I’m sure some of you will want to reply to this post and say “don’t you really mean single player games are dying ?” While that’s partially true I think there is more to it than that.
Games use to made with world building in mind. Characters , stories arcs maybe in some cases a message to share. Games did this with a combination of a story and a single player campaign to get you acquainted and a multiplayer component to keep you coming back. Yes in many cases multiplayer was just tacked on but in many cases it added value and further established world building. In the end you’ve at least experienced a cool story.
To me these days most games are made in service of a battle pass or an excuse to release a permanent “early access game”
Oh look a new battle royal survivor game with the unique twist of combining other games mechanics into one. You can play with your friends ! You can farm things and make things ! Does making these things really move any needle in any significant way? Does the farming open up new locations and enemies to fight ? Or better yet special story moments ? Most of The time nope. And the worst of times you just get a shiny new hat!
I see little value in investing time into another game when I can see bar move another 3 percent. I understand there a social aspects but I’d argue the games do little for them and those social aspects can be had without the game to begin with. Or everyone playing their own game. To me all you’re doing is killing time with yet another run of the mill game.
I’d like to see a resurgence of games made with a singular intent and purpose. In service of telling a story and building a world. And seeing profits come in from there. No battle pass no service …
No nothing was ever perfect and there was always junk games. To me now it just feels like it’s getting worse.
Any way I’ll go back into my retirement home now and stop yelling at that cloud…
You know where there term “AAA” comes from, right?
Games used to be a niche - made by gamers for gamers. Now it’s gotten more mainstream so we have more industry around it. Good games aren’t gone, just don’t get advertised, same as everything else that is worthwhile
As for social aspects of the games, I don’t agree with your take. We don’t have time to be hanging out in pubs every weekend anymore. Hopping in VC to do some “base building” requires less scheduling
There’s a lot more to what destroyed hanging out in the pub than scheduling, but yes, the games themselves have a lot of value in the socializing part of the equation.
For sure but even if you switch out computer games to board games, that is still not the same. People moved, a lot of games need space and hauling the box, etc
In school we used to have breaks, we were hanging out just because of that. Now most often we don’t even work together anymore. Unless one has a job that forces them to come to the office or is one of that ~1% of the workforce that prefers to, and can have a chat at the water stand, I think for many people the reality is that if not for online games, they wouldn’t hang out with anyone anymore
I mean, funny enough, I head to a pub to play board games every other week, including tonight. I was more referring to suburbia and sprawl destroying “third places”, as well as younger folks’ tendency to drink less. It’s possible that online gaming expanded our ability to choose our social circle more than simple geography used to dictate.