I noticed this “trend” in modern gaming, Somehow it seems like every big company is no longer trying to actually bring us great games we could enjoy, we want to come back to, we want to replay over and over again, the games that made them what they are today.
Blizzard turned WoW into… well, BFA… and turn Diablo in a mobile title, which while I will give it a chance to be good, I see why many people hate it, Bethesda gave us Fallout 76, a soulless cashgrab Fallout 4 clone with everything removed that remained of the Fallout Spirit in Fallou 4, and EA… OK, EA is way past redemption at this point…
We get games that you can only describe at early access at best as full price games, we get soulles clones of previous glory, with the minimal effort put in…
Why is this happening to the gaming industrie? I mean sure, we have some rays of hope (like CD Project Red), but every big name that we came to trust in seems to just… give up trying and only milking everything out of their name what its worth until nothing is left…
My Dad runs a bakery, hes pretty famous for his cakes there, and seriously if he would act like Blizzard, Bethesda or EA are right now, he would be out of business in a week…
I’d go with a lot of money instead of being sell out tbh. because with a lot of money comes a lot of love and respect. I used to love blizzard as a company, loved its employeers, still miss Jeff in WoW. I love CD Project red.
I mean some people are all about greed and gluttony but I think love > money
Because companies usually go were the money is. Most gaming companies simply look to their investors for cash, so stockholders etc. A reminder, the stockholders/investors rarely play the games a company provides, but they do want their pay outs or they will pull out.
Some games who are made by indie companies recieve their funding straight from gamers either trought start up or micro transactions etc. these companies gain mostly by following community related trends. However huge international companies requires such huge amount of investing they always have to pay attention to these specific investors or the company won’t last long.
That’s why we see the unfinished products hitting the market ahead of scheduel etc. if there’s a chance to increase revenue the stockholders pressure a company into taking action. Big titles also have dedicated followers so investors learn that gamers will buy the games anyway. That’s also why we see a huge focus on mobile development atm. do the dedicated followers want these; no… but there’s revenue to be gained from this market.
I believe this is spot on.
Video games in general has now become a huge, huge industry. Much larger than for only 10-15 years ago. Gaming in general also has less of a stigma over it. The hobby is no longer reserved for nerdy basement-dwellers in the eyes of the public, but is widely considered an accepted hobby.
Many companies then grow so large that their target audience changes from a core of a given type of people to “as many as possible”.
How do you reach “as many as possible”? Stop making niche-content catered to your original target audience.
It’s very simple: Because they can. It doesn’t matter what crap they churn out, people will buy it. Even Star Wars Battlefront 2, one of the worst gaming disasters in recent years, sold over 7 million units.
Until the players stop buying into rubbish, things won’t get any better.
The moment smart phones came out. This put a HUGE market on “games” for mobiles and having the ability to give you free to play games with micro transactions for maximum profits.
Almost every single game is released with some kind of MDLC nowadays and it’s the players fault.
“You ran out of lives, pay X amount to refill them NOW!” People pay for them, companies make money, money makes the world go round and companies get greedy.
Planetside 2 is a very good example of this, pay X amount to become a member and get exclusive rewards each month, pay X amount to unlock this gun “makes the gun overpowered” making people feel like they NEED this gun to be better.
MDLC will be the death of good quality games, GTA 5 is going down this route too, the games just become a rubbish storm of Shark cash.
MDLC for fifa packs are gambling, my 14yo brother has an addiction that my mother does not understand. They just feed him cash thinking it’s helping him get better whereas it’s only destroying the games we used to love.
The moment companies realise this and people stop buying rubbish like this the better.