Gaming industry is ruining by greed, but most big companies actually hate their own customers. Mindblowing!

[Ondr4H]

Im 30 years old and I played games since 5 years old, after 25 years as gamer and Rockstar games one especially I figured these companies actually hate customers.


Nothing says, we appreciate you purchase than crapfest launchers that actually banning your ip adress by mysterious means, updates that ruin decades old games, crap like denuvo, securom . Delisting games from purchase, cutting games into dlcs, cutting soundtrack, paywall, mictrotransactions, buggy mess upon launch. Well they actually can, because nobody owns their games, we own only license. We are paying for something ticket to play... Whats worse, we cannot even dream like used to be in these new games because they are riddled with f*cking modern politics. There is no escape, its like fever dream.

You know when I have fun playing games in 2022-2023? When I play at least 10 years old game with no DRM.


I hate gaming industry! They are past creativity era!

[Ducard]

I do agree that scummy practices have begun increasing. Not sure if you can put removing soundtracks there tho, I think it has more to do with licenses expiring. However:

 

1) What do you mean by "modern politics"? Please do not tell me you are one of those that freaks out at LGBT flags being shown in games. While we are on the topic, a game I found that was bashed for being "woke" or contain "modern politics" as you put it was The Last of Us 2. But when I played it, I honestly never felt that way. I am not a hardcore leftist by any means but the things shown in the game were perfectly normal. The lesbian relationship in the game was quite well written I thought and it fitted perfectly into the game lore. The whole outrage over "woke culture" invading gaming is extremely overblown. Modern gaming has problems, but woke culture is far from being one of them.

 

2) Bad launches/buggy games have always been a thing in gaming. I am not sure why people act like this is new. I am not excusing it of course, but to say older games had perfect launches/no bugs is just nostalgia talking. Bad launches now a days get a lot more attention because of the internet and social media. Let me provide you with some examples off the top of my head:

 

i) Fallout 3, New Vegas and Skyrim all released in a notoriously buggy state. New Vegas (I think?) in particularly was borderline unplayable on PS3. If any of these games were released in today's environment, they'd have been slaughtered. 

 

ii) GTA IV had a horrendously bad PC port, possibly one of the worst in gaming history that is still giving even modern hardware issues.

 

iii) True Crime: New York City was an unplayable mess on PC.

 

iv) Spiderman 2, a fantastic game on the PS2, was bizarrely stripped down on PC. (Despite being marketed on the box as identical to the PS2 version). Imagine if Spiderman (2018) removed many of the web swinging mechanics on PC, that was what it was equivalent to.

 

v) The 3D Era GTAs themselves had plenty of bugs on launch that were never fixed. (Unless you are on PC in which case you could download the unofficial patches).

 

vi) Saints Row 2, widely lauded as one of the best Saints Row games, had a PC port so bad it rivalled GTA 4. (Which is some achievement mind you).

 

I could go on and on really but you get the idea.

 

3) Great games still exist. Creative games still exist. It has become a lot eaiser for indie developers to develop their own game now (compared to 10 years or 20 years ago). RDR2, TLOU2, God of War + Ragnarok, Horizon Zero Dawn + Forbidden West, Spiderman + Miles Morales, Cyberpunk 2077 (after it was fixed)... etc. These are all AAA titles that have undeniably been crafted with a lot of attention and care. Personaly, I am glad I got to experience these games and I would say that games have come a long way, to the point they are being treated as an art form now and I think that's wonderful.

[Jason]

DRM is annoying as f*ck but you're on glue if you think it's worse than it was in the past. DRM in the past was absolutely wild at times lol, some games required a phone to install a game.

 

Buggy and downright broken games have always existed as Ducard said above, the difference between now and then is that a lot more games are made nowadays so it feels like there's a lot more broken games. Admittedly there's been some glaring issues in recent years with some big AAA releases, but there were very broken games in the past too, they just get forgotten about.

 

The PC industry, and now the console industry, went digital because gamers wanted it to really. Most modern PC cases do not come with a disc drive lol. I do sympathise with the potential issues digital can bring though, in particular issues regarding game preservation.

 

Overall monetisation is higher and in some cases predatory, that I wholly agree with, but again, more games being made than ever. It is not particularly difficult to avoid games riddled with mtx while still being able to play new, good games.

 

Regarding launchers, what you just said is copy and paste what was said when Steam launched. The vast majority of arguments regarding PC store platforms/launchers is incredibly hypocritical and boils down to "Steam = good" and "everything else = bad". Launches aren't the issue, the removal of choice is the issue - ie games being exclusive to one platform or the other with paid exclusivity being a particular issue. Again though, even that argument is a slippery slope of hypocriticism as no one bats an eyelid when a game is exclusive to Steam. 

 

As for politics... games have always been political. The only reason it's, apparently, an issue now is because those politics don't align with what some people believe. Most if not all examples of these games with heavy handed politics aren't even remotely heavy handed either, it's usually a case of a scene or line being taken and exaggerated by certain social media groups or content creators. It's a complete non-issue in reality - and again... plenty of other games to play.

[ddarko12]

I do feel like games lack a lot of soul and originality these days. And I just get the feeling every single decision/choice these days had to be run by someone in charge of the finances before being implemented. Maybe that was true in the past but it's more evident than ever these days. Let's not kid ourselves, developing and launching a game is intended to make money. But there used to be a whole lotta passion behind it that I do not feel with any modern counterparts today. GTA, Forza, NFS, city-builders, etc. Quality has suffered in all of these games, down fron exceptional to adequate. Less originality and things that make them unique. A lot of limiting, there's less of a feeling of "what can we do to make this the greatest game ever" and more of a feeling of "how do we make the most money with the least effort, and how do we make it look as good as possible to cover up the lack of quality?"

 

Games do look a helluva lot better than they did even 10 years ago. And yet I'd argue they are far more boring and flawed.