Gaming industry – When will most of it stop being a sewer?

I’ll say what I’ve long been thinking: The golden age of home console and triple AAA gaming is dead. It died somewhere in the last decade and it’s not coming back.

That’s not to say gaming itself is dead, it’s just that the era we were lucky to born into, from the NES up until the 360/PS3/Wii, a time of innovation and rapid advancement of software and hardware capabilities, is over. Gaming is no longer a niche hobby which required developers to create something that engaged and rewarded the player, but now mainstream and thus they can safely rely on guaranteed ways to make easy money.

It’s the sad truth. I don’t like it, but there it is.

These days the only way to find truly excellent game design is with indie and fan games.

I was generalizing: I wasn’t saying all AAA games are bad and are no longer worth playing; most of them are simply, shall we say, plain, for want of a better term, and just lack the ambition that they used have.

There’s nothing wrong with playing a modern title if you think there’s some appeal to it: I’ve got handful of modern games I do enjoy to play.

The distinction I was making is that the industry is now stagnant and isn’t what it once was, and I think it’s a consequence of what’s occurred to it over the last ten years.

Marvel’s Avengers being a live service wasnt a bad idea.
The confusing marketing and attempting to design it so it appeals to 2 polar opposite audiences was the problem. They should have made 2 different games (1 single player. 1 live service). I do hope the combat system doesnt get discarded. That game has a ton of problems but it’s combat is some of the best I’ve ever played.

Games as a service isnt bad, if done correctly. I paid 60 bucks for Overwatch, nearly, 5 years ago and the game is still supported with free updates. Blizzard has balanced into the garbage bin but that’s a different issue.
In the long run, there is more value in MOST Live Service games than any 20-40 hour single player game, if you find one you are into.

Microtransactions arent, universally, bad. Depends on the situation and the pricing.

With the government printing money that doesnt exist and people being stupid enough to encourage it, everything will be going up. Games going up 10 dollars is the least of my worries. Just like now, wait 3-6 months and you can get most games for 30 or less.

Honestly, I think most of this is a nonissue.
You dont want to play a live service, you have other options. Dont like Always Online, play games that dont require it.  You dont have to buy microtransactions or the games that have them in it. Dont wanna pay 70 bucks, dont buy until it’s cheaper or buy games that arent 70 bucks on release.

Broken products are unacceptable and censorship is sickening but I dont see everything else as an issue. It’s a matter of taste and there plenty of options that dont do those things.

Even the censorship, as much it pisses me off, is as simple as “Dont buy the censored thing. Play the original” or buy games that don’t censor (The Mafia II Remaster  is pretty good and it didnt remove it’s nudey collectables. haha).
Personally, since 2014, I’ve went with “Never give EA or Activision money, period. Only buy their shit used so they get no money”.

Never. Each individual grievances you have with the video game industry, though warranted, will take years to tackle.

In bulk, these issues will never be resolved for the sole factor of an innate human mechanism : greed.

From things like uncreative developers sleeping with media voice boxes, developers wanting to spend the least amount of money and resources in order to earn big, developers making episodic releases of a single game, charging for a cosmetic change, censoring beautiful girls, pushing aids infested politics into gaming, and milking franchises until they are dry.

All of these instances relate to the human condition. Even a beloved indie game developer is not immune.

Developers seek money, and you are only a dollar sign to them, however in this era, they no longer listen to your demands because the media is pushing the narrative of  the toxic gamer.

Media needs to stop laying in the beds of the game industry to reduce some of these problems. Hold them accountable, instead of crucifying the consumer.

The answer is to get a Switch or dust off an old console and go on Ebay.