With the endless drumbeat of negative news and grifter rubbish about everything is doomed and how modern gaming sucks and everything is awful now, you know what I realized? Gaming today is actually kinda great.

Sure, there's lots of bloated, shitty games that epitomize everything wrong with the industry, but hey, nobody's forcing me to play that shit, and at the same time there's no shortage of actual quality games if you look for them; just in the last few months we've gotten Pragmata, RE Requiem, Mouse PI for Hire, Vampire Crawlers, Forza Horizon 6, Pokemon Pokopia, Mewgenics, Tomodachi Life, Crimson Desert, Screamer, Motorslice...

And it's not like the past is closed to us either; we have at our disposal more than half a century of games, much of which has been made accessible through modern platforms without even the need for original hardware; guarantee there are amazing games out there you've never played before.

Gaming today doesn't suck, you just gotta look on the bright side.

Yeah, I kinda agree. I mean there releasing more than 10K games each year, there should be something catered to your needs. You just need to find it.

15 years back I complained about a lack of complex turn-based party RPGs in isometric view. But nowadays I get served with these. Same with other genres. You can find good games everywhere.

The only problem is if you are too focused on the AAA industry. Then things look quite terrible. And it can be fun to criticize the bloated trash industry. But if I have enough of that I go to Balatro, Vampire Crawlers and so on to relax and enjoy gaming. And with games like Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3 and Clair Obscur I also have no shortage of epic big games that are satisfying. Currently I very much enjoy Pokopia and also dabble in Tomodachi Life. All very enjoyable.

I also for many years now give me license to stop playing a game if it stops being fun. That's why I can enjoy the few Assassins Creeds I tried - because I play for 20-30 hours, then stop with maybe 25% of the game done, but so far it was enjoyable but it starts to get repetitive and now is time to stop.

Couldn't agree more. I've been gaming since '97 and have played games since '94 and I could never have imagined how good it would get. Sure, there's a lot of rubbish now and it felt more pristine bavk that's only cause there was rubbish back then too, the ratio of rubbish to gold has remained the same but both have grown exponentially. Not mention, I'd be priced into one or two titles a month in the 90's (Now I have the option of dozens depending on how AAA I wanna go) as games remain on shelves indefinitely and often gets sales so deep that never would have happened back then. There is also a lot of rose tinted glasses going on, not being able to save games, then loosing memory cards, renting games cause they cost about 150 euro of today's money and if you're on PC...well, I think I might have spent more time trouble shooting than playing.

I always figured, with every pass year, gaming is getting better by default. Because all previous games are available plus new games.

I don't think I have ever been negative about gaming since I started playing 40 years ago. There is always great games to choice from. The hardest part is finding the time.

Exactly. First paragraph is fact but many will fight you for stating it. 

I agree to an extent. My biggest complaints are, that even if there's more good games, there seems to be less great ones. Plus, every game with microtransactions are crippled in a way that they create a problem that can be solved with microtransactions.

I don't know, I haven't played a new game in a long time and don't have any desire to replay old games. Maybe it's age and burnout is definitely playing a big role, but new games don't excite me like they used to. I have been following Eurogamer since they started to keep up with new releases, yet rarely go beyond the headlines nowadays. And now I see Sony is raising ps+ prices again.

A big part of it is update fatigue. Why get into a game if it's going to change. For example Path of Exile, but any game really. There's a patch, changing the deal, changing systems, controls. Content updates are great, but stop messing with the mechanics and release finished games. It feels like I have to guess when to play a game, when is it 'finished' before it gets messed up by later updates.

And paradox of choice, the more choice the harder to find what you like, the more insecurity about making the right choice / wasting your time on something inferior. Even restricting myself to PSVR2 has all that, updates altering the deal and more choice than time to enjoy.

So I get 'stuck' in playing the same evergreen games. GT7, where I gave up online racing because PD keeps altering the deal, messing up the penalty system and changing physics, but offline racing is still relaxing. Puzzling Places which regularly adds content packs without altering the deal, stays fun. And Synthriders which also releases more songs and has only polished the core gameplay without altering it. (I really wish they would fix the audio clipping through headphones though, maybe I'm the only one that hears it, perfectly fine on 5.1, perhaps better to stick my headphones in the amp than the headset but then I'm double tethered lol)

Big new games feel like work, giant to do lists, while small games are over too soon to get invested in.Maybe the 'spark' will come back, maybe it will take until after summer as I hardly game anymore during the summer months.

A lot of this negative sentiment has always existed and it's just a mixture of nostalgia glasses and survivor bias.

Studies have shown people's preferences cluster around the media they first experienced in their early teenage years on average, and you also tend to remember the good things about gaming in the past, not the bad ones.

Its true. We get new retro like games. Innovative indie games, big AAA games and everything in between. We also have 50+ years of games to play. Great time for sure.

Especially when the older games are more available than ever.  Want to play Panzer Saga, don't need to spend $1,000.  It is all over the internet.  Add in decompile for native PC support to get 120 fps in Banjo, not a problem.  Want some 4k texture packs in Ocarina, done.  Want Twilight to have a free camera system done.  

Not only are old games available but upgraded as well.  Don't need 20 different consoles and 100 cables either.

Gaming flatly has never been better.