PC market already twice as big as consoles

[Necroscope]

True, there is this thing nowadays where people, especially in the West and Japan, who mostly played Nintendo when they were 10 are STILL playing mostly Nintendo when they're 30+.

Because they play for entertainment rather than spiritual enlightenment.

 

[cvv]

True, there is this thing nowadays where people, especially in the West and Japan, who mostly played Nintendo when they were 10 are STILL playing mostly Nintendo when they're 30+.

Because they play for entertainment rather than spiritual enlightenment.

Yes, muh entertainment. Tat's one of the rationalizations people use.

They fail to ask tho why exactly they are entertained by funny colourful cartoon characters jumping up and down and making funny noises, the kind of thing small children are drawn to.

It's like if I catch you playing with Barbies and you bark back: "I do it because it's fun!" Yeah, but have you thought about why an adult bearded man finds playing with dolls fun?

 

[Viata]

I don't think that's related to intelligence tho, it's more likely due to general infantilization of the society going hand in hand with national affluence.

I believe it is also a lack of exposure. Thanks to the internet, now it's easy to find a community that has the same taste as you(furries as an example) and never go for something better or superior(because the people in that community thinks they are already enjoying the best thing out there). So by staying in that community, you are never exposed to better stuff. Obviously, it's their fault for that(since they never try to look for something else by themselves), but when you are among people that says you are already enjoying the best thing that exist, it's not like you know there are superior things out there.

 

[cvv]

I don't think that's related to intelligence tho, it's more likely due to general infantilization of the society going hand in hand with national affluence.

I believe it is also a lack of exposure. Thanks to the internet, now it's easy to find a community that has the same taste as you(furries as an example) and never go for something better or superior(because the people in that community thinks they are already enjoying the best thing out there). So by staying in that community, you are never exposed to better stuff. Obviously, it's their fault for that(since they never try to look for something else by themselves), but when you are among people that says you are already enjoying the best thing that exist, it's not like you know there are superior things out there.

This too. Plus people in that kind of community also constantly assure each other their tastes and preferences are perfectly normal. Which makes it much easier to shrug off any outside pressure telling them to grow the fuck up.

 

[Necroscope]

Yes, muh entertainment. Tat's one of the rationalizations people use.

They fail to ask tho why exactly they are entertained by funny colourful cartoon characters jumping up and down and making funny noises, the kind of thing small children are drawn to.

It's like if I catch you playing with Barbies and you bark back: "I do it because it's fun!" Yeah, but have you thought about why an adult bearded man finds playing with dolls fun?

Playing Mario Bros is not like playing with toys. Kids are imaginative; they use toys to create their own drama. In case of games, you can play them simply to relax and kill some time.

I was never a fan of Nintendo, but 25 years later I still enjoy Castlevania - ghosts, vampires, bats, whipping shit. Fun as fuck.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

True, there is this thing nowadays where people, especially in the West and Japan, who mostly played Nintendo when they were 10 are STILL playing mostly Nintendo when they're 30+.

Because they play for entertainment rather than spiritual enlightenment.

>playing videogames for entertainment/stimulation
>doing spiritually fulfilling activities

Pick one and only one.

They fail to ask tho why exactly they are entertained by funny colourful cartoon characters jumping up and down

Because the funny italian cartoon is part of a tightly designed game with consistent game rules, simple but versatile gameplay mechanics that allow for some high skill ceilling and very well crafted levels possessing a satisfying challenge to them.
So all around an objectively good videogame that hasn't any kind of pretentions about what it is.

 

[cvv]

I play with Barbies because they're tightly designed products with simple but consistent aesthetics plus I can utilize my finger motor skills while dressing them and brushing their hair

A potent mix of infantilization and autism.

 

[Necroscope]

You cannot possibly argue that playing Mario is more autistic than playing RPG games.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

I like to waste my time with games that have all kinds of shallow, superfluous and incomptent design as long as they possess nice graphics and ''mature'' stories.

And this is why we can't have nice things anymore...

 

[Suicidal]

I'm all for letting people enjoy whatever the fuck they want but I personally don't understand how some people are so in love with Nintendo games, most of that shit looks so boring that if all video games in the world were made by Nintendo I'd probably just find a new hobby.

 

[cvv]

I like to waste my time with games that have all kinds of shallow, superfluous and incomptent design as long as they possess nice graphics and ''mature'' stories.

And this is why we can't have nice things anymore...

You're right, games with good gameplay come always bundled with nursery school-grade aesthetics, that's why we have to keep playing them. We literally have no other choice.

 

[cvv]

I'm all for letting people enjoy whatever the fuck they want but I personally don't understand how some people are so in love with Nintendo games, most of that shit looks so boring that if all video games in the world were made by Nintendo I'd probably just find a new hobby.

On some level I'm willing to let people enjoy whatever they want too....but when grown men are playing with dolls and purple ponies it IS fucking weird. I've been ranting about that shit too much on Codex but I just can't fucking get over it. It literally blows my brain into smithereens.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

I like to waste my time with games that have all kinds of shallow, superfluous and incomptent design as long as they possess nice graphics and ''mature'' stories.

And this is why we can't have nice things anymore...

You're right, games with good gameplay come always bundled with nursery school-grade aesthetics, that's why we have to keep playing them. We literally have no other choice.

No this rigth here is the reason why games are becoming worse.
Everything needs to be about the cool new gimmick, the visuals and the emotionally engaging storyline.
Games can no longer come without a story, they can no longer have a challenge, they can no longer possess well thought out mechanics + content and they can no longer be fun or not take themselves seriously.
Because then they are not ''art'', they are too difficult, they focus on whats unimportant or they are childish respectively.

Fuck, you yourself admited you would rather play a game with mediocre gameplay if it was "realistic", to something like Doom.

And this is why will keep getting more and more Red Dead Redemptions, Lasts of Us, Witchers 3, nu-God of Wars and Death Stradings.

 

[DalekFlay]

On some level I'm willing to let people enjoy whatever they want too....but when grown men are playing with dolls and purple ponies it IS fucking weird. I've been ranting about that shit too much on Codex but I just can't fucking get over it. It literally blows my brain into smithereens.

There's a happy middle-ground between mocking adult My Little Pony fans and only playing "realistic and mature" games. Enjoying, say... Zelda Breath of the Wild... is a lot less man-child than masturbating with a stuffed purple pony.

 

[cvv]

On some level I'm willing to let people enjoy whatever they want too....but when grown men are playing with dolls and purple ponies it IS fucking weird. I've been ranting about that shit too much on Codex but I just can't fucking get over it. It literally blows my brain into smithereens.

There's a happy middle-ground between mocking adult My Little Pony fans and only playing "realistic and mature" games. Enjoying, say... Zelda Breath of the Wild... is a lot less man-child than masturbating with a stuffed purple pony.

I agree with the middle-ground, after all my gramps - a WW2 veteran and a hard, rugged man - would look at me as a complete retard if he saw me playing something like Civilization and maybe even RDR2. So it is subjective what we consider infantile.

But BotW is prolly a bad example? I've seen some BotW videos and the game struck me as perhaps the only Nintendo game that not only looks retarded but even the gameplay is boring as fuck. I can probably see myself playing Mario Kart or the turn-based rabbits game with my kids. But BotW? I suspect both me and my kids would be bored out of our skulls.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

It's much less retarded and boring than RDR2, I guarantee you of that.

RDR2 is the sandbox (games specifically about liberty and player agency) that completely restricts and robs the player of that freedom and power for any story related piece of content. Hence the retardness.
And it's also a game loaded painfully long animations for everyone single action, redunt mechanics and the majority of content consists of chores or lazily designed figths. Which makes up the boring

 

[Machocruz]

I actually love cartooning and animation. It's just that no one in the video game industry, besides a few adventure game artists, is nearly as good as the old Warner Bros animators, Tex Avery, John Kricfalusi, etc (and why/how could they be? Specialization matters). Their characters had identifiable personality traits, idiosyncrasies, pathologies, etc., not to mention the technical skill of the drawing and animating. The vast majority of video game attempts lack sophistication. Nintendo can come up with iconic visual design all day, but there's nothing going on behind the eyes. And for the nature of their games, there doesn't need to be. I can turn down the volume on Mario's cringey weenie voice (a far worse offense than what he looks like). and just enjoy the razor sharp control and responsiveness. On a side note, Mario looked more Italian in his early incarnations. SMB1 Mario has a nose and stache like my brother in law.

Graphic design should be appropriate for the theme of the game. Costume Quest with RDR art direction is as misguided as the opposite.

There are a lot of people's whose whole lives are permeated by infantilization and juvenilia, but you'd have to see far past their taste in vidya to know it.

 

[J1M]

Games like Fortnite benefit from a networking effect. A decent percentage of the player base is only involved because that is what the social group they want to be part of gravitated to.

Many previous games also benefited from this, but the number that can at any one time is limited.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Games like Fortnite benefit from a networking effect. A decent percentage of the player base is only involved because that is what the social group they want to be part of gravitated to.

Many previous games also benefited from this, but the number that can at any one time is limited.

Which is precisely why so many games that attempt to copy it(and similar online games e.g., look at the fads) keep failing. As an additional point: generally people don't play more than one of these at a time because they're designed to be "replayed" heavily.

For every success story there are dozens of 'big' failures and hundreds of failures that fly under the radar. Bigger companies have recently tried to cash in on this and most of them did pretty poorly.

 

[DalekFlay]

Which is precisely why so many games that attempt to copy it(and similar online games e.g., look at the fads) keep failing. As an additional point: generally people don't play more than one of these at a time because they're designed to be "replayed" heavily.

For every success story there are dozens of 'big' failures and hundreds of failures that fly under the radar. Bigger companies have recently tried to cash in on this and most of them did pretty poorly.

This is true, but for every success you get you are rewarded much more than with a singleplayer hit. I'm not an accountant with access to their books so I can't say how it all balances out, but I'm sure Ubisoft can handle a few Ghost Recon Breakpoints in exchange for massive hits like Rainbow Six Siege that offer large and continuous revenue streams.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Which is precisely why so many games that attempt to copy it(and similar online games e.g., look at the fads) keep failing. As an additional point: generally people don't play more than one of these at a time because they're designed to be "replayed" heavily.

For every success story there are dozens of 'big' failures and hundreds of failures that fly under the radar. Bigger companies have recently tried to cash in on this and most of them did pretty poorly.

This is true, but for every success you get you are rewarded much more than with a singleplayer hit. I'm not an accountant with access to their books so I can't say how it all balances out, but I'm sure Ubisoft can handle a few Ghost Recon Breakpoints in exchange for massive hits like Rainbow Six Siege that offer large and continuous revenue streams.

Can they? Did Rainbox Six Siege really get them that much more than say, Assassin's Creed Odyssey?
Division 2 is also doing well under expectations. For a GaaS game to be a hit it seems to need to be far and away better than not only the competition but also its predecessor, which becomes increasingly more difficult each year.
Single player games seem like a much safer bet, especially if companies plan on releasing regular sequels to said games. A mediocre Assassin's Creed game still sells well, a mediocre GaaS game shuts down in a few months.

 

[DalekFlay]

Can they? Did Rainbox Six Siege really get them that much more than say, Assassin's Creed Odyssey?
Division 2 is also doing well under expectations. For a GaaS game to be a hit it seems to need to be far and away better than not only the competition but also its predecessor, which becomes increasingly more difficult each year.
Single player games seem like a much safer bet, especially if companies plan on releasing regular sequels to said games. A mediocre Assassin's Creed game still sells well, a mediocre GaaS game shuts down in a few months.

Neither of us really know the numbers, but I would point toward all these corporations focusing mostly on online services as the likely answer.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Can they? Did Rainbox Six Siege really get them that much more than say, Assassin's Creed Odyssey?
Division 2 is also doing well under expectations. For a GaaS game to be a hit it seems to need to be far and away better than not only the competition but also its predecessor, which becomes increasingly more difficult each year.
Single player games seem like a much safer bet, especially if companies plan on releasing regular sequels to said games. A mediocre Assassin's Creed game still sells well, a mediocre GaaS game shuts down in a few months.

Neither of us really know the numbers, but I would point toward all these corporations focusing mostly on online services as the likely answer.

What data actually suggests they're focusing more on live service games now? I'm seeing a shift away from them after the big name failures: Anthem, FO76, BF5, blops 4, etc., all performed well under expectations. Apex Legends, which launched to a great start, has been struggling since — Fortnite has been hammering them with ways to keep their players in their game and out of others(e.g., the battle pass) while ramping up their content release schedule at a pace far higher than any comparable game can compete with. If Apex Legends can't compete — who can?
Each live service 'genre' has one or two games that completely dominate the market and suck all the oxygen out of the room leaving none for the smaller competitors. Why would someone want to play a game that's like Fortnite/Warframe/Dota 2/etc., except slightly worse and with far less players?
Look at the lineup for 2020's big name titles. How many live service games do you see?

Live service games are a winner-takes-all competition, single-player games are a prize share.

 

[cvv]

Neither of us really know the numbers, but I would point toward all these corporations focusing mostly on online services as the likely answer.

That certainly was true up until now but I think it's starting to dawn on Big Vidya that their mass rush towards GaaS and MTX clogged up the market and now it's hard to make a buck.

Plus with online games they ran into the same problem that Google did with Plus or Epic with their store or various Twitter alternatives, altho to a lesser degree - once an online platform gets established it's almost impossible to dislodge. The users became locked in their own ecosystems - libraries, friends, MTX purchases and so on. In other words MP games are not played, they're mained. Once you start maining WoW or Hearthstone or Fortnite you have next to zero interest in other MMOs or card games or battle royales.

I think those two factors are the reasons both EA and Activision are somewhat pulling back from their "all MP, all of the time" strategy and start dabbling in pure SP again, EA with Fallen Order and Activision with Sekiro. Ubisoft stuck with SP this whole time which shows they're either dumber than their competition or more foresighted.

 

[DalekFlay]

I think those two factors are the reasons both EA and Activision are somewhat pulling back from their "all MP, all of the time" strategy and start dabbling in pure SP again, EA with Fallen Order and Activision with Sekiro. Ubisoft stuck with SP this whole time which shows they're either dumber than their competition or more foresighted.

I mean, I could be persuaded things are coming back around. But the last handful of years it has absolutely been the case that corporations focused on live service games. I'll be just as happy as you guys if it changes significantly.