In your opinion, what's hurting this current-gen as a whole?

It's a little of all those things, but for me personally, it's the rise of GaaS. I simply don't want to game with other people.

Since I could only pick one, I chose remasters/remakes taking up developer's time and manpower that it leads into another one of your other options and that it makes new games longer in development.

Gamers, is the correct answer and it is missing from the list.🤷🏽‍♂️

Probably the acquisitions; it hasn't helped anyone so far.

Don’t know how the Bethesda/Activision acquisitions actually benefited gamers. And we’re starting to see that now. MS is killing off smaller, more creative studios, in favor of of big IPs that we were going to get anyway.

That's a good question. It's hard for me to pick just one thing. I would say micro-transactions are hurting the industry the most. Developers are intentionally not adding various parts of a game and, instead, are offering it up as DLC that you have to pay for. They are succeeding at milking their fans. In some other cases, there are developers that, every time you want to unlock a car, are asking whether you want to buy that car with real money or with in-game currency. They are being very aggressive at milking people of their money.

I used to think that gamers are smart enough to avoid this nonsense, but because of the fact that this business model is so popular, it proves that many gamers aren't necessarily that bright (in my view).

On Sony's front, nothing is coming out. I didn't buy the system for third party, nor did i buy it for some third party exclusives. If Sony themselves don't give me the TLOU's and the GoW's, the system has no purpose.

I don't have any complaints, I didn't buy the wrong platforms. PC and PS5 have been pretty good to me.

Diversity hiring

Cost of game development.

Much as Nintendo sucks, they had the right idea by not going all in on cutting edge graphics.

Damn! The fragiles have entered the room😂

Designing games around monetization and predatory practices. Also, forced woke shit.

All the problems listed hurt the industry, but just talking about the gen for me is the emphasis on AAA games, people want to have something previously unseen in their new hardware, and that translates in more time which also means more money, investment that don't always generate a profit, leading developers to play it safe.

the economy

@Renegade_Fury: agree, its mainly the acquisitions, with a sprinkle of live service.

Some posters on here cheered the acquisitions on because of stocks. Lol

More fragiles.😂

Game development. It’s taking too long and costing too much money making some of these games.

@Archangel3371: Yeah, dev time and costs are main ones that lead to all the other problems on the list.

@judaspete: Yeah, it’s pretty much the root of the other problems.

Devs focusing way too much on actors and cutscenes rather than the game itself.

I wonder who is to blame for that focus?😏#3

A fair point. Gamers do have a saying but so do the people who make these games for us.

Too much emphasis on AAA.

If your paying actors, screen writers, cgi cutscenes, hundreds of millions into a game.. like your making the new LOTOR Hollywood blockbuster.

But your game doesn't have the mass appeal, it takes too long to make, the gameplay sucks, and nobody wants to spend $70 for it

Nintendo flexing on most these big money studios.. selling butt loads of copies.. using 1/20th the budget

A lot of the reasons started last gen or even before. Once WoW drew the attention of the investor crowd, it was all over. Then mobile came along and threw napalm on the fire. Then add in the desire for top notch production at bargain bin prices. It's not rocket science to see that recipe isn't shelf stable.

If we are going to blame gamers for hurting this current generation, expect the fanboy factions in System Wars quickly blaming each other for that. Better steer away from Fanboy Wars and focus on the people who make the games, not those who play them.

The answer is gamers. Publishers just go where the money is being spent. So if you want things to steer away from gaas, you have to spend more money than gaas gamers. Good luck with that 😂. Want to kill off gaming even faster? Stop buying games and get a Game Pass or PS+ subscription. You’ll get fewer quality titles, more early access buggy games and all the studio closures you can imagine.

The industry runs on money. Meaning you have to pay for what you want. That might sound shocking to some, but the real world has operated that way for some time now.

The people who make and publish games bend to the will of gamers. Whatever gamers greenlit, they will pursue even if their pursuit is in poor judgement from misreading what gamers want.

This generation? I reject the premise of the thread. Gaming been mostly pretty shitty way longer. Cause being that it got too big and brought out the worst of the corporate vultures. They don't know video games.

Lets not forget Sweet Baby Inc. They hurt this generation like a mf. Compare Spiderman 1 and 2 and tell me its not true. Compare gow2018 to Ragnarok and tell me its not true.

This gen mostly just continued and doubled down what was shit with the last gen. Sony, Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft. Easier to just say almost all AAA developers make shit games, while putting aggressive microtransactions on top of them.

Or that. Depends on how you wanna see it. Gamers could just.. not buy turds, and we'd stop getting them. But that's like asking people to understand politics before they vote.

My problem is there's still PS4 and Xbox one games being released. This far in the gen we need Devs to scrap last gen versions and get the best out the hardware.

Too much emphasis on live service. Sony said it themselves nothing major is being released until April 2025 and that was a year ago while they focus on GAAS.

A lot of big budget movie games, instead of more diverse games. Sony even screwed themselves over, because they can't keep on releasing these big budget titles that sink money for them, and maintain profitability, and so they do stupid things like making their devs pump out remasters and remakes.

Ultimately xbox has the right idea with gamepass, bringing gaming back to the masses, and making gaming great again.

I bought the right console, and the only one worth buying.

On a side note, Nintendo is the smartest company....they just make low budget games that they can pump out in 3 to 4 years at most. Xbox should do the same next gen, just release a weaker console and focus on gamepass, and pumping out low budget games with big bang for buck. Sony can continue pumping out remasters and remakes 🤣

I Herd its cows, like every gen. lol :P

Game Development costs

Most sectors are seeing much more cost/expense to income, not just gaming.

Cuts are part of a way to survive unfortunately.

Cut games being developed less costs, less risk

Cust staff less cost, less risk.

not a great time to be a gamer really.

Can you stop spacing every sentence? You ruin my reading experience, tdkmillsy.

Can't wait for Sony to get back to what they are good at. Don't mind the odd live service game thrown in but they need to go back to what they do.

n

o

I

w

i

l

l

not

Too much focus on big AAA games from AAA studios

Let's have the AAA studios experiment and make some AA games (Rockstar with Bully)

This would help bring more unique experiences and create new IPs.

But for now I'll look to indies for AA games. Im loving Weird West right now

Seriously don't know what you're talking about here. ;o

This gen with GamePass makes this gen the best gen ever... Evah!! And I mean that. :P

Games that are not solely developed for this gen and still on past gen hardware.

Live service games.

Triple A industry making trash games and expecting people to play them every day.

It is the live service mentality problem, even showing up in single player games. People don't have that much time, it's not physically possible. The publishers still say "well it didn't go viral" and wipe the whole thing resulting in an endless cycle of trash. The AAA industry is 90% trash - now think about that in terms of how much money is being evaporated by dumb c-level decisions.

Thankfully the wider games industry is still interesting with smaller devs, but it's still annoying to watch big-money gaming largely implode.

100% Agree. Gamers/Consumers have more power than they seem to realize. Oddly enough, I have noticed gamers being more active with their frustrations lately instead of just complaining and not doing anything about it. Hell Divers 2 is a more recent example of this.

PC gamers tend to be more reactive for better and for worse.

The money environment surrounding it.

Costs are high, returns are low.

Every time I see the opportunity to spend €70 on a video game these days I look at what's on offer. The content may be there but the performance of video games leaves a lot to be desired.

Let's take Rise of the Ronin as an example. It doesn't look ugly but it doesn't stand out graphically either.

In fact the modes that are on offer here start to bother me.

There's usually a graphics mode that offers a pretty game at 4K or there is a performance mode for people like me that offers 60fps at the cost of either graphics or resolution, or both.

I feel that performance as well as graphics (devided by either resolution or framerate) are taking a serious hit and I'm not compelled at all to spend €70 for a game that can't offer both.

So for me it's the lack of people coding or programming.

The amount of work involved in game development is truly underestimated or appreciated.

AAA games are not good anymore.

Not much games being made.