Jim Sterling just had a new video about this. What he said made a lot of sense. What happened was game sales for consoles had been slipping in the twilight years of the 7th generation. For most of us who's ben around forever, this makes sense. People are getting tired and want something new. A lot of the AAA publishers thought that meant consoles were on their way out and the focus should be shifted to indie and mobile. Needless to say, the sales of the PS4 and the recovery of Xbox One caught the AAA publishers off guard and they weren't prepared. This explains why at the beginning of the 8th generation, we got a ton of 7th gen ports and remasters. It also explains why we're getting so many broken games and why are being carved up like crazy. They weren't ready so these games weren't ready.
While not being ready does explain a lot of the weird business practices, most of it cannot be excused. A lot of these shady practices started on the 7th generation and went into hyperdrive in the 8th generation. I can see why retro gaming has been huge business lately. For those of us older gamers, we want to relive those experiences that we either buried in our closets years ago or gave away to GameStop. For younger gamers, they want that simpler experience with less bullshit that they missed out on.
Check out my art blog: http://jon-erich-art.blogspot.com
