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…
Yes, ofc there’s lots of rubbish, it’s easy to make games. There’s tons of shit music. There’s tons of shit paintings, there’s tons of shit in every type of art. But there’s also more good stuff than ever before. And the previous stuff hasn’t gone away either, it’s just more and more. You can’t possibly enjoy all the good art that’s out there. Are you sure you still enjoy video games? Maybe that’s the issue…
Look up the year 2005 or whatever. Tell me how many you’ve played and how many you’ve enjoyed from that year. Some years are better than others especially if you have very particular tastes, but there’s no way there were more good games before than now.
Most of the games I’ve mentioned had budgets in the millions, but here’s some more big budget games from last year that were well received:
Mario kart world
ghost of yotei
ninja Gaiden 4
south of midnight
arc raiders
Death stranding 2
donkey Kong bananza
stellar blade
Elden ring: nightreign
metal gear solid delta
Dying light: the beast
And that’s only a few that come up in a quick search. I’m not trying to piss on your grave… but just because EA, Ubisoft and Activision aren’t making good games anymore doesn’t mean others aren’t.