Have you noticed a decline in the quality of content recently released? Are you left wondering where all the good games have gone every time you step into the electronics section of your local store? Do you wonder WHY it seems like we’ve been getting the same mindless, gun-fight, breast filled game, time after time?
Hint: It’s Your Fault.
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
INDIE Live Expo, Japan’s premiere online digital showcase series , will debut never-before-seen games & content updates across more than 100 titles on May 25th.
How isn't it the devs fault for wanting a standardized engine to make games? To get them out quickly?
Gamers wouldn't be pixel counters if devs lived up to half the claims they made.
erm...
There would be NO industry if it werent for the gamers, thus meaning gamers wouldnt exist if there werent an industry, meaning the industry cant say gamers are ruining the industry, because there would be no gamers, therfeor, no industry to say gamers are ruining the industry, because....
damn, i think i just Inceptioned myself
Oh sorry didn't realise it's my fault the gaming industry is getting worse (?) because I'm spending money that I barely have on games and products for gaming. I'll stop right now.
/s
Agreed. Gamers are idiots for the most part. They want to play the same thing over and over again. Hell, look at Uncharted 2. A huge number of gamers are saying that it's the best game ever made, blah blah blah. And why? Cause it's a shooter? Cause it's 8 hours long? Cause there's long cutscenes? Cause it's a completely linear straight line game with no branching paths that doesn't let you make a single choice other than "which of these two weapons do you want to use"?
I mean, whatever, the game wasn't bad, but it was exactly the same as every other game out there. Does the fact that it had slightly more polish than some other games mean it's the best game in the world? Hardly. And don't even get me started on Halo 12 and Call of Duty 456.
It is getting worse. The only reason people are spending more money on games is because there is so much of the same shit being released over and over, and most of them you can beat in one sitting. Most gamers get bored of them after one play, and look for the next "new" and "better" thing.
I think a lot of it has to do with an emphasis on story. Lots of games are putting a great deal into their story, and a lot of people like that (me included), but the problem with that is, they usually just end up throwing some generic gameplay in the game as filler to tell the story, as something to set it apart from just watching a movie (Uncharted 2). But this means that after you finish playing the game, you don't really feel a "need" to play it again. The gameplay isn't typically good enough to drag you back into it, because it's just generic third person shooter fare you can find in any weekly release. Yes, it's partly the developers' fault because they are making them, but they are making the games that people WANT. So ultimately, the ones voting with their wallets are the ones they are going to cater to, not the ones on N4G posting bitchy comments about how bad it sucks :P
I remember the good old days of PC gaming when games were focused on gameplay and replayability, so you could play a game for a year or two at a time before you got bored of it. Now games are lucky to last you a day or two.
I got a new idea for an article....
Why articles, about how gamers are ruining the industry, are ruining the industry