so true, all of it

Also not only has it always been like this but it was even worse.


How many rip offs of Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Pong, Mario, Tetris, etc. ?

How many good innovative games neglected because of those rip-offs ?

I think it's always been like this unfortunately. A lot of great games overshadowed by huge blockbusters. And it's the same in every industry.

Look at the top 25 grossing movies of all time, for example: five Harry Potter movies, three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and, for good measure, Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

I do think the problem is worse today, in part because of bloated budgets and in part due to lack of imagination, but I don't think it's unique to this generation of games.

Basically, blame the rise of technology.

The stronger consoles became, the more cost came from making original game engines. PC tools are used and PC gaming projects which were previously niche before starts to gain traction with the larger console audience. Big publishers go nuts on their AAA titles and in order to save costs, they give in too annual updates that on PCs might have been just expansion packs but are now being released as sequels or if small enough DLC. PC tools plus the normal copy cat/imitation nature of the industry (long time fans known this has always been a factor) leads to games that look really similar to other games.

Eastern developers and publishers are releasing fewer games because the cost of just one console game has shot up through the sky and even the larger ones are at a lost on how to compete in the global market. Normally, they would be seen as bringing in different genres or takes on the more popular trends but many have taken to outsourcing to Western developers or just sticking to Japan or handhelds.

As bad as the industry seems however, it should be noted that digital releases and indie developers are making superb head ways in trying new things and filling the void left behind by previously more experimental developers. Sadly, when it comes to retail we are still seeing the media and industry trying to tell us the next big annual franchise is the greatest thing ever done based on graphics or the amount of money thrown behind its promotion.

^This, with a caveat. I do consider some games art.

Wth ... have you played GTAV? It's totally deserving of its praise. It's not been milked either, GTAIV was 2008 0_o

My original post in the topic was more than just games, included a few paragraphs of what my opinion was on why games aren't selling and one of the reasons is the now core audience who only plays what's popular on the market, allowing underrated and overrated reviews to make their opinion for them.

Most journalists are to be blamed for the decline of gaming as well. Just about every large review site out there pushes that anything below an 8/10 isn't a very good game, while anything 6.9/10 or below shouldn't be played. Then for some reason or another, some of those cult classic games that get low scores but the people who have played them and enjoy them, happen to have one odd quality about them that is bashed but might later end up being praised by the gaming community in the future.

Urban Reign is actually one of the best examples. It's received a Metacritic score of 60, but if you go through all of the reviews that scored it poorly, one thing they have in common is the games difficulty. The story mode has 100 missions that are nothing but fights against one to five enemies in different areas and the game does get more difficult at around stage 20. So the first 1/5 of the game is easy enough, you get further the game is pushing you to get better.

Hard difficulty was a thing publishers frowned upon last gen, but this gen games get overrated because they have too hard of a difficulty. Super Meat Boy for example. Super Meat Boy is only a decent game, but is massively overrated. The cheap difficulty is at times rage inducing, especially if you're playing the game with a keyboard and not a controller. Most of this games praise comes from it's ridiculous difficulty, the game scoring a 90 on Metacrtic.

Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are great games, two more games that are praised for their difficulty. Dark Souls doesn't quite deserve the amount of praise because there's way too much cheap bs in the game in my opinion, but Demon's Souls while difficult is still fair. There's only stage 5 which is an annoyance, but not cheap like Dark Souls. Whether the games are good or not, they receive high praise for their difficulties.

God Hand is another game that was bashed for being too difficult, but now that it's okay for games to be difficult again, what kind of scores would the game be seeing if it was released now instead of back then?

So I haven't played Beyond Two Souls and maybe the good reviews are right, maybe the bad ones are. But "what if" there's one thing the game does that they don't like and they take it out on the entire game and just slam the game because of it. There's proof that journalists in the past rated games poorly for one reason and in the future, games that may not be as good are praised like they're second to none(Super Meat Boy.)

Something else though. Monster Hunter seems to be getting good scores now days. Freedom Unite scoring an 81, Monster Hunter Ultimate 3 scoring an 82. Those of us who have played any Monster Hunter knows that they're pretty much the exact same game with very minor changes. So back when the IP was new, how is it that they scored 69-72 for Monster Hunter, Monster Hunter Freedom, and Monster Hunter Freedom 2. If anything, this points to the fact that journalists are becoming biased with name brand recognition, and the more hype surrounding a game, the higher they'll rate it.

The amount of bias in gaming journalism is ridiculous and there's proof sitting in Metacrtic and Gamerankings. You just have to look.

Yes, Good games are not being sold very well and only games which are selling well are Multi player oriented and Shooting. Most of the people became addicted to same things and they also expecting same things again instead of Innovation and different experience. If any one tries to do then they claim that its not a game because they compare that to the games what have they have played so far. This is really bad and I'm disappointed with this behaviour from the gamers. Eveybody should asses game based on their preferences instead of relying up on Reviews and also should try to experience the game instead of trying to pass the time with it. Gaming has the power to give an experience more than Fun which was being considered as main apsect in gaming. Gaming can tell a great story, can connect emotionally to the characters and relax from regular Life etc., But, most of the people just want 50 hours of game, multi player, shooting, violence etc., which they are addicted to. Please everyone try to get out of the old things for new experiences alteast from next gen and support developers and don't listen to reviews becauase its being biased mostly (which is very stupid system fails to asses game in a way understandable for everyone because everyone thinks that if the game has low score then its bad game so they won't look at the positive things from the game at all).