Wtf happened to video games?

Tracymcgoaty · Post #1 » by **Tracymcgoaty** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:06 am

What happened to video games in general?

From NBA games to everything else it just seems like a rinse and repeat of the same formula emphasizing micro transactions above all else. I remember when developers actually put everything they had into games.

Hell now it's more or less big corporations pushing out these games faster than people can finish them.

Why the **** does everything seem to lack personality.

Even modern NBA seems to be lacking in that special something previous generations had.

Football/Soccer especially. Dont get me wrong it's still fun to watch but football especially is lacking in a major way compared to previous times.

What is this metamorphosis? Will it get worse?

chilluminati · Post #2 » by **chilluminati** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:14 am

Once upon a time, game devs made games because it was a passion of theirs. Now it's just capitalism. Then as technology grew, it gave those dev's bosses more excuses to inject even more capitalism into games in the forms of P2W and microtransactions. At this point a lot of games are just cash grabs with no intention of supplying much of an enjoyable experience. Some even exist purely to exploit gambling addicts.

2K is a perfect example of this.

RoundMoundOfRebound · Post #3 » by **RoundMoundOfRebound** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:16 am

Taj FTW · Post #4 » by **Taj FTW** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:16 am

Sports videogames have always been ****. There are plenty of incredible games out there now a days. We're in a golden age of gaming.

Cassalien · Post #5 » by **Cassalien** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:22 am

Well in short, nothing happened. It is sadly the norm that corporate greed takes and maximizing revenue is priority because everything is a "business". People don't vote with their money and 2k is a prime example of it.

The game has been utter garbage and didn't really change at all since 2017. There is just no alternative to that basketball simulation experience so 2k is gonna squeeze every little bit out of their whales and chash cows.

What happenes to Football/Soccer Simulation Games remains to be seen with the classic FIFA coming to an end this year with EA Sports not having the rights any longer. EA not having something under control is always a huge W.

If you look for games that actually offer something for your buck, it will be hard to find. Best chance you have on finding these games are with small indie dev teams. However, those bear the risk of failure frequently as well. A few examples of games that are currently in early access and some that will be brought to 1.0 are:

- BattleBit: Battlefield but on Roblox graphics. 3 man dev team, 7 years of development and just recently launched into early access. It does what a lot of AAA Studios can not do.

- Dave the Diver: You look for personality? Look no further than this. Will be released on the 28th this month

- Satisfactoy: Has been in early access since seemingly forever but a great game.

There are more games that I could list but I am not trying to sell you on more.

Unfortunately a game like Starfield will be sold like crazy as well. Bethesda has already announced a DLC after delaying the release of the base game for a full year. Knowing Bethesda Games, their isht will be riddled with bugs and people decide that it is okay because they keep buying it. Vote with your wallet and stop feeding money into those bottom mid tier games.

Edrees · Post #6 » by **Edrees** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:22 am

chilluminati wrote:Once upon a time, game devs made games because it was a passion of theirs. Now it's just capitalism. Then as technology grew, it gave those dev's bosses more excuses to inject even more capitalism into games in the forms of P2W and microtransactions. At this point a lot of games are just cash grabs with no intention of supplying much of an enjoyable experience. Some even exist purely to exploit gambling addicts.

2K is a perfect example of this.

summarized perfectly

It really mainly applies to big AAA games though. If you go for lesser known games you can play plenty of games without predatory and opportunistic practices.

Post #7 » by **Duke4life831** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:23 am

My best guess is over time each sport basically got monopolized. Once Madden got the rights to the NFL, no other football games could compete. And because of this Madden was able to stop doing their best to improve year over year and started to essentially just copy and paste code year to year.

Other sports have seen this as well. 2k got so popular it was no longer profitable for EA to keep making NBA Live. So because of that, 2k lost its competition and have been able to essentially just coast since.

I play FIFA pretty sparingly so I cant really talk about how much competition it has from PES (or whatever the name for the other soccer game is).

But ya, you take away legit competition and businesses will coast and not spend the time and effort to try and improve the game. I believe it was like Madden 2020 where people caught that the banners in the stadiums during the game still just said Madden 19 on them. Basically shows how much they truly do just copy and paste year to year haha.

Tracymcgoaty · Post #8 » by **Tracymcgoaty** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:28 am

Cassalien wrote:Well in short, nothing happened. It is sadly the norm that corporate greed takes and maximizing revenue is priority because everything is a "business". People don't vote with their money and 2k is a prime example of it.

The game has been utter garbage and didn't really change at all since 2017. There is just no alternative to that basketball simulation experience so 2k is gonna squeeze every little bit out of their whales and chash cows.

What happenes to Football/Soccer Simulation Games remains to be seen with the classic FIFA coming to an end this year with EA Sports not having the rights any longer. EA not having something under control is always a huge W.

If you look for games that actually offer something for your buck, it will be hard to find. Best chance you have on finding these games are with small indie dev teams. However, those bear the risk of failure frequently as well. A few examples of games that are currently in early access and some that will be brought to 1.0 are:

- BattleBit: Battlefield but on Roblox graphics. 3 man dev team, 7 years of development and just recently launched into early access. It does what a lot of AAA Studios can not do.

- Dave the Diver: You look for personality? Look no further than this. Will be released on the 28th this month

- Satisfactoy: Has been in early access since seemingly forever but a great game.

There are more games that I could list but I am not trying to sell you on more.

Unfortunately a game like Starfield will be sold like crazy as well. Bethesda has already announced a DLC after delaying the release of the base game for a full year. Knowing Bethesda Games, their isht will be riddled with bugs and people decide that it is okay because they keep buying it. Vote with your wallet and stop feeding money into those bottom mid tier games.

The last game i was ecstatic to play was Sifu from sloclap i believe a indie game developer.

Most fun i've had playing a game since forever. Still playing it to this day since they are adding in new things for free. It's seriously amazing.

After that it has to be Sekiro. People talk about Elden Ring but Sekiro is the best fromsoft game for me. Must have replayed it at least 20 times.

MrBigShot · Post #9 » by **MrBigShot** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:31 am

1. Microtransactions

2. Monopoly on basketball video games

3. 1 year isn't enough time for meaningful change

I mean realistically, there's not much else they can do at this point to really "improve" the gameplay from year to year.

cdubbz · Post #10 » by **cdubbz** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:32 am

I haven’t bought 2k In YEARS and I used to love playing 2k and starting a season and trying to play a full season in association mode. The feeling of being a GM was so much fun.

I also liked doing a whole NBA draft and build my own team, but I always lost interest after the actual draft lol.

Bobbymcgee · Post #11 » by **Bobbymcgee** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:42 am

Best basketball videogame is NBA JAM.

Sucks I can't play it on my PS5.

Chuck Everett · Post #12 » by **Chuck Everett** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:43 am

These games cost a lot of money to make/develop. If the audience will buy the games no matter what, what incentive do they have to really innovate? Innovation means constantly turning over your staff if necessary.

Lockdown504090 · Post #13 » by **Lockdown504090** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:43 am

lots of good games, just ignore the bad ones.

Onlytimewilltel · Post #14 » by **Onlytimewilltel** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:49 am

Taj FTW wrote:Sports videogames have always been ****. There are plenty of incredible games out there now a days. We're in a golden age of gaming.

As someone who hasn’t played video games in about 30 years, what are some good ones? Like if I wanted to “waste” a bit of time on a game or two, what would you recommend?

links135 · Post #15 » by **links135** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:49 am

chilluminati wrote:Once upon a time, game devs made games because it was a passion of theirs. Now it's just capitalism. Then as technology grew, it gave those dev's bosses more excuses to inject even more capitalism into games in the forms of P2W and microtransactions. At this point a lot of games are just cash grabs with no intention of supplying much of an enjoyable experience. Some even exist purely to exploit gambling addicts.

2K is a perfect example of this.

Suits.

Also even Ocarina of Time was $60 when it came out 25 years ago. Which is like $110 today.

Still at the end of the day it's suits. There aren't artists or programmers out there that are like "you know this would be cool but I just wanna cash grab", they have to do what the higher ups tell them or else.

Can I point, FIFA and 2K are still among the top selling games every year.

So when you talk $2 million you can take some risks investing, $60-90 million and it starts to become more formulaic.

On top of that the graphical standard had improved 100 fold, of course that doesn't make for a fun game automatically, but it does drive the budget up leading to suits.

And then as people mentioned there's then alot more indie games then there were back in the day.

I am a game developer although junior level so my thoughts hold little weight, although I can say since I work with people that have made alot of big games you guys have probably played, there isn't a character artist waking up in the morning excited to have microtransactions on their work.

DorianRo · Post #16 » by **DorianRo** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:53 am

I gave up on multiplayer after Friday the 13th multiplayer about 6 years ago. Such great potential and a complete bug infested clusterf** . All just BS money grabs with a half arsed attempt of fixing the problems with good patches. Each patch they seem to screw things up even more. Really it went all downhill after the PS3/Xbox 360 gen.

Infinite Llamas · Post #17 » by **Infinite Llamas** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:54 am

Nothing beats the SNES for me. Golden age of role playing games like Chrono Trigger/Earthbound/FF6 and NBA Live games were nothing to sneeze at either.

Haven’t bought a new console since the 3DS and I adored that little system.

Taj FTW · Post #18 » by **Taj FTW** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:56 am

Onlytimewilltel wrote:
Taj FTW wrote:Sports videogames have always been ****. There are plenty of incredible games out there now a days. We're in a golden age of gaming.

As someone who hasn’t played video games in about 30 years, what are some good ones? Like if I wanted to “waste” a bit of time on a game or two, what would you recommend?

Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Probably not the game you're looking for, but what the hell. It's great.

Pelon chingon · Post #19 » by **Pelon chingon** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:56 am

Best basketball game ever was 2k11 then 2k12 dropped and it was garbage truck juice. Haven't bought a copy of 2k since.

Taj FTW · Post #20 » by **Taj FTW** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:57 am

Infinite Llamas wrote:Nothing beats the SNES for me. Golden age of role playing games like Chrono Trigger/Earthbound/FF6 and NBA Live games were nothing to sneeze at either.

Haven’t bought a new console since the 3DS and I adored that little system.

Just played Mario RPG again on an emulator. Haven't beaten chronotrigger in a while. If you like FF7, I recommend FF7 Remake.