The Decline of Video Games

If anything this gen is huge improvement over abonimation last generaition was.

we are getting old school shooters like Doom and shadow warrior 2 which were lacking last gen. and doom 4 was almost ruined last generation

we are getting more Deus ex and System shock 3. last generation we got dumbed down bioshock

we are getting more cRPGs which were lacking last gen

We are getting Hitman which return to roots and ruined last generaion

@brah4ever:

To my knowledge the tools needed for mid level game development are more accessible than ever, the console architecture is similar to that of PC, console manufacturers are more open to releasing "indie games, and said indie titles are often published by the bigger guys.

The " indie" scene IS this mid level AA you speak of.

"Each console had tons of exclusive titles and a good majority of the games weren't on PC either and were built to the strengths of the console they were developed on."

What does this even mean? A console is just a special form of a PC. It's impossible for it to have strengths not available on PC. Less exclusives is a great progress for the industry, not a problem.

I miss the SNES/Genesis generation when I was a kid.

Great game after great game being pushed out like fucking hotcakes.

Ghost4ever, what didn't you like about last gen?

Consoles killed the shooter genre.... other than that, gaming is ok.

Problem is you have 3 platforms that rely on controllers, and 1 platform with far more options.. .sadly due to costs you need to appeal to them all now ... resulting in an overall shallow market.

Gotta love the clowns saying The Witcher 3 plays better on a controller..... what a joke....

Maybe Doom or Shadow Warrior 2 will help devs move away from CoD type FPS game design/play.

Im playing more games than ever before, and I go way back as an Atari owner... I think its just the complaining that is on the rise rather than video games on the decline.

You need to game on the PC more. Tons of A-AAA budget titles that never show up on the consoles.

What games?

PC is my go to, at the moment

Right now Im playing Fire Emblem Con, SFV, D3 season5, just installed the Star Cit alpha this weekend, wrapping up Fallout 4, and playing a bit of Rogue Legacy.... say what you want about those games. But they are fun too me.

But I have to take your complaint about this gen with a grain a salt, when you are already saying that next console that is going to release will fail. Chin up ... its not all that bad. There is fun to be had out there, if you let yourself have the fun.

I'm having more fun than ever, Maybe its time you find another hobby you enjoy. I dont see games changing "back" the way you want.

I never said those games were bad.

This gen is like a graphical uograde albeit a slight one over the past one. It's taken time to build up a somewhat consistent rate of game releases and Sony and MS have been slow in IP output.

It's not really a complaint when my main point is that the lack of AA means we get less variety iof games with higher than indie budgets. AA games also have much higher quality control on average.

AA = good for library variety

This thread sucks. Even the games you use as examples of how great previous generations were all released 5-6 years after the generation had began. The amount of quality games in the first 2 years of 8th gen has far surpassed the first 2 years of 6th and 7th gen. As for your whining about the content for $60 games, we used to pay $70-$80 for games with only a minuscule fraction of the content and production values of today's games; but you wouldn't know that since you probably never even played a game untill the PS2 era. Oh and consoles are computers, personal computers are computers and you're telling me they have a few common functions? Wow. What a revelation.

This thread gets a 0/10 not only for being cynical bullshit, but for being the same unoriginal cynical bullshit that gets posted on this forum every 5 minutes.

I agree that the jump isnt there anymore, but we may never get another jump like we used to... the technology has caught up and stretched the budgets to the max.

But I disagree that there is no go variety/ AA market. The examples you list in the OP are right on par with games like Rogue Legacy, Gauntlet, Rocket League, Telltale Adventure games, FTL, Stryder, Axiom Verge, and such.... and I also think Indie can be AA.

@brah4ever: I disagree. Most gamers are boring gamers. They don't play anything new/unfamiliar. The compaints you made are only true for the Xbox not gaming in general. The X1 has no identity, lack of variety and 3-4 exclusives. Far as the game library you are crazy to think there's no difference especially when Sony has strong third party support and games like Wild.

We have more than enough quality games to enjoy if you are open minded. Most of you dwell on the negative or game in a box.

You probably started gaming with the PS3 gen (when games were considered cool) with the whole Wii casual and CoD 4 craze.

My first console was the SNES so yeah. If you think the first 2 years of this gen surpass the first of gen 6 or even gen 7 (you probably only owned a PS3 which had a really slow start) you really are clueless. This gen is an extension of last gen, same games and everything. There actually might be more remastered games than there are new IPs and exclusives, awesome gen though! I live in the states and games never used to cost $70-80 here.

But because Sony and MS are pushing this indie train to cover up the dead AA market, it's all good, right? There used to be a time where we didn't just wait for certain big games to release each year because AA games were doing excellent jobs covering many genres which your wannabe PC no longer has. Can't even use them with friends or family when they come over. Real life interaction between, real people is actually a real thing.

Usually consoles have had plenty of their own games which can't be found on PC, this time literally every game is on PC. That on top of them losing local multiplayer, installing games, patches, etc. Makes wannabe PCs, if that's not enough they are literally using X86 and running off the shelf PC parts. Watching people fight over PS4 or XB1 is hilarious to PC gamers since 95% all of console games are multiplat, run worse consoles, on top having to pay for online. They've taken all the aspects of a PC but kept literally none of the best aspects of console gaming, social gaming being of those things, like a group of family or friends socializing. Plug and play accessibility, to me a few. PC gaming has had a stereotype of being an anti social device for gaming yet these consoles are the same thing, just play by yourself in your room alone. Enjoy your multiplayer only and add content to game later games

Most indie devs struggle with 3D game design hence why you get a bunch of retro remakes of SNES games. Indie is a joke compared to AA. Keep defending them though because your master says "greatest games lineup" eat that up like the sheep you are.

Newer does not always mean better.

2016 is the first year that i wouldn't agree. We're finally getting shit and thanks god waggle controls and MW2 theme is dying/dead. These two were the herpes of 7th gen.

Sony has strong 3rd party over MS? All I see on both platforms are games that I can run on my PC in full HD at 60 fps as opposed to the 30 fps on PS4 and Xbox One. There are maybe 3 or 4 titles not on either system.Sony does love walking sims and movie games though.

@papatrop: Ps4 has over 20 this year.

2016 is looking sweet.

Exactly. I see plenty of skinny, geek looking gamers buying COD at stores every Nov. It isn't all bro gamers.

Don't buy games like Destiny, GTA5, Battlefront etc. Until people do this, I don't want to hear anything about a 'decline'.

This just reeks of nostalgia. There are so many great games out right now and many on there way. I don't have enough time to get to them all. Exclusives are a thing of the past, and they only existed because the console hardware was unique at the time. Now that everything is basically a PC, of course companies will want to release games on all systems. You should be happy that developers have the opportunity to get the most money out of their projects. There's a reason why things are the way it is today. Everything is dominated by the market.

GTA5? It's a quality game.

You mean consoles. The A-AA scene is booming on PC, there are hundreds of new games every month, in the last 30 days alone ive bought Grim Dawn, Stardew Valley, Devil Daggers and Stock car Extreme.. I literally have to tell myself no more, but im already eyeing Balrum and Soul Axiom.

To me everything changed when the Xbox came out somewhere in 2001. Prior to this system, consol and PC were vastly different in term of games. Once the Xbox came out, it brings some PC games to consol and at the same time all three started to have multiplat game. Something that rarely happened before.

During the PS3/360 came out, it was the end for many developper that were already near death like Midway. it was the rise of the bigger developper/publisher like EA, Ubisoft, Activision and SquareEnix who all started to buy smaller developper and the IP that were worth something.

I agree, this gen doesn't hold a candle to the previous 2 and is probably going to be the most unimpressive gen since before the NES.

Xbox did start this but consider that online PC gaming during the early 2000s was somewhat clunky in terms of playing with friends or joining private matches, you had to enter IP addresses and what not. Xfire did help alleviate this issue in the games it worked on, somewhat. Also most games didn't support plug in play gamepad support (like plugging in your 360 controller and it just works), even if they were multiplat.

Xbox made online gaming easy as you just had a gamertag with a friends list, seamless joining and messaging. No one else had this at time and it usually got the far better version of multiplats, in some games whole new content or levels were there.

In that gen specifically PC and consoles shared almost nothing, they were 2 different platforms that had their own game types. Consoles have always had shooters but the focus has never been this big, till around last gen.

Up till around the 360 gen, devs made console versions and PC versions (completely different games most of the time) because they both required different things from the player.

Also last gen, CoD 4 kind of changed everything. Once devs saw its success it led to sooooo many shooters last gen trying to get on that CoD money.

I agree.

Maybe if next gen consoles are all digital the AA game studios can make a comeback. That's the only solution I can think of. Gamestop can burn in hell.

Gamestop fears the digital age.

This gen sucks

But the middle tier is making a comeback. Soma, Kerbal's Space Program, The Witness would fit that billing.

That's only three games though, what are some others?

Interest8ngly, I think Wii U doesn't fall under most of what you posted.

But yeah, the industry as a whole has been getting pretty rough.

The investments in VR seems like a clossal waste for this medium too.

The Wii U doesn't fall under most, it has a lot of games that are original and unique to it.

If the Wii U had good 3rd party support it would have been a beast.

Whereas the XB1 and PS4 are pretty much more of the same from a hardware and games standpoint (lots of cross gen titles and remastered titles at first).

VR could be a huge flop, its scary to see Sony pushing it so hard.

Yes it is, but its development costs squeeze the middle (the AA as the OP calls it) to the edges so that there's only small and large budget games available. In this regard it's just as guilty as Destiny.

Even if the middle tier comes back in the console space, you'll all be complaining that the said middle-tier game costs $40 on launch day.

I have no problem paying for $40-$60 on AA games, a lot of the best games tend to come from those studios anyways. AA is enough room to experiment or create games that don't need 1m+ sales (to break even) while maintaining mid-high production values within the game.

Bayonetta, Vanquish, Xenoblade X, etc are examples of AA games.

@brah4ever: "Sony has strong 3rd party over MS? All I see on both platforms are games that I can run on my PC in full HD at 60 fps as opposed to the 30 fps on PS4 and Xbox One. There are maybe 3 or 4 titles not on either system.Sony does love walking sims and movie games though."

I thought it was common knowledge Sony had over 20 exlesives this year alone?

1. Uncharted 4

2. Ratchet & Clank

3. Hot Shots Golf

4. Gundam Breaker 3

5. Ni-Oh

6. Yakazu 6

7. The Tomorrow Children

8. GT Sport

9. The Last Guardian

10. Alienation

11. Shadow of the Beast

12. Gravity Rush 2

13. Persona 5

14. Nitro Plus Blasters

15. Digimon Cyber Slueth

16. Dreams

15. MLB franchise

16. Oden Sphere Liefthrasir

17. Horizon Zero Dawn

18. Star Ocean 5

19. Disaster Report 4 + Summer Memories

20. Agnus Sentinals Rim

21. Exist Archive

11 of those are Ps4 exclusive the rest are Sony exclsuive. Keep in mind this is only a quick list. Go inform yourself and stop talking out of your azz. New IP's are announced neary every month on Ps4/Sony platforms.

"The Wii U doesn't fall under most, it has a lot of games that are original and unique to it.

If the Wii U had good 3rd party support it would have been a beast.

Whereas the XB1 and PS4 are pretty much more of the same from a hardware and games standpoint (lots of cross gen titles and remastered titles at first).

VR could be a huge flop, its scary to see Sony pushing it so hard."

In the past 3-4 years Sony has inspired the industry probably more than Nintendo. Companys like EA are investing in games like Unravel because Sony has proven these games can be successful. Hec, Mario Maker was inspired by Little Big Panet. Upcoming games like Dreams, Wild, Gravity Rush 2, The Last Guardian are unfamiliar terrtory.

Sony is a more divese company than either Microsoft or Nintendo. The X1 is mostly an NA centric while Sony is more diverse company than either Nintendo or Microsoft. Playstation is a no brainer for third party companys because Sony has a diverse audience.

"Boohoo we need more mediocre games!"

Get a grip.

Other than a few less transparent practices (overuse of DLC, season passes, etc), i think that gaming was never as good and diverse as it is now, mostly due to the massificassion of the indie industry. Not only we have hundreds of old school and unique games, but massive AAA games have been released at the same rate as they used to.

Stop the negativity kids. We are living in a fantastic gaming era!

Consoles definitely need more AA devs and they need to support games other than average "muh blockbuster" as well. Luckily there are plenty of AA/Mid Tier devs on PC.

Yeah, and the rest are a bunch of Indie games.

Well said TC.

I hope so. Shadow Warrior 2 looks extremely good. I've moved away from Shooter genre due to COD like modern military shooters. It's games like Shadow Warrior that brought me back. I hope System Shock 3 delivers too.

Some of the highest rated games ever are usually AA.

Are you a new gamer?

What are some of your favorite indie games?

Sony's audience this time pretty much the bro gamer from the 360.

What are some of the diverse Sony made games of this gen that have released so far?

Some of the levels in Shadow Warrior 1 kind of dragged a bit, but the devs realized and Shadow Warrior 2 is looking like an awesome successor.

System Shock 3 will probably be sick, can't wait for some some screens or footage of it in action.