Y’all, this market is beyond saturated. And the AI gaming people are flOOOoding the space with more and more stuff.
In terms of a fun way to spend an hour or two, or a few go-to games, there’s unlimited options, many free or free enough. Meanwhile, everyone churning out titles expects full attention and wishlist and dropping $50 on them for simply existing.
Did industry try to raise prices even more? Maybe higher prices is what’s missing for gaming industry to blossom /s
there are also almost no new games worth even looking at anymore. There are some, but they are quite rare
Live service on console was obvious on the way for every genre back on the 360/PS3 era with FIFA ultimate team and publishers also having that period of time when they were trying to kill used games with that single account multiplayer access code
Then it became super obvious because of PC from the super success of TF2 hats and eventually CSGO skins by like 2015. Trying to compete with WoW was an ocean of dead video game studios. Fortnite perfected live service on consoles and CoD adapted and went just as wild with it
Single player games, my hot take is Mass Effect, Uncharted, and Assassin’s Creed killed AAA single player narrative games by succeeding so well to making future games mediocre. Mass Effect had interesting alien species dynamics but never took them with much of any depth. They were Star Wars movies rather than the wild Star Wars EU. Uncharted was a hyper popular Hollywood blockbuster where the emotional highlight being the beginning of Uncharted 4 with Nate and Elena being a cute couple.
Assassin’s Creed stories kept going deeper and deeper into name dropping famous figures/mythology that it became parody. Historical clout chasing wrapped together in a nonsense overarching plot that should have had some satisfying ending back in 2012 but instead is effectively spin-offs the series
So Mass Effect hints at interesting politics but plays things safe and gives you none but Hollywood space opera in video games with solid animations and facial animations were fresh in the 360 era. Uncharted was even more extreme in that regards than Mass Effect where there was still novelty in Hollywood mimicry with even better graphics and even more scripted for explosive set pieces. Assassin’s Creed and eventually Far Cry and Watch Dogs are bottom feeders. Chase trends, name drop - shotgun approach for trailer fodder. They are sadly the standards of AAA single player narrative
Also live service single player games are competitive. Stories are just as shallow but frequent in release and graphics at a level good enough now. Talking like Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, Wuthering Waves
From my perspective as a millennial, people are running out of time and energy too.
Like, I know a couple, both working, no kids, avid and techy gamers who know to play stuff like KCDII, yet they mostly plop down for YouTube at the end of the day. A VG or longer form TV is too draining, and too long.
Video games have been my biggest hobbies for basically my entire life, but I barely play them anymore for basically this reason.
For me, I didn’t have the mental energy. At a previous job, I was so mentally strained working 8 hours nonstop on highly mentally taxing tasks that even if I wanted to play a game, it felt like a chore rather than something I can enjoy or wind down to. Even if I had the time, since I do other stuff outside of work.
The strange thing is, when I work I have the money but not the time nor energy to justify buying games to sink time into. When I don’t work I have the time and energy but not the money to justify paying $80-$100 on a game I probably won’t play as much as I think otherwise.
I’ve in recent years looking more into reviews and such to weigh in whether or not I want to buy the game in the first place. Compare that to years prior when I could look at a trailer or short snippet and get a good idea of what the game has to offer. Now I’m more weary of grindy game mechanics and predatory micro transactions.
Yeah. People have no money. Ask one of the billionaires to prop up this failing industry.
Edit: /s
Could it be that the economy fucking sucks?
Nope, clearly it’s our fault for not just going out and buying stuff.
Its not that we cant afford them necessarily, its that we cant justify them. The main reason you needed to get the new game was because all your friends were getting it. Only nerds and dweebs and losers play single player games. CoD is where its at bro. When everyone moves to the new game you can lose social time with friends or you can spend another £50. Now that everyone is poor, enough people aren’t migrating to the newest shiniest edition immediately and people are playing games they already have.
Couple that with desperately working every opportunity you can every hour and adults just don’t game together any more.
Tl;dr they are not feeling the social pressure to buy any more.
Only nerds and dweebs and losers play single player games.
Some people actively avoid multiplayer games to avoid obnoxious, entitled kids.
Lol, that was great. Thanks!
you don’t want to be told to kill yourself and have children tracking down where you live and threatening to call the police to your house
you just cant handle the bants
dweeb confirmed
How are you going to be on Lemmy, a super-niche, nerdy-ass platform, and call Single Player gamers dweebs lol?
I thought maybe the tone would come across as sarcastic. I mean obviously nobody wants to be doxxed by a teenager hopped up on caffeine and adderall
Happy dweeb/nerd confirmed here. Single player, story-driven is where it’s at.
Even my CoD (Warzone) obsessed friend told me he barely plays anymore. He said it’s become boring and repetitive, and also he finally realized how much time and effort it takes (for a meh payout).
Judging by the comments, reading the article seems to be a lost art. Here’s the image for y’all:
It’s very specifically about 18-24 year olds, compared to last year, with video games seeing the steepest decrease.
You can stop complaining about games being soulless, unless you want to claim that wasn’t a problem last year. Well, you can, but it’s unrelated then. Compared to last year, this age group has felt the need to cut back at everything more so than anyone else.
We’re headed for a crash, and the junior positions are the first ones that CEOs think they can replace with LLMs (they can’t but that will take a few years to bite them in the ass)
Almost like they have no money to spend after rent and food.
I think SOME of it has to do with AAA being dogshit, but I think a lot of it is actually that they just play roblox. I have been told “why would I buy peak when roblox has this mountain climbing game for free?”
You’re thinking of Gen Alpha. GenZ was born starting '97, most of us are closer to 30 than 13, they don’t play Roblox or know what that is. All they know is eat hot chip and twerk and cry for a world that never was yet feels was taken from us while watching old vine compilations and being able to recite them word for word with impressive if slightly concerning accuracy.
I get what you’re saying, and Roblox’s grasp definitely gets worse on gen alpha and the younger you get, but that quote in my og comment came from a 26 year old playing with another 26 year old and a 27 year old. Gen Z for sure plays roblox
That’s…wild. No one in my 27 year old age group of friends knows what Roblox really even is or has ever touched it.
The whole world is cutting back on everything everywhere as no one wants to be left short if this global economic craziness gets even more out of hand.
Just to add a contrasting perspective I feel like it’s been an absolute golden age of gaming for me lately personally:
No Man’s Sky still getting relatively fun updates. Cyberpunk 2077 was great on launch and arguably much better now.
The Last Of Us Part 2 on PC is incredible and I’m happy that the port exists so I could experience it. You haven’t really played the game till you replay it with both protagonists wearing their Hotline Miami shirts in all the cutscenes. PS4 Spider-Man on PC was prolly the best superhero game I’ve played.
MSFS2020 opened a whole new world of flight sims to me, especially when it comes to doing fun VOR2VOR navigation with littlenavmap charts printed to PDFs and attached in VR, and Assetto Corsa did the same for racing sims.
Speaking of VR, H3VR is stronger than ever. I have many fond memories of VRChat just a few years back.
Victoria 3 has a really fun thriving modding scene. Indie games like Sea Power, Flight of Nova, Stray, Ultrakill, World of Horror, Nuclear Option, Descenders and Crisis In The Kremlin: The Cold War have been a big timesink for me lately as well as classics of indie like Suzerain and actual art masterpiece DEFCON.
It’s also been great to go back and play old classics and PS3 emulation now that PC hardware is much cheaper after the crypto/scalper crises circa 2018.
Also, with Steam play and the steam deck, PC Gaming is easier than ever and just hassle-free.
I never played the popular junk so ig to me all this gacha mtx horse armor crap just doesn’t really relate.
people are cutting back on purchases period.
has little to do with culture, quality of games, etc. A lot more to do with the fact that inflation has gone fucking insane.
Buy Indies. Fuck AAA
Why buy new when I have a backlog, the PS1/2 catalog emulated, and can wait 6+ months for a sale
I recently softmodded my ps2 for about $30 (freemcboot memory card and large usb drive) and I’ve got hundreds of hours of nostalgia driven gameplay ahead of me. It’s incredible to think that I have about 40 old, amazing games for less than half the price of a single new AAA game.
