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[rofif]

Baldur’s Gate 3 alone would make me disagree and think OP has picked one of the worst years to say this. Also loved the hell out of Resident Evil 4 Remake.

And I still have these games to get to which made quite a few people satisfied:

Street Fighter 6
Lies of P
Jedi Survivor
Hogwarts Legacy
Octopath Traveler 2
Diablo 4

Final Fantasy XVI was a let down for me but plenty enjoyed it, Tears of the Kingdom and Starfield wouldn’t appeal to me but again plenty of people having fun with those two.

And Spider-man 2, Alan Wake 2, and Mario Wonder are right around the corner.

Stop focusing on graphic improvements and shit like that, and just enjoy gaming for gaming. Lots of other people are, so I don’t think the games are at fault here.

Op is not saying the games are bad. He is saying he played those games and they are not exploring new concepts.

Street Fighter 6? Counless sequels. It's just a fighting game... well at least now you can walk around
Lies of P? Souls clone
Jedi Survivor? The usual action adventure game
Hogwarts? Open world
Octopath Traverler? Just another rpg immitating ff 1-6
Diablo 4? diablo

These are all good games... hell, Hogwarts is my goty. But we have more/less played all of this before... right?
We are never again getting Mass Effec1, uncharte1, Gears1, Kotor1, morrowind and so on. These ideas have all been explored.

Of course gaming now is Better than ever before. Hell, AC6, Elden Ring, hogwarts, Ff16. This year got some of BEST GAMES EVER MADE.
So agian - it's not about that games are bad.

 

[rofif]

Absolutely.

And no matter with whom I speak, friends, family, co-workers, they all say that the gaming industry has turned to shit.


The typical AAA launch is something like this:

- Game takes forever to develop.
- Game gets hyped like crazy by social media bots.
- Game launches for $100 for the non-crippled version.
- Game has amazing graphics and looks crazy good
- Game pacing is slow as fuck and plays like a sloth with superficial gameplay mechanics targeted at troglodytes
- Too long cutscenes with cringe dialogue everywhere.
- Input lag from hell, bad overall controls, but a gazillion accessibility options.
- Game takes 50 hours too complete but you're already bored after 2 hours.
- Game gets uninstalled after 10 hours.
- Game gets hyped like crazy by social media bots because of new content addon that will make everything better.
- Game content addon launches for $50 in the non-crippled version.

People get so amazed with 2023 but look at 2007, 2011 or any of those years.
We had this many huge releases each month as we have through this whole year.
Dev is taking way too long. Games are needlessly long and so they have to be safe.

 

[Danjin44]

 

[64bitmodels]

Ever played Icewind Dale 2 and Morrowind ?

I am literally playing Morrowind right now. Doesn't make BG3 not good though.

It feels like there’s ~10 big franchises we just get on loop. What are we on far cry 7 now? God of war 6? Ratchet and clank 9? Call of duty 23?

... we always got 10 big franchises on loop for AAA. Remember the endless Street Fighter 2 clones of the 90s? Mario games launching every year way back when? Fucking Pokemon? even in the 90s, about 50% of the new projects were mascot platformers trying to ape the success of Sonic. Pac-Man was milked to death back in the 80s.

It is natural. Same thing happened with the movie industry. People will chase trends and make sequels. What you need to do, like always, is find the new shit being made by the indies- that'll be the franchises you hear of when they grow big, like how Witcher 3 was a third game that came out of nowhere and won GOTY. But that's never enough for you people. : /

 

[AMSCD]

No. Zelda Tears of the Kingdom advanced what could be possible with physics based gameplay. Baldur's Gate 3 advanced what can be done with branching storyline and free choice. Those are just to name a few.

 

[rofif]

I am literally playing Morrowind right now. Doesn't make BG3 not good though.

... we always got 10 big franchises on loop for AAA. Remember the endless Street Fighter 2 clones of the 90s? Mario games launching every year way back when? Fucking Pokemon? even in the 90s, about 50% of the new projects were mascot platformers trying to ape the success of Sonic. Pac-Man was milked to death back in the 80s.

It is natural. Same thing happened with the movie industry. People will chase trends and make sequels. What you need to do, like always, is find the new shit being made by the indies- that'll be the franchises you hear of when they grow big, like how Witcher 3 was a third game that came out of nowhere and won GOTY. But that's never enough for you people. : /

It's not about BG3 looking bad.
It's about the fact that I played these games 20 years ago.
isometric rpg with turn based combat and choices is hardly anything new. It's just done pretty well and somehow pc gamers have a hard on for it this year while previous years similar games got ignored. You never know

 

[Doom85]

Oh shit, hitting me with One Piece spoilers?! I can’t win against that!

Scout: Captain, throw some BG 3 waifu fan art at him to cover our escape!
Captain: Open fire!

 

[Putonahappyface]

For me personally yes. I haven't played a game since Hogwarts Legacy. I'm very difficult to cater for and most genres don't interest me. For the rest of the year I have Robocop Rogue City and Warhammer Space Marine 2, so all is not lost.

 

[Danjin44]

Oh shit, hitting me with One Piece spoilers?! I can’t win against that!

Scout: Captain, throw some BG 3 waifu fan art at him to cover our escape!
Captain: Open fire!

Sorry no match....

 

[Doom85]

Sorry no match....

LOL, don’t know if when I start that one, the word “waifu” will be crossing my mind given how emotional it’s supposed to be.

It’s like saying waifu when talking about A Silent Voice. Just feels not right.

Yep, there has definitely never been an anime that is depressing that had people discussing who Best Girl was-

…….well, never mind.

 

[ArtHands]

I have a PC so I can’t relate. Sorry

 

[Harlock]

Starfield is the best example of a game without soul, that got to the finish line by brute force.

 

[DevilMayFlyForAWhiteGuy]

I kind of agree. The only reason this year was packed with games was because they all got delayed and ended up coming out now. And even then the best one I played all year was a Remake (RE4). The one everyone creams themselves about (TotK), just felt like BotW 1.5 with Garry’s Mod building, and that’s supposed to be the most innovative thing in a long time.

Development takes longer and investments ensure the projects take less chances. After this year there’s probably going to be a dry spell while we wait another 4-6 years for a bunch of games to come out the same year.

 

[Irobot82]

Ever played Icewind Dale 2 and Morrowind ?

Icewind Dale is very light on story choices and consequences. Great game though.

 

[cireza]

PS3/360 generation

This is the last gen where we still made some progress. Afterwards it has only been diminishing returns.

 

[Humdinger]

Absolutely.

And no matter with whom I speak, friends, family, co-workers, they all say that the gaming industry has turned to shit.


The typical AAA launch is something like this:

- Game takes forever to develop.
- Game gets hyped like crazy by social media bots.
- Game launches for $100 for the non-crippled version.
- Game has amazing graphics and looks crazy good
- Game pacing is slow as fuck and plays like a sloth with superficial gameplay mechanics targeted at troglodytes
- Too long cutscenes with cringe dialogue everywhere.
- Input lag from hell, bad overall controls, but a gazillion accessibility options.
- Game takes 50 hours too complete but you're already bored after 2 hours.
- Game gets uninstalled after 10 hours.
- Game gets hyped like crazy by social media bots because of new content addon that will make everything better.
- Game content addon launches for $50 in the non-crippled version.

Yes, agreed. I have heard this many times myself. I would add lack of creativity, increasing reliance on GaaS and exploitative monetization schemes, endless remakes/remasters, intrusion of identity politics, and games being developed for the lowest common denominator. You can find many articles and Youtube videos expressing the same ideas about the loss of fun and creativity in modern games. That's not to say all the fun is gone, of course; this year is a good counterexample. But the trend lines are clear, at least to a lot of people, and a good year doesn't nullify the complaints/concerns. You have to step back, stop focusing narrowly just on the present moment, and get a wider perspective.

Unfortunately, the OP framed the issue in terms of graphics -- that is the "plateau" he is talking about (visual fidelity/performance). That is not really the plateau that is important. In fact, as you imply in your post (e.g., "game has amazing graphics" yet is boring to play), the obsessive focus on graphics -- graphic whoredom -- is one of the reasons that AAA gaming has deteriorated over time.

 

[Hypereides]

I'd say its a recurrent issue in AAA, yeah. Otherwise you gotta look outside of the AAA domain to find new and unique experiences.

 

[64bitmodels]

But the trend lines are clear, at least to a lot of people, and a good year doesn't nullify the complaints/concerns.

then 2024 will be the real test. I personally feel like since the start of the 2020s gaming has been looking up, & that the mid-2010s to late 10s were the dark ages. 2023 feels like the culmination of that so far.

 

[Sybrix]

For AAA games, It's gotten to the point now that most games require various huge patches after release for them to become playable, that isnt good.

 

[WoJ]

I kind of agree. I think the highs of modern gaming are really spectacular. Others have pointed out Elden Ring, Tears of the Kingdom and other releases that are excellent new titles. But there is definitely sequel fatigue around CoD, another GOW, another Far Cry, another Assassins Creed, etc. It felt like in 7th gen many of these IPs launched and iterated and now they're just recycled and sequelized.

In the last year we've gotten stuff like Callisto Protocol, Forspoken, Immortals of Aveum, Atlas Fallen, and Wild Hearts as new IPs but it seems like none of these will survive and be iterated on with a sequel because of lack of financial success. Callisto Protocol sold 2 million units as a new horror IP and was deemed a failure. So instead of getting a sequel to improve on what didn't work in the first game the IP is likely dead. These other games I mentioned are similar. It's so much harder to launch a new IP that lands which is where I think gaming has "plateaued". The barrier for success is so high for a new IP that it leads to more annualized sequels and remasters/remakes. Those things have their place in the industry too, but it sucks that they are the go to option for most.

 

[Humdinger]

then 2024 will be the real test. I personally feel like since the start of the 2020s gaming has been looking up, & that the mid-2010s to late 10s were the dark ages. 2023 feels like the culmination of that so far.

In my view, things have been trending downhill since about 2015 or so, give or take, maybe earlier. I've been losing interest in gaming since 2017 and pretty much abandoned the hobby, playing maybe one game a year. Previously, I had explained this change of heart as being related to me. That is, I thought I had just grown out of gaming; I had "been there, done that," and was moving on to other things. And while there may be some truth to that, I have lately come to realize that my declining interest is not just about me; it's about the way gaming has changed.

I'm seeing 2023 as an upward spike in an otherwise downward trajectory -- a rally in the middle of a declining stock market, so to speak. I guess time will tell.

 

[A Most Virtuous Cat]

Not just gaming, creativity in general.

 

[ReBurn]

I think it's fair to be critical. Gaming has barely evolved since the PS360 days. And everyone is ok with it given how many people are constantly clamoring for remakes, remaster and sequels. Feels creatively bankrupt. It would be nice to see some new ideas.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

Nah, 2023 has been amazing. Some people just have too narrow a focus on games so they tend to get burned by a lot of the AAA trash.

Also please share whatever drugs you’re using to say Forza 7 looks and sounds better than FM

 

[Ryūtō]

There is so much more games can do besides graphics. I'll take a stylized game over a photorealistic one any day. That's not to say that I don't enjoy the latter, but games are first and foremost gameplay not graphics.

 

[Knightime_X]

I'm fine with it.
I'm actually excited for older games getting remastered\remade
Gives the games the potential they never got when they released.

 

[K' Dash]

There’s another thread about this, we’ve been playing the same games since 2007.

Pop in will disappear.

No more masked loading through elevators and going through vents.

Since we have the fastest SSD, game design will change completely.

I mean, maybe it changes in the backend, but the shit I’m playing right now it’s the same from years ago.

Not only that, but bullshit like the ratchet and clank “portals can only be done on PS5” fiasco only makes it more apparent that we are still chained to old tech.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Mmm to a degree since I think VR gaming is the future. More devs should get invested in VR Tech.

 

[Humdinger]

Not just gaming, creativity in general.

Yeah, it's something you can see in music and movies as well.

 

[Hypereides]

Honestly, I believe part reason for this creative "slow down" in the AAA space is due to control over the creative pitch approval being pried out of the hands of the actual creators. Now its mostly determined by various business requirements and market conditions set by management and people that extend them. The same people hired developers with a like minded business driven mentality. These guys push for the safest bets possible. Its why AAA is so dull and tame.

 

[Aguero9320]

Expectations are too high. We’re at a point where most things have been done before, at least until the next truly Great Leap Forward (probably AI?), so everything is just being honed rather than being something new. Doesn’t ruin it, unless you are hyping it up too much.

What’s ruining gaming for me is the ceaseless negativity in general, and the mischievous system warring. Said it before, but it’s sucking the life out of the pastime.

Doesn’t help that the consoles are underpowered (and will be until “generations” are consigned to history) but gaming has never been better than it is right now.

And with that said, I’m going back to have a great time on the object of this despair porn thread - Forza Motorsport.

 

[MagiusNecros]

What’s ruining gaming for me is the ceaseless negativity in general

Devs should make good games then? Maybe spend less money and spend more time making fun game?

 

[SHA]

The problem in the software side, there's nothing wrong with the hardware, it's almost as if the hardware and software teams work separately and each one in denial of Technological advancements of the another.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Maybe the problem is you playing on Xbox, OP.

 

[jayj]

Honestly, I believe part reason for this creative "slow down" in the AAA space is due to control over the creative pitch approval being pried out of the hands of the actual creators. Now its mostly determined by various business requirements and market conditions set by management and people that extend them. The same people hired developers with a like minded business driven mentality. These guys push for the safest bets possible. Its why AAA is so dull and tame.

I think this comment really hit the nail on the head. It's like my ability to enjoy video games hasn't changed at all, I can go back to older games that interest me and enjoy them as much as ever, even if I never played them before. What changed is the industry and the way games are being made, hence me making this thread. With your comment I think that touches on a very real problem, how gaming used to be developer driven, where it was a tight-knit group of passionate creatives producing their own ideas. Now a days developers more or less seem to be treated like wage slaves, just people working in an office, doing a job as directed. All the ideas come from the top, driven by executives pointing to graphs and investors wanting to cash-in on trends. It has become so big and expensive that anything ambitious falls prey to that. Heck I see that effecting indie devs all the time now, where they will come out with a good creative concept, then they will grow, expand, become acquired by a big publisher or get some investors, and their follow-up product will fail to be nearly as appealing as what came before it. It's like everyone gets sucked into this financial black hole these days devoid of any real passion or creativity.

 

[ByWatterson]

Absolutely not.

I really don't know why some people hang out on a board like this.

 

[U n i o n 0015]

I do feel like AAA titles are not a place for innovation anymore. The indies and Japanese game devs are actually pushing gameplay and QoL first, and then we see those trickle into AAA eventually.

The fact that the AAA space is basically one expensive bomb after another shows that they are chasing the wrong trends.

 

[simpatico]

Absolutely. We're just upgrading textures and lighting on concepts born in the 360 era.

 

[simpatico]

I mean, come on bru

You could have this game on the BG2 engine without too many non graphical differences.

 

[TheloniusFabdul]

People are pointing to all the games released this year to disprove your point, but I feel like this year highlights just how lackluster gaming has become.

Yes, this year has indeed been great,
but years like this used to be the norm, not the exception.

Think back to 2006 to 2011.
We had in that period of time: Oblivion, Bioshock, GTA 4, Fallout 3, Mass Effect, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2, Red Dead Redemption, Fallout New Vegas, Skyrim, etc.

Those are just a few of my favourites, but there were amazing titles that really pushed the boundaries of what was possible coming out all the time back then.

 

[arkhamguy123]

I am literally playing Morrowind right now. Doesn't make BG3 not good though.

... we always got 10 big franchises on loop for AAA. Remember the endless Street Fighter 2 clones of the 90s? Mario games launching every year way back when? Fucking Pokemon? even in the 90s, about 50% of the new projects were mascot platformers trying to ape the success of Sonic. Pac-Man was milked to death back in the 80s.

It is natural. Same thing happened with the movie industry. People will chase trends and make sequels. What you need to do, like always, is find the new shit being made by the indies- that'll be the franchises you hear of when they grow big, like how Witcher 3 was a third game that came out of nowhere and won GOTY. But that's never enough for you people. : /

What was this reply lol

You named 2 Nintendo franchises. Nintendo has always done this. That’s a bad example. Notice how I didn’t give any Nintendo franchises as an example. Then you just went like “yeah sooo uhhh Witcher 3… uhhh film industry… and uhhh yep so that’s why it’s all fine and that’s my response to you”

 

[simpatico]

PSX -> Morrowind

SMW -> Mario 64

is the leap we need to have happen again.

 

[StueyDuck]

It hasn't plateuxed, its just been taken over by generations of "developers" who don't consider it a passion but just any old crummy desk job. Compare that to the days of ID and Doom where it was just a bunch of guys with the same hobbies and goals tryna make something special

And that goes for publishers as well. Now it's just the money grabbing suits who know that the gaming industry is the biggest entertainment Market there is.

Gaming is just 10-20 years late to the shittyness of movie and film, we are just reaching the Disney phase, where Microsoft is buying all the licenses and IP and ais gonna fart out as much content as possible.

Does it bounce back and get back into the hands of the passionate I have no clue, at least we have the odd breakaway titles still that have the old school ambition. Baldurs gate 3 comes to mind, the game reeks of passion

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

It peaked at the middle of gen 7 through early gen 8, and has been in decline ever since.

 

[Humdinger]

Honestly, I believe part reason for this creative "slow down" in the AAA space is due to control over the creative pitch approval being pried out of the hands of the actual creators. Now its mostly determined by various business requirements and market conditions set by management and people that extend them. The same people hired developers with a like minded business driven mentality. These guys push for the safest bets possible. Its why AAA is so dull and tame.

Yeah, that's one of the big factors, for sure. It's not like "suits" weren't involved in the games industry before, but as gaming has grown more and more lucrative, as budgets have ballooned, the suits have multiplied exponentially. You really feel the presence of a committee in a lot of games.

 

[Doom85]

People are pointing to all the games released this year to disprove your point, but I feel like this year highlights just how lackluster gaming has become.

Yes, this year has indeed been great,
but years like this used to be the norm, not the exception.

Think back to 2006 to 2011.
We had in that period of time: Oblivion, Bioshock, GTA 4, Fallout 3, Mass Effect, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2, Red Dead Redemption, Fallout New Vegas, Skyrim, etc.

Those are just a few of my favourites, but there were amazing titles that really pushed the boundaries of what was possible coming out all the time back then.

I feel this makes me wonder if those that love the PS3Wii360 gen so much have that much interest in Japanese games.

Nintendo was doing mostly fine with its titles save a few exceptions (I don’t know many who would call Skyward Sword bad, but it is fair to say it’s the most divisive of the 3D Zeldas), however:

-this was when Capcom began to struggle a bit, and only came back strong roughly in the mid 2010s
-Konami was on its last legs of relevancy
-JRPGs were mostly a joke this gen with few exceptions

Also, in general, horror games were losing relevancy around this time, again only getting a semi-revival later. Rare became a shell of its former self (with only a good title here and there, and now they’re basically the Sea of Thieves guys). 3D platformers were mostly vanishing.

There were definitely some great times that gen too, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not looking at it as some sort of golden period without some serious nostalgia goggles.

 

[Rendered Tangent]

I don't know, I think gaming is in a good place.

We've had a lot of duds, games that failed to deliver, but we've also had some bona fide classics.

Developers can still take risks and do something a bit different, and I'm interested to see where the medium goes in the coming years as graphics get close to photo realism and game worlds grow in size and complexity.

 

[jayj]

I do feel like AAA titles are not a place for innovation anymore. The indies and Japanese game devs are actually pushing gameplay and QoL first, and then we see those trickle into AAA eventually.

The fact that the AAA space is basically one expensive bomb after another shows that they are chasing the wrong trends.

Well I think that's the problem with chasing trends in general. It is the trend setters that truly become successes, if all you do is pursue established trends, you're basically stuck playing catch-up, and having to compete directly with things that already have popularity and a cult following. Problem is that being a trend setter tends to be risky business, a lot of attempts at setting trends can fail, so the risk analysis investor types only want to greenlight what is perceived as a sure thing, but that means not doing anything that really stands out.

 

[TheloniusFabdul]

I feel this makes me wonder if those that love the PS3Wii360 gen so much have that much interest in Japanese games.

Nintendo was doing mostly fine with its titles save a few exceptions (I don’t know many who would call Skyward Sword bad, but it is fair to say it’s the most divisive of the 3D Zeldas), however:

-this was when Capcom began to struggle a bit, and only came back strong roughly in the mid 2010s
-Konami was on its last legs of relevancy
-JRPGs were mostly a joke this gen with few exceptions

Also, in general, horror games were losing relevancy around this time, again only getting a semi-revival later. Rare became a shell of its former self (with only a good title here and there, and now they’re basically the Sea of Thieves guys). 3D platformers were mostly vanishing.

There were definitely some great times that gen too, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not looking at it as some sort of golden period without some serious nostalgia goggles.

You make a fair point.

I really wasn't all that into Japanese games back then, so most of what I said doesn't apply to those types of games.

But for the type of games that I was into, it absolutely was a golden age in terms of the frequency and quality of releases.

 

[nial]

Nothing exciting. It feels like there’s ~10 big franchises we just get on loop. What are we on far cry 7 now? God of war 6? Ratchet and clank 9? Call of duty 23?

Occasionally you’ll get a Tears of the Kingdom

Funny.