The steady corruption of the AAA gaming industry

[Alantor32]

2 hours ago, Zenpai said:

 

To be honest, I think you're being too negative.

 

The Playstation 4 era has brought us some of the best games of all time - to the point where I actually think it supplanted the PS2 as my favorite console of all time. There was a time, especially during the 7th generation, where your statement might have been true, what with everyone trying to copy each other and get a piece of the latest fad, but I just don't think that's the case anymore. Granted, yes, there is still a lot of greed in the gaming industry, namely with loot boxes, microtransactions, excessive DLC and the like - but that's mainly in the Western gaming industry. If you look towards the Japanese side of things, however, you'll find things just as good (if not better) than back in the PS2 days. Granted, we do still have excessive DLC every now and then... but I think that's made up for with the amazing quality the games themselves have been having recently.

 

And I have no idea what you mean by "the indie market is chock full of crap". The indie market's absolutely crushing it with great gems one after the other. Sure, if you go to Steam you might see a lot of crap... but that's just because Steam allows every single thing in there. If you go to a more curated storefront, like the PS Store or the Nintendo eShop, I can guarantee you'll have so many good choices you'll beg for them to stop!

Japanese gaming ftw. While I'm neutral on the whole greedy AAA game industry thing, I can agree with you that Japanese games are great and so are some indie games that are made by Japanese devs.

[Zenpai]

11 minutes ago, MMX20 said:

Japanese gaming ftw. While I'm neutral on the whole greedy AAA game industry thing, I can agree with you that Japanese games are great and so are some indie games that are made by Japanese devs.

 

Honestly, I think the Western gaming scene has been creatively bankrupt for quite some time, with the exceptions being indie games and anything with Sony's name on it.

[FilooGaroo]

I thought i will never say that - but i miss having the indie games in psn plus —- 

[Xenoblast91]

I wanted to read through all the comments here, but I don't know if the right thread to mention it. But I feel that AAA games usually are exactly that: games that hype people to buy them, independently form their quality. For example, right now blows my mind that 3 AAA games came out in a difference of 21 days in-between. And the statics here are really compelling about the interest of players towards those game. 

 

Personally, I find puzzling why Doom Eternal was just only a quarter popular against what FFVII Re is right now. Also, was only the half of RE3R, even considering that it's peak was reached last week with only 6.1k players; by its release weekend FFVII reached twice as that, in single three days! That's why AAA companies care about their games, because know people are going to invest in them. Pretty ackard that DE was released 3 weeks ago and the shortage is palpable still (very probable due to C-virus), but that doesn't explain at all the hype expresed by games from 2 decades ago. I seriously thought that RE3 would have a blast of players but it showed that people love more FF as expected (in it's time, I remember that where endless discussions between that game and TLoZ: OoT fo the "best game of all time" -and surely this will brings life to that fire again!-), because it double it so easy (RE is a more recognizable franchise, due to the movies and Western localization. But obviously, we love Japanese stuff also, even more that our own). 

 

However, I can say that yes. Greedy companies always going to be somewhere. Money drives them out, naturally. But we as consumers have the last word. And I humbly say that I try it with the last installment of Pokémon. Since the E3 of last year, the disappointment due the Dexit was evident: they could easily put +1000 Pokémon at any Switch game. Darn it, even Nintendo created such console exactly for that! But Game Freak reluctantly said NO. What happened later? Used a DLC to mask their lust and thirst of money. Even they "reverted" partially the Dexit thanks to an update, they messed up hugely with decade-committed fans. Remember, through whole Reddit are arguments pro and cons about this issue, but I simply can't believe that GF could make such a hateful dickmove, and moreover the community was left simply stunned. The community had the opportunity to stay firm into what they demanded; but sadly, they showed no matter at all. Even though, that Pokémon was my final signal for buying a Switch. But they stopped me (thankfully), because by no means I'll buy a console where the only purpose to have a Pokémon in it, would be to have them jailed for ever. Heck, I haven't spent more than thousands of hours breeding, catching and trading for such muck. 

 

We should be more critical and aware of what we play. Because we can be making our fate by allowing certian companies to use their public as they wish. And therefore, bein able to support what we want. They hear us, but we must to take assurance that they give us what we ask! I saw a painting from DE which features a paint work made by a fan, ans man... what a detail from a dev team to add a fanmade work inside a cannon and official game! We have that power, and we must use it properly. 

[AJ_Radio]

On 4/11/2020 at 11:33 AM, Zenpai said:

 

To be honest, I think you're being too negative.

 

The Playstation 4 era has brought us some of the best games of all time - to the point where I actually think it supplanted the PS2 as my favorite console of all time. There was a time, especially during the 7th generation, where your statement might have been true, what with everyone trying to copy each other and get a piece of the latest fad, but I just don't think that's the case anymore. Granted, yes, there is still a lot of greed in the gaming industry, namely with loot boxes, microtransactions, excessive DLC and the like - but that's mainly in the Western gaming industry. If you look towards the Japanese side of things, however, you'll find things just as good (if not better) than back in the PS2 days. Granted, we do still have excessive DLC every now and then... but I think that's made up for with the amazing quality the games themselves have been having recently.

 

And I have no idea what you mean by "the indie market is chock full of crap". The indie market's absolutely crushing it with great gems one after the other. Sure, if you go to Steam you might see a lot of crap... but that's just because Steam allows every single thing in there. If you go to a more curated storefront, like the PS Store or the Nintendo eShop, I can guarantee you'll have so many good choices you'll beg for them to stop!

 

I find this to be untrue in many cases.

 

Much of what has made the PlayStation 4 era good started in the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 era. You still got a lot of the same ideas still lingering around especially in the western industry. Capcom and Square Enix are certainly guilty of taking the route of suckering more money out of people. The crap Square did with Final Fantasy XV is a far cry from when they were in their prime during the PS2 days. I'm not interested in the Final Fantasy VII remake, but in contrast Resident Evil 3 actually looks pretty tempting.

 

When I finally get around to Red Dead Redemption 2 I'm sure it will be a great game, in fact I've already played it myself at friends houses. Rockstar Games however has gone the path of milking their key game Grand Theft Auto V while offering very little in quality content. Honestly it's just better for them to charge money for new skins and aesthetics for GTA Online than to make a new game. AAA games are incredibly expensive to make and that is going to increase even further as we enter the PlayStation 5 generation. This in turn will give the publishers less reasons to take risks, they don't want to lose money and profits that the shareholders want. EA can live off of their Battlefield and The Sims titles, while a talentless gathering of suits takes advantage of all the gullible people out there who still buy their products after all these years.

 

Do I think the Japanese market is better on the AAA spectrum? Yes, their titles, particularly Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Devil May Cry V and Resident Evil 2 were all hugely successful last year. The western market continues to feed off of Call of Duty, Battlefield, Destiny, Anthem and a slew of online heavy games. I haven't found a lot original in quite a long time. That may change in the next few years, who knows, but right now it's not looking good. Yakuza is more fascinating and interesting to me than virtually any western AAA game I've seen in the past two years.

 

I've played a good number of indie games if you bothered to look at my profile. I know what a good indie game is. That doesn't mean the indie market has mostly better quality games from independent developers who put their passion and hard work into their projects. A vast majority of indie games are simply cash in titles from people looking to make a quick buck. Look at crap like Ratalaika Games (mostly on their distribution of trophy lists), Little Adventure on the Prairie, Orc Slayer and My Name is Mayo. That's like saying the NES library was full of great games when most of what was on that platform was unplayable, frustrating crap. People just didn't realize that until the Angry Video Game Nerd starting posting episodes on bad NES titles.

 

Crap has seeped through the PS Store. True, it's much better than Steam, but since Steam is the most popular platform out there, a lot of crappy titles from Steam have made their way on the PS4. Quality control was definitely better on the PS3, despite the fact that system was incredibly hard to code for.

 

My gaming experience and history goes far beyond just trophy hunting and just playing the most popular games in the western market. I have plenty of stuff with no achievement system attached to it, and on the trophy aspect I have a good 70 - 80 games I haven't even put on my profile yet.

Edited April 13, 2020 by Spaz

[Darling Baphomet]

Honestly, I've had the opposite experience. While there are definitely many shallow AAA games not worth buying, at least not at full price (looking at you, Ubisoft!), there's also the occasion big budget game that absolutely knocks it out of the park - e.g. recent Playstation exclusives like Days Gone, God of War, Horizon, etc. Even some games with relatively weak launches (like Battlefront 2) have proven themselves to be great games once those issues are fixed. Major RPGs like Fallout 4 and The Witcher 3 have entertained as well.

 

I think the biggest problem right now is companies that are unwilling to try anything new and instead just want to milk what's already been done - e.g. Ubisoft games, which seemingly lack any innovation whatsoever, and that results in a lot of rinse and repeat titles from major companies too big to be interesting. But it's not an inherent thing, and you still find many major titles that actually manage to achieve excellence, not just make an attempt at it.

 

I definitely don't agree that the Japanese market is particularly better than the Western one though. Even with major games like Devil May Cry 5, they seemingly blow all their budget on the first few, fancy levels, and then have nothing but rinse and repeat, boring levels for the second half of the game. They lack the budget and attention to detail that even flawed AAA games (like Rage 2, which I'm now playing) can manage. The RPGs are even worse, because they rarely have any budget at all - most JRPGs you get are extremely basic and just as rinse and repeat as western games, with the same tired 'young male protagonist going out with his friends to save the world' plot repeated ad infinitum.