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While I agree with the title, this particular analysis is kind of shallow. It’s one thing to analyze predatory game design, but here it’s mostly “I don’t like this so it’s bad”. It’s also very narrowly focusing on AAA open world. Old AAA open worlds were much worse. Remember how empty and soulless the first Far Cry and AssCreed were?
I laughed when the author makes a bunch of examples where he calls cutscenes a waste of time. I don’t like action games for example and I can’t find any enjoyment in Dark Souls, but I’m not going to argue that it’s a waste of time or ignore the fact that people genuinely like it.
And then he goes on to say that modern games are made by random people in tech that aren’t into gaming. I mean, bro, have you tried applying for a fucking job as a game developer?? Participated in a lunch break at a gaming company where 90% of people only talk about videogames?
And then he goes on to say that modern games are made by random people in tech that aren’t into gaming. I mean, bro, have you tried applying for a fucking job as a game developer?? Participated in a lunch break at a gaming company where 90% of people only talk about videogames?
Yeah. I guarantee there’s nobody in game develop that isn’t into gaming. Not only is game development much harder than regular web development you also get paid less and are usually treated worse. I love gaming but I wouldn’t go into game development because it’s just not worth the effort for me. I’ll much rather do my cushy regular tech work and have more time playing games.
It depends. There are some people here and there. But also, you don’t need to be a hardcore gamer to do a LOT of the technical work in gaming. Mostly you just need to be really good at coding and somehow prefer decent snacks and a lax dress code to money and job stability.
Technically you don’t need to be a gamer at all to work in gaming if you’re a good developer, but the question is why? Because my experience has been that you get decent snacks and lax dress code in addition to money and job stability. From my experience the only reason to go into game dev is because you want to work on games. If that’s not the reason you’re just better off doing tech work elsewhere.
Yeah, no, we’re not disagreeing here. Absolutely go spend a decade sorting out a single form in a banking software thing. It is objectively the better choice.
All I’m saying is the few people who get into it non-vocationally are mostly there for the vibes.
Bro, banks are one of the worst places to work. I would rather work as a game dev than go into banking. There are infinitely better places to work at but if your experience is only between banking and game dev then I can see how game dev could look much more appealing.
There was another post last night at around the same time saying “Why aren’t games fun anymore?”
This entire thing feels shallow as hell and just one angry dude who’s pissed about things not being like they used to be so he’s whining about it to other people who are angry.
There is literally nothing objective about this. It’s all using heavy skewed data to try and prove its point. He has absolutely no clue what he’s talking about. He’s just angry and saying things that he thinks are intelligent to try and back up his point.
Only thing I’ve discovered from this post is another “analyzer” to avoid at all possible costs.
This type of nostalgia porn is pretty popular on Youtube, but usually they at least make some valid point. Not in this case though.
It’s also funny how Skyrim is presented as one of the ‘cool’ games, glossing over the fact that it has a massive, slow exposition dump at the beginning, which was criticized ever since it launched.
If a game even remotely looks like a chore, I’m passing. I don’t have time to just mosey around limitless planets, mining for resources to build a gun or some shit.
Unless you let me swing around like fuckin Spiderman. Nothing’s a chore when you get to swing from chore to chore like fuckin spiderman. Fuckin cool ass bitch with the pendulums and zipping and swinging and shit. Fuckin love spiderman.
Spider-man games are one of my favourite. I really liked the recent one and the 1.5 featuring miles. I’ve lost count of how many I have blown days on. Prototype, hulk, etc., were decent but I generally prefer the spider-man games with spider man in them. That said my favourite spider-man game is gravity rush. I included the ‘-’ in spider-man because he told me to in at least one of the games.
I dunno. If anyone knows how to spell Spider-man correctly, it’s probably not some entitled self-righteous millennial
I only know because at least the Peter Parker spider-man frequently tells people how to spell it.
Shit I’m so so so sorry when I wrote that I thought it was obvious I was making a joke about Spider-man being an entitled millennial but now, looking back that obviously was not clear. That’s 100% my bad!!!
Did you just say you love spiderman. That part wasn’t clear…
No, he wants to swing around while fucking Spider-Man. And who doesn’t?
This is what got me to stop playing genshin impact. I might play it again if they ever complete the story and grasscutter catches up on the quests though.
Both new Zeldas and Baldur’s Gate 3 don’t feel like a chore to me. They’re awesome games. Same with Red Dead Redemption 2.
Oh boy, the new zeldas’ have tons of collectibles and they don’t feel special at all. The fact that you have a menu telling you how many you got makes it worse.
Woodland critter counter
Poe counter
Shrine counter
Stable points
Fall challenges
And so on. It began as fun and as I progressed I started getting sidetracked and by the end it just wasn’t as fun anymore. The new zelda lack focus. And it’s intentional too, I just hate that.
I don’t feel the need to get all of those things. If I see poe, I pick it up, but I don’t go actively hunting for it.
The “new zeldas”? Where were you when they hid a bunch of quality of life upgrades behind an actual hundred skulltulas?
I think sometimes people mistake a game surfacing a list of content for practical reasons with forcing you to touch every little thing inside the game. In any case, Zelda games have always had a progress screen like that. They practicaly pioneered the concept.
Just this year we got Spider-Man 2, Pikmin 4, Cities Skylines II, Super Mario Wonder, Hi-Fi Rush… The guy even praises Baldur’s Gate in this.
It’s just people being weird and conservative and nostalgic. “Game that doesn’t make me feel like a child” = “modern game”.
It’s just people being weird and conservative and nostalgic. “Game that doesn’t make me feel like a child” = “modern game”.
Old. They’re being old. This is EXACTLY the same energy as a boomer saying “Music these days don’t get it” or “No one pays attention to this anymore” or “Nothing’s as good as it used to be”.
The take hyper focuses on negativity and would rather whine and complain about everything bad NOW, while nostalgia is living in their head rent free, because things are passing them by.
A friend of mine started saying BG3 was garbage recently. When I asked why he couldn’t adequately get out a reason. They were all weird and dismissive. We ended up in a heated discussion because I felt he wasn’t being fair at all to the game. Turns out I was right. He eventually ended up saying “Listen I just think the game fucking sucks because there is too much in it. I don’t have the time for all this. I miss when games were good and didn’t sprawl on forever, forcing you to get confused and lost.” When I pointed out that his complaint was based entirely in what he likes and not what’s good, he changed subject.
Nine times out of ten these “IT’S NOT GOOD ANYMORE” are based purely in nostalgia that ignores everything negative because they’re not looking to criticize. They’re looking to vent their frustrations but don’t know how to do it in a healthy or fair manner.
I’ve always thought that a lot of DLC and preorder bonuses are basically an admission that you won’t enjoy all of the game, you’ll just feel obligated to get through it. Like, if part of the game is earning coins, then that should be enjoyable, right? It’s part of the game, and games should be fun, so you should want to do that. So the fact that they let you pay more money to skip that aspect of the game really shows that many game mechanics are just not enjoyable anymore. They aren’t even meant to be enjoyable; it’s more profitable to put un-fun game mechanics in.
Imagine if preordering Sonic the Hedgehog 2 allowed you to skip Emerald Hill Zone and Chemical Plant Zone. No one would do that – that’s the content you bought the game for! You wouldn’t pay extra to skip it.
So many of the responses to this (and the original video) boil down to “me like good games that I like, no like bad games I don’t like”.
I promise there were boring, repetitive, grindy games all through gaming history. This isn’t a “modern gaming” thing.
MMO games have been doing this shit since WOW became a thing
I mean I remember grinding for loot and levels in FF1.
Pretty much from the dawn of gaming. There was another video posted just the other day about ADOM and how it’s pretty much unplayable unless you’re willing to put endless hours in to learn and memorize all the inscrutable details it makes use of, mostly by dying constantly.
Truck Simulator players would disagree.
So much on point. Gaming is about content these days, so stretch it out.
How many got annoyed with Diablo IV nerfs which Activision adopt on every game they release. Suck people in then nerf it to make you spend more time doing the same thing over again. I didn’t invest time or money into this, and I have to admit I felt very smug when I read about them doing this.
Gaming should be about entertainment, today’s triple A efforts just aren’t.
Suck people in then nerf it to make you spend more time doing the same thing over again
And then sell a pass to speed up your progress. It’s a terrible gaming model. It’s apparently a great business model though.
Yeeeeah. No padding in old games. None at all.
Somebody hasn’t gone back to play mainstream games on the PS2 era recently, when large developers had a fraction of the money and any game below 30 hours was ruthlessly slammed online for being “too short” and “not good value”.
I swear, people use the term “triple-A” just to refer to bits of gaming they don’t like, regardless of who made them or for how much money. The term is meaningless by now.
I have never played any PS2 games. Maybe that is the problem. What was acceptable for a console has become the norm now on a PC. But, if you are happy with the bloatware that games have become then good for you. I will not be supporting them with my cash.
Oh, like PC games in 2001 weren’t just like that as well. This isn’t a platform thing, this is a development cost vs budget vs technology interplay.
So yeah, PC games were just like that, too, except back then the console ports were much, much worse than they are now, so that part also sucked.
You have just reiterated what I have just said.
Then you either expressed it confusingly or you aren’t understanding my reply. Because it sure sounded like you were saying modern PC game design tropes were console-specific back in the early 2000s and that’s why you don’t remember grindy games existing back then.
No one’s saying you have to pay for games you don’t like. They’re saying you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about because grindy games have been a popular mainstay of the medium since its inception.
Did you even bother to read what I said?
There have always been grindy games. BUT there has always been other options for the more popular non grindy games. Now we see a prevalence of the grindy games, 4and a lack of content in the other area. This is due to cost. It is cheaper to hype up a game with advertising than it is to add content. You clearly don’t even realise you are being conned, clearly.
Happy with the bloatware that games have become
You’re openly saying you didn’t play older games. You don’t get to say what something has become when you’re not familiar with the originating form. Games ALWAYS had “bloatware”. Console and PC. They were always designed to be padded and stretched out.
You are talking to someone who enduring the tape decks during the commodore era. The grind then was just getting the game to run.
I rrally dont have much time for it but I love gaming. But over the past years, I started to play less and less because most of the games requires so much time and patience. Sometimes, you litteraly have ti spend hours learning stuff before you can actually start playing and enjoy. Or you need to spend half of the games managing inventory. I cant invest dozens and dozens of hours in games anymore, and I feel like simple, easy to play for short session games are disappearing… So even if I’m often tempted by AAA games, I usually now go for snall indie title, and it’s a good thing in the end. I’m still gonna play the shit of Baldurs Gate 3 next Summer tho.
Or you need to spend half of the games managing inventory.
On the other hand, I enjoy this (to a certain degree, mind you). Going through all the random crap I’ve picked up off the ground in Skyrim to maximize selling potential, moving things around in Diablo II for the same reason, picking through my vault in Destiny 2 to figure out which guns to keep and which to dismantle, organizing my various bits and bobs in FFXIV:ARR across my retainers so that everything is where it should be… I kind of dig that kind of stuff because its a bit of a management game within the regular game and a nice break from mindlessly murdering everything (and a bit of a “ooh presents on Christmas” kind of feel when you dig through all the stuff you’ve acquired).
On the gripping (third) hand, sometimes it does become more of a second job almost… Destiny 2, as an example again, feels like a chore sometimes keeping on top of all the various currencies and whether this random gun/armor that dropped is an upgrade over one of the multitude of other options I’ve had collecting dust for the past couple of years. “But maybe I’ll use it if they buff [gun type/perk/build]!” I think as I toss it into the pile, only to forever become an icon I ignore in DIM.
I’ve boycotted all GaS and live service games. I’ve never been happier and now I play the games I want to play not because I have to
Very complicated way of saying “I didn’t like this, so I stopped doing it.”
Well, duh.
As someone who played/plays a lot of MMOs and stuff like Destiny/The Division: You’d be amazed at the number of people who don’t get to step two of that simple statement.
People who are just downright angry at a game but still actively playing… “Man, I can’t believe they’re forcing me to go into PvP to get [some arbitrary weapon or cosmetic item]!” they grumble, not realizing that they don’t need to tick that little check box in their collection.
People who say things like “I grinded out this holiday season and bought the event pass and I didn’t even like the stuff it offered!” is perhaps not technically ‘common’, but that kind of situation happens often enough that I’m a bit worried for gamers as a whole.
Its some kind of weird combination of a hoarder’s mentality, a sunk cost fallacy, and probably some FOMO sprinkled on top… all mixed together by some psychologist on a company’s payroll to maximize profits.
There are definitely games that are designed to pull as much money from the player as possible, just avoid them. Don’t buy them, don’t play them.
I feel this way too, I’m currently doing all the riddles in Batman Arkham Knight, and although some are fun, most of them are boring.
I think most current games don’t even consider the fun factor anymore 😆
Remember when we could wreck the game with cheats like in GTA San Andreas or alike?
I used to just mess around with a buddy in the city doing whatever we wanted in the most uncomfortable form of local multiplayer that the PS2 offered.
theres always been games that feel like a chore
donkey kong on n64 had you what go collect bananas or something? is that fun? some werent even found until a few years ago
ghostbusters on nes is an entire chore made into a “game”
donkey kong on n64 had you what go collect bananas or something? is that fun?
I don’t know what caused people to all of a sudden complain about this game (maybe a dunkey video?). This game is still fun by modern standards regrdless of whether you 100% it or not
Hey, I liked NES ghostbusters. You got to design your own car, bust ghosts, and worry about your business’ finances. Of course I haven played it in over 30 years so I imagine the rose-colored glasses might be a problem.
It’s not just the playing, even the buying can be a chore, as you’ll have to dig through dozens of different versions, DLC, and season passes to figure out what you are even buying, most of the time the actual online shop doesn’t even tell you, you have to search around forums to figure out what you get. Starting one of those Ultimate Edition that includes everything also means spending 5min clicking though dozens of “You just bought DLC” notifications.
Getting late into a game series is also always “fun”, as you can’t even tell what is a prequel, sequel, spin-off or whatever, as most content no longer puts a number in the title. That’s another trip to Wikipedia, as I have yet to see any online shop providing that information.
Needless to say, I stick mostly with older or indie games. I can’t stand how every modern game needs to have skill trees, collectives, level ups and hundred different weapons that all look and feel the same.
That said, chores can also be quite subjective. The Riddler trophies in the Batman Arkham games can certainly be seen as chore when you just want to reach the end fast, collecting them takes around three times as long as the main game. I however found them to be the best part of those games, as they are very old school and based in exploration and puzzles, as opposed to just running from cutscene to cutscene. They give the player a lot of agency and freedom that is missing in the main plot.
