What the hell is happening with the video-game market?

[Lotus Victoria]

Greetings champions. This is a small rant that I'll be making, so #1 - don't take things too seriously, 'cause I'm pissed off, #2, feel free to disagree/agree with me, #3 - I'd be grateful if you contribute with the thread with your opinion.

So, okay. Here it goes:

What the actual fuck is happening with our video-game industry? We're slowly melting into some kind of monster, made of money and greedyness. "Welcome to the real world, kiddo" is something that I hear all the time, but really? Are you okay with these kinds of stuff?

Since the last generation, the gaming market has been suffering from a lot of topics, some that I present below:

• Full games are being torn apart to be released in small chunks;
• Expansion Packs became small DLC content that costs just as much;
• Paid skins in free games became gambling microtransactions in PAID GAMES;
• Don't even get me started in Season Passes (Paying for the "promise" of future content, that sometimes takes a long, long time to be released);
• Triple-A games and companies going to Early Access;
• EARLY FUCKING ACCESS;
• Paying to participate in a Beta Game (Quake: Champions is an example of this);
• Lack of creativity in the triple-A department, leading to that "Deja vu"(I've already played this!) feeling in various games;
• Indie gaming suffering from a lot of problems as well (used to be a cool market, but greed is making it slowly degrade as well);
• Kickstarter leading to a lot of failures and bad games;
• Companies being shady as fuck (Warner Bros with the death of its employee;
• Charging for MODS. MODS, for fuck sake.
• Asset Flippers stealing games and assets to flood online stores with shitty games;

And much, much more. I understand that gaming isn't all bad nowadays, but we should not be having to thank developers if they choose to include "free content after launch" or if their PC port of game X runs well, as these kinds of thing should be expected to be there from the start! Again, I understand the old saying "Welcome to the real world, kid", but I disagree. We still have ways to vote against these kinds of bullshit - with our wallets.

Anyway. Thanks for reading, and sorry for the outrage. I hope you agree with me in some topics, and if you disagree, feel free to express your opinion. I'm all ears.

[johnhoftb]

[Fibby76]

I completely agree with you on all your points, but sadly, like you said, the customers speak with their wallets.

For my part, if I knew a game would come out with DLC/Expansion in the future, i normally wait until the developers are done with releasing the said contents. I'll use Total War: Warhammer as an example. I love the Warhammer lore, so I was itching to give it a try, but given the developer's history with DLC/Expansion, i waited until they announced they were working on part two for that game. So at the next steam discount of that game, i grabbed the whole game up with everything included. I felt like I paid a good price for all the contents they had to offer. The same goes for similar games, such as Fallout 4, Skyrim, Assassin's Creed, etc. The main thing here is "patience".

Sadly, a lot of customers are all like "TAKE MY MONEY NOW!" and then complain they felt ripped off. It's mind-boggling, since it's readily transparent what the business models are doing to them, but people kept falling for it, regardless.

The same goes for kickstarters, early access, betas and other similar concepts. The key word here is "patience". I just add them to my bookmarks (or wishlist in the case of steam) as "something to keep eye for the future" so i can pick up the finished product once they've released it. But once again, many people out there are throwing their money at a potential "dream" that hasn't even come to fruition.

You argue that people should speak up about those such business practices with their wallets. I would argue that is exactly what they're doing. They're still throwing their money at the screen, and the businesses know this, so they keep doing it. People act all "butt-hurt" against companies such as Ubisoft, EA, blizzard, and what have you, but they themselves are still buying their products. A paradox of sorts, no?

For your part, you can continue to act against the business practices by supporting good business practices while not supporting businesses with the said shady practices. That's all we can expect from each other. For the fools, well there's not much we can do. There's a reason for the saying, "A fool and his money are soon parted."

And that's all i have to say on the subject.

[Ballistic]

There are so many kids wasting their money on this BS, they encourage companies to take these routes. If these business models failed every time they come up with a new release of a game they would be sticking to the old original known way to realeas a game...a full fucking developed game with fixed price.

[ro9ue]

• Full games are being torn apart to be released in small chunks;
• Expansion Packs became small DLC content that costs just as much;
• Paid skins in free games became gambling microtransactions in PAID GAMES;
• Don't even get me started in Season Passes (Paying for the "promise" of future content, that sometimes takes a long, long time to be released);
• Triple-A games and companies going to Early Access;
• EARLY FUCKING ACCESS;
• Paying to participate in a Beta Game (Quake: Champions is an example of this);
• Lack of creativity in the triple-A department, leading to that "Deja vu"(I've already played this!) feeling in various games;
• Indie gaming suffering from a lot of problems as well (used to be a cool market, but greed is making it slowly degrade as well);
• Kickstarter leading to a lot of failures and bad games;
• Companies being shady as fuck (Warner Bros with the death of its employee;
• Charging for MODS. MODS, for fuck sake.
• Asset Flippers stealing games and assets to flood online stores with shitty games;

Just be a smart consumer. We have access to hundreds of hours of gameplay reviews, streams, articles etc. Find a few reviewers you trust and wait for their opinions.

I never pay for early access. Ever. It's just dumb.

Particularly on MODs, have you ever built a mod? They take a lot of work. I think the people who build them deserved to be paid. However, in the case of some of the paid mod systems in place, the original game makers appear to be a bit greedy in it.

[Karon]

Greetings champions. This is a small rant that I'll be making, so #1 - don't take things too seriously, 'cause I'm pissed off, #2, feel free to disagree/agree with me, #3 - I'd be grateful if you contribute with the thread with your opinion.

So, okay. Here it goes:

What the actual fuck is happening with our video-game industry? We're slowly melting into some kind of monster, made of money and greedyness. "Welcome to the real world, kiddo" is something that I hear all the time, but really? Are you okay with these kinds of stuff?

Since the last generation, the gaming market has been suffering from a lot of topics, some that I present below:

• Full games are being torn apart to be released in small chunks;
• Expansion Packs became small DLC content that costs just as much;
  
• Paid skins in free games became gambling microtransactions in PAID GAMES;
• Don't even get me started in Season Passes (Paying for the "promise" of future content, that sometimes takes a long, long time to be released);
• Triple-A games and companies going to Early Access;
• EARLY FUCKING ACCESS;
• Paying to participate in a Beta Game (Quake: Champions is an example of this);
• Lack of creativity in the triple-A department, leading to that "Deja vu"(I've already played this!) feeling in various games;
• Indie gaming suffering from a lot of problems as well (used to be a cool market, but greed is making it slowly degrade as well);
• Kickstarter leading to a lot of failures and bad games;
• Companies being shady as fuck (Warner Bros with the death of its employee;
• Charging for MODS. MODS, for fuck sake.
• Asset Flippers stealing games and assets to flood online stores with shitty games;

And much, much more. I understand that gaming isn't all bad nowadays, but we should not be having to thank thank developers if they choose to include "free content after launch" or if their PC port of game X runs well, as these kinds of thing should be expected to be there from the start! Again, I understand the old saying "Welcome to the real world, kid", but I disagree. We still have ways to vote against these kinds of bullshit - with our wallets.

Anyway. Thanks for reading, and sorry for the outrage. I hope you agree with me in some topics, and if you disagree, feel free to express your opinion. I'm all ears.

Console "gamers" happened.

[MonsieuRoberts]

We're really beginning to see the boundaries of what lowest common denominator consumers (ie; Fucking idiots) are willing to put up with, like pre-launch on-disc DLC and purchasable RNG-based pay-to-win lootboxes in single player games. Hefty early access fees, pay-to-beta test, pre-order rewards with whack powerscale, gratuitous amounts of content cut and sold wholesale after release, and the list goes on. Totally fine with Joe Everygamer who just wants to come home after his 9-5 and hear as many hit marker sfx as he can for a few hours.

Sadly we'd need 10 more No Man's Sky situations before these LCD consumers get a fucking clue and stop giving their cash to anyone who can slap together a visually appealing fly-through trailer.

To answer your question, what's happening is IRL min-maxing. Pretty interesting.

[Dug]

They know people will buy into the shitty practices and I can't even complain because I'd be a hypocrite in doing so. It will take the gaming community as a whole to just not buy the next "hype" game so that we can tell them fuck you we won't pay for this anymore but even if I decide I'll never buy into it again I'm just a single person. Even if this entire forum didn't buy into it we wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket.

[SLSAMG]

Greetings champions. This is a small rant that I'll be making, so #1 - don't take things too seriously, 'cause I'm pissed off, #2, feel free to disagree/agree with me, #3 - I'd be grateful if you contribute with the thread with your opinion.

So, okay. Here it goes:

What the actual fuck is happening with our video-game industry? We're slowly melting into some kind of monster, made of money and greedyness. "Welcome to the real world, kiddo" is something that I hear all the time, but really? Are you okay with these kinds of stuff?

Since the last generation, the gaming market has been suffering from a lot of topics, some that I present below:

• Full games are being torn apart to be released in small chunks;
• Expansion Packs became small DLC content that costs just as much;
• Paid skins in free games became gambling microtransactions in PAID GAMES;
• Don't even get me started in Season Passes (Paying for the "promise" of future content, that sometimes takes a long, long time to be released);
• Triple-A games and companies going to Early Access;
• EARLY FUCKING ACCESS;
• Paying to participate in a Beta Game (Quake: Champions is an example of this);
• Lack of creativity in the triple-A department, leading to that "Deja vu"(I've already played this!) feeling in various games;
• Indie gaming suffering from a lot of problems as well (used to be a cool market, but greed is making it slowly degrade as well);
• Kickstarter leading to a lot of failures and bad games;
• Companies being shady as fuck (Warner Bros with the death of its employee;
• Charging for MODS. MODS, for fuck sake.
• Asset Flippers stealing games and assets to flood online stores with shitty games;

And much, much more. I understand that gaming isn't all bad nowadays, but we should not be having to thank thank developers if they choose to include "free content after launch" or if their PC port of game X runs well, as these kinds of thing should be expected to be there from the start! Again, I understand the old saying "Welcome to the real world, kid", but I disagree. We still have ways to vote against these kinds of bullshit - with our wallets.

Anyway. Thanks for reading, and sorry for the outrage. I hope you agree with me in some topics, and if you disagree, feel free to express your opinion. I'm all ears.

Capitalism at its finest, gents. Check out EA's stock over the past 5 years. That amount of growth is unimaginable and it's surely no coincidence it was largely due to DLC's. That just so happens to coincide as Andrew Wilson took over as CEO too. With Battlefront 2 - they have yet another business model that'll increase their revenue (P2W micro-transactions). EA is a giant corporation and they only care about their shareholders.

Water is wet/more news @ 10.

You want to revolt? Vote with your fucking wallets then.


Edit - 1


Took the liberty of saving you time:

[Aflakk47]

I rarely ever buy new games as they release nowadays. I'll wait myself and pay 1/3 the initial price for a Game of the Year edition after a year or two and just enjoy the full game in one go then, like I did with Shadow of Mordor, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Dragon Age: Inquisition and other games like it. Not to say I won't pay for games that I seem to be worth it, like Life is Strange: Before the Storm or other Blizzard titles (own all games except Destiny 2 with almost all respective DLCs - only lacking SC2 coop commanders)

[Deleted]

Strange thing for is that I never seem to have any knowledge about- or experience with any of the things you mention.

I just buy a game once in a while and play it.

[Faroth]

Console "gamers" happened.

Please elaborate on how Atari 2600, NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, Sega CD, Playstation, and Playstation 2 contributed to this phenomena that only occurred when consoles became more closer to resembling PCs in architecture and digital marketplace. I'm sure it's a fascinating history.

Sadly we'd need 10 more No Man's Sky situations before these LCD consumers get a fucking clue and stop giving their cash to anyone who can slap together a visually appealing fly-through trailer.

Is No Man's Sky really the worst example at this point? Disappointing launch, but a developer that's continued to work diligently to get patches out and bring the game towards the original intent without charging for it. Within the first months of release, people were assuming Hello Games would take their money and disappear, but they absolutely haven't. While there's a lesson to be learned from that whole situation, it's certainly not the more egregious example. I'd still put Mighty No. 9 above No Man's Sky by miles as an example of being suckered.

Heck, at this point, No Man's Sky is out, hasn't been charging money, and is further on the path to their vision than Star Citizen is. Which one is really bleeding its customers dry?

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I don't have high hopes for most game making company's so in never disappointed. The only company I have any faith in is laridin studio who kick started divinity original sin then released a updated version with a ton of stuff upgraded like fully voice acted and a lot of story touch ups for free to any one already owned the first version. Then kicked started original sin 2 which I'd would say is game of the year by far. When there's such an amazing company I don't know how any other could come close.

[Bullettime]

Because people keep buying their shit. The option is to always vote with your wallet on any market issue but most people will keep buying into it while complaining and hoping everyone else will vote with theirs.

[Evaddon]

Because us.
We the consumers buy it. Nothing to do with the industry, they see if they make it, we will come.

People just aren't that smart with expenses these day. Not smart with the wallet good for the companies, not the consumers

[SLSAMG]

I don't have high hopes for most game making company's so in never disappointed. The only company I have any faith in is laridin studio who kick started divinity original sin then released a updated version with a ton of stuff upgraded like fully voice acted and a lot of story touch ups for free to any one already owned the first version. Then kicked started original sin 2 which I'd would say is game of the year by far. When there's such an amazing company I don't know how any other could come close.

CDPR is pretty likable as well. Shame they've been having internal issues though.

[Schmilblick]

People are accepting and paying for it, so why not ?

[Lodreh]

...[*]Kickstarter leading to a lot of failures and bad games...

I wanted to touch on this point. Kickstarter "usually" has a passionate (though maybe not experienced) person behind it. The entire project may become overwhelming and lead to cut content or delays. You are funding someone's dream... and while it sounds great... it doesn't guarantee that they have the knowledge or skill to make that dream a reality.

Now on to AAA studios using Kickstarter... well that's just a shitty practice. It should be a place for independant developers to get funding.

[kaelleria]

AAA games have been roughly the same price for 30+ years. How many other industries have remained static for that long. Technical quality and art has obviously gone up. Where do you think the money comes from?

[mistahwilshire]

This thread is several years too late. Games have been gacha-ized for years and it has completely ruined gaming for me.