On one hand, nostalgia is often accompanied with selective memory. Many are forgetting that buggy and awful games always outnumbered the good games. There are a lot of good new games out there, they just aren't necessarily coming from the so called AAA or AAAA studios.

What many don't like about modern games are merely symptoms of a bigger problem in my opinion. Hubris.
We spent millions of dollars developing this game. Hired numerous consulting firms to maximize audience appeal. Bought the finest reviews money can buy. How dare you not like it.

akimmet wrote on 2024-08-22, 19:15:

On one hand, nostalgia is often accompanied with selective memory. Many are forgetting that buggy and awful games always outnumbered the good games. There are a lot of good new games out there, they just aren't necessarily coming from the so called AAA or AAAA studios.

What many don't like about modern games are merely symptoms of a bigger problem in my opinion. Hubris.
We spent millions of dollars developing this game. Hired numerous consulting firms to maximize audience appeal. Bought the finest reviews money can buy. How dare you not like it.

Very true!

There are a lot of good small and indie studios out there making some really good games, far more than AAA studios these days I think.

I also agree with how the drug we call nostalgia effects our memories. There are some games I look back on fondly, that when I went back and tried to replay much later, left me wondering how my memory could have been so ... off. Then again, I'm not getting any younger, so I can just blame my aging brain. 😀

akimmet wrote on 2024-08-22, 19:15:

On one hand, nostalgia is often accompanied with selective memory. Many are forgetting that buggy and awful games always outnumbered the good games. There are a lot of good new games out there, they just aren't necessarily coming from the so called AAA or AAAA studios.

That is part of the problem. The most advertised biggest hit AAA games that moved the industry forward were usually fairly polished. Even when poorly optimized they at least worked and were complete. There were the odd big name title that dropped the ball, but over all AAA was a safe bet and AA/indie was where you had to expect janky and buggy games, but for half or a third the price.

Now these AAA titles are those which you have to be most cautious about and they are more expensive then ever with higher profit margins then ever even without post-launch monetization.

akimmet wrote on 2024-08-22, 19:15:

On one hand, nostalgia is often accompanied with selective memory. Many are forgetting that buggy and awful games always outnumbered the good games.

I think that depends. For example, games from the SNES and PlayStation 1 era couldn't rely on post-release updates to fix their bugs, so quality control was pretty tight.

Nowadays, it's actually common for publishers to rush out AAA titles in a buggy state, thinking they can be fixed with a couple of patches.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-08-22, 20:33:

akimmet wrote on 2024-08-22, 19:15:

On one hand, nostalgia is often accompanied with selective memory. Many are forgetting that buggy and awful games always outnumbered the good games.

I think that depends. For example, games from the SNES and PlayStation 1 era couldn't rely on post-release updates to fix their bugs, so quality control was pretty tight.

Nowadays, it's actually common for publishers to rush out AAA titles in a buggy state, thinking they can be fixed with a couple of patches.

You do have a point. Most of console games at the time at least worked.
However, there were still a fair share of bad games for consoles. They were just awful for different reasons. Some were simply not fun, or were confusing to play. Many early 3D titles were horrendously slow.

I don't hate modern games. Have no reason to. Never played one. I spied my copy of Anthem yesterday in a box. It remains uninstalled. The only reasonably modern gpu doesn't have enough balls to play it. A gifted brand new EVGA GTX 750 TI SC. The minimum is a GTX 760. Ain't that some crap. Life just ain't fair.

akimmet wrote on 2024-08-22, 19:15:

On one hand, nostalgia is often accompanied with selective memory. Many are forgetting that buggy and awful games always outnumbered the good games. There are a lot of good new games out there, they just aren't necessarily coming from the so called AAA or AAAA studios.

Even the good games had bugs. I was just reading an old review of Ultima VII in PC Entertainment magazine, and the reviewer noted that it had "too many noteworthy bugs". And that's from 1992 (!).

I think once games get patched and are playable, people tend to forget about the issues. Or, we had just put up with the bugs and gloss over that with rose-tinted glasses.

The biggest problem now with modern gaming is that is has simply got too big. Companies are established and large enough to release broken stuff and endless trash and coast along on their brand alone. I've also noticed a real contempt that companies have developed for their customers, especially over the last 10 years or so. No company that actually respects its customers would pull off the shit that Activision Blizzard has over the years (Diablo III/IV online only, "don't you guys have phones?"... it just goes on and on).

When some executive at Ubisoft says that people just need to get used to not owning games, he's not talking to the people that actually buy games. He's talking to investors, which over the last 20 years or whatever have become the real customer base for these "too large to fail" behemoths in the tech industry. These companies can no longer sustain themselves just by selling products, because they've pivoted from designing games that people want to play (they are actually incapable of doing so), to releasing products and then doing everything they can to trick or convince people into playing them. This is why every other AA and AAA game is an open world collectathon where you follow an arrow to the next story scene, or a GaaS arena shooter; these are the types of game that are easy for anyone to play and are perfect to dump on some streaming service and pump up numbers to attract more investment.

As mentioned elsewhere in this topic, it's best to just completely ignore AA and AAA and the industry in general, and stick with games put out by individuals and small teams. These people still respect you as a customer and don't just see you as a number they can put in a spreadsheet to impress investors. They actually love gaming and wouldn't release a game they themselves wouldn't want to play.

I saw this

https://youtube.com/shorts/IHZru-6M8BY?si=-qRysuU58HoY6pWJ

the other day and thought of this conversation.

I don't hate anything but I do value conciseness and convenience.

If I buy a game today, I want to be able to play it in 15 years' time. I may not even get around to playing it for 5 years or more-- will I be able to play Starcraft 2 in 2034? I know for sure I'll be able to play the first one! With service-based or online-only titles, I am uncertain how much ingenuity it will need to keep games like that running past the server down date but it'l definitely going to be a difficult task for some clever people. This makes it extremely difficult to commit to any new title for me.

I hope some day we'll all have storage large enough to play FS2020 offline!

One moment defines my reluctance to bother with modern games, and we're still going back a few years here: Being a massive Morrowind nerd and loving Oblivion, I dutifully preordered Skyrim in my local game store, picked it up on day one, put the disc in my newly-upgraded PC, and was forced to download Steam and a bunch of updates. Since then I simply haven't cared. Though I am grateful Skyrim has finally made it to GOG!

oldhighgerman wrote on 2024-08-22, 21:27:

I don't hate modern games. Have no reason to. Never played one. I spied my copy of Anthem yesterday in a box. It remains uninstalled. The only reasonably modern gpu doesn't have enough balls to play it. A gifted brand new EVGA GTX 750 TI SC. The minimum is a GTX 760. Ain't that some crap. Life just ain't fair.

What would do you find unreasonable in those requirements ? And what would you have found acceptable in 2019 as a minimum requirement ?

The GTX 760 is an upper midrange card from 2013 and Anthem was release in 2019, almost 6 years later. That does not seem unreasonable to me. Nowadays (and even in 2019), a GTX 950 or GTX 1050 would likely provide similar or better performance while still being relatively affordable.

Used GTX 760 or GTX 950 cards are currently about 30 to 60 $US second hand and there are better options in the sub 100 $US range.

Cyfrifiadur wrote on 2024-08-23, 11:12:

I don't hate anything but I do value conciseness and convenience. […]
Show full quote

I don't hate anything but I do value conciseness and convenience.

If I buy a game today, I want to be able to play it in 15 years' time. I may not even get around to playing it for 5 years or more-- will I be able to play Starcraft 2 in 2034? I know for sure I'll be able to play the first one! With service-based or online-only titles, I am uncertain how much ingenuity it will need to keep games like that running past the server down date but it'l definitely going to be a difficult task for some clever people. This makes it extremely difficult to commit to any new title for me.

I hope some day we'll all have storage large enough to play FS2020 offline!

One moment defines my reluctance to bother with modern games, and we're still going back a few years here: Being a massive Morrowind nerd and loving Oblivion, I dutifully preordered Skyrim in my local game store, picked it up on day one, put the disc in my newly-upgraded PC, and was forced to download Steam and a bunch of updates. Since then I simply haven't cared. Though I am grateful Skyrim has finally made it to GOG!

Starcraft 2 was cracked a long time ago 😉 so as long as torrents exist and someone is still sharing you are good (for those who don't keep copies of old version and crack them) but your point still stands.
Bethesda games are very easy to remove Steam DRM. Steamless is all you need.

I just saw The Callisto Protocol is free to keep on EGS, and apparently the conclusion to the game is sold separately as DLC. So if you actually bought the game, you ended up with a full-priced game that would then charge you extra to get the ending.

And people wonder why so many hate modern games.

Imagine going to the movies to watch whatever the latest blockbuster flick is, and at the end the movie stops, and whoever doesn't pay the extra money to see the ending is asked to leave. lmao.

DosFreak wrote on 2024-08-23, 11:43:

Cyfrifiadur wrote on 2024-08-23, 11:12:

I don't hate anything but I do value conciseness and convenience. […]
Show full quote

I don't hate anything but I do value conciseness and convenience.

If I buy a game today, I want to be able to play it in 15 years' time. I may not even get around to playing it for 5 years or more-- will I be able to play Starcraft 2 in 2034? I know for sure I'll be able to play the first one! With service-based or online-only titles, I am uncertain how much ingenuity it will need to keep games like that running past the server down date but it'l definitely going to be a difficult task for some clever people. This makes it extremely difficult to commit to any new title for me.

I hope some day we'll all have storage large enough to play FS2020 offline!

One moment defines my reluctance to bother with modern games, and we're still going back a few years here: Being a massive Morrowind nerd and loving Oblivion, I dutifully preordered Skyrim in my local game store, picked it up on day one, put the disc in my newly-upgraded PC, and was forced to download Steam and a bunch of updates. Since then I simply haven't cared. Though I am grateful Skyrim has finally made it to GOG!

Starcraft 2 was cracked a long time ago 😉 so as long as torrents exist and someone is still sharing you are good (for those who don't keep copies of old version and crack them) but your point still stands.
Bethesda games are very easy to remove Steam DRM. Steamless is all you need.

This still gets into territory I just don't have the patience for anymore. I get old games on CD or offline installers from GOG, to install on contemporary hardware, to avoid having to futz around with hacks, shims, fan patches, etc. I want an off the shelf experience that just works. If I were willing to download a torrent, or install some sort of DRM emulation layer in order to play a game I already paid for, I wouldn't be messing with vintage hardware in the first place! I'd just be back to troubleshooting each game I want to play with a series of fan patches, combability layers, virtual machines or emulators until I get the experience I want.

realnc wrote on 2024-08-23, 14:42:

Imagine going to the movies to watch whatever the latest blockbuster flick is, and at the end the movie stops, and whoever doesn't pay the extra money to see the ending is asked to leave. lmao.

One of the things that put me off the movie biz is shitty film making, and they for years have done a parallel to the above: leaving films open for sequels.

And if the film you are watching isn't a massive economic success, the sequel is never made, and you don't even find out how the otherwise thin plot panned out anyway.

But odds are, it will have some predictable happy ending for the good guys.

Good films challenge your preconceptions and make you think, they don't pander to lazy preconceived notions.

My little joke comparing pizza to modern day game content design that i wrote in 2012:

https://1kreviews.com

No I havent done anything with that site since then 😀

Why hate a game? No one forces you to play it.

If I were locked in a cell and forced to play Pacman I'd be hating it. But o/w I just stay clear of it.

oldhighgerman wrote on 2024-08-23, 17:45:

Why hate a game? No one forces you to play it.

Because if it's financially successful the industry will follow it and the whole industry gets worse.

Namrok wrote on 2024-08-23, 15:00:

DosFreak wrote on 2024-08-23, 11:43:

Cyfrifiadur wrote on 2024-08-23, 11:12:

I don't hate anything but I do value conciseness and convenience. […]
Show full quote

I don't hate anything but I do value conciseness and convenience.

If I buy a game today, I want to be able to play it in 15 years' time. I may not even get around to playing it for 5 years or more-- will I be able to play Starcraft 2 in 2034? I know for sure I'll be able to play the first one! With service-based or online-only titles, I am uncertain how much ingenuity it will need to keep games like that running past the server down date but it'l definitely going to be a difficult task for some clever people. This makes it extremely difficult to commit to any new title for me.

I hope some day we'll all have storage large enough to play FS2020 offline!

One moment defines my reluctance to bother with modern games, and we're still going back a few years here: Being a massive Morrowind nerd and loving Oblivion, I dutifully preordered Skyrim in my local game store, picked it up on day one, put the disc in my newly-upgraded PC, and was forced to download Steam and a bunch of updates. Since then I simply haven't cared. Though I am grateful Skyrim has finally made it to GOG!

Starcraft 2 was cracked a long time ago 😉 so as long as torrents exist and someone is still sharing you are good (for those who don't keep copies of old version and crack them) but your point still stands.
Bethesda games are very easy to remove Steam DRM. Steamless is all you need.

This still gets into territory I just don't have the patience for anymore. I get old games on CD or offline installers from GOG, to install on contemporary hardware, to avoid having to futz around with hacks, shims, fan patches, etc. I want an off the shelf experience that just works. If I were willing to download a torrent, or install some sort of DRM emulation layer in order to play a game I already paid for, I wouldn't be messing with vintage hardware in the first place! I'd just be back to troubleshooting each game I want to play with a series of fan patches, combability layers, virtual machines or emulators until I get the experience I want.

Thank you, that's exactly how I would have responded if I only had the words!

oldhighgerman wrote on 2024-08-23, 17:45:

Why hate a game? No one forces you to play it.

If I were locked in a cell and forced to play Pacman I'd be hating it. But o/w I just stay clear of it.

I donno. At first I hated modern games because they took franchises I was invested in to places I didn't want to follow. I wanted an offline Diablo 3, or a version of Destiny 1/2 that allowed you to experience the entire story from beginning to end, at your own pace, the way it was originally designed without concessions. Eventually being angry that franchises or studios were making games that were no longer "for me" gave way to apathy, and the realization that Diablo 1 and 2, or Halo 1-3 haven't actually gone anywhere. Now I can no longer remember the last "modern" AAA game I bought. Increasingly the only new games I buy at all are on the Nintendo Switch, and the fact that it's online functionality is garbage is a godsend because no game would be dumb enough to be a service on Switch.