What a great time to be a gamer, don't you think?

[Chazore]

m0ney said:

I feel lost and confused about modern gaming. Where is Deus Ex? Max Payne? What happened to fun semi-sim racing games like Dirt 1-2-3? I can go on and on. Starfield is Fallout in space? I liked New Vegas, but for some reason I have zero interest in Starfield. Most triple A games seem to be semi open world collectotron games now, I feel like I am done with them.

I feel this too, but I also see more and more studios trend chasing, turning games into live services, focusing on splitting games up into pieces to be sold as DLC packs and so on.

Then of course there are genres that are "safe" bets, while other genres still suffer over time and get ignored. I know people tell me "you just have to look", but I shouldn't have to, because years ago there was something for everyone. For me there is no new C&C, no new Starcraft, no new Supreme Commander. We got a new AoE, but it pales in comparison to what came before (mostly down to the fact MS closed down Ensemble Studios, the original devs who made AoE what it is). 

Then of course there's things like Battle passes, more skinner boxes, more carrot on a stick based games, more open world games with little purpose to them, little interaction with same game worlds, the list goes on.

As much as I've had fun with some games in the past decade, it's still not as great a time as I had nearly 20 years ago, where I had more to play, more to do, more wonder to discover. These days it's come down to: "does the game respect my time?", "does the game come with a cash shop/MT's/Battle pass?", "is it a live service?", "is it yet another turn based/X4 game?". I never had to think of any of that 20 years ago, but now I do today, because things I feel changed and became something not as appealing, or as welcoming as what came before. 

There are games that really adore Dark Souls and it's mechanics, it's art-style, that they try to emulate both, and while I don't mind some games having a certain gothic style, it does get mundane after some years of seeing the same style being emulated, and I definitely do not like the "big room with 3-4 enemies" trope, or the "commit to action" style combat mechanics that other games are trying to emulate (which I never got along with). 

Over the past decade I've been moving further and further away from AAA games, mostly because they have became mundane, predatory, or just straight up pricing me out of the market. Though I still play indie games, I am starting to feel slightly similar vibes (indies trend chasing, spamming genres, putting more MT's into their games, relying on BP's, etc).