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[Punished Miku]

The thing is with subscription services is that they are easy to start and easy to walk away from, the only thing you leave behind are your saves and achievements. If at any point they do take a dark turn then you are not obligated or attached in any way to be forced to follow them down that path. If anything the system of ownership makes you way more invested and less likely to leave when things turn sour. As you rightly mention, these sub services make people more likely to give a risky niche title a go and maybe find a completely new genre of games that they didn't know they loved. A developer is more likely to take a risk with a game knowing that they don't need to sell it but merely just need to get people to try it, if it's good then word of mouth will eventually give it popularity. This mechanism has the chance to make games more diverse and move out of the lanes of what is currently selling.

Yep, good points. And so far it's optional. We have yet to see a single game exclusive to sub services. All are also available either digitally or digital and physical. If we see sub service exclusives, you'll see some justified outcry.

 

[ArtHands]

See this is what happen when you stay inside the Playstation bubble for too long and is now forced to move on with the time to embrace the new norm

Many of us have already moved on to full digital with various digital indies and AAA games for decades on Steam.

 

[Rickyiez]

Yeah good riddance. I mean you.

Meanwhile I will enjoy the hell out of Elden Ring, HZD Forbidden West, Starfield, GOW Ragnarok, FF16, Spidey 2 and so on and so on.

OH and my daily routine of Apex Legend

 

[TintoConCasera]

But the smaller studios all make games about depression.
Aside from The Forgotten city - the one indie game that should get more kudos last year

Lots of artsy depression games yeah, but they are still the minority. Try out some boomer shooters, some of those may even be able to heal depression.

 

[rofif]

Lots of artsy depression games yeah, but they are still the minority. Try out some boomer shooters, some of those may even be able to heal depression.

Don't capture any quake, blood, doom or hexen vibes for me. I just watch civie11 cover these games

 

[winjer]

Don't capture any quake, blood, doom or hexen vibes for me. I just watch civie11 cover these games

Prodeus, Ion Fury, Amid Evil, Dusk, Dread Templar, etc.

 

[Murdoch]

It's never been cheaper, easier or flat out better to play games.

Enjoy it

 

[nkarafo]

Streaming is the end game and when it becomes the only option i will also quit.

 

[Majima Everywhere System]

I think that the youths don't want variety in gaming. That's a you thing. They want a famliar experience that allows for creativity and social meetups.

Do they want variety in anything else? Movies today?

So yes, gaming moved on from you. I'm pretty sure you will play your digital library of old Xbox games, and old PS games (thanks to pressure from Phillip), which will be available until the day you die. So shut up about disks and start playing old games.

 

[Vaelka]

Imo I just find gaming on the '' Western '' front to be extremely stale and sanitized.
It feels like they're made based on Facebook or Google marketing algorithms there's just something about them that feels so lifeless and restrained like they lack personality.
Particularly when it comes to sex and sexualized content but also violence, violence has been weirdly sanitized in recent years with very few exceptions ( TLOU gets away with it because it's pretentious and seen as artsy, DOOM was good tho but it's also very cartoony ).
When you think about it there's not much blood in games anymore either.

It's the same when big publishers like Amazon get their hands on games like Lost Ark, the first thing they do is start sanitizing it and hide what it is instead of embracing it.
They've been censoring things upfront and made the marketing a lot '' safer '' they're essentially trying to hide what the game is on surface level and they'd probably do more if they could tbh and if it was less work. The game would never have been what it is if they were involved from the beginning or created the game.


Game devs nowadays are basically concerned middle aged dads who think that cigars in games is too much because someone died of lungcancer that one time ( remember when they censored it in Gears of War? ) and that women need to wear turtlenecks and can only show skin if they're buff and look more like men.
And games can't have a lot of blood anymore because you still gotta make it safe for kids and marketing friendly on big platforms, and every gaming event feels like it's the most heavily scripted and robotic event ever.

I am not saying that gaming is terrible and unplayable there's still games in the West that get released I enjoy, I really enjoyed Star Wars: Squadrons for example and I was pretty disappointed that they dropped support for it.
I think it could've been incredible if they had expanded on it and made larger scale battles but even for what it was it was incredibly fun ( dunno about the story tho I skipped it ).
But I do think that gaming has become too corporatized and whenever you watch an event or look at public statements by Microsoft like with their purchase of Activision Blizzard for example it looks and feels like a bunch of dudes who are like that fake '' perfect family '' in American commercials and political ads it has that same energy and feeling.
The days of devs just creating what they want without corporate interference is gone and it can be felt imo, the way Hollywood works has bled into gaming where decisions are made by suits in a boardroom and you have people telling you '' no '' more than '' yes '' as to what to put into your game.

 

[rofif]

Prodeus, Ion Fury, Amid Evil, Dusk, Dread Templar, etc.

Ion Fury is fine. Didn't like others at all. Really surprised as I should love these games

 

[winjer]

Ion Fury is fine. Didn't like others at all. Really surprised as I should love these games

Really? I loved everyone of these.
No AAA FPS in recent years have come close to the amount of fun these games gave me.

 

[FunkMiller]

Elden Ring is out in six weeks.

This thread is invalid.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Consolidation is out of our control.

But for the other things trending to digital, subs and certain genres consistently being Top 10 Most Played Games, if thats what the general public is willing to buy and play, how can anyone tell them not to?

Don't play COD and support this anime strategy RPG game? Well, too bad. If people want to play Fortnite or FIFA, thats their choice and devs follow the money.

 

[Amiga]

Meanwhile games like Tales, Persona, Yakuza are bigger than they ever were. indie devs are making GOTY caliber games. We just got a game like Returnal, we are about to get an open world Souls. and a Final Fantasy "Souls lite". We are getting Wolverine/Ragnarok/Spider-Man2. a new generation of PSVR that has Alex as a standard.

Relax, gaming is fine, it's massive and still getting bigger for everyone

 

[tommib]

Meanwhile games like Tales, Persona, Yakuza are bigger than they ever were. indie devs are making GOTY caliber games. We just got a game like Returnal, we are about to get an open world Souls. and a Final Fantasy "Souls lite". We are getting Wolverine/Ragnarok/Spider-Man2. a new generation of PSVR that has Alex as a standard.

Relax, gaming is fine, it's massive and still getting bigger for everyone

I like this positivity. Changing my avatar back to Selene.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Meanwhile games like Tales, Persona, Yakuza are bigger than they ever were. indie devs are making GOTY caliber games. We just got a game like Returnal, we are about to get an open world Souls. and a Final Fantasy "Souls lite". We are getting Wolverine/Ragnarok/Spider-Man2. a new generation of PSVR that has Alex as a standard.

Relax, gaming is fine, it's massive and still getting bigger for everyone

True.

There is no way indie games have ever been this big.

But I think the problem is when it comes to marketing and Top Played Lists and sales lists, it's always the big name franchises from the same big corporations, so people think thats all they play.

But then some game like Factorio which you see zero mention or marketing sells million of copies.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Don't capture any quake, blood, doom or hexen vibes for me. I just watch civie11 cover these games

Funny you say that since it's civvie11 who actually sold me on most of the new boomer's I've played.

I though both Dusk and Amid Evil were pretty cool.

You can also go for Ultrakill. It's nothing like the classics but man, is it fun! Like if DMC and Quake had a night of love and gave birth to this.

 

[Punished Miku]

Korea and China are also on the cusp on AAA console gaming. Going to see some entirely new studios and perspectives over the next 10 years.

 

[Tg89]

I'm not sure about the doom and gloom. I think the industry is certainly changing big time. I'm not a fan of the consolidation - short term it'll be a win, Microsoft is still pumping money and willing to take huge losses to gain marketshare...when they get that marketshare and they turn their attention to recouping losses and making profits we'll start to see the impact. The AA game is likely going to largely disappear again as a result. No sense spending money to develop something like Crash when the people interested are already subscribing to your service for "heavy hitters" like CoD.

That said, it's still a ways out. My backlog is already huge, I'd imagine by the time that truly happens it'll be big enough that I'll never finish it in my lifetime anyway.

More than anything though, indie devs continue to increase in number, become more competent, have more technology at their disposal, etc. They'll pick up the slack.

 

[Max Payne’s Baretta]

We're gonna be seeing alot of these kind of threads arent we? lol

 

[iHaunter]

Seems like a complete knee jerk reaction.
I feel like we have more games or genres than ever to enjoy.
Plus you can enjoy most the older games worth playing still.

Think so? Halo Infinite released unfinished and that was their flagship "Console selling" title. What do you think will happen to their other games?

 

[Punished Miku]

Think so? Halo Infinite released unfinished and that was their flagship "Console selling" title. What do you think will happen to their other games?

Gears 4, 5 and Forza release okay. I think each studio is just different. They've clearly struggled with Halo, but finally got most of the core elements in a good place.

 

[tommib]

We're gonna be seeing alot of these kind of threads arent we? lol

The same way we see you shitposting on all Sony threads.

 

[Captain Toad]

Buy everything
Own nothing

I still buy physical discs when I can. It feels even better now because it feels like going against the grain

The physical discs/cartridges that must be in the console even though you were required to download the game anyway since the entire thing isn't on the disc/cartridge?

 

[iHaunter]

Gears 4, 5 and Forza release okay. I think each studio is just different. They've clearly struggled with Halo, but finally got most of the core elements in a good place.

Very few will buy a console for Forza. Mayyyybe gears. But Halo is definitely their big one. I'm glad I played infinite on GP otherwise I'd be pissed. Every area is copy/pasted. Majority of the story are clear this room, watch hologram, go to next room. You'd never imagine that a 450 employee studio took 6 years to make this piece of shit. Not to mention the cringiest dialogue in a game.

 

[rofif]

The physical discs/cartridges that must be in the console even though you were required to download the game anyway since the entire thing isn't on the disc/cartridge?

You are not required to do anything.
Nobody stops you to put Bloodborne in ps4, never patch it and play.
The whole game is there on the disc. It's almost an interesting artifact.

 

[Punished Miku]

Very few will buy a console for Forza. Mayyyybe gears. But Halo is definitely their big one. I'm glad I played infinite on GP otherwise I'd be pissed. Every area is copy/pasted. Majority of the story are clear this room, watch hologram, go to next room. You'd never imagine that a 450 employee studio took 6 years to make this piece of shit. Not to mention the cringiest dialogue in a game.

I think they cut over half the content they made just to get it working correctly. Development hell for sure.

Hopefully they can repurpose some of that work they did. I'm convinced they probably had another 2 biomes at least. But like I said, at least they got the core elements functioning finally.

 

[STARSBarry]

Honestly just go indie, I very rarely play big budget third party anymore. Exclusives tend to still deliver although recent titles like Halo : Infinite have also been moving away from what I look for in a title.

Physical releases for indie titles are limited but if you are willing to pay they often come in far less than just some random triple A title and contain additional goodies.

If the market has moved away from what your looking for the solution is to change where you look and what you buy.

 

[Tg89]

You are not required to do anything.
Nobody stops you to put Bloodborne in ps4, never patch it and play.
The whole game is there on the disc. It's almost an interesting artifact.

There's many games these days that 100% need a patch/download and cannot just be played with the disc.

 

[Kacho]

Consolidation. Subscription services. Streaming. All digital. No physical media. No ownership. Sky high prices. Three genres; FPS shooters, racing and open world RPG. Throw in a yearly FIFA for variety. I'm done with modern gaming after this console generation. I'm going retro. It was a good run. Have fun.

How can anyone not be excited about this? Game Pass is such an incredible value™ !

You forgot to mention how completely fucked the culture of the western gaming industry is btw. Lot's of focus on inclusion, diversity, and identify politics instead of interesting ideas, risks, and finished products. The hobby we once loved is going to be unrecognizable in about 10 years. Mark my words.

 

[Fare thee well]

I'm hoping the tier between indie and triple A grows extremely vibrant. I've been able to find games I love between 2020-2022, but it could be a lot better.

 

[WoJ]

I'm not thrilled with some of the changes going on in the industry but I don't think it's all doom and gloom. There is still a ton of great stuff coming out that isn't AAA or annualized sequels. In many ways Microsoft is forcing the industry to innovate because of the implementation of their strategy. There is good stuff on the horizon and bad stuff. I'll stick with the stuff I consider "good" and not engage in the "bad". And if the bad is too much for me, I'll just stick to my decades long backlog.

 

[Prison Mike]

 

[Javthusiast]

I am a digital slut for music, tv, games and movies already. Services like game pass give me more for less money spent. Pretty gucci with our gaming future.

 

[Tg89]

I'm hoping the tier between indie and triple A grows extremely vibrant. I've been able to find games I love between 2020-2022, but it could be a lot better.

I think indie just eventually fills that tier honestly.

It's not going to make much sense for Microsoft to greenlight many AA type projects once they achieve the userbase and switch focus to turning profit.

But indie devs are getting better, the tools they use are getting more accessible and better. They're on the verge of being capable of making those types of games. I could easily see a Yakuza/Crash type game coming out of an indie studio before 2030.

 

[Captain Toad]

You are not required to do anything.
Nobody stops you to put Bloodborne in ps4, never patch it and play.
The whole game is there on the disc. It's almost an interesting artifact.

I guess I'm thinking more along the lines of Switch. Often you'll get a collection of three games, but only the first is on the cart and you have to download the other two anyways.

Sometimes the "physical edition" is nothing but an empty box and a download code. This is less common on PS4/Xbox, but it happens there as well.

 

[FrankCaron]

The kneejerk reaction to these types of acquisitions in creative industries always makes me laugh.

You can buy IP, but you can't monopolize creative energy or creative expression. There will always be new heroes and upstarts in a creative industry, doubly so in the wreckage of any type of consolidation that drives out talent. Blizzard's fleeing devs aren't going to work in Excel spreadsheets for some hedgefund, as an example. This is particularly true in all of gaming, music, and movies right now, as the tools and the knowledge needed to create amazing creative experiences gets further commoditized and accessible. Indie gaming is FLOURISHING right now. PC gaming has never been better, card prices aside.

Sometimes I feel like the people in this forum don't live in the real world. If you've been gaming for the last 20 years, how can you not see that things are amazing and are only getting better? Yea, there's dumb shit happening, but there's even more good shit happening. Who cares what corporation owns what brand? The creators will continue to create, and they'll keep doing so whether it's under the umbrella of some big corp or as a small shop or one man/woman show.

Like movies and music, game creation is cyclical. Genres come and go. Fads rise and fall. But at the end of the day, if you seek out good shit, you will find more now than you did yesterday.

C'mon.

 

[Son_of_Zardoz]

Looking at my brief exposure to Gamepass, over the last 7 months, I've so far witnessed nothing but positive trends. It's the early days honeymoon period still for the service, so things could someday get dark and dystopian.

But the main thing I'm seeing is a lot more support for AA games and indie games, as well as a loosening of the noose around the neck of AAA or AA+ games. When you're not entirely bound by sales numbers, then you have a little more room for risk taking and creative freedom I think. Stuff like the new Aliens game can get played by people now on Gamepass, instead of just instantly buried because it's not a $70 mega budget title.

Sub services have the potential to reawaken game diversity, which has been stagnant for a while now for all the large publishers.

So much this. I know that as I've gotten older I don't game nearly as much, so I'm really not going to spend money to buy a game unless it's something I know that I'm going to like. GP has let me try out a ton of games that otherwise I probably wouldn't have given a second thought. Hoping this trend helps smaller games get discovered by more people and not just passed over in the store.

Very few will buy a console for Forza. Mayyyybe gears. But Halo is definitely their big one. I'm glad I played infinite on GP otherwise I'd be pissed. Every area is copy/pasted. Majority of the story are clear this room, watch hologram, go to next room. You'd never imagine that a 450 employee studio took 6 years to make this piece of shit. Not to mention the cringiest dialogue in a game.

So I see you've never played an Ace Combat game.

 

[Business]

AAA western developed games are becoming a massive chore I'll give you that OP.

 

[Hendrick's]

 

[fart town usa]

Just depends on which ecosystem you're in.

Straight up modern console gaming hasn't really excited me through the PS4 gen and now in the PS5 gen.

But at the same time, retro gaming is better than ever with the FPGA devices, retroarch, the terra onion type SD loaders for old consoles. It's definitely a process and can be costly to get any of these things but options are definitely out there. Not to mention everdrives for people who actually own old consoles and a CRT or quality upscaler for modern tv's.

I just follow modern gaming for the news, I'm not invested into the actual gaming aspect outside of RE titles and a few other franchises I enjoy.

Don't let it get you down, there are always going to be options for old games because nerds on the internet make it possible.

 

[rofif]

There's many games these days that 100% need a patch/download and cannot just be played with the disc.

I know. But I don't think it's the case for playstation. Even the most buggy ones like Days Gone can be played

 

[DZ_b_EZ]

I'm right there with you. The fact that there will be no physical copies in the next one to two generations fucking sucks. The moment they launch consoles with no physical media slot, I'm just going to go back to retro. I've gotten kind of used to it on PC, but consoles were still there for physical medias. Streaming is going to be a bust for me.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

I'd say indies and VR games is where to avoid all the garbage. Indies are also practically getting AA these days. People need to speak with their wallets, and I'll be speaking for complete quality single player games.

 

[Dust-by-Monday]

I feel like it's all RPGs, shooters and super hero games these days.. There's literally nothing other than HFB that I'm looking forward to this year.

 

[Tg89]

I know. But I don't think it's the case for playstation. Even the most buggy ones like Days Gone can be played

Yeah, you're probably right on the playstation end.

that said, imagine being stuck playing Cyberpunk that comes on the disc..

Publishers use day 1 patches as too much of a crutch and it's only getting worse.

 

[Nemesisuuu]

Is this Sonyverse?

 

[kyussman]

I'm certainly going to be doing a lot less gaming this gen when or even if I do jump in(so to speak,lol).This is mainly because entire publishers just put out mostly shit these days,EA and Ubisoft for example.

 

[German Hops]

Yeah good riddance. I mean you.

Meanwhile I will enjoy the hell out of Elden Ring, HZD Forbidden West, Starfield, GOW Ragnarok, FF16, Spidey 2 and so on and so on.

OH and my daily routine of Apex Legend

Get bent.