Decline When did decline start to you?

[markec]

For me decline started at the beginning of 2000, with games like Master of Orion 3, Lords of Realm 3, Simon the Sorcerer 3, Neverwinter Nights.

Games that seemed more interested transfering the series into 3D then making good games and only thing they managed was to kill of those franchises.

Then add to it more and more catering to consoles with games like Deus Ex 2 just breaking my heart.

 

[Melan]

Great franchises getting unworthy sequels is a big factor, since they are intruding on rightful Incline clay.

Ironically, Simon the Sorcerer 2 was already steep decline compared to the first game - the graphics lose their individual charm, Simon turns into a juvenile psycho, and the game sinks into the mire of pop culture references and increasingly contrived puzzles. It is pure rot in motion. (more on this here)

 

[Lutte]

The thing is console games went to absolute shit at the same time too. Ignoring many great multiplat games and only using exclusives as examples, Castlevania SoTN became Castlevania Lord of Shadows. Turok became Turok (Reboot). Parasite Eve became The Third Birthday. There is a big difference in the complexity and required attention between these games. Everything. Every good franchise PC or console raped before my very eyes.
I've never attributed the decline as a "muh consoles" thing as many here seem to do, but rather industry-wide selling out. That line of thinking is false. The decline is just more noticeable on PC because there was more complexity that "needed" to be streamlined for mass consumption, as well as PC becoming an afterthought simply because consoles had a larger userbase.

Yeah, the 8/16/32 bit console and arcade era of gaming had plenty of great titles if you were into action games.
It's the 360 era of hyped graphics and sandbox games that brought the largest decline.

Rather than blaming consoles I would just blame graphics whoring.
The higher the amount of fidelity a game has, the more copies it has to sell to bring a return the publisher considers worthwhile. Which inevitably requires lowest common denominator type of design. Nowadays mainstream console gamers consider a game like dark souls ""hard"". But that's only because they never played games like Contra, Ninja Gaiden, early Castlevania, Mega Man, half of the shmup genre etc. Consoles didn't have the same sort of game as the PC, but they had their own core gamer genres they did pretty well. I can't imagine most modern gamers going through many NES era games.
The decline filled nu-Deus Ex series of games got cancelled because it didn't sell enough. Even with its decline stuff it still wasn't enough to make Squeenix happy.
Heck, squeenix isn't happy with FF15 and cancelled its planned dlc.. despite selling 9 million copies.
But this is what they expected from this game :

Final Fantasy 15 Needs to Sell 10 Million Copies to Break Even

Mind you, just 'breaking even' doesn't make publishers happy.

Back in the early 2k, BG2 was considered a "mainstream hit" for hitting 3 million copies sold. How have times changed. For any modern AAA game today, 3 million is an abysmal failure and if it is a game franchise it will stop receiving sequels at some point.

There's a decent amount of alright indie games and medium level/AA devs these days, so I don't give too much of a shit.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

I think the beginning of the decline for me was 2006/7 with the release of the original Bioshock, which was a profound disappointment as I thought it was going to be the next big immersive sim, and then the following year with C&C3, marking the very tail end of RTS games outside of Starcraft.

C&C3 is a great game

 

[Nito]

I think the beginning of the decline for me was 2006/7 with the release of the original Bioshock, which was a profound disappointment as I thought it was going to be the next big immersive sim, and then the following year with C&C3, marking the very tail end of RTS games outside of Starcraft.

C&C3 is a great game

I don't think it was a bad game, but I remember being very excited because this was the first continuation of the Westwood games in seven years, and upon playing it, I realized that it was not like those games. It dawned on me that that era was well and truly over. Not a bad game, just a realization that games companies that had been formative to you, and produced quality titles, could die and be gone forever, and the specific kind of games they made with them.

 

[Fishy]

When Diablo came out and mindlessly clicking on palette-swapped monsters was suddenly considered a RPG.

 

[Cryomancer]

When Diablo came out and mindlessly clicking on palette-swapped monsters was suddenly considered a RPG.

Except that Diablo 1 is not that bad; if compared to 99% of modern games, but look the decline on diablo franchise.

How a caster become better at throwing fireball

• Diablo 1 = Reading arcane tomes and having enough MAG attribute to learn from the tome. More complex tomes require more MAG
• Diablo 2 = Investing skill points
• Diablo 3 = Finding a bigger and sharper axe

Diablo 1 also had no problem showing succubus breasts few years after the satanic panic of RPGs. Diablo 1 had streamlined RPG elements and a excessive focus on combat but modern games doesn't have even it.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Soon enough the entire population of Earth will be not enough to break even for these game companies.

 

[Thac0]

But this is what they expected from this game :
Mind you, just 'breaking even' doesn't make publishers happy.

Final Fantasy XV was in development hell for years due to Nomura wanting to make FF XIII Versus a musical. They wanted their 10 mil not because they expected to sell that much but because they lost metric fucktons of money from their own incomptetnce. It is bad for the sake of comparison here.

The expansion of sales expectations to unhealthy levels started somewhere from 2005-2007. World of Warcraft made video games a real talking point and started a huge media scare while making extreme grinding more accessible. The Wii in 2006 brought a gaming console into every household and brought generations of casuals into gaming. Xbox 360/Ps3 in 2005/2006 also made console gaming huge, and a lot of decline originates from that.

 

[Melan]

When Diablo came out and mindlessly clicking on palette-swapped monsters was suddenly considered a RPG.

Except that Diablo 1 is not that bad; if compared to 99% of modern games, but look the decline on diablo franchise.

It is not that bad - as an action game. As an RPG, it falls flat when compared to what came before it.

Spoiler

I know, "What is an RPG?" and all that.

Diablo 1 also had no problem showing succubus breasts few years after the satanic panic of RPGs. Diablo 1 had streamlined RPG elements and a excessive focus on combat but modern games doesn't have even it.

The satanic panic was gone and long forgotten by the time Diablo came out, and it offended no one of consequence. It was very much a product of the "dark and edgy" late 90s zeitgeist.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

When Diablo came out and mindlessly clicking on palette-swapped monsters was suddenly considered a RPG.

Except that Diablo 1 is not that bad; if compared to 99% of modern games, but look the decline on diablo franchise.

It is not that bad - as an action game. As an RPG, it falls flat when compared to what came before it.

Diablo 1 is not a very good action game. I remember completing it at warrior and the gameplay basically boiled down to left-clicking enemies, trapping them in chokepoints, chugging potions and teleporting to town when either the potions ru out or the backpack was full. How can you make an action game where avoiding emery attacks is something you don't even bother with most of the time. First Ys game was better than that.

 

[visions]

Best thing about Diablo 1 is the soundtrack.

 

[DalekFlay]

You can pick out the console gamers by the way they think unlimited saving and lack of timers are decline, while PC gamers would call limited saving and checkpoints decline introduced by the fucking Xbox to our favorite genres. "From a certain point of view..."

 

[HeatEXTEND]

but I remember being very excited because this was the first continuation of the Westwood games in seven years, and upon playing it, I realized that it was not like those games.

But it pretty much is?

 

[the mole]

For me Skyrim

Oblivion wasnt that bad, the level scaling was a problem but it wasnt the end of the world

It showed how the same developer can utterly massacre just about everything that made the previous game enjoyable

 

[the mole]

Yes I'm sorry I'm not an ancient boomer

I'm 26 years old

 

[the mole]

Oblivion wasnt that bad

Just pretend you turned the difficulty up

 

[the mole]

Boomers like hard games right

 

[janior]

pre 2012 games were shit bth we laive in goklden era og f games

 

[Arbiter]

Turn of the century marked the death of 3 long time RPG series: Might&Magic, Ultima and Wizardry.

 

[Max Damage]

I don't even like Skyrim, but you have to be special kind of retarded to prefer Oblivion to literally any other TES game (besides mobile shit, but that's like rock bottom)
>boomer
>difficulty in any TES ever
nevermind, it's got frontal lobe damage.

For me, the hard cutoff date is 2005. I don't think it was all rainbows and sunshine before 2005, but early-mid 00s was when growing pains of transitioning into 3D finally finished, controls became sleek, and satisfying amount of depth could be found in AAA/AA releases (shiniest games often were hollow even back then, but there were enough gems).

2006 onwards is decline because hype machine and overwhelming success of consoles proved you could just pimp out new releases for guaranteed big bux with minimal effort in depth department as long as you made sure to include graffix/physix/cheevos (personal least favorite "innovation"), and success of World of Warcraft sparkled even bigger greed in publishers who always were shitty, but became multiple times more cancerous ever since.

I remember launching Oblivion for the first time, if I ever could name just 1 game that embodies what would from AAA come ever since, this would be the most fitting name ever. It wasn't just one factor, and it also was pretty much inevitable. Any business/industry, if THIS level of profitable, going to shape itself into Leviathan that swallows everything in its path to satiate hunger it can't tame, turning everything into fecal matter, naturally.

I don't think there's hope for AAA anymore at all, even AA titles are poisoned at large because they're inevitable pushed into giving as much return as was never possible before, which is why there're so many disappointing sequels/spiritual successors, greed can't be stopped. I don't want to be doomsayer, but I don't see this ever changing, best one can look forward to these days is indie-tier stuff (which also starts catching up in greed levels, as Kickstarter boom unveiled) and occasional AA gems.

I don't think that everything is bad nowadays, again, I don't wear rose-tinted glasses, but for me the last truly great year of releases was 2004. These days I mostly find myself booting up a game from pre-2006 that I didn't get a chance to play before. Lots of old games are crap as well, but I can't help but notice how much more effort went into "game" part of video games before XBox360/PS3/Wii era. There were cash grabs, always will be, but if you wanted to make the video game of your dream, you didn't have to whore yourself out on Kikestarter (and then to a publisher anyway), because expectations were reasonable, at least until inevitable milking from established fanbases.

 

[Xunwael]

Supreme Commander 2, Civilization 5, Diablo 3... after seeing RTS and 4X go down in flames, the same happening to RPGs was just par for the course.

Haven't been optimistic about games for a solid decade now at least. But expect nothing and you'll occasionally be positively surprised. I'm waiting for the surprise now.

 

[samuraigaiden]

It has just come to my attention that in 1988 Chris Roberts made Times of Lore as an attempt to bridge the gap between console and computer RPGs - and that game inspired the changes in Ultima starting with VI which led to stuff like Pagan and eventually Diablo.

Confirming the old saying that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, Times of Lore was praised back in the day as a great introductory RPG. Even Scorpia gave it a good review.

 

[Ravielsk]

For me it did not happen all at once but gradually during the 7th gen as more and more developers and publishers came to pretend that there is some mythical "broader audience" that they can all get only if the cut one more feature and simplify all the remaining ones. In 90% of cases this did not work and both the studio and publisher went under. By the time the PS4 rolled out the industry was effectively fucked. Hell, even now it feels like it barely happened. The PS4 has like... what 10 actual games that are not available everywhere else? I still remember people mocking the PS3 for having "no gaem" but in now way was it ever as bad as the PS4(which BTW is around 50% just PS3 remakes anyway).

That cemented for me the decline and forced me to pretty much abandon new releases. When not even the people buying those games notice how very few and bad the games are then there is no hope for recovery.

 

[anvi]

Supreme Commander 2, Civilization 5, Diablo 3... after seeing RTS and 4X go down in flames, the same happening to RPGs was just par for the course.

Haven't been optimistic about games for a solid decade now at least. But expect nothing and you'll occasionally be positively surprised. I'm waiting for the surprise now.

C&C4 did the same thing and killed their own long running franchise. Although that's EA, killing things is what they do. EA is why gaming is so weak now. And why in 2021 even mainstream gamers are playing games from a decade ago GTA 5, Skyrim, FF 14, etc.