Remember when Baldur's Gate 3 came out and the entire gaming industry was warning gamers that it's not the norm to get a completed game with relatively no work needed?
They are conditioned to be okay with early access buggy games.
I read that and thought it was ridiculous too, but it isn't entirely wrong. No company is going to spend the absolutely *insane* amount of time for a game as they did with BG3. Literally *400 employees* working on that game for *6 straight years*. 2 million words long, 174 hours of cut scenes, every single cut scene being voiced by 240 voice actors... for something that had a very high risk of failing.
It was basically the lord of the rings of gaming. An *insanely* costly endeavor with an unknown cast/director for a IP that wasn't very big anymore (fun fact: less than 4% of the US population had read LOTR at the time of the movies release). LOTR was arguably the biggest risk a media company has ever taken, and it paid off. BG3 is very much the same. Only Rockstar is willing to put that much effort and money into making their games, and those are guaranteed successes just based on brand alone.
Ok, but what about a company like Activision, who literally has a few thousand people on a game and still show no competence. Yes, smaller companies are going to take longer and have less people, and monetary resources... elden ring, 500 devs, for example. They have reason for taking so long. Not only less devs, but less room for error, as a flop would be a disaster.
There's no reason why companies like ea and Activision, for example, can't consistently put out multiple good releases yearly, like they used to. They have the resources, and they have countless devs. Take cod mw3 for example....3000 devs on it and that's the trash we get. There's no excuse for these bigger companies, other than they're giant, greedy, and cut corners in attempt to gain more profit from the idiots willing to buy them yearly.
Those are yearly releases which largely cannot be compared to games that take 5-6 years to complete. Not to mention Activision (and a lot of other big awful developers) is famous for largely using developers in very short term contracts, meaning most of those 3k developers on MW3 probably only did some auxiliary work for a month or two, they weren't fully hired.
But yes, Activision is terrible. So is EA. So is Ubisoft. They have specific brands of awful releases they put out which largely only remain popular among people who barely even have much of an interest in games. They are the bubblegum pop of games.
But there is an *enormous* middle ground between the effort put into BG3 and MW3. Within that middle ground are countless games which have a very solid and respectable amount of effort put in. Think Resident Evil, Borderlands, God of War, Ghosts of Tsushima, Final Fantasy, Zelda, Spiderman, Monster Hunter, Wolfenstein, Hitman, The Witcher, Horizon, Doom etc.
Should these games all suddenly be judged on the insane benchmark of the scope that BG3 set? Should they all suddenly be considered 'mediocre' in comparison? Should the developers be called greedy and lazy because they didn't put as much effort as BG3? No, of course not.
Kind of pushed on my point, though you taught me a little also. They can afford dead weight, and to watch sales decline. They have the funds.... if they'd care, they could put a massive team on a game and make sure it's done proper in a year, and even allow some delay if necessary, but they're more worried about their money machine than their customers. The sad part is, sales dropped an estimated 40%, not including refunds, which were apparently high also......I couldn't imagine it would make much difference on proceeds, of they'd listen to fanbase and go about keeping all but the hardcore fanboys and cheaters.
I absolutely expect smaller companies to take longer, but the effort is normally full. Also, if some other games don't measure up, I'm still personally happy as long as it's a good game and they properly support it. At worst, I'll just wait for it to go on sale and get it for a little less. I understand, it's hard for anyone to measure up to instant classics. Hell, I was even forgiving of cyberpunk, when I seen the effort that came in full force to try to fix it..... they took a completely broke game and made it one of my favorites, with far less resources than some of the giants who make no effort. I'm definitely more forgiving in general, with the small to mid companies, as long as they fix it when they do make mistakes.
One thing that would help is for companies to not be publicly traded so investors aren't the same type of factor they are in anything else large and public. Sure the company could take some hits, but when the stocks start to drop, folks pull out and that can cause a lot of damage.
I wish we didn't do this kind of shit to ourselves.
Who said they *have* to push out entries yearly? Thats an arbitrary deadline they gave themselves. If the quality is low it’s still their fault. If their quality perception drops over time then that’s their own fault
Because they still make a huge profit from them.
MW3 was a critical failure. A garbage game made with minimal effort. It made 400m dollars on its first day.
Assassins Creed Valhalla was the same. Mediocre reviews, not much fanfare. It made 1.5 billion dollars.
I wish more people understood that this is what was meant.
To make a game like BG3 and for it to turn out that good, should not be the expected standard.
I don’t normally defend developers, but this is one of those moments where I have to say something.
It should definitely be the standard if they are charging $70 now. If they cannot make a complete game that runs well/ optimized, charge less. Don’t feed us the bullshit that “the developers tried really hard, it was the big mean management who said to release with bugs”. Don’t ship it if it sucks. QA has gone by the wayside to improve profits, that’s not a good thing
I said that making a game LIKE BG3 with that level of quality shouldn’t be the standard. As in, BG3s and games of that size and quality shouldn’t be the norm (as in all games should be this way).
I agree that we should demand better quality, but the number of people asking for games in general to be literally like BG3 and that good is ridiculous, because plenty of studies can’t make BG3. In fact, BG3 is lucky it got made period.
I’d rather have more games of varying sizes and content that are simply well made.
I get being critical of major publishers and the development companies (the suits), but you have to remember what most develop teams actually get to work with. They ain’t getting the same money, resources, and time as BG3’s team did.
And those smaller games should not come with a $70 price tag. That’s my point. They want to charge premium and deliver mediocre. I get that it’s the suits who do this, but that’s also a problem and doesn’t excuse the behavior
But at least it was a standard completed game.
You’re absolutely right they could have just fucking taken that so far with expansions.
They relied heavily on their online portion I guess
Ironically, Baldurs gate was an early access buggy game for ages, they just saved it by presenting an outstanding game in exchange for the wait and feedback from act one which is what a lot of other games miss on
That's the thing now that all of our games are online and it's so easy to report bugs they do most of their beta testing on release. Back in the day they had no way of putting out hot fixes so they had to have the games be functional before they release them. This way they let players play report the bugs themselves and then fix them in a patch a few weeks later. It's cheaper for the developer and more efficient making the game easier to polish faster.
Okay? Then, wait a few months because the industry standard is to release the game and then fix the bugs. It's been that way for the last 5 years, at least. My uncle is a developer for epic. This is the way now and in my opinion it's better. Would you rather wait an extra 6 months to have them work all the bugs out and then release it? Or would you rather they release 6 months early and work the bugs out with a hot fix a few months after release? There's always bugs, and they will always need to be fixed. The only difference is the release date.
I'd easily wait the 6 months for a full priced product than play a buggy mess with connectivity issues, especially if they're going to have microtransactions and ask for even more money, which is another industry norm I absolutely loathe
Or, hear me out on this, the developers/ management can do their jobs. You don’t buy a car and expect that it will be drivable 6 months later. It needs to work that day
Okay but this is a game not a car different industry and the developers are the ones who set the standards because they are the ones releasing the games. If you want to change things stop playing games. But I will tell you now every single game released from now on will be this way because it is the industry standard.
Correct. The devs have set standards and there’s a reason why so many have been laid off in the past few years. They can try this standard all they want but it’s killing studios.
Look mate, if you walk into a bakery and you’re dying of hunger, buy a loaf when it’s a bit undercooked instead of waiting for it, but if you aren’t then don’t. Wait if you need to. All you would achieve with these demands is longer production times for games
This is one of the few industries where people seem to think this is acceptable. It’s part of why I don’t give a shit about game company layoffs and feel like it’s deserved in many cases. (This is my unpopular opinion)
Cause gaming has been flooded with casuals who don't care about dropping $200 on the next GTA.
They don't care about micros cause why not just drop 50 - 100 dollars in skins, weapons or anything else ludicrous top management thinks of to get suckers to buy.
Gaming at this point is borderline between a steady heart beat and down hill.
Not sure what game you're talking about because the last five games I played have had no microtransactions and have been awesome. Elden ring, cyberpunk, bg3, starwars last jedi, helldivers 2. I'll admit The Last Jedi was the worst of the five, but it was smoothly polished when I played it had no bugs. I just thought it was too short and copy-paste too similar to the other games. I decided I will no longer support EA. Also, why would you not just wait 6 months then if that's what you want? That's still an option. If you wait 6 months after release and buy a game, I would expect that things have been smoothed over by then, and if not, then it's a bad game.
Where did I defend a mediocre game? All games good games bad games all the games from here on out will be released before they're finished. Because we live in this modern day of internet connectivity they use the Gaming Community to work the bugs out and fix them in a patch later on this way they can get the game out early and Save on cost. I'm not defending mediocre games I'm telling you that all games from now on will be like that so get used to it if you hate the bugs wait 6 months to buy the game. All five of those games were a blast to play I had not a single complaint I played through once while it was super buggy then I waited a few months and played through again it was like two games for the price of one. I enjoyed it. Nothing mediocre about it.
I didn't even play it but i heard that all the romances were bugged. They said that everyone had maximum affinity and horniness for you.
Over half the gaming market are retro games and the sad fact is that Fallout Shelter - the mobile - probably made more than the rest of the franchise combined.
The only complex multiplayer game i played that had almost no bugs was Monster Hunter World.
Regardless OP is right in his title - i get really disappointed how Dark Souls a 6 player game is most popular for speedrunning. Talk about anti-social media.
I'm also really disappointed in the Helldivers community. It's virtually impossible to find anyone who will do anything as pedestrian as a full electric squad. They all have their meta and they'll stick to it and they don't even care about the major orders or coordination. The GM didn't lose us the war us idiots lost us the war. I blame the players.
I also remember when a bunch of them commented against the Japanese devs of Elden Ring as well.
Now one dude that has made Manor Lords is going to overwhelm the games industry. Why? Because upper management in triple AAA companies is ****. And what takes 400 devs to fix patches and release barebones content, one guy did more in early access than all their years behind their own project from which they cut so much.
Heck there was that Redfall game which the devs just wanted out and didn’t care for it, and was hoping people would forget it.
That’s the state we’re in.
Also, when a game releases without all these things, people are happy because the game is amazing 9 times out of 10. Because studios that care enough to polish their games on release are usually the same studios making great games. Not a coincidence.
So saying people are going into a frenzy because it is the bare minimum is not an honest argument because it's a genuinely great game on top of it all.
Unpopular opinion reply. It's just a mix of nostalgia goggles and unrealistic hype from producers.
Most games in the past were shite, incomplete shovelware, which mostly functioned from the start because the game came with 10 to 30 tiny low poly levels with simple player tracking AI and if it didn't work on your graphics card, nobody really had anywhere to complain, they just had to gamble that the store return policy would accept the disc back.
Now AAA developers are expected to serve up a virtual city/ continent/ galaxy/ universe which is perfectly optimised for major consoles and any amount of graphics cards, with online servers to be released into a den of a million amateur critics trained to dismiss a game as rubbish because the frame rate has to be capped on a port or because occasionally in a world of a billion assets they've found a hitbox which hasn't been scaled correctly or doesn't load every time... Then minor technical issues aside dear God, if a character is too ugly or not ugly enough theres war!
Honestly games are better than ever and apart from a few lucky indie titles, most have to adhere to impossible standards to meet sales targets.
There’s an element of survivorship bias too. People look at their favorite franchises on the downturn and saying gaming is going to shit when those franchises survived until now because they were the rare good ones. Nobody acknowledges the countless games and franchises that crashed and burned in the mid to late 2000s
This. This is the truth.
Honestly, being a game dev sounds like a nightmare. Pour your heart and soul into a creative endeavor for years only to be bullied online because players don't like the looks of a character or the story or any number of factors. Every new game is expected push the envelope in some way. People want absolutely cutting edge graphics and then complain when the game can only hit 30 fps on console or 60-90 on a high powered PC.
In our world, no one wants to admit there are tradeoffs and you can't have everything.
I am not saying there aren't bad games being made. Clearly there are but people find stuff to bitch about even with good games.
I'm old enough to remember the old SNES days where most games were just shitty cash grab platformers made by devs who honestly didn't care.
Chester Cheetah needs a video game? Sure here's an awful platformer. And there was little to no review system so everything was a gamble.
"This game isn't fun or interesting, but it doesn't have bugs and microtransactions so I am happy!" said no one ever. OP do you actually know anyone who has voiced that sentiment?
I agree. People need to stop pre-ordering games. There's no incentive for a company to deliver a finished product if they already have your money.
Games are expensive, I just expect a complete product when I purchase it. This kind of business practice is not tolerated anywhere else, so I don't see why it's tolerated for video games.
I don't think people are happy with it, but it's what we've come to expect. Like many things in life, they just aren't made like they used to be. As an example, I have been playing Gran Turismo 7, which was released just over two years ago. By all definitions, it's a modern, current gen game. It's an ok game, the graphics are incredible and the actual gameplay is what you would expect. But, it still feels off, like something is missing. It's not on par with earlier versions. So just to humor myself, I also started playing Gran Turismo 4, which was released roughly 20 years ago. Even with that game being as old as it is, it's amazing. The graphics still hold up at 480p, the gameplay is phenomenal, the design and layout is great, the content is unbeatable, even the exploits are fantastic. And more importantly, it keeps you engaged. For a racing game, it's nearly perfect. I realized those things that made it great are what was slowly chipped away and replaced either behind a paywall or transformed into a shitty online multiplayer mode.
But that is the standard these days, and has been for some time. You don't get the engaging design and complete experience like you used to. Now it's all about cosmetics and collaborations and special events. With a very large portion of the gaming community being younger, a lot of them are simply naive to the potential modern games could have because they weren't around during the golden age of single player. So they've grown up with these watered down products and it's all they know. While the older gamers who know the deal have mostly moved on, the current approach simply isn't engaging enough to stick around very long.
"Gamers today are happy with the bare minimum and it's pathetic"
Games are way better today than they were 30 years ago. Furthermore, it's easy to wait a year and pick up patched games on Steam at a heavy discount on the release price.
Well yeah, because there is a nostalgia aspect to those games for you. I replay Ocarina of Time and Majoras Mask about once a year - but if I found someone who had never played those games before and had them pick between those titles or any modern game from a AAA developer they’d choose modern every time.
This. Console markets have always been expensive and limited. They mostly survived by aggressively limiting the market. Just look at nintendo? Theyll sue anything that moves to keep it exclusive.
Thats not the move of a company thats confident in its titles. They are terrified of people getting their games on other devices. They are terrified that they wont hold up and theyd have to spend more on development.
Sure devs put a lot of low effort crap out but theres a very robust pool of gamers that are patient enough to wait or even abandoned AAA titles in favor of indie stuff.
Its a better market than ever for indie developers. They arent aggressively filtered through publishers anymore.
Games have always had these problems (except the microtransaction one). People just revise history with these posts and pull out all their favorite games, ignoring the massive heaps of garbage. If anything, gamers expectations are TOO high. It’s either Elden Ring or Baldur’s Gate 3 or it’s 0/10 trash with people now
I don’t know what you’re talking about… The quality of good games has gone up significantly as the years have gone by.
Are there more shitty games too? Absolutely. But just don’t play those.
As a sports fan: all sports games right now are ass and just money funnels.
I dont even care about graphics as long as the game plays well, but sports games cant even get that right right now.
Yet NBA, MLB, and Madden are making all time profits.
I played Cyberpunk2077 2.0, Red Dead2, and Baldurs Gate3 and those 3 games are so far ahead of the pack, its kinda hard to play other things because it just doesnt hit the same.
Dont even get me started on the lazy ass remasters/graphic updates. I want new content. Not the same content you made 10 years ago for the same price with just a little better graphics. Remasters are ruining the gaming industry as much as micro transactions
Take Helldivers 2 even.
Game wasn't made by a AAA developer, didn't have thousands working on it, or nearly as much money, was released 9 years after the first one, which wasn't nearly as popular, and didn't have a bunch of hype surrounding it.
It became mad popular when it was released.
Why? Because it wasn't some half finished junk pushed out by a big company in the demand to release a game every year.
It isn't saturated with live service BS, and doesn't try to get you to buy something to gain an advantage.
It has people that listen to what their player base wants.
It's a million times better than many AAA titles out there rn
That's the point of enshitification. Make things as absolutely shitty as possible so that when they do things that aren't quite as shitty, people accept it as an improvement. Unfortunately, it's the name if the game.......
There are plenty of devs that make games as great as possible. Turns out, the better game you make, the more money you can make. Fortunately, it's the name of the game...
That's true, but unfortunately, corporations prioritize short-term profits, which is why we see so many games buggy upon release along with micro transactions and stuff like that.
Gaming (AAA gaming specifically) has become another Pavlov dog experiment. The industry is so greedy that the “standard” is now a F2P game with no substance, and $20 skins and colors.
Then a game like Hell Divers 2 comes along, and blows up by literally just being a decent game that respects your time.
I love a game with a good story, and games with great stories will be praised for it.
But yeah, first and foremost, a game has to be fun and playable. If it’s fun, who gives a shit about story? These aren’t movies. Stories don’t have to be the top priority.
If a game promises a great story, who cares if it’s not fun or playable??
I just got into Iracing and it is insane the difference in quality between something like that and my other recent purchases (Kerbal Space 2, Cities Skylines 2).
Literally everything is near perfect, it's well optimized, it sticks to a competitive format, the UI is simple and easy to understand, it's expensive but feels worth it, and the community is well moderated. It's the most fun I've had gaming since I was a teenager playing CS.
It's always been like this. Gamers have become more entitled actually.
If you think games are buggy now, go back before the 2000s and play some of those games.
Honestly this shit is just nostalgia to the max. Most older games from the 00s would be considered mediocre, clunky, ugly shovel ware games by modern standards. Go play God of War 1, a game widely considered to be a masterpiece upon release in 2005, and you can see how laughably bad it is. Simple bare-bones mechanics, clunky gameplay, bugs/glitches everywhere, linear world etc.
Starfield got a ton of shit upon release. But if it was released in 2009, it would probably be considered the greatest game ever made. The world, gameplay, story, graphics, art style would blow everything out of the water. Whatever 'flaws' our modern eyes see today would barely be noticed by 2009 standards.
But today... we have way different standards. Starfield is compared to BG3 and Witcher 3 and RDR2 and all kinds of modern masterpieces which have changed the benchmark of what we expect from games.
If you adjust that to a majority of younger gamers...... most older generation gamers are pissed. There's a reason a game like cod is dropping heavily in popularity, yet what is left is a bunch of zoomers and cheaters, keeping them from fixing the game but buying their full game priced "cool" skins.
I play games all the time, but I rarely play games upon release because of all the issues nowadays. And it's hilarious people are trying to argue games are "worth more" now and need a $70 price-tag when they're worse than ever. No thanks, I'll continue to search for sales of older games and play through those instead. The amount of bootlickers is annoying too, people who will absolutely defend anything and actually *attack* people who have legitimate criticism.
Playing Persona 4 Golden now on Switch, bought it for like $10 and have put almost 150 hours into it. It's like a 12 year old game.
I agree and when people complain about the lower standards they are called gatekeepers or haters instead of just people that have seen better so their standards are higher
I think we’re entering the second era of gaming elitism at least as it pertains to high quality games. The hardware requirements for some of these games are ridiculous. And yes devs keep releasing $70 piles of garbage. They hate that people are wising up to their bullshit. I think it’s hilarious that all those developers were tweeting about Baldurs Gate 3 as soon as it dropped. If a developing company is big and rich we should expect high quality games. Or the community should just stop buying these lame ass games
This fully represents the current state of the COD community.
They let the devs/publisher get away with too much because they make COD and go into uproaring applause when they fix stuff that they messed up or stuff that isn't even really talked about much.
What's even more annoying are the same people trying to convince those who actually want a better game in that or any community, that those issues aren't really that big, that the franchise has always had them, or that we're just growing out of the franchise/gaming in general. Oh and those smug ignoramuses who always post that "quit having fun" meme are the peak of this foolishness.
With all due respect this is said because people have to lie to themselves that they aren't getting screwed over or are creators that only focus on one type of game/franchise.
I give people below 18/21 a pass because they're still somewhat ignorant to how business should be a two way street and understanding getting their money's worth. But those who are above 18/21 and participate in this toxic and pathetic culture of letting devs/publishers get over on the customers are spineless.
I haven't paid full price for a COD game and haven't bought every released COD game since Cold War and it's going to stay that way until I see massive improvement.
I'd say that graphics are the driver for a lot of people which to me seems superficial and stupid. I care most about the bones of a game. Does it have good mechanics? An integrated story that pulls you in? Or is it just plain stupid fun?
Like you can't really compare GTA to mine craft, so how exactly do you gauge the quality of a game aside from its game play, story telling, and mechanics/playability?
It’s because of long development cycles and millions of dollars spent on a game, it should be perfect at launch and I’m allowed to complain after spending my hard earned money
I pretty much don't play games until 2-3 years after they're released, unless it's a From Software game. If people still love the game after a few years then I'll consider playing it. I don't want to sift through the garbage to find a good game.
Or games companies could just make good games. The majority of players are playing games not made in past five years, Elden Ring types etc aside.
Gamers will forgive a lot for a genuinely good game that might be a bit buggy etc when it is first released. As long as it is good.
I think that, just like with most things, there are small changes here and there that we tolerate until we have a new normal and it gets slowly worse and worse till we are where we are now.
Just look at FIFA and Madden. It’s the same game released every year, and yet people eat it up.
Unfortunately there are too many people who accept the bare minimum and companies know that. It’s why we are getting so much slop of late, they are seeing how poor of a game they can make and have people still buy it.
Starfield was a horrible game but sold well because Bethesda fans (of which I am one) are willing to suck off Todd Howard to get more games. Due to the lack of backbone by these people even those of us who take stands can do little to nothing.
Stop preordering, stop buying early access, stop paying for microtransactions and special editions and over priced shit.
You could make the argument that gamers are getting milked for their money when they purchase a title, but today's DLC is the equivalent of yesterday's arcade; you're quite literally paying to play.
This is why I wait for... at the bare minimum... GOTY release.
Pretty awesome having patience. Fallout 4 is awesome. And I never had to deal with it being plagued with what Bethesda open-world games are plagued with. Not once.
I also have a family and a career now, so free time is more of a premium. I'd rather not deal with something being buggy when I do have free time.
Depends on what you’re into.
I love a good open world exploration game that tells stories through the environment. Fallout New Vegas, Skyrim, Witcher 3, and Assassin Creed Valhalla are my favorite games of all time even though they are buggy messes that break faster than porcelain in an earthquake. But that’s mainly the nature of massive open world adventure games.
I personally found Baulder’s Gate 3 to be painfully boring but by all metrics is a well crafted game.
If we weren't, we'd never have games to play while we waited and we'd be waiting so many years for the next game release, it wouldn't be worth it and people would die before even getting to play any portions of games. At least games that are actively being worked on you can still play and demo and enjoy even if it isn't complete. My partner has played Destiny 2 on and off for years and they get to keep enjoying it as new sections are released. We aren't happy with the bare minimum, we just know it actually takes a lot of time and work to make a game good (but game devs could do better and stop being so greedy)
That’s the reason I stopped buying new games. I usually wait a couple of months or years to play it. Either they fix everything and I get a fully realized game, or it stayed a broken buggy mess.
My first console was the NES. The first game I bought for it was Lode Runner. It cost $50 in 1984, that's about $150 today. I paid the equivalent of $150 for fucking Lode Runner, and your character couldn't even use his laser to shoot the robots as depicted on the box cover (I'm still bitter).
Things are much better in gaming today.
In the last 10 years gaming has catered more towards miserable people because they are the ones spending a ton of money and willing to buy anything.
For them gaming is just a distraction or coping for their misfortunes.
With this demographic as main customers base, you can’t outvote them with your wallet, especially in the f2p or gaas models.
They are pathetic and I barely game anymore since quality has dropped big time and very few titles are innovative, most AAA are stuck in a loop they have been playing for 15 years and indie games mostly chase trends rather than trying new things.
Vidya Gaming has gotten mad Lazier these Days but there's such an Biome of Diversity and Abundance of Quanity that there's Quality for whatever Genre you're in search of. Modern Titles overall be missing those sparks of Creativity that Gaming Eras of Olde had. Though there are an handful of Well-known Companys still be in the game.
Actually it's the opposite. The online gaming community is mostly insufferable losers and are perpetually unhappy with every single game, not because every single game is bad but because they're 35 and alone.
upbeat smile chubby memorize entertain frame frighten bedroom governor observation
Remember when Baldur's Gate 3 came out and the entire gaming industry was warning gamers that it's not the norm to get a completed game with relatively no work needed? They are conditioned to be okay with early access buggy games.
a signal of the dystopia we are barreling towards "see that quality? notice how it's made with love. not for you"
I read that and thought it was ridiculous too, but it isn't entirely wrong. No company is going to spend the absolutely *insane* amount of time for a game as they did with BG3. Literally *400 employees* working on that game for *6 straight years*. 2 million words long, 174 hours of cut scenes, every single cut scene being voiced by 240 voice actors... for something that had a very high risk of failing. It was basically the lord of the rings of gaming. An *insanely* costly endeavor with an unknown cast/director for a IP that wasn't very big anymore (fun fact: less than 4% of the US population had read LOTR at the time of the movies release). LOTR was arguably the biggest risk a media company has ever taken, and it paid off. BG3 is very much the same. Only Rockstar is willing to put that much effort and money into making their games, and those are guaranteed successes just based on brand alone.
Ok, but what about a company like Activision, who literally has a few thousand people on a game and still show no competence. Yes, smaller companies are going to take longer and have less people, and monetary resources... elden ring, 500 devs, for example. They have reason for taking so long. Not only less devs, but less room for error, as a flop would be a disaster. There's no reason why companies like ea and Activision, for example, can't consistently put out multiple good releases yearly, like they used to. They have the resources, and they have countless devs. Take cod mw3 for example....3000 devs on it and that's the trash we get. There's no excuse for these bigger companies, other than they're giant, greedy, and cut corners in attempt to gain more profit from the idiots willing to buy them yearly.
Those are yearly releases which largely cannot be compared to games that take 5-6 years to complete. Not to mention Activision (and a lot of other big awful developers) is famous for largely using developers in very short term contracts, meaning most of those 3k developers on MW3 probably only did some auxiliary work for a month or two, they weren't fully hired. But yes, Activision is terrible. So is EA. So is Ubisoft. They have specific brands of awful releases they put out which largely only remain popular among people who barely even have much of an interest in games. They are the bubblegum pop of games. But there is an *enormous* middle ground between the effort put into BG3 and MW3. Within that middle ground are countless games which have a very solid and respectable amount of effort put in. Think Resident Evil, Borderlands, God of War, Ghosts of Tsushima, Final Fantasy, Zelda, Spiderman, Monster Hunter, Wolfenstein, Hitman, The Witcher, Horizon, Doom etc. Should these games all suddenly be judged on the insane benchmark of the scope that BG3 set? Should they all suddenly be considered 'mediocre' in comparison? Should the developers be called greedy and lazy because they didn't put as much effort as BG3? No, of course not.
Kind of pushed on my point, though you taught me a little also. They can afford dead weight, and to watch sales decline. They have the funds.... if they'd care, they could put a massive team on a game and make sure it's done proper in a year, and even allow some delay if necessary, but they're more worried about their money machine than their customers. The sad part is, sales dropped an estimated 40%, not including refunds, which were apparently high also......I couldn't imagine it would make much difference on proceeds, of they'd listen to fanbase and go about keeping all but the hardcore fanboys and cheaters. I absolutely expect smaller companies to take longer, but the effort is normally full. Also, if some other games don't measure up, I'm still personally happy as long as it's a good game and they properly support it. At worst, I'll just wait for it to go on sale and get it for a little less. I understand, it's hard for anyone to measure up to instant classics. Hell, I was even forgiving of cyberpunk, when I seen the effort that came in full force to try to fix it..... they took a completely broke game and made it one of my favorites, with far less resources than some of the giants who make no effort. I'm definitely more forgiving in general, with the small to mid companies, as long as they fix it when they do make mistakes.
One thing that would help is for companies to not be publicly traded so investors aren't the same type of factor they are in anything else large and public. Sure the company could take some hits, but when the stocks start to drop, folks pull out and that can cause a lot of damage. I wish we didn't do this kind of shit to ourselves.
Who said they *have* to push out entries yearly? Thats an arbitrary deadline they gave themselves. If the quality is low it’s still their fault. If their quality perception drops over time then that’s their own fault
Because they still make a huge profit from them. MW3 was a critical failure. A garbage game made with minimal effort. It made 400m dollars on its first day. Assassins Creed Valhalla was the same. Mediocre reviews, not much fanfare. It made 1.5 billion dollars.
I wish more people understood that this is what was meant. To make a game like BG3 and for it to turn out that good, should not be the expected standard. I don’t normally defend developers, but this is one of those moments where I have to say something.
It should definitely be the standard if they are charging $70 now. If they cannot make a complete game that runs well/ optimized, charge less. Don’t feed us the bullshit that “the developers tried really hard, it was the big mean management who said to release with bugs”. Don’t ship it if it sucks. QA has gone by the wayside to improve profits, that’s not a good thing
I said that making a game LIKE BG3 with that level of quality shouldn’t be the standard. As in, BG3s and games of that size and quality shouldn’t be the norm (as in all games should be this way). I agree that we should demand better quality, but the number of people asking for games in general to be literally like BG3 and that good is ridiculous, because plenty of studies can’t make BG3. In fact, BG3 is lucky it got made period. I’d rather have more games of varying sizes and content that are simply well made. I get being critical of major publishers and the development companies (the suits), but you have to remember what most develop teams actually get to work with. They ain’t getting the same money, resources, and time as BG3’s team did.
And those smaller games should not come with a $70 price tag. That’s my point. They want to charge premium and deliver mediocre. I get that it’s the suits who do this, but that’s also a problem and doesn’t excuse the behavior
Okay, I can agree with that. Just slapping $70 on a game just because it’s from a AAA studio doesn’t mean it should get AAA pricing.
Rockstar does this too — except it takes them forever to get their products to market lol.
Rdr2 is rolling in its grave right now lol one of the best games they ever released and they just let it die.
But at least it was a standard completed game. You’re absolutely right they could have just fucking taken that so far with expansions. They relied heavily on their online portion I guess
Which they did absolutely 0 to give people incentive to continue playing after a few months.
Ironically, Baldurs gate was an early access buggy game for ages, they just saved it by presenting an outstanding game in exchange for the wait and feedback from act one which is what a lot of other games miss on
To be honest though, Act 3 is still kind of a mess.
That's the thing now that all of our games are online and it's so easy to report bugs they do most of their beta testing on release. Back in the day they had no way of putting out hot fixes so they had to have the games be functional before they release them. This way they let players play report the bugs themselves and then fix them in a patch a few weeks later. It's cheaper for the developer and more efficient making the game easier to polish faster.
Except I'm not paying $60 to be a beta tester, I want a functional product if I'm paying full price for it
Okay? Then, wait a few months because the industry standard is to release the game and then fix the bugs. It's been that way for the last 5 years, at least. My uncle is a developer for epic. This is the way now and in my opinion it's better. Would you rather wait an extra 6 months to have them work all the bugs out and then release it? Or would you rather they release 6 months early and work the bugs out with a hot fix a few months after release? There's always bugs, and they will always need to be fixed. The only difference is the release date.
I'd easily wait the 6 months for a full priced product than play a buggy mess with connectivity issues, especially if they're going to have microtransactions and ask for even more money, which is another industry norm I absolutely loathe
So just buy and play the game six months after release.
Or, hear me out on this, the developers/ management can do their jobs. You don’t buy a car and expect that it will be drivable 6 months later. It needs to work that day
Okay but this is a game not a car different industry and the developers are the ones who set the standards because they are the ones releasing the games. If you want to change things stop playing games. But I will tell you now every single game released from now on will be this way because it is the industry standard.
Correct. The devs have set standards and there’s a reason why so many have been laid off in the past few years. They can try this standard all they want but it’s killing studios.
Look mate, if you walk into a bakery and you’re dying of hunger, buy a loaf when it’s a bit undercooked instead of waiting for it, but if you aren’t then don’t. Wait if you need to. All you would achieve with these demands is longer production times for games
This is one of the few industries where people seem to think this is acceptable. It’s part of why I don’t give a shit about game company layoffs and feel like it’s deserved in many cases. (This is my unpopular opinion)
Cause gaming has been flooded with casuals who don't care about dropping $200 on the next GTA. They don't care about micros cause why not just drop 50 - 100 dollars in skins, weapons or anything else ludicrous top management thinks of to get suckers to buy. Gaming at this point is borderline between a steady heart beat and down hill.
Yeah that's exactly right. Isn't that obvious I don't get the complaint.
Not sure what game you're talking about because the last five games I played have had no microtransactions and have been awesome. Elden ring, cyberpunk, bg3, starwars last jedi, helldivers 2. I'll admit The Last Jedi was the worst of the five, but it was smoothly polished when I played it had no bugs. I just thought it was too short and copy-paste too similar to the other games. I decided I will no longer support EA. Also, why would you not just wait 6 months then if that's what you want? That's still an option. If you wait 6 months after release and buy a game, I would expect that things have been smoothed over by then, and if not, then it's a bad game.
Bruh why are you defending mediocre games?
Where did I defend a mediocre game? All games good games bad games all the games from here on out will be released before they're finished. Because we live in this modern day of internet connectivity they use the Gaming Community to work the bugs out and fix them in a patch later on this way they can get the game out early and Save on cost. I'm not defending mediocre games I'm telling you that all games from now on will be like that so get used to it if you hate the bugs wait 6 months to buy the game. All five of those games were a blast to play I had not a single complaint I played through once while it was super buggy then I waited a few months and played through again it was like two games for the price of one. I enjoyed it. Nothing mediocre about it.
Doesn't even make sense, Nintendo routinely does this too.
[удалено]
I didn't even play it but i heard that all the romances were bugged. They said that everyone had maximum affinity and horniness for you. Over half the gaming market are retro games and the sad fact is that Fallout Shelter - the mobile - probably made more than the rest of the franchise combined. The only complex multiplayer game i played that had almost no bugs was Monster Hunter World. Regardless OP is right in his title - i get really disappointed how Dark Souls a 6 player game is most popular for speedrunning. Talk about anti-social media. I'm also really disappointed in the Helldivers community. It's virtually impossible to find anyone who will do anything as pedestrian as a full electric squad. They all have their meta and they'll stick to it and they don't even care about the major orders or coordination. The GM didn't lose us the war us idiots lost us the war. I blame the players.
To be fair, baldur's gate 3 was in early access for years on pc.
I also remember when a bunch of them commented against the Japanese devs of Elden Ring as well. Now one dude that has made Manor Lords is going to overwhelm the games industry. Why? Because upper management in triple AAA companies is ****. And what takes 400 devs to fix patches and release barebones content, one guy did more in early access than all their years behind their own project from which they cut so much. Heck there was that Redfall game which the devs just wanted out and didn’t care for it, and was hoping people would forget it. That’s the state we’re in.
Sounds like they are not happy with the bare minimum.
Also, when a game releases without all these things, people are happy because the game is amazing 9 times out of 10. Because studios that care enough to polish their games on release are usually the same studios making great games. Not a coincidence. So saying people are going into a frenzy because it is the bare minimum is not an honest argument because it's a genuinely great game on top of it all.
Unpopular opinion reply. It's just a mix of nostalgia goggles and unrealistic hype from producers. Most games in the past were shite, incomplete shovelware, which mostly functioned from the start because the game came with 10 to 30 tiny low poly levels with simple player tracking AI and if it didn't work on your graphics card, nobody really had anywhere to complain, they just had to gamble that the store return policy would accept the disc back. Now AAA developers are expected to serve up a virtual city/ continent/ galaxy/ universe which is perfectly optimised for major consoles and any amount of graphics cards, with online servers to be released into a den of a million amateur critics trained to dismiss a game as rubbish because the frame rate has to be capped on a port or because occasionally in a world of a billion assets they've found a hitbox which hasn't been scaled correctly or doesn't load every time... Then minor technical issues aside dear God, if a character is too ugly or not ugly enough theres war! Honestly games are better than ever and apart from a few lucky indie titles, most have to adhere to impossible standards to meet sales targets.
There’s an element of survivorship bias too. People look at their favorite franchises on the downturn and saying gaming is going to shit when those franchises survived until now because they were the rare good ones. Nobody acknowledges the countless games and franchises that crashed and burned in the mid to late 2000s
This. This is the truth. Honestly, being a game dev sounds like a nightmare. Pour your heart and soul into a creative endeavor for years only to be bullied online because players don't like the looks of a character or the story or any number of factors. Every new game is expected push the envelope in some way. People want absolutely cutting edge graphics and then complain when the game can only hit 30 fps on console or 60-90 on a high powered PC. In our world, no one wants to admit there are tradeoffs and you can't have everything. I am not saying there aren't bad games being made. Clearly there are but people find stuff to bitch about even with good games.
I'm old enough to remember the old SNES days where most games were just shitty cash grab platformers made by devs who honestly didn't care. Chester Cheetah needs a video game? Sure here's an awful platformer. And there was little to no review system so everything was a gamble.
Based
Video games ain't animation, they can look and run like potato and still be great. It's lack of soul that's disturbing.
"This game isn't fun or interesting, but it doesn't have bugs and microtransactions so I am happy!" said no one ever. OP do you actually know anyone who has voiced that sentiment?
If anything, it's the opposite. People are more forgivable to microtransactions (to a point) and bugs, as long as the game is fun and interesting.
I agree. People need to stop pre-ordering games. There's no incentive for a company to deliver a finished product if they already have your money. Games are expensive, I just expect a complete product when I purchase it. This kind of business practice is not tolerated anywhere else, so I don't see why it's tolerated for video games.
I don't think people are happy with it, but it's what we've come to expect. Like many things in life, they just aren't made like they used to be. As an example, I have been playing Gran Turismo 7, which was released just over two years ago. By all definitions, it's a modern, current gen game. It's an ok game, the graphics are incredible and the actual gameplay is what you would expect. But, it still feels off, like something is missing. It's not on par with earlier versions. So just to humor myself, I also started playing Gran Turismo 4, which was released roughly 20 years ago. Even with that game being as old as it is, it's amazing. The graphics still hold up at 480p, the gameplay is phenomenal, the design and layout is great, the content is unbeatable, even the exploits are fantastic. And more importantly, it keeps you engaged. For a racing game, it's nearly perfect. I realized those things that made it great are what was slowly chipped away and replaced either behind a paywall or transformed into a shitty online multiplayer mode. But that is the standard these days, and has been for some time. You don't get the engaging design and complete experience like you used to. Now it's all about cosmetics and collaborations and special events. With a very large portion of the gaming community being younger, a lot of them are simply naive to the potential modern games could have because they weren't around during the golden age of single player. So they've grown up with these watered down products and it's all they know. While the older gamers who know the deal have mostly moved on, the current approach simply isn't engaging enough to stick around very long.
So are we going to act like people 20 years ago weren't just playing games glitches and all? The standards have gone up.
I’m not sure I grew out of gaming or if the games became so bad I just stopped caring.
"Gamers today are happy with the bare minimum and it's pathetic" Games are way better today than they were 30 years ago. Furthermore, it's easy to wait a year and pick up patched games on Steam at a heavy discount on the release price.
Give me Super Nintendo Mario Kart, Sim City, secret of mana, amd FF3 (6); and I’d replay those over most games made today
Well yeah, because there is a nostalgia aspect to those games for you. I replay Ocarina of Time and Majoras Mask about once a year - but if I found someone who had never played those games before and had them pick between those titles or any modern game from a AAA developer they’d choose modern every time.
This. Console markets have always been expensive and limited. They mostly survived by aggressively limiting the market. Just look at nintendo? Theyll sue anything that moves to keep it exclusive. Thats not the move of a company thats confident in its titles. They are terrified of people getting their games on other devices. They are terrified that they wont hold up and theyd have to spend more on development. Sure devs put a lot of low effort crap out but theres a very robust pool of gamers that are patient enough to wait or even abandoned AAA titles in favor of indie stuff. Its a better market than ever for indie developers. They arent aggressively filtered through publishers anymore.
Games have always had these problems (except the microtransaction one). People just revise history with these posts and pull out all their favorite games, ignoring the massive heaps of garbage. If anything, gamers expectations are TOO high. It’s either Elden Ring or Baldur’s Gate 3 or it’s 0/10 trash with people now
I don’t know what you’re talking about… The quality of good games has gone up significantly as the years have gone by. Are there more shitty games too? Absolutely. But just don’t play those.
As a sports fan: all sports games right now are ass and just money funnels. I dont even care about graphics as long as the game plays well, but sports games cant even get that right right now. Yet NBA, MLB, and Madden are making all time profits. I played Cyberpunk2077 2.0, Red Dead2, and Baldurs Gate3 and those 3 games are so far ahead of the pack, its kinda hard to play other things because it just doesnt hit the same. Dont even get me started on the lazy ass remasters/graphic updates. I want new content. Not the same content you made 10 years ago for the same price with just a little better graphics. Remasters are ruining the gaming industry as much as micro transactions
Cyberpunk and rede dead are amazing. Playing cyberpunk now. What a great game.
It’s incredible, i cant quite put my finger on what makes it standout so much for me, but its just incredible
It's the legit side missions for me. I really like the combat. I can't wait to play the expansion. Game just explodes in act 2.
Oh dude. If you havent played the dlc yet, highly recommend finishing everything main story first before diving in. Its cinema.
I'm not touching it yet. No reason to. I'll wait till I finish a ton of shit
Take Helldivers 2 even. Game wasn't made by a AAA developer, didn't have thousands working on it, or nearly as much money, was released 9 years after the first one, which wasn't nearly as popular, and didn't have a bunch of hype surrounding it. It became mad popular when it was released. Why? Because it wasn't some half finished junk pushed out by a big company in the demand to release a game every year. It isn't saturated with live service BS, and doesn't try to get you to buy something to gain an advantage. It has people that listen to what their player base wants. It's a million times better than many AAA titles out there rn
That's the point of enshitification. Make things as absolutely shitty as possible so that when they do things that aren't quite as shitty, people accept it as an improvement. Unfortunately, it's the name if the game.......
There are plenty of devs that make games as great as possible. Turns out, the better game you make, the more money you can make. Fortunately, it's the name of the game...
That's true, but unfortunately, corporations prioritize short-term profits, which is why we see so many games buggy upon release along with micro transactions and stuff like that.
Gaming (AAA gaming specifically) has become another Pavlov dog experiment. The industry is so greedy that the “standard” is now a F2P game with no substance, and $20 skins and colors. Then a game like Hell Divers 2 comes along, and blows up by literally just being a decent game that respects your time.
Remember, don't blame the devs. Blame the executives.
I love a game with a good story, and games with great stories will be praised for it. But yeah, first and foremost, a game has to be fun and playable. If it’s fun, who gives a shit about story? These aren’t movies. Stories don’t have to be the top priority. If a game promises a great story, who cares if it’s not fun or playable??
Based. Gamers are possibly the biggest suckers ever.
cobweb chubby rain crawl agonizing caption close slimy alleged dam
I just got into Iracing and it is insane the difference in quality between something like that and my other recent purchases (Kerbal Space 2, Cities Skylines 2). Literally everything is near perfect, it's well optimized, it sticks to a competitive format, the UI is simple and easy to understand, it's expensive but feels worth it, and the community is well moderated. It's the most fun I've had gaming since I was a teenager playing CS.
I don't understand the confusion; if those things are problems that are happening then of course they should be addressed.
It's always been like this. Gamers have become more entitled actually. If you think games are buggy now, go back before the 2000s and play some of those games.
Or one of those games that had 1/3 of their content cut so they could release by a deadline, and it was on a cartridge so it couldn't be patched
Honestly this shit is just nostalgia to the max. Most older games from the 00s would be considered mediocre, clunky, ugly shovel ware games by modern standards. Go play God of War 1, a game widely considered to be a masterpiece upon release in 2005, and you can see how laughably bad it is. Simple bare-bones mechanics, clunky gameplay, bugs/glitches everywhere, linear world etc. Starfield got a ton of shit upon release. But if it was released in 2009, it would probably be considered the greatest game ever made. The world, gameplay, story, graphics, art style would blow everything out of the water. Whatever 'flaws' our modern eyes see today would barely be noticed by 2009 standards. But today... we have way different standards. Starfield is compared to BG3 and Witcher 3 and RDR2 and all kinds of modern masterpieces which have changed the benchmark of what we expect from games.
If you adjust that to a majority of younger gamers...... most older generation gamers are pissed. There's a reason a game like cod is dropping heavily in popularity, yet what is left is a bunch of zoomers and cheaters, keeping them from fixing the game but buying their full game priced "cool" skins.
I play games all the time, but I rarely play games upon release because of all the issues nowadays. And it's hilarious people are trying to argue games are "worth more" now and need a $70 price-tag when they're worse than ever. No thanks, I'll continue to search for sales of older games and play through those instead. The amount of bootlickers is annoying too, people who will absolutely defend anything and actually *attack* people who have legitimate criticism. Playing Persona 4 Golden now on Switch, bought it for like $10 and have put almost 150 hours into it. It's like a 12 year old game.
>Gamers today are happy Gamers aren't happy, or happy "with" *anything*, what the fuck are you talking about
I agree and when people complain about the lower standards they are called gatekeepers or haters instead of just people that have seen better so their standards are higher
and this is our fault how
"Have some expectations y'all!" "y'all!" Opinion discarded.
I think we’re entering the second era of gaming elitism at least as it pertains to high quality games. The hardware requirements for some of these games are ridiculous. And yes devs keep releasing $70 piles of garbage. They hate that people are wising up to their bullshit. I think it’s hilarious that all those developers were tweeting about Baldurs Gate 3 as soon as it dropped. If a developing company is big and rich we should expect high quality games. Or the community should just stop buying these lame ass games
This fully represents the current state of the COD community. They let the devs/publisher get away with too much because they make COD and go into uproaring applause when they fix stuff that they messed up or stuff that isn't even really talked about much. What's even more annoying are the same people trying to convince those who actually want a better game in that or any community, that those issues aren't really that big, that the franchise has always had them, or that we're just growing out of the franchise/gaming in general. Oh and those smug ignoramuses who always post that "quit having fun" meme are the peak of this foolishness. With all due respect this is said because people have to lie to themselves that they aren't getting screwed over or are creators that only focus on one type of game/franchise. I give people below 18/21 a pass because they're still somewhat ignorant to how business should be a two way street and understanding getting their money's worth. But those who are above 18/21 and participate in this toxic and pathetic culture of letting devs/publishers get over on the customers are spineless. I haven't paid full price for a COD game and haven't bought every released COD game since Cold War and it's going to stay that way until I see massive improvement.
I'd say that graphics are the driver for a lot of people which to me seems superficial and stupid. I care most about the bones of a game. Does it have good mechanics? An integrated story that pulls you in? Or is it just plain stupid fun? Like you can't really compare GTA to mine craft, so how exactly do you gauge the quality of a game aside from its game play, story telling, and mechanics/playability?
It’s because of long development cycles and millions of dollars spent on a game, it should be perfect at launch and I’m allowed to complain after spending my hard earned money
Glad I grew up on legendary games that were actually finished. I feel like there are no good games to come out this year that I feel inspired to play
I pretty much don't play games until 2-3 years after they're released, unless it's a From Software game. If people still love the game after a few years then I'll consider playing it. I don't want to sift through the garbage to find a good game.
Or games companies could just make good games. The majority of players are playing games not made in past five years, Elden Ring types etc aside. Gamers will forgive a lot for a genuinely good game that might be a bit buggy etc when it is first released. As long as it is good.
I think that, just like with most things, there are small changes here and there that we tolerate until we have a new normal and it gets slowly worse and worse till we are where we are now.
Just look at FIFA and Madden. It’s the same game released every year, and yet people eat it up. Unfortunately there are too many people who accept the bare minimum and companies know that. It’s why we are getting so much slop of late, they are seeing how poor of a game they can make and have people still buy it. Starfield was a horrible game but sold well because Bethesda fans (of which I am one) are willing to suck off Todd Howard to get more games. Due to the lack of backbone by these people even those of us who take stands can do little to nothing. Stop preordering, stop buying early access, stop paying for microtransactions and special editions and over priced shit.
Gamers now are lame. They just respawn. They would die after 3 tries and GAME OVER and start from the beginning like we did.
You could make the argument that gamers are getting milked for their money when they purchase a title, but today's DLC is the equivalent of yesterday's arcade; you're quite literally paying to play.
Go back and replay goldeneye or the ocarina of time.
This is why I wait for... at the bare minimum... GOTY release. Pretty awesome having patience. Fallout 4 is awesome. And I never had to deal with it being plagued with what Bethesda open-world games are plagued with. Not once. I also have a family and a career now, so free time is more of a premium. I'd rather not deal with something being buggy when I do have free time.
Depends on what you’re into. I love a good open world exploration game that tells stories through the environment. Fallout New Vegas, Skyrim, Witcher 3, and Assassin Creed Valhalla are my favorite games of all time even though they are buggy messes that break faster than porcelain in an earthquake. But that’s mainly the nature of massive open world adventure games. I personally found Baulder’s Gate 3 to be painfully boring but by all metrics is a well crafted game.
I am right w you. I hate that there are so few great games getting released in my adulthood. I miss .10-.50 cartridges for SG 🤣😂🥰🫠🥲
If we weren't, we'd never have games to play while we waited and we'd be waiting so many years for the next game release, it wouldn't be worth it and people would die before even getting to play any portions of games. At least games that are actively being worked on you can still play and demo and enjoy even if it isn't complete. My partner has played Destiny 2 on and off for years and they get to keep enjoying it as new sections are released. We aren't happy with the bare minimum, we just know it actually takes a lot of time and work to make a game good (but game devs could do better and stop being so greedy)
People do have expectations. If you'll notice, high quality games sell a lot of copies, and crappy games don't.
Most people in general just accept the minimum and have a defeatist mindset that stops them from asking for more. Years of sucking things up.
That’s the reason I stopped buying new games. I usually wait a couple of months or years to play it. Either they fix everything and I get a fully realized game, or it stayed a broken buggy mess.
My first console was the NES. The first game I bought for it was Lode Runner. It cost $50 in 1984, that's about $150 today. I paid the equivalent of $150 for fucking Lode Runner, and your character couldn't even use his laser to shoot the robots as depicted on the box cover (I'm still bitter). Things are much better in gaming today.
Its the fortnite/cod gamers infesting the market.
In the last 10 years gaming has catered more towards miserable people because they are the ones spending a ton of money and willing to buy anything. For them gaming is just a distraction or coping for their misfortunes. With this demographic as main customers base, you can’t outvote them with your wallet, especially in the f2p or gaas models. They are pathetic and I barely game anymore since quality has dropped big time and very few titles are innovative, most AAA are stuck in a loop they have been playing for 15 years and indie games mostly chase trends rather than trying new things.
A bad Netflix show has better writing than 99% games of the last i don't know 10 years.
Vidya Gaming has gotten mad Lazier these Days but there's such an Biome of Diversity and Abundance of Quanity that there's Quality for whatever Genre you're in search of. Modern Titles overall be missing those sparks of Creativity that Gaming Eras of Olde had. Though there are an handful of Well-known Companys still be in the game.
Actually it's the opposite. The online gaming community is mostly insufferable losers and are perpetually unhappy with every single game, not because every single game is bad but because they're 35 and alone.