When did video games start to suck so bad?

Here I was this evening, giving Twilight Princess a second chance, telling myself the game might pick up and get better, but modern developers tend to forget they are making a VIDEO GAME and not an interactive movie, and I quit twilight princess for the third time.

Kojima's games started a bad trend of semi-good directors thinking they are Steven Spielberg and injecting windy dialogue and unnecessary cutscenes into their games.

You'd think the youth of today would object to this, being so ADD from the internet and such (I am too), but how are devs getting away with such boring games??? I guess the demographic purchasing the most games are males in their 30s, too tired for more frenetic, action-oriented gameplay because of responsibilities like tending to their offspring and stressful jobs, but I am not of the latter.

Long live retro gaming 43V3R!

@mountain2012: I think gaming peaked between the PS1 and PS2 generation.

PS1 had the awesome experiences. Great graphics to date considering it was running on the same CPU that took the astronauts to the moon and back. Final Fantasy VII, VIII, Resident Evil, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot.

The N64 was a phenomenal console as well. PC was hitting its stride in the mature RPG arena also.

PS2, it basically took everything great about the previous generation and made it bigger. Bigger worlds, better gameplay but honestly I see PS1 and PS2 on equal footing. They were both fantastic but neither of them really surpassed the other.

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Then 360/PS3 came along and suddenly they started making games that were more flash than substance. I have some good memories of last gen but honestly I doubt I'll have a longing to go back to my 360 in ten years time and relive any of those experiences.

Mostly because it was full of shallow linear experiences but also because it was dominated by online games that die when the developers shut the servers off.

Gears of War, Halo 3, Heavy Rain, Uncharted there were plenty of games at the time that were impressive but they are done now and I honestly don't miss them.

Instead, I'm left HOPING that the games that are coming will be better in more ways than just visuals. Future games will be ultra pretty. There is nothing with more certainty. But I'm finding it hard to even switch my PS4 on these days because hardly any of the games are particularly fun.

Wii U was an utter disaster. PC is currently so plagued by shovelware indies and trash it is nearly impossible to find the good games under the sea of shit that Steam has become.

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For the last few weeks I've been playing games on Atari/NES emulators. I think that says everything.

around those times when everyone became a dj and an artistic photographer...

Video games today are just fine, you just ought to start playing better games.

You're not looking for the right games. Games today are as awesome as before. Just gotta find em.

I've been through most all of video gaming having started back in the Atari 2600 era and personally I think it has gotten progressively better. I feel that gaming is better then it's ever been.

@mountain2012: Not to be frank, but I honestly find it sad when people bring up this topic.

I'm never sure what makes one think this way.

Narrows down to being grumpy and miserable, a nostalgic rose-tinted-glasses Vet, poor luck buying the right games, or burnt out of gaming in general and should take a break?

Personally could name tons of modern games that ultimately kickass. And love them as much as any classic.

But heck, you're entitled to your opinion.

I just harshly disagree.

This

Maybe you keep buying games like sonic and expect them to be good. Or maybe some of the recent square enix blunders. It's like an old person who thinks because he see's de niro in a movie then the movie must be good.

Agreed.

@dexda: I could not have put it better myself. The PS2 is the greatest console ever and elevated gaming to a level we just won't reach again. A member on here said that was the era where games were cheap enough to develop that risks could be taken and there were still enough resources to combine great tech with great gameplay.

Now we have an abundance of games that look great but don't play that well or are just rehashes of game play styles we've alreday seen a millions times or there's the deluge of indy titles that play on our nostalgia in the hope of selling copies. Plus, games cost so much to make now that each gen is having progressively less games released on it.

On the last gen consoles, I'd probably label only a handful of games as great, ME2 ,FO3, MGS IV, GTA V...and I dunno. Maybe Fifa 12 and Fight Night 4 in terms of sports. On the PC it's the same issue with PC exclusives (AAA) a dying breed.

On this gen, I can't really recommend any game. MGS V was a hack job and FO4 is inferior to it's predecessor, although still enjoyable. Sports games are just ok.

Doesn't matter when it happened.

It happened.

Now we need to know why it happened and how to fix it.

I reccomend we all stop buying Crappy Games. :)

I wouldn't say games have started to suck, but they do kind of blend together now. I'm strictly talking AAA here. Seems like there are a lot of open-world shooters with rpg elements, or rpgs with shooter elements, or shooter/platformers with rpg elements. All of which have online multiplayer modes.

There is a wide variety on the indie side of things,but even that can only go so far. Remember when they tried to make Trine 3 a 3D puzzle platformer instead of a 2D one? Cost them 3 times as much money to make a game that was about half the length of it's predecessors. Probably why the genre is so dead.

You're letting your nostalgia get the better of you OP. Yes, gaming today has many issues, but it makes up for it in variety (something past generations very much lacked). You want cinematic games? Tons of those. You wan't competitive online FPS's? Moba's? MMO's? Got those as well. You wanna experience old school side scrolling or pixel art games, check out Steam/PSN/XBL/Google Play/Apple Store, even got a ton of classics. Also got lots of sims, space sims in my opinion being the most interesting. An now, despite being in it's early stages, we have actual VR

@mordant221:

"Actual VR" is abit of a Stretch.... I think we're still in Technical VR territory.

We can discuss Actual VR After scientists of the future unfreeze my Fat Corpse from Cryo Stasis and Jam a 50K Resolution HDMI Plug into my Brain and I murder Agent Smith with Kung Fu and saving humanity from the Machines...... while wearing Black Shades and Trench Coat. ;)

They don't. Everyone is so damn jaded these days. And I still don't get the rose colored goggles on the olden days. Heaps of junk came out on old systems too. It's easy to look back on the good titles, it's hard to see ones that haven't come out yet

I think games are pretty awesome. I just get sick of trends within games, like the cinematic over gameplay style, or the day 1 dlc crap, or Ubi and a few others not optimizing games at all..

Games as good or better then they've ever been. Gamers though, not all of them, are a lot worse now. Whiny, complaining about the tiniest nothing, feeling developers owe them free everything, etc etc.

I've been gaming since around 82-83 and there's not one gen I haven't enjoyed just as much as the last.

@uninspiredcup said:

Back in the 1990's you had John Carmack and a few of his mates a room making a game they would find cool. Their own unhindered vision.

Now it's this.

^ this is a really good observation.

back in 2005, splinter cell chaos theory - which i consider one of the all time stealth greats - had a very small dev team with one solitary guy as the lead designer, script writer and creative director. other devs used to crash on his couch in montreal. here's his blog from 2015 about his chaos theory experience ten years on http://www.clicknothing.typepad.com/click_nothing/2015/03/ten-years-down.html

thenthis is a blog post from a ubisoft dev in 2016 talking about the realities of modern aaa game development and why he quit - hundreds of people working around the clock on the game from more than 10 different studios worldwide, no actual project leader, direction or communication between teams, no visibility about what other teams are doing and a devs contribution limited to minuscule aspects of the game such as 'i created this lampost.' http://gingearstudio.com/why-i-quit-my-dream-job-at-ubisoft

i think this is the reality of why a lot of aaa game are released feeling hollow, shallow and soulless (i, as anyone who visits gd regularly will know, cannot stand modern ubiosft games) but tbf it's just one publisher (the demise of one great publisher imo) and is not necessarily representative of every publisher / dev in the industry, although i'm sure there are similarities. there's still a lot of quality out there but it's harder to find and you often have to look beyond the mainstream which is why owning a gaming pc is a smart idea

edit: the post i quoted seems to have disappeared lol. must have kept the tab open for too long lol

When FPS games began to have such huge success and moba´s .

But also it´s because of budgets and developers turn to more secure games that makes them money.

But to be fair not all games suck, there is a lot of good indie games out there if you know where to look and not get caught up by some 14 year old kids shit.

Pretty much. I think if you were to point to a company doing this, it would probably be Ubisoft above all.

Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon started off as tactical shooters designed for a specific audience, then Gears Of War proved popular, following the trend (which admittedly was hugely successful) it simply because a wall cover based shooter with light tactical elements.

Now, with Ghost Recon it's an open world action game.

These aren't exciting new directions implemented by an inspired team but pretty clearly business driven.

I guess it's understandable, it is a business and the point is to make money.

More to the point, it's a necessary consequence of taking on a project of that magnitude. One wouldn't expect a small passionate team of game developers to create a $50 million AAA game any more than one would expect a $150 million Hollywood Blockbuster movie to be one man's singular vision. Once a project gets big enough, it's IMPOSSIBLE for one person to run it by himself. And the reality of the situation is that once a project gets that big, a shitload of jobs are at stake. And it's gotta be SOMEONE'S job to not just look at it from a "doing what's cool" angle and to ensure that the project actually generates money. If it's just you and a few buddies working on a small video game or movie, then by all means just make it a passion project. But if you're getting multi-million dollar funding for a project that requires the work of thousands of people, then it is not a bad thing that someone's sitting there assessing the project's ability to generate money.

That's just how it works. If you want to have the freedom to just do what you think is cool, then stick to the small budget stuff. Smaller risks means more freedom to just do what you want. But once you start talking about investments well into the millions of dollars, then you'd better be looking after the money. And if that's not something you want to do, then you'd better be willing to hire someone to do it for you.

Having said that, even with it being arguable that many of the big AAA games are safe and shallow, I think it's fair to say that most of them are COMPETENT. Precisely for the same reason I said. If you're dealing with a $50+ million project, you're probably gonna shell out the money to hire people who are competent enough to get the job done. This is precisely one of the reasons why most AAA games aren't getting reviews under 5 on gaming sites like this. Once you start dealing with a project that requires THAT much money, you're gonna try your damndest to make sure that it isn't HORRIBLE.

@MrGeezer: i disagree, i don't think it is a necessary consequence. i understand your point but i work in software development for a multi £billion online company and we ultimately have a single product owner for every new thing that we do. there is a small committee up at the top in terms of the CEO, CFO etc. who offer guidance and there's a massive amount of teams and personnel involved but ultimately it's under the control of one person assisted by their teams. these product owners are on ridiculous money because that's what they're good at - organising, overseeing and ensuring that the end product is financially sound, successful and that the internal structure and organisation of the teams involved are utilised in such a way that results in the highest amount of productivity and quality. there are methodologies that cover project development that scale from small 10 men operations to multi national conglomerates. of course it grows exponentially more difficult the more employees / teams you have, but it's not impossible.

from what it sounds like, at ubisoft there is no particular hierarchy, there are dozens of product owners, dozens of committees, all with their own agendas and very little regular communication between them and certainly no single person or even small group of persons overseeing the process or ensuring the product remains faithful to the vision. and this is to the detriment of the final product. judging by comments on these boards it's not just me that's non-plussed with much of their recent offerings. of course i'm extrapolating this all from a single blog post so i'm not saying it's entirely reliable but it certainly seems plausible and as i don't particularly enjoy modern ubisoft games i'm prepared to take it as gospel ;)

and being competent isn't good enough imo. i'm no prejudiced fanboy who dislikes ubisoft games by default, i just remember them in the good old days when they produced far better than competent. i miss those days. other large companies can do it, in all manner of different industries, and still make bucket loads of money, so it is possible, you just need a solid infrastructure and development methodologies / hierarchies. spotify for example have a very cool model, we had their CTO come to us to deliver a talk several weeks ago explaining it all and it was fascinating

@Macutchi: "these product owners are on ridiculous money because that's what they're good at - organising, overseeing and ensuring that the end product is financially sound, successful and that the internal structure and organisation of the teams involved are utilised in such a way that results in the highest amount of productivity and quality."

Looks like you're actually agreeing with me. They're not running their business on "hey, let's just do it, it'll be cool."

In short, it all started with the last PS3/360 generation, games started having more and more scripted events,QTE's and overall linear dumbed down level design with the pretentious "realism" bullshit, games like last of us pretty much epitomize this type game design.. if you remove all the fancy cut-scenes&graphics you're left with a mediocre 3rd person shooter that would've been forgotten in the PS2 era.

Back in my day outside cutscenes the players had full control but nowadays its like a norm to be constantly constrained by in-game cut-scenes and scripted events, it seems like modern game deves don't understand that Video games are GAMES first&foremost, taking control,depth&complexity away from the game only leaves us with an interactive movie.

it's not about producing what's "cool" it's about having the ability / infrastructure to orchestrate a large scale operation, utilising the talent at your disposal to the best of their ability, to create a product that's much better than competent. something that ubisoft aren't very good at imo. that they work at scale is not an excuse to churn out games that are safe and shallow when they have a huge roster of talented, creative developers who are likely to be as similarly frustrated as the ex ubi guy whose blog i posted a link to

My whole point was that it's not about producing what's "cool". I was replying to the sentiment that somehow modern AAA games aren't as good because it's no longer a few guys "making a game they find cool, their unhindered vision." Can you explain to me how "having the ability / infrastructure to orchestrate a large scale operation, utilising the talent at your disposal to the best of their ability, to create a product that's much better than competent" has anything to do with the development team consisting of a few guys "making a game they find cool, their unhindered vision"? Because just because something is someone's "unhindered creative vision" sure as shit doesn't mean that it's any good, and any company dealing with that kind of money is almost certainly going to try to make a product that is financially sound.

My point is specifically that having a large project shouldn't get in the way of it being good, because when you've got a project that size you should damn well be paying the kind of money to make sure you've got a team who can do their jobs. This whole thing about games sucking because now it involves executives in suits rather than a few guys working on their "unhindered creative vision" is mostly a load of bull, because nothing about "unhindered creative vision" entails that what they're doing is any good, is financially sound, or that they actually have the skills to manage a project.

EDIT: If we want to see what I'm talking about, there's a little exercise we can do. Let's take the worst reviewed 20 games of the year, and see how many of them are AAA games (in terms of budget). Somehow I'm betting that the majority of them are going to be smaller scale projects with a smaller budget and a smaller development team.

Alternatively let's take all of the AAA budgeted games of the year, and I'm betting that most of them aren't scoring below a 6 here.

So says the guy with probably very limited gameplay experience. Judging from this rambling anyhow! Warhammer Total war released last month hardly any cut scenes! Overwatch! ETC ETC blah blah.

i really can't be bothered having this descend into splitting heirs. we're on the same page. i was talking specifically about ubisoft, not aaa games in general

Yeah, I'm not saying that EVERY big AAA company is doing right. My point was just that generally speaking, when that kind of money is involved, that the people are going to be putting an emphasis on being financially sound and not just doing whatever they think is gonna be "cool". And furthermore, that the whole corporate approach isn't even really detrimental to making a good product (or at least shouldn't be), because when the stakes are that high they should damn well be paying enough money to ensure that they have the talent and the organizational structure to make it happen.

I've got no say about Ubisoft specifically. If you say they suck then I'll take your word on it.

When "epic" became a marketing term and not one everyone agreed with it. Weird thing is I never found games that were marketed as that to be that. Marketing over substance. Ubisoft as a company is a perfect example of this. They put content in their games so they can market it as having content. It doesn't matter what that content is or how it's designed as far as fun. These companies were just trying to own the market. They didn't care about making good games.

I think that goes on too with sites like Gamespot who continue to market these games like they are masterpieces of art when it's just marketing and trying to draw you in whether you really genuinally agree or not.

A lot of games today I more feel like I have to like because everyone says so when I don't know. A lot of brainwashed people out there.

I agree that last gen games really started to go downhill. I turn on my ps4 every so often and I'm amazed at the complete lack of good games and overhyped junk and branding out there now. I usually go through the store looking for something to play that interests me and end up just turning my ps4 off.

I enjoyed the witcher 3 and batman arkham knight. played a bunch of others but can't say I really was impressed with them.

@torenojohn7:

Uhm.... I wouldn't exactly say that The Last of Us without its Cutscenes is a mediocre Third Person Shooter.

Granted the Zombies (yes... all of them) were rubbish to interact with and pale in comparison to the joy and strategy of murdering the human beings..... and can you believe it never occured to anybody to think: "Hey.... what would happen if we put the player in the same room with Zombies AND Human Enemies at the same time?" Until the The DLC ? Damn Naughty Dog.... get your shit together..... I mean does "wasted potential" even encapsulate the sheer magnituted of this monumental **** Up ? Sorry.... I get carried away sometimes.

And the level design could go from "so much oppertunity for strategic murder" to "Hey.... wheres all my cover ?" And ontop of that.... Despite what everybody say about the Ammo and Items and Crafting System..... most of it was god awfully tedius Busy work. I put up with it because they arbitrarily linked the most boring things to do in the game with the most fun things to do. Not Cool.

I know that sounds like a really bad picture for The Last of Us's gameplay but it was mostly good. Not mediocre at all...... you wana see mediocre ? Nathan Drake says Hi !!! :)

@MrGeezer:

Ah dude.... I was Right behind you until you wanted to use Reviews to prove your point.

If you wanted to I would help analysis the failings of the 20 Worst Reviewed games.... one at a time. Because until journalist get their shit together the only way to get reliable results is on a Case by Case basis.

Just sayin. I still think you're right.... I just can't get behind the reviews. :(

Are you for real? Let's see in 2015 and 2016...

MGSV: the best stealth game ever made. Has a clear emphasis on dynamic gameplay and freedom of infiltration.

Witcher 3: the best rpg I have ever played with the best execution of an open world setting while still retaining a tight linear narrative.

Dark Souls 3: The combat is incredible. Almost on the level of bloodborne but still the best in the market.

Uncharted 4: a masterpiece which truly shows that video games can potentially be a better medium for storytelling than movies. The gameplay is also excellent. Destructible cover ftw.

@BboyStatix: But but but...AAA titles are bad, always bad. Insert crying grown man baby picture here.

Thats how I usually picture all these tools who constantly say that gaming sucks now, or they aren't nearly as good anymore, etc. Ooooh you're so edgy with that lame and outdated opinion.

I wouldn't say that games today suck in such a broad stroke.

However, in keeping with the topic, I'd say that for me, games started to suck when they stopped being games and became experiences. Today's experiences are very good and memorable, but they don't make for the best games that you come back to for the mechanics or fun factor.

yep agreed. financially sound / corporate does not / should not necessarily == safe and shallow.

and i'm sure you've played a ubi game before and have an opinion but if games like the division, far cry primal, far cry 4, rainbow 6 siege, assassin's creed unity etc float your boat and you're really looking forward to games like watch dogs 2 i'm happy for you and won't judge you just because i don't / i'm not

Nah gaming is still great and the only down side is that development time has become very long due to advanced technology. Back in the day if you have a particular interest in a franchise they are released like every year not nowadays except for Assassin's Creed but now Ubisoft has decided to give the series a rest which is good.

When most AAA developers started to please everyone and cram as much content and features into the game as possible to make it appealing for everyone out there, even if it means nearly all of those features are half baked and the game has no focus or clear direction.

Stop playing the indie games and some some more AAA games and then you will see less of the bad elements of gaming.

The degredation started around 2006 when great PC first franchises started to be bought out by console publishers and turned into mediocrity.

Then there's all the hand holding and simplification of everything to the point where there's no need for effort and no depth in games, which makes them braindead £45/$60 disposable or collectable grind affairs with large but shallow worlds.

Also all the pre order (of a DIGITAL product...) and DLC milking garbage made possible because the laughable generation of consoles that is X Bone and PS4 have so little to do owners are desperate to buy anything that comes out at release instead of being spoilt for choice of great titles like the PS1 and 2 era.

Games built by marketing teams and clueless executives instead of talented developers. I shouldn't need to look to find great games.

Gaming is better than it's ever been, all that's missing is more AA games.

i have mostly lost interest in the AAA side of the industry. the only AAA games that i am looking forward to are mass effect andromeda (though i suspect i will need to protect my wallet from EAs grubby mitts), cyberpunk 2077 (its CDPR....nuff said) and......er....nope thats it. oh the next elder scrolls...im a sucker for elder scrolls. oh also star citizen (if anything though that game is exposing the issues with modern AAA development since they are developing it in the open).

i think the cost of production has just become too high and the whole thing is becoming an unmanagable mess. cracks are showing and they are just getting bigger. its the main reason why im so against scorpio and neo and i think nintendo are smart to stay out of the horsepower race.

but there are still plenty of games to play. i picked up stardew valley a few days ago and its been great so far. i know its basically harvest moon but im still enjoying it. something different from the norm which is refreshing. thats a 1 man operation. games pike pillars of eternity....a good ol fashioned RPG. great to see that type of game make a bit of a comeback. super hot was a very cool take on FPSs.

at the indie and AA development levels i think there are many great games with more to come. but the AAA side, the summer blockbuster section of the games industry, is not in good shape at all.

I kind of have to agree. No doubt there is a lot more trash out there than back in the day. Games feel rushed, which they probably are. There are some great games out there though. I'm pretty old, relative to the rest of the board, and I'm still able to find games I like.

They never stopped sucking for me. What did is their DLC crappy model! thats a sour taste.

I went through a spell where the rose-tinted shades were on my eyes but I am over that shit. Got tired of self-imposed disappointment when, truthfully, games are better than they have ever been.

For starters, developers can do more: bigger worlds, more realistic graphics, smarter enemies, and so forth. With games finally in the mainstream, we can also get some good talent in our games to lend convincing voice acting and familiar, beloved faces.

Internet is faster and more available than ever, which creates huge communities with large player bases. People also tend to support these games, and developers (Blizzard, for example) support games such as Diablo 2 long after their initial release date because there is a demand for it.

There is also the independent sector, which is frankly just incredible. Just about anyone now can make a game, which is good because there is a lot of talent out there, but also bad because a lot of the talent lacks work ethic (to finish and polish their games) and also there are people that just shouldn't be making games. But I look at games like Hyper Light Drifter, Kerbel Space Program, and many others and I am soooooooo thankful the world of game development is open to people that would just a few short years ago would be forced to, at best, make a map or mod for a game instead of an actual game.

SO games never stopped sucking. Quite the opposite, they are better than ever.

That's not to say certain aspects don't suck. DRM is a big issue (but recently seems to be better), and I personally despise it when a game is "always online" or they try to make it a social media experience (I'm looking at you, Ubisoft....). Just make the game, support it, but don't try to make it something it's not all right? lol

Complaining about how gaming sucks because Twilight Princess (12th game in the series) and later MGS games (currently on their 22nd installment) don't satisfy you is kind of like complaining that all movies suck because you didn't like Fast and the Furious 7, Transformers 4, and Resident Evil 5.

-Byshop