A Look at the State of Gaming

[Rojo_The_Great 19]

As I am sure we can all agree, gaming is awesome. The amount of things that we can do in games is staggering and we can find ourselves losing hours of our lives immersed in the latest games. And thus, it saddens me to see what has become of my beloved pastime. Almost all major releases or AAA games have some form of transaction using real currency. Even games with no online element whatsoever are beginning use use this kind of technique of purchasing cosmetics or in-game currency with actual money. I remember a day long since passed where people could just buy a game and play with no pay walls in sight. The way that these publishers prey on consumers is something that we gamers have grown accustomed to and, to be frank, I am not quite sure why. The problem has gotten so bad that, now, developers are releasing half-assed games at launch, making their games grindy as hell, and slowly trickling content down the grapevine at a slower pace than my grandma runs, and she has been dead for 15 years. I mean look at Anthem. BioWare and EA tried their best to make the game appear polished and amazing, only to have the game be utter shit at launch. Now, for the few fans that they have left, they release and implement garbage into the game. Garbage that we did not ask for, nor want. I don't know anymore. The gaming industry has become polluted by greed and I don't know if we can stop it. Tell me what you guys think about these practices below and call out games with garbage monetization.

[PlasticFrogCG 142]

Right there with you. I used to get excited when a big company announced a new game, not I see Facebook posts about Bethesda's plans for Elder Scrolls 6 and I'm filled with dread.

It won't last. It will come crashing down eventually. But who knows what will rise from the ashes...if anything.

[Doctor 28]

If you look solely on AAA games, then yeah maybe things has got "worse". Even then, bigger problem to me on triple-a games is that they have stopped to be ambitious; too big risks and making a triple-a game cost insanely amount of money already.

Otherwise I think things has got way better. Lots of interesting titles are coming from indie developers and gaming is possible on wider range of devices than ever before. Stadia for example is going to improve situation even more and MS will probably announce something similar tomorrow. Additional to this crowdfunding and Early Access has saved gaming for me.

More Star Citizen, Dwarf Fortress, UnReal World RPG, Crusader Kings II, MUDs, etc. kind of games the better.