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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Are you losing faith in gaming?

 

Are you losing faith in gaming?

Yes 178 42.79%
 
No 238 57.21%
 
Total:416
Aeolus451 said:
zorg1000 said:

He probably means people who grew up gaming in the 80s/90s see it as a decline because many of the big franchises and genres of that time are dead or niche while people who started gaming in the 2000s probably see it as a great time because we are now getting bigger, better versions of the type of games they started with.

Thats how I interpreted it.

 

Veknoid_Outcast said:

That's a good way to put it :)

Also, Beast Wars rocks.

Hmm. I'm in my 30's and I see it as gaming is only getting better. The thing that I miss from those days is the turn based rpgs but I understand that gaming has to evolve and the genres change.  Alot more can be done in a game then back in the day. Developers are more able to build worlds that are believable. That's more important to me then feeling a bit of nostalgia from a game. I don't know if others my age will see it the same but they've definitely seen gaming change decade after decade. I remember playing games like pong or duck hunt or super mario brothers wishing it was something like the witcher 3 or TLOU, now those kind of games are here, why would I ever want it to revert back to those boring ass side scrolling games?

Thats fine that you enjoy and prefer the type of experiences that make up the big mainstream games today, nothing wrong with that.

The mainstream western market is dominated by online shooters, open-world action games & annual  sports titles with a strong emphasis on realism & cinematics. Not everybody enjoys or prefers these types of experiences and if you're one of those people than the current AAA market doesnt have much appeal.

Personally I'm a fan of platformers, exploration based adventure games, turn based/strategy RPGs, puzzle games & arcade style pick up and play games. For me the big western publishers that dominate the console space offer very little, its the small-medium size Japanese studios and indie developers that are keeping them alive.



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bdbdbd said:
Aeolus451 said:

 

Hmm. I'm in my 30's and I see it as gaming is only getting better. The thing that I miss from those days is the turn based rpgs but I understand that gaming has to evolve and the genres change.  Alot more can be done in a game then back in the day. Developers are more able to build worlds that are believable. That's more important to me then feeling a bit of nostalgia from a game. I don't know if others my age will see it the same but they've definitely seen gaming change decade after decade. I remember playing games like pong or duck hunt or super mario brothers wishing it was something like the witcher 3 or TLOU, now those kind of games are here, why would I ever want it to revert back to those boring ass side scrolling games?

You're apparently still too young. Technically the industry focuses on 18-35 single male (as it has for the last three decades), once you have kids and responsibilities, there's really no way you can spend the time on todays videogames, as they're such a timesinks that give you so little in return.

Today I had time to play 15 minutes Lylat Wars with my oldest kid. I started playing Eternal Darkness again 3 weeks ago, and I'm already a whopping 6 hours into the game. Ninja Gaiden on Wii U's Virtual Console clocked 6 hours in just a couple of days, because the game was easy to pick up and play 10 minutes at a time.

What's your point? That you don't have time play any games because you have responsibilities so gaming hasn't gotten better? Give credit where it's due. If you don't have time, you don't have time for it. Gaming is getting better as a whole and your individual responsiblities have nothing to do with the state of gaming. 

We're able to save games. So you can stop and start whenever you want. You can progress at your own pace. It doesn't matter how long the game is, you can beat it eventually. 



zorg1000 said:
Aeolus451 said:

 

Hmm. I'm in my 30's and I see it as gaming is only getting better. The thing that I miss from those days is the turn based rpgs but I understand that gaming has to evolve and the genres change.  Alot more can be done in a game then back in the day. Developers are more able to build worlds that are believable. That's more important to me then feeling a bit of nostalgia from a game. I don't know if others my age will see it the same but they've definitely seen gaming change decade after decade. I remember playing games like pong or duck hunt or super mario brothers wishing it was something like the witcher 3 or TLOU, now those kind of games are here, why would I ever want it to revert back to those boring ass side scrolling games?

Thats fine that you enjoy and prefer the type of experiences that make up the big mainstream games today, nothing wrong with that.

The mainstream western market is dominated by online shooters, open-world action games & annual  sports titles with a strong emphasis on realism & cinematics. Not everybody enjoys or prefers these types of experiences and if you're one of those people than the current AAA market doesnt have much appeal.

Personally I'm a fan of platformers, exploration based adventure games, turn based/strategy RPGs, puzzle games & arcade style pick up and play games. For me the big western publishers that dominate the console space offer very little, its the small-medium size Japanese studios and indie developers that are keeping them alive.

I don't like COD, battlefield, assassin's creed, halo, GTA, resident evil, etc. I don't really play many of the mainstream games or indies. I used to play alot of the big titles but I got over 'em. They've become repetitive to me. I play mainly RPGs of all kinds, japanese games, new IPs, souls games. Games like Horizon and No Man's Sky seem like a lot of fun to me. Gaming is still getting better as a whole. I'm glad those big titles are there too because they sell really well and that helps fund the games that I like to play. 



Veknoid_Outcast said:
Aeolus451 said:

 

Hmm. I'm in my 30's and I see it as gaming is only getting better. The thing that I miss from those days is the turn based rpgs but I understand that gaming has to evolve and the genres change.  Alot more can be done in a game then back in the day. Developers are more able to build worlds that are believable. That's more important to me then feeling a bit of nostalgia from a game. I don't know if others my age will see it the same but they've definitely seen gaming change decade after decade. I remember playing games like pong or duck hunt or super mario brothers wishing it was something like the witcher 3 or TLOU, now those kind of games are here, why would I ever want it to revert back to those boring ass side scrolling games?

So when I say generational it's not so much that generations of gamers differ; its that gamers differ over which generation of games is best. There are plenty of 30 somethings and 40 somethings who prefer the 7th and 8th gen to earlier generations and plenty of young people who prefer the 80s and 90s. It's about when game design was best, not necessarily birth year.

And to be clear, nostalgia has nothing to do with it. It's about design philosophy, replay value, etc.

But this conversation is a perfect microscosm: we're both in our 30s and we have very different perspectives on the industry. You think gaming is getting better by the year. I think it's getting worse.

Why do you think it's getting worse and compared to what?

The only thing that's really declining is nintendo itself. People only have to look at how much of a buzzkill it's fans are to see the truth of it.  Their dissatisfaction with nintendo is coloring their outlook of gaming as a whole. 

MS is trying really hard to win over new gamers and please it's fanbase with the deals and games that they're offering. MS fans might not be happy that they're console isn't selling really well but they're more or less getting a better deal out of it. BC, cross-play and MS backtracked on that anti-consumer stuff. MS did right by their fans after lto be honest. 

PS fans are happy that their console is selling well and that they're getting the kind of games they want. 



Not losing faith... maybe disheartened. As I've said more than once today, a lot of modern gaming trends are turning me back towards retro hardware. I'll probably always play modern games, but the time and resources I pour into them may dwindle significantly.



Retro Tech Select - My Youtube channel. Covers throwback consumer electronics with a focus on "vid'ya games."

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Snoopy said:
KungKras said:

Except for everytime effort was put fourth and the game made money.

No, if they did make money they would've kept making games for it. Why would publishers skip out on money?

Because of macro strategic reasons. And because of human reasons.



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Aeolus451 said:

Why do you think it's getting worse and compared to what?

The only thing that's really declining is nintendo itself. People only have to look at how much of a buzzkill it's fans are to see the truth of it.  Their dissatisfaction with nintendo is coloring their outlook of gaming as a whole. 

MS is trying really hard to win over new gamers and please it's fanbase with the deals and games that they're offering. MS fans might not be happy that they're console isn't selling really well but they're more or less getting a better deal out of it. BC, cross-play and MS backtracked on that anti-consumer stuff. MS did right by their fans after lto be honest. 

PS fans are happy that their console is selling well and that they're getting the kind of games they want. 

In terms of profits and mindshare, yes, that's true. But in terms of game design I'd argue Nintendo has been the most consistent - although there's no doubt the company stumbled with WiiU. For all its glorification, PS4, in terms of its library, is weaker than PS3, which is weaker than PS2. And XOne is certainly far weaker than Xbox 360. 

But back to your question. I think gaming is getting worse relative to its glory years: the fourth, fifth, and sixth generations. That era, to me, is the height of game design and ingenuity. The 90s and early 2000s saw so many creative and groundbreaking games - on home computers, consoles, handhelds, and in arcades. Beginning around 2005/2006, things took a turn for the worse. The seventh generation, for the most part, didn't provide many new or better experiences. Developers seemed to have hit a brick wall. Games got bigger, prettier, and more cinematic, but they didn't make significant progress in gameplay. 

What caused this? One factor, I think, is technology. Now, that sounds like an oxymoron considering video games are a medium peculiarly reliant on technology. But I think progress with broadband internet, game engines, and HD graphics came at a cost. Sure, it allowed bigger game worlds, more accurate physics, and increased connectivity, but it also allowed developers/publishers to eschew local multiplayer options, abuse DLC and patches, and focus on style over substance. And it caused budgets to skyrocket, meaning less room for error and, consequently, less room for experimentation. So we've seen the industry move to two extremes: big-budget action games and small-studio indie titles, with very few profitable games in the middle. 

And the eighth generation has only doubled down on all the negative trends begun during the seventh.

Now, that's not to say the last 10 years have produced nothing good. Far from it. Some of the best games of all time arrived over the last decade: BioShock, Super Mario Galaxy, Demon's Souls, Xenoblade Chronicles, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, etc. But those classics come less frequently now than they did 15, 20, 25 years ago.



I lost faith in Nintendo years ago, so no, not really. Playstation and 3rd parties are more than enough for me at the moment.

...oh, except for my 3DS. Finally playing Xenoblade Chronicles 3D!



Nah, just in gamers...



Nope games are still amazing.