Are you happy with the state of gaming?

[May90]

I think the state of gaming today is better than it's ever been. We have a huge choice among multiple genres, titles, etc. We have a lot of customization to our games, such as DLCs, skins, etc. And, if you don't like modern games, you always have a wide selection of older games to choose from, so you haven't lost anything essentially.

[VincentWolf]

No. For me personally It's not in a bad spot, but it could be way better. Recently too many games catering to 2 things I highly dislike:
a) Multiplayer/Co-op. I have many friends, but I hate playing with people and I would have preferred to see the money they spent on multiplayer/coop to go to extra SP zone or two, character or cutscenes maybe (Mass Effect 3 is a perfect example here).
b) Sexual minorities. I'm sick and tired of playing my favorite Borderlands with 50% of all characters notifying me of their sexuality all the time, like if it's some sort of achievement or a good thing worthy to be proud of. Hint: it really is not.

Basically, I want a PSOne/Two era, but with modern graphics. Gameplay isn't changing much anyway...

[Airlick]

It's not as bad as many people claim it to be. There are still some very good games coming out that will be remembered for years to come, and they actually have a chance at becoming classics like FFVII once people start looking at them with nostalgia (Alien: Isolation and Shadow of Mordor come to mind instantly, as far as 2014 games go, and there was a lot of very good and noteworthy games in previous years as well).

I understand that people hate the modern marketing practices, but I also understand where the developers come from. Making high quality games is no longer possible in a garage. There won't be another Doom or Wolfenstein 3D. Every single piece of software and hardware necessary to create AAA games costs a ton of money. And developers don't work for a bowl of rice.

That doesn't really excuse day 1 DLCs that are common nowadays, and often contain content that should be considered integral part of the story (cutting out characters, like Bioware likes to do, comes to mind). There's no excuse for releasing the same old Assassin's Creed or Call of Duty every year, with barely updated graphics and different characters, but with gameplay nearly identical to previous installments. There are still companies like CD-Projekt RED, though, that are not only trying to milk their customers and treat them with respect, so there's still hope.

I do like some F2P games, though. There are some that pretty much force players to pay or quit eventually (like SWTOR), but there are also some with completely non-invasive cash shops (GW2, DOTA2, TF2, CS:GO, and the list goes on). The concept of being able to play a game without paying anything as long as you don't want to is great on many levels, it's pretty much the perfect system as long as the cash shop is handled properly. LoL's or DOTA2's success is a result of the payment model. I'm sure they wouldn't have sold even 500k copies each if they were not F2P games.

Then again, some genres are getting very much stale and there are hardly any AAA developers that are trying to shake things up a bit.

[Hraklea]

I'm very very happy with the way things are now.

[Pony Soldier]

I agree 100% with you OP. Gaming today is worse than what it was back in the 90s/00s. It's just like you said and what I keep on saying, that games today lack the pasion and creativity anymore. Everytime a new game comes out it's either a shooter or the eighth sequel to a series. Today it has become all about the money instead of making an awesome creative, unique game. Compare games back in the 90s/00s, as in their creativity, like Beyond Good and Evil, Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper, Ratchet and Clank, Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, Dr. Muto, Timesplitters, and compare them to the games of today where today it's more like Call of Duty 15, Battlefield 9, Halo 8, Shooter A, Shooter B, Shooter This, Shooter That. Once in a LONG while will we ever get creative games like one that I was really impressed with was Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom that no one ever talked about and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. Those two games along with many other games that I can't think of right now had so much potential but because it was so deep under the radar no one cared about them. It was always about that new realistic shooting game that came out and that's all anybody cared about. Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom's ending was hinting at a sequel but nothing came of it, mostly because no one cared for that game, which is a real shame because it was a really good game. Call of Duty which does the same shit every year (also looks, feels, and plays the same as the previous CoD games) get sequel after sequel after sequel and they continue to make millions off of it. Destiny is another great example. It's basically just another Halo game but with different characters. The movement, gameplay, enemies, graphics, are all so identical to the game you could probably pass it off as a Halo spinoff title. Yet that game gets such praise when it does nothing different from Halo AND you can't even have the option to play offline, you NEED internet just to be able to play it. So does creativity in games even matter to people anymore? It seems like if developers just come out with some new multiplayer FPS game that is either similar to Counterstrike or Team Fortress, gamers are satisfied with just that. Or it's like gamers thee days don't care about a game having a deep story to it like games used to have, they just want to shoot things.

Not only those things but it's like gamers these days like being taken advantage of. A game today will come out half assed, people will say how awesome the game is because you know, the graphics are awesome, and then have DLC planned right after or even before it's launch and call it "bonus content". People should know this is such bullshit but they are so blind and just don't care that they will just fall for it. Back then games were COMPLETE, as in, having the FULL game right there for you no bullshit DLC to continue the story, a COMPLETE multiplayer mode with all the maps IN the game already waiting to be unlocked by you. No $15 multiplayer map pack bullshit or any other nickel and diming scheme. Today it's like the single player and multiplayer are completely separate from each other. Oh you bought a game used? Well looks like you have to spend $10 to unlock the multiplayer and from there spend another $5 here and another $5 there for extra maps when those maps should already be included with the game as unlocks.

I feel like this is getting too long so to answer the question, no, I'm rather pretty damn annoyed with how gaming turned out to be. Video games have become way too mainstream for it's own good and while it may sound like a good thing in theory, it's actually kind of bad because then you get all kinds of different people to get attracted to them and then they're usually the ones that ruin them.

[Randoman01]

I am pretty ok with how gaming is now. I would like to see where it will be in 20 years time or how evolved it will become in the future. Hopefully I will see it become more accepted than other forms of media like books and Television or movies. That is something that I am excited for.

[Knslyr]

1. Don't mind DLCs unless they cover something I feel should be in the main story, which they usually don't. Gives choice to enthusiasts.

2. Some free to play games are good, some are bad. In some games it makes sense to have free to play, like in Hearthstone as its a card collection game. I would prefer if games costed money though, I don't know why but it feels it would be worse for the industry if more and more went free to play. DotA, LoL and HotS could probably sell the game. Doubt it would have been as successful though.

3. Don't mind cash shops as long as they don't sell pay 2 win items. Brings in more money to the company, and I prefer other peoples money end up in a gaming company instead of other entertainment industries.

4. Sequels? Still waiting for HL3.
Sequels are great for SP games, the more the better! For multiplayer games, sequels just split the playerbase if released too frequently. Like CoD for example releases too frequently. Valve waits quite some time between the CS releases and does it when changing graphics engine makes sense.

5. While how good the graphics are doesn't matter much, art and animation does. I would probably not have considered playing Overwatch if another company released it. Overwatch is not the kind of gameplay I usually look for. But the art and animation are great, so I will be giving it a chance and see how it turns out. And creating games from existing formats and improving them are what Blizzard have always done, and I see no problem with it. Games being easy to get into is in most cases just a good thing.


I feel like the games I buy are still quality games. Most of them anyway, some games that are also released on console may not be as good as pure PC games. Like Assassins Creed, awesome story but a bit lacking in gameplay and has fps problems.

[Deleted]

Overall yes. There are more good/play-worthy games around than I have time to play and the hardware hamster wheel on PC turns slower than anytime in the last 20 years.

[Deleted]

i only buy games once they're heavily discounted on Steam and as such I've never really been "exposed" to the whole DLC thing (as when i pick them up they'll typically include all the season pass crap that earlier adopters have to pay seperately for).

Im happy with the state of my gaming as i have a number of quality titles that im just starting (yay for Fallout 3 atm) and a back catalogue of games that'll last me for years.