that movie again, but sadly code is manipulated and it's stupid policies that'll block you from using it. At the very least, games that are impossible to play should be made open source, that way a community of modders, hackers and programmers can take up the reigns so to speak.

Fable series has always had a special place in my heart. I thought it had a good balance of comedy, story (lore) and somewhat intuitive combat system (that only got watered down by each installment). I mean some might have not liked Fable III, but it is still the most gorgeously rendered and fun experiences of the entire franchise. I just wish game developers could do something more about this, because it's certainly not fair by any metric.

Of course a wise person would say: "YOu've learned a hard lesson, eh?" But that itself is defeating to the fact Lionhead did promise they would look into and try to resolve issues with DLC. If it is impossible to do so, then they should say so. That's all.