Support NeoGAF

[peronmls]

Do games really have the same kind of freedom it did back then? Some games are trying to keep up with mainstream games and “peel to everyone” it feels.

 

[JOEVIAL]

Well Fortnite is definitely trash compared to past games, so you have a point.

Again, this thread and reading peoples responses has helped me to realize this; yes... I am jaded. But I am okay with that. I do think the "good" games of today are better than the "good" games of yesteryear... but I also think the heavily marketed games of today are frankly disgusting in their predatory practices of GaaS and microtransactions. Double again... not trying to blanket statement everything... there are several highly marketed games that have been stone-cold stunners recently, but it just doesn't feel like a lot of the "AAA" highly marketed and quote-end-quote "must-play" experiences, hold up to their marketing, hype, and lineage.

Anywho... lot's of really good discussion in this thread

 

[Maxwell Jacob Friedman]

Are you even aware that Gamepass has a lot of third party games ?

And MS has been releasing some very strong games anyway, so this is purely a false narrative.

....where....?
Is there even a point at owning an xbox now? People might as well just pc game.
Pc gamers get better quality games with better performance and graphics, they dont have to pay for online, they dont have to wait for games like flight simulator on xbox or gears tactics, etc

xbox is the sloppy seconds of this and next generation it seems.

 

[Kamina]

....where....?
Is there even a point at owning an xbox now? People might as well just pc game.
Pc gamers get better quality games with better performance and graphics, they dont have to pay for online etc

Username checks out

 

[Hendrick's]

I just think that games haven't evolved much. They have improved in quality, but innovation has stagnated.

 

[Maxwell Jacob Friedman]

Username checks out

Criticisms everywhere,

sony needs to make a banger fps and have more of a focus on online games with a revival of socom or something genuinely great

Nintendo has to stop liking the smell of their own shit and actually make online good and not for elementary school children along with gamers need to put an end to their own bullshit and stop buying full priced last gen ports that are still inferior to the base versions they launched on.

we even now?

atleast for sony and nintendo theres a reason to own their consoles, im still struggling to find one for xbox. Especially when phil "that man" spencer says we dont need to own their products.

 

[NahaNago]

Games have gotten better. I just feel like the epicness of the games hasn't kept up. Games kind of feel cheaper but better looking at the same time. Games that were amazing back then has current sequels that would be considered meh today like ff15 for example.

 

[Phunkydiabetic]

Dude even the heavily marketed "AAA" games are better now. What kind of rose tinted old man nonsense is this.

 

[jshackles]

Part of the problem with OP's argument is that there were absolutely trash games back then* too.

It's easy to take things in aggregate because the best stuff will rise to the top naturally. I can look back at "my favorite movies from the 90s" and there will be a mountain of excellent films with Fight Club at the top but that's ignoring the fact that there were thousands of movies released in that decade, the majority of which were trash and are still trash by today's standards. For every Mario 64, there will have been 100 Plok's or Bubsy's.

In 20 years we will probably be looking back on 2010-2020 as the rise of cinematic single-player third person narratives (Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, Tomb Raider Reboots, Gears of War, God of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Ghost of Tsushima, etc.) while ignoring the Fortnites and mobile garbage that OP is averse to.

*Whenever it is OP is talking about when he says "used to be better"

 

[A Most Virtuous Cat]

I agree with you. However, I would extend the good game period to 2011. After that, while graphics have improved a lot, story and gameplay have stayed more or less the same or have become worse even, overall. However, in my assessment, stories are going to get crappier owing to the fact that one cannot write a story without token characters, political agendas etc. anymore; that creative freedom is now lost to rabid politics and a broken moral compass. Our only hope are creative devs, untouched by western norms/ culture.

 

[Aion002]

There are many studios making good, fun and/innovative games.

The problem lies on the GAAS makers that want to make video games a job and ask constantly for your money.... Those indeed suck.... And kinda makes your point valid. However, there are other studios making tradiotional games that are good and fun as the old ones.

I play those pesky gaas things and I used to like them... But lately I am feeling more and more annoyed by their ideas for video games, as a Fifa/PES player I just can't stand that model that brought a huge stagnation to those games. EA and Konami rather than have new ideas to make their games more interesting and fun, choose to spend all their attention in ways to take money from addicted gamers that like collect shitty digital players that will expire in a year.


For traditional gamers, I honestly believe that GAAS is trash and makes video games feel "soulless".

 

[jonnyp]

Disagree.

 

[nemiroff]

Nope.

Yes, I know a single word reply might be a bit "arrogant". But I honestly feel it's the right response. Games did not use to be better, far from it. However, they were pushing the boundaries for its time, and that feeling, at the time, gave us a really good feeling - And this eventually ascended to nostalgia.

 

[Damigos]

OP, try some indies or the ‘AA’s. Ignore the triple A or mobile shit and you will see there are lots of treasures out there

 

[GreatnessRD]

OP is 100% correct.

Get off my lawn, new aged whores

 

[cireza]

....where....?

Digitally and retail.

 

[Airola]

Part of the problem with OP's argument is that there were absolutely trash games back then* too.

It's easy to take things in aggregate because the best stuff will rise to the top naturally. I can look back at "my favorite movies from the 90s" and there will be a mountain of excellent films with Fight Club at the top but that's ignoring the fact that there were thousands of movies released in that decade, the majority of which were trash and are still trash by today's standards. For every Mario 64, there will have been 100 Plok's or Bubsy's.

He's obviously comparing the good games of that era to the good games of this era, and he thinks the good games of that era were generally better than the good games of this era.

It's that simple. If you don't agree, fine. But he addressed that issue in the beginning of his post and made it clear what he is talking about. No need to argue against his position with irrelevant things.

 

[vito_don_corleone_]

I remember my super cringe reaction when my dad was saying football/music/whatever used to be better.

I always believed it's just an old man's moaning and rejecting to accept the progress/change.

And this is the same. Games were not better, they were different. Games are now better in pretty much any aspect, because just like everything else, games are evolving.

 

[Jeeves]

There are aspects that are better now, and ones that are worse now, but I do miss:

• Having unlockables instead of microstransactions
• Having cheat codes
• More creative risks in big games due to lower development costs
• Games having some level of mystique instead of being datamined on day -1
• Less focus grouping, more games following a specific creative vision
• Games releasing in a finished state
• More focus on local multiplayer

It's fine to prefer today's games, but I can't get behind the braindead argument of "well the budgets are higher and the games are newer, so they're objectively better now".

 

[ShirAhava]

Big shoutout to everybody who says "this isn't true" and proceeds to mention the most overrated games of the last 15 years

 

[brap]

You don't like microtransaction filled shitfests? What about 2D indie pixelshit rougelike platformers? What about DMC? V is better than 3 right? Ass Creed is good. So is having a new GTA every 12 years. I also really like all the weird japanese games coming out these days. Open world games where you have to pick 80 flowers for a quest are also awesome. Quit being a boomer.
Why would anybody prefer older games for?

 

[I Love Rock 'n' Roll]

Yes, modern 3d sucks hard.

 

[TheWanderingOgre]

No they weren't. And this isn't even subjective.

Yet the gaming medium/industry was. And this isnt even subjective.

 

[rofif]

I mostly agree. 2011 peaked with dark souls and saints row 3. We have some great games since then but less frequent and to many safe sequels/clones.
Publishers are too afraid to try new things. Everything must be sure to sell multiplayer ip.
But all souls games are amazing(best. Just the best games ever). We have ps4 exclusives, stuff like inside, soma, hellblade, great remakes (re2) and many more but it's hidden and rare in sea of shit for kids.
And we got death stranding. It's amazing.

I still miss that we've had whole trilogies on 360. Gears trilogy is amazing and we just don't get this games no more.
We had lost planet and dead rising 1... Many great first entries

 

[alabtrosMyster]

Let me get this straight, you think that the guys making games in the 80s were gamers in their childhood? There was no video games when they were kids! many of them barely knew of video games when companies like Nintendo, Sega, Capcom or Konami hired them... I am sure it was the same for Atari, EA and Activision.

If anything modern games are made by people who are more likely to be diehard gamers (judging from the few people in the industry I crossed path with, all from Ubisoft of all places).

I think you should play more indies, or at least try one that stands out from time to time, you will find some of them are genuinely great, and offer something amazing in their own right.

 

[Robot Carnival]

I'm still having fun with Monster Hunter World/Iceborne. and with all it's flaws, I also enjoy Destiny 2 as well. and of course, Doom/Eternal and REsident Evil 2. more recent and less AAA games I'm into includes Deep Rock Galactic, Void Bastards, Cloudpunk amount others. the indie market had been getting better and better and there's plenty of good games to play with if you don't mind the "low tier" graphics. as some had said, just don't only play AAA games and go branch out and find stuff you would enjoy. there WILL be stuff out there you'll like.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

I agree with almost all of it. Where I disagree is with the point about games being built with profits in mind now. That was always the case; let's not pretend like it ever wasn't. Not that artistry can't exist within those confines.

BUT. I think that while there are waaaaaay more good games now (by virtue of there being more games, period), there are far fewer great games. You look at the release calendar for basically any given year from that era -- 1993, 1994, 1997, 2001 - whatever. It's overwhelming how many honest to God classics there are. Compare that to like... 2012 or something, and it's a little sad.

 

[Maxwell Jacob Friedman]

Digitally and retail.

What games? Whats bangers has ms released on the xbox lately?

 

[Airola]

Let me get this straight, you think that the guys making games in the 80s were gamers in their childhood? There was no video games when they were kids! many of them barely knew of video games when companies like Nintendo, Sega, Capcom or Konami hired them... I am sure it was the same for Atari, EA and Activision.

If anything modern games are made by people who are more likely to be diehard gamers (judging from the few people in the industry I crossed path with, all from Ubisoft of all places).

You underestimate the power and popularity arcade games had back then.

In fact kids were into video games so much some learned to code on their home computers like Vic 20 and Commodore 64 and sold the games they made to software companies and some started their own businesses or joined an existing company.

What comes to Activison, dude if you think David Crane was someone who didn't know video games or that he hired people who didn't know about video games I don't know what to tell you.

 

[diffusionx]

I remember my super cringe reaction when my dad was saying football/music/whatever used to be better.

I always believed it's just an old man's moaning and rejecting to accept the progress/change.

And this is the same. Games were not better, they were different. Games are now better in pretty much any aspect, because just like everything else, games are evolving.

Except sometimes, it is true. Games are one of those times. Kids pick up and play retro games all the time. They are immediately intuitive, still look great, and have complex, engaging play mechanics. That is why we played them after all, we weren't chasing loot or grinding for MTX to show off to our friends.

I agree with almost all of it. Where I disagree is with the point about games being built with profits in mind now. That was always the case; let's not pretend like it ever wasn't. Not that artistry can't exist within those confines.

BUT. I think that while there are waaaaaay more good games now (by virtue of there being more games, period), there are far fewer great games. You look at the release calendar for basically any given year from that era -- 1993, 1994, 1997, 2001 - whatever. It's overwhelming how many honest to God classics there are. Compare that to like... 2012 or something, and it's a little sad.

I notice stuff sometimes and it seems hard to believe - like Square really did release 4 main Final Fantasy games in a 5 year period. Overall, there were more great games released from 1996-2000 then there have been the past 10 years. The PS2 got more great exclusives - including games people still play today, and want to get re-released on new systems - in the first 18 months than the PS4 got its entire lifespan. Part of it is the nature of the business - it takes longer to make a game these days and pubs/devs actively sabotage their games by turning them into mindless loot grind GAAS garbage - but yea we lost something along the way.

 

[jshackles]

I agree with almost all of it. Where I disagree is with the point about games being built with profits in mind now. That was always the case; let's not pretend like it ever wasn't. Not that artistry can't exist within those confines.

BUT. I think that while there are waaaaaay more good games now (by virtue of there being more games, period), there are far fewer great games. You look at the release calendar for basically any given year from that era -- 1993, 1994, 1997, 2001 - whatever. It's overwhelming how many honest to God classics there are. Compare that to like... 2012 or something, and it's a little sad.

I suppose it's just all a matter of perspective.

I'd consider games like Dishonored, The Walking Dead, Journey, Dragon's Dogma, Sleeping Dogs, and XCOM: Enemy Unknown to all be great games and honest to God classics. They all came out in 2012.

 

[Diddy X]

Of course with the introduction of 3d gaming was more interesting with new ways of playing and developers coming up with great ideas, after that it's been about perfecting gaming.

 

[gamerguywashere]

western games all seem f2play somehow, and are huge in size, unfinished at launch and patched, DLC nickel meet dime

there's still great stuff coming out of Japan though...solid gameplay and production values, QC before launch on a single disk/cart with no huge downloads

Sony seems to be launching a traditional console. I think we're good for another gen

eventually, everyone will give in to the money tho

 

[Rickyiez]

Games was great back then, games are also great now. Seems like you're playing all the trash EA or Ubisoft games with MTX. Play more FromSoftware, CDprojekt, Larian or indies, they are golden. Larian studio even push a free Divinity OS2 2.0 update FFS.

 

[nochance]

Every single media has been stupidified and comercialised, all software development starts with a business plan now and monetisation at the forefront.

 

[ZehDon]

I love the notion that companies "back in the day" weren't looking to make money, and only produced "pure" titles. As if Redneck Rampage was free, Quake 2 didn't have two questionably priced expansion packs, and over-saturation wasn't a thing ('member the RTS over-saturation of the mid-90s? Real gamers 'member). I remember the endless stream of Doom clones, Red Alert clones, Commander Keen clones, Mario Kart clones, etc. I spent the 90s knee deep in low effort, janky as fuck garbage N64 releases, PS1 cash grabs, and PC shovel-ware. Games used to cost USD$60.00 and take an hour to finish, where brutal difficultly was used to stretch it out for as-long-as-frustratingly-possible. Re-skinned levels and pallette swapped enemies were the name of the game for an entire console generation. Today, people remember the only games from that era worth remembering, and think that was the whole deal. I remember "Teddy Boy" on the SMS, and understand that it was not the exception.

No, games didn't used to be better. The AAA titles of today are 10,000x better than the low-effort trash that was pushed out weekly "back in the day". 90% of it was pure, over-priced, under-developed, lowest-bidder dog shit.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

Gaming is still good, but I feel gaming was the best when Japanese developers and companies was on the top of the industry. Also, DLC, microtransactions and things like Season passes imho have REALLY ruin modern games.

 

[RasAlGhoul]

My nostalgia goggles sometimes thinks they used to be better. But they weren’t.

 

[Danjin44]

No....back then we had great games and crappy games just like we have now, only difference is people have internet to complain about the crappy games.

 

[Airola]

I love the notion that companies "back in the day" weren't looking to make money, and only produced "pure" titles. As if Redneck Rampage was free, Quake 2 didn't have two questionably priced expansion packs, and over-saturation wasn't a thing ('member the RTS over-saturation of the mid-90s? Real gamers 'member). I remember the endless stream of Doom clones, Red Alert clones, Commander Keen clones, Mario Kart clones, etc. I spent the 90s knee deep in low effort, janky as fuck garbage N64 releases, PS1 cash grabs, and PC shovel-ware. Games used to cost USD$60.00 and take an hour to finish, where brutal difficultly was used to stretch it out for as-long-as-frustratingly-possible. Re-skinned levels and pallette swapped enemies were the name of the game for an entire console generation. Today, people remember the only games from that era worth remembering, and think that was the whole deal. I remember "Teddy Boy" on the SMS, and understand that it was not the exception.

No, games didn't used to be better. The AAA titles of today are 10,000x better than the low-effort trash that was pushed out weekly "back in the day". 90% of it was pure, over-priced, under-developed, lowest-bidder dog shit.

The OP didn't say they weren't looking to make money but he said they weren't driven by making money. Of course anyone who works for something looks to have money to get from that, but it's a different thing when they are driven by the money.

He also said there were bad games back then and specifically said he wants to compare the good games back then to the good games of today and his argument is that the good games back then were generally better than the good games made today.

It's a fact that today there are way more companies where the development is more or less dictated by what the board members want the games to have and those members are driven by money than driven by love for video games.

I mean, all I'm saying is READ THE OP. Most of what you wrote are based on something that the OP never claimed.

 

[Neolombax]

Nope. Some of the best games that Ive played were recent ones. I will say though, games in the PS2 era took more risks in their ideas. Games nowadays tend to be safer and quite frankly, bankable. My guess is because game development costs are much higher these days.

 

[lock2k]

While I like current games I think that, at least for fighting games, I miss when everything was unlockable and now everything is DLC.

DLC is fucking cancer. I loved playing Tekken for hours on end and unlocking every single fucking character on it.

Also, fuck GTA and Rockstar. In the span of 13-20 we only had on game whereas in the span of 2002 and 2010 we had several GTA games. Hell, PS2 alone had 3 major GTA games.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of cool games now and most of my favorites are in the indie space, but I miss when big companies put out more games and when they took more chances with AA games instead of just cinematic AAA blockbusters which are plain boring to me.

 

[Ten_Fold]

Yeah I think games use to be better overall imo, less cool unlockables which now is just DLC, an now they have a reason to cut content to sell. Still OP Nintendo pretty much got all the games I care to play from jrpgs to fun games with tons of replay value.

 

[Porcile]

Nagh, companies were just as cynical
and money hungry back then with shitty licensed games and movie tie games. Those practically died out and were replaced with microtransaction games.

 

[Silvawuff]

I don't think games have started sucking, we've just gotten older. Our tastes and minds have changed. Today's games are tomorrow's golden era. It just won't be -your- golden era.

I will say that gaming infrastructure has changed. Digital and crap like DLC/IAP...how many "good" games have been released unfinished at full price with the expectation you'll buy the rest of them later?

 

[ZehDon]

The OP didn't say they weren't looking to make money but he said they weren't driven by making money. Of course anyone who works for something looks to have money to get from that, but it's a different thing when they are driven by the money.

He also said there were bad games back then and specifically said he wants to compare the good games back then to the good games of today and his argument is that the good games back then were generally better than the good games made today.

It's a fact that today there are way more companies where the development is more or less dictated by what the board members want the games to have and those members are driven by money than driven by love for video games.

I mean, all I'm saying is READ THE OP. Most of what you wrote are based on something that the OP never claimed.

You're mincing words to obfuscate the point. Every business is driven/looking/hoping/anticipating/wanting/praying to make money. If they weren't, they'd give their goods and services away for free. It's a non-starter. Do you honestly expect anyone to think that Nintendo, id, Blizzard, Ion Storm, Capcom, Lionshead, Activision, Electronic Arts, and thousands of others weren't founded for the express purpose of making the people who founded it money by selling video games? The notion that "shareholders" are responsible for all of the OPs perceived ills also doesn't make sense, being as the average shareholder of any one gaming company has zero input into anything.

The OP specifically said they wanted to compare good games from then against those produced now. As I highlighted, 90% of those games "back in the day" were dog shit - but looking back, they were considered good at the time, because we didn't know any better. The OP is remembering the cream of the crop; the only games worth remembering from that era. In most cases, the games people remember from yesterday rank amongst the greatest games of all time - but they make up a fraction of a percent of the games releases. So, sure, let's compare, I don't know, Super Mario Brothers 3, one of the greatest video games of all time, against Call of Duty Black Ops 4 as a means of judging the mean quality of their respective eras. Because surely, they're basically the same in terms of positioning within their respective generations, right? Of course they're bloody not. It's a false equivalency created by rose coloured glasses. You remember Mario Bros 3 because it was the exception; the vast majority of games on the NES were clonded fodder not worth the sticker price. Let's get more accurate with our comparisons: let's compare Call of Duty Black Ops 4 to KKND 2, because in terms of "good games", they're about the same height on the totem poll of their respective eras. And in that comparison, Black Ops eat KKND2 alive. Perform a similar comparison from any generation, and you'll find it almost always favours the more recent title. Why wouldn't it - they've had, in some cases, over thirty years of game development and game design know-how to build on.

And your "fact" is not only not a fact, its demonstrably, objectively, unquestionably wrong with zero equivocations. Read your history.

 

[Airola]

You're mincing words to obfuscate the point. Every business is driven/looking/hoping/anticipating/wanting/praying to make money. If they weren't, they'd give their goods and services away for free. It's a non-starter. Do you honestly expect anyone to think that Nintendo, id, Blizzard, Ion Storm, Capcom, Lionshead, Activision, Electronic Arts, and thousands of others weren't founded for the express purpose of making the people who founded it money by selling video games? The notion that "shareholders" are responsible for all of the OPs perceived ills also doesn't make sense, being as the average shareholder of any one gaming company has zero input into anything.

No, being driven by something is not the same as looking or hoping or anticipating or even wanting or praying to make money.
You can look to get money, you can hope to get money, but being driven by something is the main source of inspiration to create a product. If you are driven by money instead of driven by passion, then the product gets different type of attention to it and it has an effect to the end result.

The OP specifically said they wanted to compare good games from then against those produced now. As I highlighted, 90% of those games "back in the day" were dog shit - but looking back, they were considered good at the time, because we didn't know any better. The OP is remembering the cream of the crop; the only games worth remembering from that era. In most cases, the games people remember from yesterday rank amongst the greatest games of all time - but they make up a fraction of a percent of the games releases. So, sure, let's compare, I don't know, Super Mario Brothers 3, one of the greatest video games of all time, against Call of Duty Black Ops 4 as a means of judging the mean quality of their respective eras. Because surely, they're basically the same in terms of positioning within their respective generations, right? Of course they're bloody not. It's a false equivalency created by rose coloured glasses. You remember Mario Bros 3 because it was the exception; the vast majority of games on the NES were clonded fodder not worth the sticker price.

Are you deliberately ignoring other platforms and game developers than the obvious systems and the more popular developers?
Even if we should compare the percentage of quality games, we should remember that we have a huge mobile game market and a huge indie game market too. These games are sold in the same digital stores than all the big AAA titles. I guarantee you that if we should compare the full percentage of quality games, the percentage of the amount of garbage games today will absolutely rise over whatever the percentage of old garbage games is.

Let's get more accurate with our comparisons: let's compare Call of Duty Black Ops 4 to KKND 2, because in terms of "good games", they're about the same height on the totem poll of their respective eras. And in that comparison, Black Ops eat KKND2 alive. Perform a similar comparison from any generation, and you'll find it almost always favours the more recent title. Why wouldn't it - they've had, in some cases, over thirty years of game development and game design know-how to build on.

"Game design know-how" means nothing if game design trends go to worse direction.

And your "fact" is not only not a fact, its demonstrably, objectively, unquestionably wrong with zero equivocations. Read your history.

So you mean there aren't more game development companies now in the stock market than there were before? And there aren't objectively more ways to do shady money grabbing practices than there were before, given the technology we now have?

 

[JOEVIAL]

You're mincing words to obfuscate the point. Every business is driven/looking/hoping/anticipating/wanting/praying to make money. If they weren't, they'd give their goods and services away for free. It's a non-starter. Do you honestly expect anyone to think that Nintendo, id, Blizzard, Ion Storm, Capcom, Lionshead, Activision, Electronic Arts, and thousands of others weren't founded for the express purpose of making the people who founded it money by selling video games? The notion that "shareholders" are responsible for all of the OPs perceived ills also doesn't make sense, being as the average shareholder of any one gaming company has zero input into anything.

The OP specifically said they wanted to compare good games from then against those produced now. As I highlighted, 90% of those games "back in the day" were dog shit - but looking back, they were considered good at the time, because we didn't know any better. The OP is remembering the cream of the crop; the only games worth remembering from that era. In most cases, the games people remember from yesterday rank amongst the greatest games of all time - but they make up a fraction of a percent of the games releases. So, sure, let's compare, I don't know, Super Mario Brothers 3, one of the greatest video games of all time, against Call of Duty Black Ops 4 as a means of judging the mean quality of their respective eras. Because surely, they're basically the same in terms of positioning within their respective generations, right? Of course they're bloody not. It's a false equivalency created by rose coloured glasses. You remember Mario Bros 3 because it was the exception; the vast majority of games on the NES were clonded fodder not worth the sticker price. Let's get more accurate with our comparisons: let's compare Call of Duty Black Ops 4 to KKND 2, because in terms of "good games", they're about the same height on the totem poll of their respective eras. And in that comparison, Black Ops eat KKND2 alive. Perform a similar comparison from any generation, and you'll find it almost always favours the more recent title. Why wouldn't it - they've had, in some cases, over thirty years of game development and game design know-how to build on.

And your "fact" is not only not a fact, its demonstrably, objectively, unquestionably wrong with zero equivocations. Read your history.

But seriously... lots of good discussion in this thread. I figured responses would be mixed. Has broadened my view and understanding of peoples mindsets.

 

[Ryllix_]

Gaming has always had a decent amount of high quality incredible games.....and a bunch of trash piled on. The difference is that the quality games used to be made by large AAA companies and now those same companies pump out the trash while small indie studios/developers make the quality games.

 

[Mhmmm 2077]

Fully agree with OP, most of modern games are soulless, of course there are some really quality games, where you still can see the dev team's passion, but most of the biggest games these days feel like they came out of game factories.