Why Aren't Games Fun Anymore?

The sequel to this video: What The Internet Did to Gaming. https://youtu.be/m8RomiudgPA Also if you're getting any games this holiday season, support me by using the link below for any of those deals you snipe over on Amazon: www.amazon.com/b?_encoding=UTF8&tag=azayek5-20&lin…

I personally don't have the time anymore to dedicate 50+ hours to gaming. The indie scene is what allows me to play unique games without too much time commitment

I always dreamt of having a gaming pc. Now that i have it, i also have responsibilities, I just can't play games "stresslessly" the way i used to play before. It's sad.

The problems for me are basically two: 1) I don't have much time to spend and a lot of games nowadays spend 30 minutes just telling history in cutscenes (by the end of the first cutscene I already have to stop and go on with my life). 2) I don't like to play online. I want to play alone and A LOT of games (most of them) are made for online players.

Microtransactions are more of a problem than you're giving them credit for, but, as gamers, we're part of the problem that microtransactions exist. Microtransactions didn't come up out of nowhere. The reason that RMT is so common in every MMO is because players are willing, or likely, even more willing, to pay for an advantage in a game that doesn't have microtransactions. Companies aren't ignorant about this and in the early UO days, there are stories about GMs selling towers, etc. The reason microtransactions become problematic is more and more games design themselves around microtransactions. That's part of why the game "isn't fun anymore" because without spending $$$, it's intentionally grindy or based around FOMO. Microtransactions have also been around for a long time. The first microtransaction isn't the famous Oblivion horse armor, it's the arcade version of Double Dragon 3 - The Rosetta Stone. In DD3, you can go into a store and for additional coins, you can get extra abilities, power ups, etc. and this game was released in 1990. Though, I'd honestly argue that microtransactions go back further than that, to when Moon Patrol was released back in 1982. Moon Patrol was the first game to allow you to pay an additional quarter to continue. You were, effectively, buying extra lives to push the game further. Obviously, the answer is that there has to be a balance, but I'm seeing the pull of microtransactions impacting games more and more, but until we, the gamers, stop purchasing, they're here to stay. (We won't stop.) Additionally, that's part of why Elden Ring was so well received. You bought it, you owned it, and there were no microtransactions. The developers simply sought to invest in making a good game, not a game with a good store. Elden Ring has sold 20m copies and From Software's revenue from 4/2022 to 3/2023 was $152m. Oddly, this does not include the initial sales of Elden Ring and I couldn't find a source for 4/2021 to 3/2022 revenue. If we 2.5x it, the sales are worth a total of $380m and we assume that the publisher took a greedy 40% cut, that puts the game's total revenue at $634m. Compare that to Diablo Immortal, which made over $525m in its first year. While this is less than my extremely generous estimate for Elden Ring, it does show how a microtransaction game that was completely reviled and review bombed ended up putting up numbers like Elden Ring. Unfortunately, the realities of business are that it isn't about how to make the best product, but how to generate the most revenue per a given amount of effort. Making a game based around a store to sell you stuff generally makes more money with less effort.

Big companies found out how much was in it, bought out the dev teams, and hired yes men. That’s why.

have the same feeling for movies also, i would prefer old movies in early 2000s rather than new ones.

Somethings i hate in modern games, so many launchers and accounts, ridiculous amount of storage, so many filler missions and the ultra graphics. At the end of the day i always come back and play some indie or nintendo game.

Smaller, more polished experiences > 120 hour open worlds with a lifeless empty world

This whole "over 1000 planets" thing really rubs me the wrong way, because who the hell is gonna sit there and try to fly to every planet? I would be satisfied if the game just took place in one solar system that is crafted to near perfect

I'm a bit old now, overcriticizing each game for one thing or another but this saved me money overall. The thing that annoys me most is that people can't hold off their hands from the "pre-order" button until the game is released and check some reviews for it. If this can be achieved, gaming companies will be forced to be extra careful what are they releasing.

This is my hypothesis, it’s not that there’s less good games, it’s that there are much more games released now but only a fraction are good. The trick is finding the good ones and not wasting time on the crappy ones.

They're still fun, it's just the weight of the world crushed your soul

Playing retro games I never had before (and no nostalgia) is still more fun than whatever the latest and greatest games are. There are so many great classics for only a few dollars, and not a micro transaction in sight. The goal was just to make an enjoyable good game, not to discover the most efficient way of extracting money from their consumers.

The availability of easily accessible information is what ruined gaming for me. I really hate to admit it. I found so much joy in trying to uncover secrets in games, spending time figuring out how to optimize my gameplay or in game equipment, and theorizing about what happens after getting certain achievements. Now I just end up looking everything up online and try to rush through games to get to the end or the most optimized state as quickly as possible to catch up with others.

Online games were an vibe back then, nowadays they are filled with no lives or ppl with mental addictions which creates a negative atmosphere that turns you off. People are more selfish and don't care about anyone other then themselves. If your in a clan there is like zero player to player interaction or just "How to Play" interaction. It feels like there aren't any souls or just really troubled ones.

I've seen stats that suggest Gen Z don't game anywhere near as much as Millennials. My theory is that Millennials are a captive audience who remember the golden age of gaming and cling on to it for dear life while Gen Z grew up in the PS3/PS4 era with broken game launches and insanely predadtory financial practices.

Once we did gaming to escape real life stress, economy, what not. Now we're bombarded with the things we were trying to escape in the first place.

I think the trouble is most of these Games Directors think that they are film directors. Gameplay has vanished and instead replaced with movie cuts and screenplays.

In my opinion I think it’s because 90% of games have the exact same setup. Each level has a boss at the end, gotta collect money or objects for currency, gain powers along the way and when your character is awesome the game ends, all creatures look the same as others or a rip off. I just feel like I’m playing the same game over and over again with different characters.