Games are shit

[Nathir]

MOBAs are generally shit, except Heroes of the Storm. Heroes of the Storm was great, but ironically, all the shitbag people didn't like it because it wasn't LOL with Blizzard skin, but instead Blizzard improved on the MOBA formula and cut the crap from the gameplay. They didn't like it. I did. I played it hardcore for 3 years, but i eventually stopped cause Blizzard kept giving me suspensions for "chat violations". So i suppose the gameplay wasn't shit, but the company was.

HotS was by far the worst out of all the MOBAS. The only reason you would even consider booting up a game was because it had Blizzard characters from your childhood.

 

[downwardspiral]

Ironically, the survival crafting roguelike Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead is one of the absolute best games you can play right now and also makes all this other shit look very, very primitive.

I played the demo for Songs of Syx, an Early Access, fantasy city builder/colony sim, where you can build megacities with tens of thousands of denizens running around. I was hooked for a few days, but began to see there wasn't much to it. I built up to 200 citizens, which triggered a raid that I easily defeated. What to do now? What's the point of building bigger? I have at least one of every structure in the game. I don't know if the population count is that great of a selling point. More happens with a population of 40 in Dwarf Fortress than happens in this game, at least as far as the demo (supposedly unlimited) is concerned. Also there is not an outlet for aesthetics or physics exploits as there is in DF.

Good games.
Ideally, songs of syx will add regional warfare between kingdoms.
So that population count become something.

Different scale and resolution have different focus.

Player only = The most detailed zombie survival on individual level (CDDA)

Smaller population = More focus on Inter person relationship(RW) or simplified chemistry(ONI)

Medium population = DF something between small and large pop.

Large population = war, big formation war. Ideally songs of syx will be this.

 

[Gerrard]

All these survival/building games are such under developed indie jank, they can all get fucked. Wake me when you can make a survival/building game that also has some sort of gameplay?! And no, dumbass 'sandbox' where you build endless stuff is not gameplay. And a menu with 100000 objects to place for no reason, is not content.

My impression is that all these indie survival games where you play as one dude/dudette harvesting resources and building an entire castle on your own are just lazy projects where the devs couldn't be arsed to do any level design themselves.

You don't have to design any levels if you can make the player build them on his own.

These games are vastly different from city builders like Anno btw, because in games like Anno you get to manage a city from the top. You place production buildings and design the infrastructure to ensure a flourishing economy, then watch your citizens go about their work.
In these survival games, you have to do all the busywork yourself.

You run to the forest and chop wood until your inventory is full.
Then you run to your warehouse to deposit the wood.
Then you craft wooden walls from the wood.
Then you carry the wooden wall sections to where you want to build a house, and build it.
Then you go chop more wood cause you're out of resources.

In a strategy or city builder, you command dozens of little people to do all the menial tasks of resource collection.
In these survival crafting games, you ARE this guy:

I want a game that combines this survival-adventure with a town builder. Where you can assign NPCs (not other players) to various jobs and they actually produce things. Basically like Minecraft if it wasn't made by a bunch or retards with no aspirations. Why is that not a thing?

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

While we're discussing things we hate in games today I dislike how you can never criticize how so many games try to go for these ugly cartoony or Disney-Pixar styles because then some child molester will think all you want is EDGE when all a nigga like me really wants is something that looks mature or adult. Like how many fantasy games you see today that jump on that WoW looking bullshit when you're longing for some AD&D era artwork brought to virtual life.

 

[downwardspiral]

I think a lot of the smaller indie games only exist as a project to help that guy improve his programming. Which is fine. But it shouldn't be in the Steam top 10.

With the building/survival games, I don't think they are any different to Anno or SimCity or anything else in that they provide a big area to place stuff. Now I just need a reason to give a shit. Having an economy to balance did an ok job of that. It motivates me to gitgud because if you don't learn to expand using the rules the game expects, then you run out of money, fire breaks out, can't afford fire station, etc. The new games give you the building aspect but no reason to care. Games like The Forest and Ark and whatever else, you have 10000 objects you can build into huge fortresses, but there's nothing to struggle against except the grind. The worlds are mostly empty, no interesting loot or locations that make me want to explore. Combat is always a joke or doesn't exist. No interesting character development. They are 100% reliant on you being ok with the idea of building stuff for no reason in a virtual world that you will probably delete off your hard drive a month later.

It depends on how many variables that world simulate.
The one that has many variables usually don't even let you grind anything.
The one that has less variables tend to make you grind more stuff.

Player tend to have a very clear goal on their builds in the more complex one, optimizing certain attribute.
For example, how fast your car can go in this map? can it overcome all those difficulties?
It is not that different from optimizing economy in anno. And optimizing economy in anno is too easy.
I think what you want is a quest/mission/story/campaign design.
Some of those games have one. Some don't.

I want a game that combines this survival-adventure with a town builder. Where you can assign NPCs (not other players) to various jobs and they actually produce things. Basically like Minecraft if it wasn't made by a bunch or retards with no aspirations. Why is that not a thing?

Dwarf fortress?

 

[JarlFrank]

I want a game that combines this survival-adventure with a town builder. Where you can assign NPCs (not other players) to various jobs and they actually produce things. Basically like Minecraft if it wasn't made by a bunch or retards with no aspirations. Why is that not a thing?

Conan Exiles kinda does that. You can use special knockout weapons to KO NPCs and then capture them. Then you can assign them to jobs like crafting, guarding your base, or serving as entertainers (which is important to reduce corruption you can pick up in some dungeons).
You still have to do all the resource gathering yourself though, although I think there are mods that allow you to assign thralls to gathering jobs.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

project gorgon is the most fun I've had with video games in years

 

[anvi]

It is not that different from optimizing economy in anno. And optimizing economy in anno is too easy.
I think what you want is a quest/mission/story/campaign design.
Some of those games have one. Some don't.

I agree but that's my point. SimCity was made in 1989, we can't blame that for it's basic economy and building. Even as a kid I wished it had an endgame or a whole military side to it, but I knew it was early days for gaming. But in the 90s games grew bigger and more advanced. Even early RTS, it is building and an economy to balance not much different to SimCity, but on top of that was a whole exciting wargame with lots of depth to it. And then games like Age of Mythology and 4x games and stuff have pushed it further and further. So when someone makes a basic building game now, it seems like 40 years of devolving.

 

[downwardspiral]

It is not that different from optimizing economy in anno. And optimizing economy in anno is too easy.
I think what you want is a quest/mission/story/campaign design.
Some of those games have one. Some don't.

I agree but that's my point. SimCity was made in 1989, we can't blame that for it's basic economy and building. Even as a kid I wished it had an endgame or a whole military side to it, but I knew it was early days for gaming. But in the 90s games grew bigger and more advanced. Even early RTS, it is building and an economy to balance not much different to SimCity, but on top of that was a whole exciting wargame with lots of depth to it. And then games like Age of Mythology and 4x games and stuff have pushed it further and further. So when someone makes a basic building game now, it seems like 40 years of devolving.

Because as a wargame player in 90s, I found RTS's war elements extremely boring and arcade.
I only play it for E-sport rank PVP experience. I never treat it as wargame.

Have you thought about how detailed those military or city building elements should be?
you mentioned shooting rocket into sky, I assuming that is KSP.
If you have a very detailed simcity game that shoot KSP rocket with ARMA combat and steel beast tank simulation.
Do you think that is possible or playable?
If you think some of them should be less detailed. Then it become a jack of all trades game, basically civilization.
But people who played KSP want to have that rocket details, They already think KSP rocket is too arcade and not enough detailed.
they don't just want to shot RPG abstract stat rocket.
Think about fishing in a RPG game.
It just an abstract stat, maybe some basic bait items and abstract mini game.
It might satisfy normal players, but it will never make fishing nerds think it is remotely fishing.

I am not trying to be rude. It is an interesting question. And I am not opposing that kind of all inclusive and all very detailed game.
But I don't think it is very possible, and it also depends on how detailed you want your game is.
And think about star citizen. It tried to do many things.

Some of those games are not really for general players anymore.
They have a very specific audience.
It is like now you have RL racing nerds playing racing game.
That audience is already different to "car in RPGs" or racing game in 90s.

Also because this is a RPG site. So age of empire and simcity are both in general gaming or "strategy" .
But if you go to a proper city building game forum.
And suggest age of empire has city building elements.
People will scream decline and say age of empire should be move to general gaming.

 

[[UCHIHA]XxDarkSasuke420xX]

Or option 4, I played them long enough to know exactly how they work and how idiotic they are. Just the fact every single game involves 20 minutes of grind should be all the proof you need it was designed like shit. Why would you even begin to defend the moba design? It's is a disaster. 90% of the heroes are weak as shit, just pick Sniper or something and play it safe for half an hour and now you can insta kill anyone. And then you run around getting stronger and stronger while they hide in the well getting weaker and weaker and then an hour later you finally go in and crush them and let out your REEEEEE warcry, venting all your pent up frustrations of your crappy life.

you're taking the wrong approach to mobas, you're supposed to pick tiny and toss your teammates into the enemy team then flame tossed guy for feeding

 

[TemplarGR]

While we're discussing things we hate in games today I dislike how you can never criticize how so many games try to go for these ugly cartoony or Disney-Pixar styles because then some child molester will think all you want is EDGE when all a nigga like me really wants is something that looks mature or adult. Like how many fantasy games you see today that jump on that WoW looking bullshit when you're longing for some AD&D era artwork brought to virtual life.

There are many reasons for the cartoony style. One of the most basic ones, is that you can make cartoony games look good with fewer resources than "realistic" games, thus being able to play on mobile phones and more low-end machines. They are easier to make as well. Not too many realistic textures and shaders, just few bright colors.

 

[Machocruz]

Good games.
Ideally, songs of syx will add regional warfare between kingdoms.
So that population count become something.

Different scale and resolution have different focus.

Player only = The most detailed zombie survival on individual level (CDDA)

Smaller population = More focus on Inter person relationship(RW) or simplified chemistry(ONI)

Medium population = DF something between small and large pop.

Large population = war, big formation war. Ideally songs of syx will be this.

To be clear, I wasn't referring to builders when I said CDDA makes other games look primitive, as they have no relation to each other. I meant other survival/craft games, and rogues. Thought it was funny that he called those out (which I don't disagree with) but CDDA is an example of a stellar game that does both

I really hope Songs of Syx turns out well. I love the art style and interface.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

While we're discussing things we hate in games today I dislike how you can never criticize how so many games try to go for these ugly cartoony or Disney-Pixar styles because then some child molester will think all you want is EDGE when all a nigga like me really wants is something that looks mature or adult. Like how many fantasy games you see today that jump on that WoW looking bullshit when you're longing for some AD&D era artwork brought to virtual life.

There are many reasons for the cartoony style. One of the most basic ones, is that you can make cartoony games look good with fewer resources than "realistic" games, thus being able to play on mobile phones and more low-end machines. They are easier to make as well. Not too many realistic textures and shaders, just few bright colors.

While that's true to an extent, so many games can do cartoony in a different way than the generic Disney-Pixar-style we have these days. Like a '60s American comic book, a newspaper comic or Moebius's style. It seems to be like everyone involved in the graphical component of many games just give up when limitations are forced.

 

[downwardspiral]

Good games.
Ideally, songs of syx will add regional warfare between kingdoms.
So that population count become something.

Different scale and resolution have different focus.

Player only = The most detailed zombie survival on individual level (CDDA)

Smaller population = More focus on Inter person relationship(RW) or simplified chemistry(ONI)

Medium population = DF something between small and large pop.

Large population = war, big formation war. Ideally songs of syx will be this.

To be clear, I wasn't referring to builders when I said CDDA makes other games look primitive, as they have no relation to each other. I meant other survival/craft games, and rogues. Thought it was funny that he called those out (which I don't disagree with) but CDDA is an example of a stellar game that does both

I really hope Songs of Syx turns out well. I love the art style and interface.

I don't disagree with many survival games are basically just grinding game.
But I don't think mixing them all up in one genre when they clearly having different focus is a good idea.
Aurora 4x looks like a game that has all the details but the tactical combat is really minimal compare to real tactical wargame.
Dwarf fortress looks complicated but if you dig into one aspect of it's elements it is not that details compare to game that is designed for that element.
And those games are already trying their best to be extremely detailed yet they still can't beat games that are made for one purpose only on that respective element.


Especially when he mentioned shooting rocket in building game.
What game is that? KSP? factoria?
If it is KSP, It has goal.
They even make a career mode for people who need plotline/quest mark to be motivated.

If it is factoria, it has goal too.



I honestly don't know.
He sounds like someone don't like simcity much.
Because not many simcity player will really think age of empire has city building elements.
Or age of empire can be a substitute of simcity in any degree.
It is like saying Mario is RPG game because you role playing as Mario.
So Mario is an evolution of RPG + action game. Good , we made progress in RPGs and action game.
Age of empire is city building + wargame because it have you building house and fighting war.
Good we made progress in both genres.

I played simcity when it released I didn't really feel age of empire has anything to do with simcity.
They have vastly different focus in gameplay.
It is completely different genre. The difference is even bigger than difference among sub genres in RPGs.

 

[anvi]

Or option 4, I played them long enough to know exactly how they work and how idiotic they are. Just the fact every single game involves 20 minutes of grind should be all the proof you need it was designed like shit. Why would you even begin to defend the moba design? It's is a disaster. 90% of the heroes are weak as shit, just pick Sniper or something and play it safe for half an hour and now you can insta kill anyone. And then you run around getting stronger and stronger while they hide in the well getting weaker and weaker and then an hour later you finally go in and crush them and let out your REEEEEE warcry, venting all your pent up frustrations of your crappy life.

you're taking the wrong approach to mobas, you're supposed to pick tiny and toss your teammates into the enemy team then flame tossed guy for feeding

I played like that through many years and many banned accounts.

 

[anvi]

It is not that different from optimizing economy in anno. And optimizing economy in anno is too easy.
I think what you want is a quest/mission/story/campaign design.
Some of those games have one. Some don't.

I agree but that's my point. SimCity was made in 1989, we can't blame that for it's basic economy and building. Even as a kid I wished it had an endgame or a whole military side to it, but I knew it was early days for gaming. But in the 90s games grew bigger and more advanced. Even early RTS, it is building and an economy to balance not much different to SimCity, but on top of that was a whole exciting wargame with lots of depth to it. And then games like Age of Mythology and 4x games and stuff have pushed it further and further. So when someone makes a basic building game now, it seems like 40 years of devolving.

Because as a wargame player in 90s, I found RTS's war elements extremely boring and arcade.
I only play it for E-sport rank PVP experience. I never treat it as wargame.

Have you thought about how detailed those military or city building elements should be?
you mentioned shooting rocket into sky, I assuming that is KSP.
If you have a very detailed simcity game that shoot KSP rocket with ARMA combat and steel beast tank simulation.
Do you think that is possible or playable?
If you think some of them should be less detailed. Then it become a jack of all trades game, basically civilization.
But people who played KSP want to have that rocket details, They already think KSP rocket is too arcade and not enough detailed.
they don't just want to shot RPG abstract stat rocket.
Think about fishing in a RPG game.
It just an abstract stat, maybe some basic bait items and abstract mini game.
It might satisfy normal players, but it will never make fishing nerds think it is remotely fishing.

I am not trying to be rude. It is an interesting question. And I am not opposing that kind of all inclusive and all very detailed game.
But I don't think it is very possible, and it also depends on how detailed you want your game is.
And think about star citizen. It tried to do many things.

Some of those games are not really for general players anymore.
They have a very specific audience.
It is like now you have RL racing nerds playing racing game.
That audience is already different to "car in RPGs" or racing game in 90s.

Also because this is a RPG site. So age of empire and simcity are both in general gaming or "strategy" .
But if you go to a proper city building game forum.
And suggest age of empire has city building elements.
People will scream decline and say age of empire should be move to general gaming.

KSP is nice, I wish it did a few more things but the sequel looks like it will do everything I would want. I don't want games that can do everything, I'm more talking about some genres that get easily blended together already. KSP lets you build stuff and there are rules and some gameplay involved in that, but you also get to actually fly the rockets and space craft. That's like two genres in one. And it still wasn't enough because why your bust your ass learning rocket science when the only goal is to fly the rocket higher and higher. So they added a huge research system and tied it to achievements in the game etc. Kids are happy flying around in spaceships for 1000 hours but some of us want some meat in the game and they added meat. You can fly a rocket into space in like 20 minutes after buying the game or something, it's not hard. But flying a rocket in to space, then to some planet, then orbit the planet and detach something to land on the planet and hopefully then do the whole thing in reverse and bring your little dude home safe... That's a big meaty bunch of quality gameplay. That's all I ask.

Actually I still asked for more... I landed on the Mun and said Zzz now I'm supposed to just grind more research then repeat the same thing with all the other planets? Which is a legit issue for a lot of other people too. But the sequel fixes that by having tons of other things you need to learn and pull off as well, like building orbital stations and stuff. And mods help too. I'd say KSP is a pretty good example of the kind of game I know we could have a lot more of, if it wasn't such a dysfunctional business. I might have tons of hate for stuff I think is half assed, over hyped and over rated. But I have tons of love for all the ones who make a good effort.

The rocket I had in mind was Factorio which another story. All the nice things I said about KSP, I'd say the opposite about Factorio.

 

[downwardspiral]

It is not that different from optimizing economy in anno. And optimizing economy in anno is too easy.
I think what you want is a quest/mission/story/campaign design.
Some of those games have one. Some don't.

I agree but that's my point. SimCity was made in 1989, we can't blame that for it's basic economy and building. Even as a kid I wished it had an endgame or a whole military side to it, but I knew it was early days for gaming. But in the 90s games grew bigger and more advanced. Even early RTS, it is building and an economy to balance not much different to SimCity, but on top of that was a whole exciting wargame with lots of depth to it. And then games like Age of Mythology and 4x games and stuff have pushed it further and further. So when someone makes a basic building game now, it seems like 40 years of devolving.

Because as a wargame player in 90s, I found RTS's war elements extremely boring and arcade.
I only play it for E-sport rank PVP experience. I never treat it as wargame.

Have you thought about how detailed those military or city building elements should be?
you mentioned shooting rocket into sky, I assuming that is KSP.
If you have a very detailed simcity game that shoot KSP rocket with ARMA combat and steel beast tank simulation.
Do you think that is possible or playable?
If you think some of them should be less detailed. Then it become a jack of all trades game, basically civilization.
But people who played KSP want to have that rocket details, They already think KSP rocket is too arcade and not enough detailed.
they don't just want to shot RPG abstract stat rocket.
Think about fishing in a RPG game.
It just an abstract stat, maybe some basic bait items and abstract mini game.
It might satisfy normal players, but it will never make fishing nerds think it is remotely fishing.

I am not trying to be rude. It is an interesting question. And I am not opposing that kind of all inclusive and all very detailed game.
But I don't think it is very possible, and it also depends on how detailed you want your game is.
And think about star citizen. It tried to do many things.

Some of those games are not really for general players anymore.
They have a very specific audience.
It is like now you have RL racing nerds playing racing game.
That audience is already different to "car in RPGs" or racing game in 90s.

Also because this is a RPG site. So age of empire and simcity are both in general gaming or "strategy" .
But if you go to a proper city building game forum.
And suggest age of empire has city building elements.
People will scream decline and say age of empire should be move to general gaming.

KSP is nice, I wish it did a few more things but the sequel looks like it will do everything I would want. I don't want games that can do everything, I'm more talking about some genres that get easily blended together already. KSP lets you build stuff and there are rules and some gameplay involved in that, but you also get to actually fly the rockets and space craft. That's like two genres in one. And it still wasn't enough because why your bust your ass learning rocket science when the only goal is to fly the rocket higher and higher. So they added a huge research system and tied it to achievements in the game etc. Kids are happy flying around in spaceships for 1000 hours but some of us want some meat in the game and they added meat. You can fly a rocket into space in like 20 minutes after buying the game or something, it's not hard. But flying a rocket in to space, then to some planet, then orbit the planet and detach something to land on the planet and hopefully then do the whole thing in reverse and bring your little dude home safe... That's a big meaty bunch of quality gameplay. That's all I ask.

Actually I still asked for more... I landed on the Mun and said Zzz now I'm supposed to just grind more research then repeat the same thing with all the other planets? Which is a legit issue for a lot of other people too. But the sequel fixes that by having tons of other things you need to learn and pull off as well, like building orbital stations and stuff. And mods help too. I'd say KSP is a pretty good example of the kind of game I know we could have a lot more of, if it wasn't such a dysfunctional business. I might have tons of hate for stuff I think is half assed, over hyped and over rated. But I have tons of love for all the ones who make a good effort.

The rocket I had in mind was Factorio which another story. All the nice things I said about KSP, I'd say the opposite about Factorio.

I got what you means now.
Factorio is indeed more straightforward. Not because it has no career mode but it's sandbox dynamic is much more limited and straightforward.
However KSP's goal is really how complex and dynamic the variables is. Not how they designed their game campaign/career mode/research tree.
They could have all those planets but without all the career mode , and you can still have goal.
Because mun is there, one don't need a career mode to say "I want to go to mun and build a refueling station there then move beyond that" You just need complex dynamic elements to simulate fueling system. So people will know the constraint of that sandbox. And overcoming that constraint itself become a goal.

Basically what you want is more complexity, variety and dynamics in simulation.
Sometimes those concept get very convoluted in sandbox games.Because there are so many case where the dev think player want more "goals"
so they remove complexity and add in "career/quest" mode.
I have experienced such situation in some games that have great potential.
The dev think "goal" = gamey design .
They remove sandbox dynamic and made more quest/mission chain into it to appeal to more gamers.
Because often, career mode just mean hide item behind quest line.
And when dev focus too much on making those traditional "game design"
They often stop improving/bug fixing their sandbox dynamic elements.
Like they just keep ignoring bug in physics simulation and keep adding more quest and "gamer" elements.
And it often cause community to split up and the game eventually die.

Also often the sandbox game that has greater dynamic tend to have less grind.
Because they don't need grinding to bloat the game.
Those surival building multiplayer such as rust and ark game is basically like that.
They remind me the MUD online games.
But much more grindy and serious. And lack any real sandbox dynamic.
Their fun is usually human drama and meta gaming.
Like clan war and such. People text you 5 AM morning to join a clan fight.
They aren't supposed to be played in single player.
I personally don't enjoy and play those much.

 

[anvi]

It's frustrating because even the dumb ones are so close to be amazing games. Subnautica is so beautiful and immersive and the building mechanics are great. But for some people all that greatness is wasted because the gameplay isn't there and the whole thing feels pointless and grindy. They give you a huge world to explore but then a linear bunch of objectives with a 1000 mile swim in between each. All those building mechanics yet most players build 1 room and use it to store stuff and then never need to go back.

Ark and The Forest the same. I loved living in the forest, building my epic treehouse base of death with traps and stuff. But with no real threats and no purpose it's just a big waste of time. Yeah I can make my own goals just like I can close my eyes and pretend I'm flying on a unicorn. Kids sit in a box of sand all day making their own fun. I've had complex jobs in real life, I could really use some gameplay to engage me. Factorio is the most frustrating for me because they have the foundations of a logistics/building game and a military game. But the military side got 0 development, it is there like a token. I'm convinced they would have made something really interesting out of that, if it wasn't for the game somehow going viral and they sold 2.5 million copies of an unfinished alpha.

 

[Vic]

hades is a pretty good roguelike

 

[Curratum]

I got news for you, anvi - even the games you think are good and you like are shit too.

 

[Norfleet]

Most of the people making shit today are chasing trends or trying to echo games they liked as kids but can't quite grasp why they worked then and not when they try to reinvoke it. It used to be if you saw a good idea you'd take it and make it a great idea. These days they take good ideas and make them into a wish only a Monkey's Paw could bring.

That, and those games didn't actually work and reflect the fact that they were only good because they didn't know why they were shit.

even the games you think are good and you like are shit too.

Life's shit, games are shit, gamers are shit.

There's an ancient Roman saying: Omnia merdae sunt.

Everything is shit.

 

[Apostle Hand]

yeah some games are shitty, sometimes not, sometimes they are

it's hard to tell which ones are shitty

 

[Thac0]

People have an unprecedented ability to make their own games - ALL their own media, really - yet the overall quality hasn't improved one bit. In fact, all this has created is a literal S.E.A. (Steam Early Access) of feces.
Yes, people say "90% of everything is crap" but that doesn't explain how older games with MORE hurdles and adversity managed to be impactful while these new generations are not.

Easy, a hurdle was taken away. If your idea and abilities are shit, you are much less likely to try and put them into reality if faced with the first adversities of budgeting and creative crisis. If your ideas and abilities are amazing however you are more likely to endure that bullshit, since you are fairly convinced that the product will be a work of art.
Making a game is easier now, yes. But the ease has only taken away the first hurdle, and that hurdle was pretty good at filtering shit.
Something like RPGmaker and other easy tools might allow 10.000 people more to make their own rpg, but of those 10.000 are maybe 1000 talented devs, and 900 of them would have made a game anyway, even if it was harder. So you get 9000 more shit games and 100 more good games compared to before.

 

[anvi]

I got news for you, anvi - even the games you think are good and you like are shit too.

No way there have been lots of great games! Even the games I hate are not especially bad, my problem is that none of them are great. They all range from bland to ok. Or AAA which apparently now means dumb unfinished crap.

 

[Morenatsu.]

People have an unprecedented ability to make their own games - ALL their own media, really - yet the overall quality hasn't improved one bit. In fact, all this has created is a literal S.E.A. (Steam Early Access) of feces.
Yes, people say "90% of everything is crap" but that doesn't explain how older games with MORE hurdles and adversity managed to be impactful while these new generations are not.

Easy, a hurdle was taken away. If your idea and abilities are shit, you are much less likely to try and put them into reality if faced with the first adversities of budgeting and creative crisis. If your ideas and abilities are amazing however you are more likely to endure that bullshit, since you are fairly convinced that the product will be a work of art.
Making a game is easier now, yes. But the ease has only taken away the first hurdle, and that hurdle was pretty good at filtering shit.
Something like RPGmaker and other easy tools might allow 10.000 people more to make their own rpg, but of those 10.000 are maybe 1000 talented devs, and 900 of them would have made a game anyway, even if it was harder. So you get 9000 more shit games and 100 more good games compared to before.

There's also the fact that all those old games were first-time experiments where nobody had any expectations or preconceived notions of whether things are good ideas or not. Now that everyone's tried everything, nobody wants to do it ever again, instead opting for formulaic focus-tested garbage. And on the other hand you have indies who think they know what games should be, but still fail to match the creations of people who had no idea what they were doing, somehow.

Old games to me feel like they're more naturally what they are, and new stuff feels like artificial shit made by retards who can barely handle one aspect of development, let alone an entire game. They could make a game with the most deliberately designed and challenging gameplay ever made and it'd still end up feeling pathetic for one reason or another.