Why Aren’t Video Games as Good as They Used to Be?

Why aren't video games as good as they used to be? Here LWOG have decided to take a look at what is wrong with many video games today.

[piroh]

Videogames arent changing. We are changing

As a kid i used to play all platformers on the market, now i barely touch Super mario or Crash bandicoot. As adults we are more selective and have different preferences

[darthv72]

Agreed. i used to play and beat video games like taking vitamins (one-a-day). Now I am lucky if i can make time to play. I will say more modern games arent as pick up and play like older ones. So when i do get a chance to play some fallen order... it isnt for just a few minutes but more like an hour or longer.

if i only have a few minutes to kill... its classic titles that fill that slot. old school arcade hits like outrun, pacman and sf2.

[LordoftheCritics]

2007.

The year gaming peaked.

[ABizzel1]

@piroh

That's definitely one of the main reasons, I actually think there are 3.

1. We've grown up, while the games industry grows up MUCH slower. 10 years is a new chapter in our lives, meanwhile, 10 years for the game industry is simply getting use to the new generation, with the same games, and updating graphics.

2. The death of the A / AA studio meant a huge decrease in diversity of games. Moving to HD in addition to trends established during the mid / late PS360 generation caused a lot of developers to assimilate or go under, and those who didn't do it well went out of business.

3. The mindset of the industry moved away from being about fun and experiences, to being about business and profits. Which while necessary for said companies to stay around and not go under, there still needs to be a balance between the two for innovation and creativity to exist.

1. People complain about "Movie Games", but those "Movie Games" are the only this pushing the medium forward narratively followed by indies pushing the medium forward artistically. They are both necessary for making gaming more diverse and to offer experiences that other mediums cannot achieve due to the interactive nature of games.

2. The rise of the AAA indie is a resurgence of the lost A / AA studios which will once again lead to more diversity. The issue here is that once these studios make a good game or a hit, publishers come knocking with multi-million or billion dollar checks, and then most creativity in the studio is drowned as they are a given the publisher sweet talk of yeah you can make anything you want, we support you....but first you gotta make a sequel..... and then turn it into a trilogy.... when the creative well is dry sometimes by that point.

3. The gaming industry will never go back to being about fun or funding many of these smaller projects, because it doesn't make financial sense. This is the one area where I believe a GamePass like subscription can be beneficial in the long-run for the game industry if the focus is on using a portion of the funds from such a model to fund remakes / sequels of A / AA games from yesteryear (Blur / Split-Second / Spec Ops: Then Line 2 / Gravity Rush / Alpha Protocol / Lost Odyssey / DriveClub / Motorstorm / Dante's Inferno / Heavenly Sword 2 / Singularity / and so many more). If these services get 25 million gamers, at $15 per month, that's $375 million per month. Take $25 million of that and invest $5 million into indies, and use the remaining $20 million to fund a project like one of the games above / or a new IP in the style of a AAA indie like Hellblade, Hades, Outlast, Ori, etc...

Those are 3 simply ways to help with the industry and the lack of diversity.

[roadkillers]

@LordofCritics
I still think the best year in video game history was 2004. You had arguably the best GTA, Half Life, Metal Gear Solid, Metroid, and so many other titles. 2007 was great as well, that's when PS3/Wii/360 all kicked it into high gear.

[blackblades]

Same

[Rude-ro]

Marketing/advertising 101, greed, market control & false competition.

The world is dominated with being told what is cool. Especially in the capitalistic countries.
Video games are strongly being manipulated to abuse marketing tactics to get into every gamers wallets. A natural phenomena in every human is to feel “cool”, “wanted” “individualized” or “admired”.
The addictive nature in gamers is the goal.
Ever since world of Warcraft and sims made it well known that the gamers reacted to in game life more so then they do in real life financially… this has been the intended goal of most major gaming companies.

The “playing with friends” sales pitch hammered into us that this is what gaming is while the marketing advertising tactics took over via fomo and the “new shoes” effects via marketing.

Why spend a lot of money developing a game when you can spend a smaller amount of money just telling people that the game is the new “hype”?

What does this mean?
It is the same thing as power-creep in a video game..
Selling the hype of a desired direction in games while never really innovating starts to look repetitive and becomes harder to feel entertained… but the almighty hype takes over because people want to feel as cool as each other… while none of us really understand the addiction is the issue and is being abused.

This is evident with paid streamers trying their best to make the game sound awesome to their viewers etc., but the games are duds a month later(or once the contract expires).. because really, how many variations of shooting each other can there be without feeling old and repetitive fast?
We hit the same buttons, do the same thing just looking at different paint jobs,

These companies do not spend money on innovation or on solo experiences that disconnect players from each other.. micro transactions/subscription based gaming NEEDS people playing together in order for the natural “new shoes” effect to work to get them to buy something that separates them from another player. The natural evolution of needing to feel independent. Take this plus’s all the science used in casinos to excite people… we have gaming of today.

Many of you will say “that is just silly” and “who spends their money on said things?”.,,

Most of you. It is a multi billion dollar business. They get that money from us.

Why are games boring?
Because we get the bare repetitive safe essentials while marketing is the focus.

Not every game/company of course..

But those that have the connections, money & power to manipulate the markets in order to drown out any individual company as a stand out so that impulse buying takes over and they get to control things how they see fit.

If you notice.. “gaming is boring”.. but there are companies that you can say otherwise..
But they are drowned out by the controlled gaming media so that they are part of the pool collectively and thus overlooked.

Ea, activision & Microsoft are your biggest culprits of this.

[giveyerheadawobble]

"Videogames arent changing."

Yeah, sure they aren't.

[camel_toad]

I think one of the biggest problems is that there is just too much of a good thing. We have so many options that it takes away something.

When we were kids (80's kid here) you would buy or rent and play that one game that you just got. You were pretty much forced to be committed to it. There were no free 2 play games. You had what you had and it hardly mattered if it sucked or if you could never get past a certain boss.

It was just fun and you'd play whatever the game was over and over and just try to make it further. Battletoads and TMNT.... man those levels. The developers were just sadistic.

I also remember faking sick a few times just because I had rented a new game. Shameful but fun.

[Seraphim]

true piroh. we are changing, though, video games are right alongside us in that regard; I think.

It's funny because I've tried some older games recently and it helped me realize just how much gaming has evolved. Not only in graphics [obviously] but in button layout, interfaces, gameplay, sound etc.

I was a child at the tail end of the Atari 2600 so my first console generation was NES. 8 and 16 bit games will always be held in high regard & to this day are still great, imo. When you get into the PS/PS2/N64/Gamecube/Saturn/Dre amcast/XB eras there were a lot of games with bugs, issues, etc, [especially PS2/XB era] that, imo at least, graphically+ just don't hold up that well. The + part of graphically+ meaning small things such as button layout, controls, maps or lack there of, menus, etc. Sure there were still a lot of great games that gen but overall something like a AA game would be riddled with bugs and issues. Then came the HD era of gaming with PS3/360 on which I don't think anything needs to be said...

For everyone past means a different thing. For those in my age range. I get it, there was something to be loved about, say, 8 to 16 bit games. That way of developing games is growing stronger and stronger with new games the past couple generations. The dungeon crawling, metroidvania side scrollers that have had a strong resurgence. Along with all the great Nintendo and Playstation RPGs of the past and so on. It's hard to top that nostalgia and how great many games were. But were they really that good in comparison to what we play now? It's really 2 completely styles of game. At least from 8-16 bit games to current gen. Much as I love those old games and want to get into the new titles like Axiom Verge, Hollow Knight, etc I just have a hard time sitting down and playing that type of game. For me those games just don't pull me in when I try playing them. though, I admit, I am hoping to force myself to play through some of those games at some point.

However, despite nostalgia, through all the years I think it's the little things that have added up to make gaming better. That and the growth of gamers into developers. I'd say that overall there's more and better story telling, we have game saves, games are longer, similar if not better controls/feel, maps, options, graphics.... All those little things have lead to how good gaming is today. Even when done right I feel some remakes of old games are just as good, if not better. Ys Origins was great, Streets of Rage 4, Wonderboy [what little I played], etc. While there's a fondness and nostalgia for the past I'd have to argue games are definitely better today than ever before. Especially overall. side note: I love the touchpad on the Dualshock 4 & Dualsense controllers. That in and of itself is a great addition that has resulted in better button mapping, imo.

I commend you if you read the entire ramblings of an old man.

[giveyerheadawobble]

Load of wank.

[-Foxtrot]

Greed

[Gardenia]

A game didn't need to sell millions to be successful. Developers had a limit amount of money and technology so they had to be creative. An example is the Metal Gear Solid 1998 codec system. They are basically a few pictures, but the atmosphere, the story and characters all make it top quality.

So yeah, nowadays gaming is more a business that needs to make as much money as possible without care for the product. Luckily there are still some good games from time to time.

[on_line_forever]

Greed must stop we really need quality games like PSone & PS2 genrations

[ArmorOfGod]

This is part of the answer. The rest of the answer is that games aren’t made by gamers anymore.

[bradfh]

There still gamers in companies, But they don't run the company or get promoted and get push out of upper management because most developers and marketing teams at the top don't care about games and only about numbers. most indy games do better then a AAA game because its small and dont want to hire to many people. company that think they are to big to fail are the ones that people dont like to play because its filled with DLC and microtransactions.

[masterfox]

It will never be the same while the competitio n is acting so poorly since years ago, only one game company is trying to keep this game industry fresh with new IPs, but yet again thats a huge task for this company cause they just cant keep creating new IPs in a constant fashion , that would be very unreasonable because taking in consideration how long it takes to develope a game, in past gens(more than a decade ago) we had the big three and they receive that name because each one of them were creating awesome looking new IPs, but today that is reduced to only one company sadly.

[Z23ash]

What are you talking about? There are tons of new ips every month from tons of different companies

[Notellin]

I love how you worded this like anyone else would have any clue which company you're talking about.

Fanboy drivel.

[Fntastic]

One thing wrong is Nintendo screwing up some games with motion controls, they did it twice with Starfox on the DS and then again on the Wii U, instead of giving us a proper great game with standard controls. Then unwilling to bring back other games like Pilotwings.

Others refuse to go back to give us a new Road Rash or Desert Strike. Instead we get the same things like COD rehashed over and over and sometimes new things in between.

Then there's making some game levels too easy, hence why Mario World was dumbed down because players cried that it was too hard, so the official release was made easier.

[septemberindecember]

I know it sucks, but sometimes control experimentation ends up being awesome. Sometimes it ends up being a blunder. We just have to roll with the punches.

Where would VR be if people didn't experiment?

[gold_drake]

quick cashgrab
weird dlcs and micro transactions
day one patches ha.
political correctness
playing it safe

[Father__Merrin]

For me personally the Ps360wii era was the finest gaming era hands down. The fondest memories

[Yui_Suzumiya]

Same here.. PS3 is my favorite console which is why I still have one

[lipton101]

“Grew up playing the Nintendo Wii”

Sounds like a dude who’s around mid 20’s that’s crossed that invisible threshold into adulthood. I have a great job, a wife and a family of my own. They’re my priorities now, not video games. I still manage to sneak in some Escape from Tarkov or PS5 on the weekends but, as a whole, video games do not command my attention as strongly as they have in my younger years.

But with that said, though. I’ll never give them up. I still love them and nothing will change that

[BrainSyphoned]

It is ok to share your hobbies with your children.

[lipton101]

Omitting that sentence doesn’t mean it’s something I don’t do.

[Adrian_v01]

Age has nothing to do with it. One could be 40 and be single and enjoy gaming still.

[talocaca]

"Good" is a very broad term.

You could argue that innovation is lacking or that we rely on sequels too much. But with games getting more and more expensive, studios don't want to take many risks.

[PhillyDillyDee]

Games arent that expensive to make. The bulk of the expense is the marketing.

[Bathyj]

They are.
You're not.

[Acecalibur]

We are older and have bills and kids. 3F games don't have the same unique charm that 2D and 32bit games did. Micro transactions everywhere, everything is online now. Friends aren't coming over for split screen, because there is no more split screen. Also not coming over because of covid.

[irishyort]

Too much choice nowadays taking attention away from a game you would normally have to atick with and try and complete even if its a bit lame in reality you enjoyed them more

[TimelessDbz]

Because everyone wants a game to be a witcher 3, skyrim , cod , gta or a battle royal game . If not it sucks and going to get on a deep discount.

[Germaximus]

They're better.

[Popsicle]

Other than sports games which have become micro transaction laden I would agree. The overall quality of games is better.

It sounds to me the author has probably reached that point in early adulthood where games begin to decline in importance because of increased responsibility and the childish thrill you get with each new exciting release just isn’t the same.

I can remember thinking as a kid that if I managed to ever snag a copy of Street Fighter 2 on SNES that I would never need another video game again and because of this game my life would be nothing but joyful from that point further.

[Knushwood Butt]

'I can remember thinking as a kid that if I managed to ever snag a copy of Street Fighter 2 on SNES that I would never need another video game again and because of this game my life would be nothing but joyful from that point further.'.

I had that and it was probably true for about a year after I snagged SFII

[PhillyDillyDee]

That game for me was Turtles in Time on SNES.

[Knushwood Butt]

Whatever.

I've been playing since Pong, and just finished a session on Control, which for the most part is pretty cool.

I also have kids. They started playing Fortnite this week. Nothing to do with me. Peer pressure in 2021.

[CS7]

Terrible article.

As graphics become more realistic, the presentation and structure of games would follow.

There are more games than ever that are whimsical and fun.

Both realistic and whimsical games can coexist.

[Godmars290]

Greed.

As with Atari, the industry crash of the 80s, we're going through cycles of attempts to be creative, artistic, then exploitative. the only difference between then and now, the industry has grown too large, become to diverse, to simply or notably "crash".

[PhillyDillyDee]

Well stated. I would add that this cycle seems to predominantly apply to the largest publishers. EA, Actibliz, Ubi, 2K, and the like.

[SaveFerris]

Personally, I find that many new games just don't interest me even if it is from a genre I enjoyed in the past. I guess I have become more selective in regards to how I spend my time and money.

[TheDoomedGuy]

For the most part games have gotten better not worse.
That doesn't mean past games were bad. Many past games still hold up today and are even better than what we get today.

The issue with gaming is the audience. Casual gamers have created a whole market just for them and these games are usually pretty mediocre or bad. These casuals are the reason MTXs are still going strong and predatory practices are still working.

Gamers from years ago generally don't give in to this crap because we know many of these things were free before. We are also aware that graphics don't make a game good nor do big open spaces. But companies are following trends because casuals like to buy what's trending.

COD and AC would not have lasted as long without the casual market buying every new release. The same with the sports games where new iterations barely bring anything new.

[JEECE]

Though it isn't true of this author since he looks back fondly at the Wii (lol), for most people the issue is that they compare every new game to the very best games from whatever era they are nostalgic about. When people compare everything to their 3-5 favorite games from a past era, they don't think about the fact that many of the games that came out during that time were duds. I mean, I love PS1, but in terms of overall quality of games from that era, MGS1 is the exception, rather than the rule, but people treat a game like that or FF7 as representative of that era.

Also people tend to just overlook all the problems with old games. Like prior to PS3/360 it was a crapshoot on whether basically any game was going to have garbage controls that would render it unplayable now, but no one thinks about that looking back. Also many games used to run like trash. People romanticize Fallout 3 (which isn't even that old), but if a new game ran like that game ran on console, it would get trashed for it.

[FanboysKiller]

Cause there's a difference between studios and game devs basically with the type of "making the best" mindset with no clue how the industry make the most profitable contents and those who think strategically following the market direction , todays sales figures are shown to the public , when certain demographic of gamers take the biggest pie it's an alarming sign for the niche market to grow up and make smart strategic decisions based on the market shift with the most played contents , they don't care about gen x being busy , as long those younger players consume contents they will follow what those younger players choose to play.

[HankHill]

Microtransactions, DLC, day one patches, among many other reasons.

[TheEnigma313]

Games have changed because we as fans have allowed them too. We only put our foot down as a collective when something is blatantly wrong or in bad taste. We let the devs slide with unfinished games, MTs, day one patches, glitches, day 1 dlc etc

[EvertonFC]

Says you

[justsomeoffdude]

"wokeness" and shit

[Imortus_san]

Games were meant to entertain and gameplay was king, gaming evolution made too many branchs anda many games for for Special effects, gore, nice grafics, great sound, story telling, indie game are what ressemble the old games the best.

[z2g]

Uhhh what? Plenty of amazing games now and on all platforms. They are different than they used to be sure, but I don’t think that’s bad. A lot of games wanted to do what they do now but couldn’t b/c of tech limitations.

[P_Bomb]

I love games *shrugs*

[SoulWarrior]

There's an over saturation of BR, live service, 'seasons', season passes and battlepass type games filled to the brim with MTs, watching gamescom has been a snoozefest.

[giveyerheadawobble]

Why? Because of greed, that's why. They aren't making games to be as good as they can be anymore. They're making them to be products first, designed to get the most money out of you as possible.

[on_line_forever]

Gamers must wake up and stop supporting greed companies we need quality games to come back like PSone & PS2 era .

[aaronaton]

Games cost to much to develop, so developers take less risks, thus creativity is hampered. Its the same in the film industry as well where people only ever want to watch crappy comic book films etc etc.
The PS2 was the best era for me. Timesplitters was made by around 20 people max on a shoe string budget. We had tons of creative Japanese games too ie. Mr.Mosquito etc

[Youngindy21]

I agree. Games aren't fun and addicting like they used to be. Some of them feel like chores. There are still some great games being made, but there's also a lot of polished turds. I think there's too many sequels and clones. Ultimately, a game being fun should be the utmost priority and everything else should be extra.

[Pyrofire95]

Because you were a child and now you're cynical.
I still enjoy games but my relationship has definitely changed in some way.

[HansyJ]

There’s simply more to select from everyone is making video games and there’s a lot more to select from so you’re obviously gonna have some good and bad. But the good are fantastic I have been an avid video gamer my entire life and I am 30 years old. I have played just about every single system since super Nintendo on and love video games and I love them as much now as I ever did in the past and I think they’re great so this is kind of stupid

[fitofficial]

They're less fun because fun isn't emphasized or critically acclaimed. It's about that "AAA" experience that boils down to hundreds of hours of voice-acting and corporate-approved stories and gameplay that boil down to "push button to see pretty thing". Gameplay is an afterthought, and you can feel it as soon as you pick up the controller and wade through the unskippable tutorial.

Games are less about being "games" and more about fitting that noxious "transformative" mold every south-of-mediocre game "journalist" has been pining for from behind their collection of Funko Pops for years since Adam and Morgan popularized the sentiment.

[OhReginald]

Entirely subjective.

[enkiduxiv]

Every publisher wants to chase after the big money maker, which right now is Fortnite, one of the most creatively void video games ever made (if you don't believe me ask PUBG players). As a result, we just get generic crap shooters and battle royales ad nauseum. Want a new single player RPG with a deep atmosphere? F**K You, here's Fallout 76. Want a cinematic story focused space opera? Ha! Here's Anthem. Want a sequel to a classic Immersive Sim? Not a chance. Here's a Vampire the Masquerade: Battle Royale.

[FreeFallFrenzy]

I would say games are still as good as they used be, there are just five hundred times more options now, and the big marketed games take the limelight, so it's just harder to find them. Indies and AA devs still pump out quality on a regular basis imho

[TheGreatGazoo30]

They're better. 45yrs old and the best games I've played are all newer games. They just keep getting better.

[hangdang]

Because more than ever they are distilled.down to be a money making apparatus rather than a passion project. Not to say that there isn't still plenty of passion left in the industry, but the industry has changed beyond recognition from even 10 years ago, let alone 20-30. Games got huge, big money came in, and now they have changed, arguably for the worse.

On the flip side, there is access to more games than ever before and the tools to be selective with what you play. If you only play big AAA released, games will surely seem more derivative than if you branches out more.

I also think there is an element of been there done that for a lot of people in the ~30 gear old age group. It's hard to impress someone who has played games their whole lives at this point since we've been around the block so many times

[TheGreatGazoo30]

Because games designed to force you to feed quarters into machines back in the day weren't "distilled.down to be a money making apparatus"

[Lexreborn2]

It’s almost as if people forget that in the “golden” era of gaming. We had games like Boogerman… Clayfighters…. Superman 64 and every tv commercial spin off you could find. There are just as many trash games that were made back in the day as there are today.

Now as adults you are paying for those trash games and the value of your dollar is perceived.

[TheColbertinator]

Expenses. AAA games on the PS1 and N64 and Saturn had much smaller budgets than now. More ambitious yet unique games in genres where story was everything like RPGs and adventure games.

[Outlawzz]

Games have never been better imo. You just have to know what is a game made for you and what is a game made for the corporation. What is quality and what is a waste of time.

*Hint hint* most of the mainstream multiplayers are for corporations, combining market research and psychology to incorporate addictive components to keep people coming back. No different than drugs, sorry guys *shrugs*

[GrmpyolGamer]

I think games are better now

[Orchard]

This person must've missed all of the great games that have come out in the recent years...

We have great classic games and we have great modern games. I like to play both.

[ActualWhiteMan]

I’m not old… you’re old!

😭 Denial…. 34 year old gamer with 2 kids and wife and full time job still trying to find time to play games.

[tombfan]

Short answer, we are getting old...

[HeliosHex]

There are tons of factors but I'll mention two.
Companies seem to believe games need to be a cinematic experience which can be costly. The fun simplicity of old games is believed to be no longer profitable.

The second is woke culture. Somehow pc pushing sjw types have moved into positions of power and calling the shots on what's acceptable in all media. Which is causing an expanding rift on those of us wishing our entertainment was not tainted by such things.

[anast]

Live service elements in single player games, everything has to be live service, the disdain most companies have for their fans: Aren't we getting the 7th port of Skyrim soon? And finally mobile gaming. All have combined to cheapen the experience. But with this being said, games are generally way better now than they 20 to 30 years ago.

[bloodymeatballz]

Because it is the same repetitive behaviors amongst the 10 genres or so

[Dandizzle]

Games are far better than when I was a kid 25 years ago.

[Snakeeater25]

Micro transactions and the COVID excuse for delayed games

[Gaming4Life1981]

Games are way better than back in the day. The only thing I hate is the milking like taking things out of the game to sell it to us later. I have a few others gripes but games are a lot better now.

[dbcoops]

lol, ok

[nRicosS]

We are getting old

[PhillyDillyDee]

There are very few AAA games that I get excited for these days. Most of the big devs just put out bombastic, samey, monetization-filled faff. And god help us when they spot a trend… I usually pay attention to anything Devolver publishes.