Board 8 > "Overall, video games have decreased in quality in the past 10 years."

(+) Yeah! (+)

modern video games bad, bring back the magnavox odyssey

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Video games are still good

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More of them have microtransactions now, so by default, they have decreased in quality.

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Gaming and games have only gotten better over time, that includes the overall quality.

Some practices aren't ideal or downright just shitty, microtransactions, dev crunch, ect, but the games themselves have never been better.

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Leonhart4 posted...

Video games are still good

Yes, but sadly the big budget developers don't take creative risks they once did in prior generations. I'm playing Parasite Eve right now, and even though it's heavily flawed, at least there are fun, fresh ideas involved.

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I think the primary way gaming has changed is that it's a far more diverse hobby right now with tons of more or less separate communities for different types of games.

I feel like this could lead to a perceived change in quality if you're only looking at one or a few of these particular categories or groups that are evolving in directions you don't like. But there's just so much out there now that I don't really see it as meaningful to make any substantial statements comparing the quality of gaming as a whole to what it was in the past.
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no video games for me thank you

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Probably true if this only applies to AAA games. With the game market getting much bigger and including indies now, I think the game market is healthy enough.

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SSBM_Guy posted...

Probably true if this only applies to AAA games. With the game market getting much bigger and including indies now, I think the game market is healthy enough.

Good take. The industry as a whole is ok. But today we are just one step closer to the AAA crash.

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Video games are better than they have ever been.

AAA games specifically are in a really unhealthy and probably unsustainable place right now but the quality is sky high and there is way more to video games than just that category.

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There's never been a better time to play video games

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The explosion of quality indie games this decade has helped offset the increase in greedy corporate AAA mess stuff imo. The most abhorrent practices are probably the ones on mobile, but in general I don't think you could argue a clear decrease in quality across the medium.

If you're talking about mistreatment of employees, I don't know if it's worse than it was or it was always there and there's just more eyes on it now.

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Xiahou Shake posted...

AAA games specifically are in a really unhealthy and probably unsustainable place right now but the quality is sky high and there is way more to video games than just that category.

Wouldn't really agree with the sky-high quality part (for AAA games)!
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Ill be even more specific on the AAA thing and say that the decline is in the multiplatform third party AAA space, there are plenty of great exclusives in all avenues. The big third party publishers are definitely less of a factor than theyve ever been though.

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I feel that there's much more variety now than there was back then.

Could do without microtransactions though.

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The quality has definately went down, there's too many games nowadays that require day 1 patches, day 2 patches.. it doesn't matter if the game design is great if the programming is flakey for the first several months. Also insert credit card is not a good mechanic and never will be.

I miss the days where the whole game was complete and packaged on Day 1. I get they want you to play their game longer, and fans want reasons to play games longer, but microtransactions and season passes are just awful.

Game quality going down might be due to what the industry has been attributing to rising costs to create games, and the reason why games across all platforms will be getting the 10 dollar increase going forward. It's going to start getting really expensive to play AAA games if they are 70 dollars, and have 25 dollar season passes, and other lucrative microtransactions.

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I think season passes are great when done right.

Like, releasing a fighting game season pass with more characters doesn't suddenly mean the game was released "incomplete," it just means... They added more characters to extend the life of the game, and that's a good thing. In the past, you were either stuck with the base roster and that was it, or they released another full price/almost full price version of the game.

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i haven't played an AAA game in 10 years but indie games are doing fantastic!

HashtagSEP posted...

I think season passes are great when done right.

Like, releasing a fighting game season pass with more characters doesn't suddenly mean the game was released "incomplete," it just means... They added more characters to extend the life of the game, and that's a good thing. In the past, you were either stuck with the base roster and that was it, or they released another full price/almost full price version of the game.

This is a reminder that there are more versions of Street Fighter II than there are Smash games.

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swirIdude posted...

More of them have microtransactions now, so by default, they have decreased in quality.

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Disagree so hard, especially compared to 10 years ago

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Maybe we should have some sort of contest to determine what the best years in gaming are.

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ExThaNemesis posted...

I feel that there's much more variety now than there was back then.

What? Even with indies I don't get this. Where's my quirky sports/extreme sports game? Where's my third/first person shooter dungeon crawler? Where's stealth in general?

OT: Only if you count AAA and discount the MASSIVE shovelware from 10 years ago. Special mention goes to the Wii although the 3DS has a fair bit too.

demonfang178 posted...

Where's my quirky sports/extreme sports game?

Fall Guys
Rocket League
Human Fall Flat
Blood Bowl
Lethal League

demonfang178 posted...

Where's my third/first person shooter dungeon crawler?

Remnant: From the Ashes
Borderlands 3
Warframe
BPM (also a rhythm game in addition to what you asked for)

demonfang178 posted...

Where's stealth in general?

Hitman
Metro Exodus
Little Nightmares
Dishonored
The Last of Us 2
Literally Assassin's Creed

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ninkendo posted...

There's never been a better time to play video games

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Statistically AAA games don't make up much of the market, and not all of them are bad. Shitty mobile games are very numerous but I wouldn't say we have a lack of good games.

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demonfang178 posted...

What? Even with indies I don't get this. Where's my quirky sports/extreme sports game? Where's my third/first person shooter dungeon crawler? Where's stealth in general?

Have you just not paid attention to any game releases but Call of Duty in the last several years


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I feel that quality has remained fairly consistent over the past decade. In other words - significantly better than the 2000s, especially the second half, but far behind the 90s.

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I'm sorry but you can't use shovelware as a reason modern gaming sucks. It was just as bad if not worse in the 80's.

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I remember looking through the "bargain bin" games at stores like Sears in the SNES days and seeing crap like Flintstones and super scope games that nobody wanted.

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Xiahou Shake posted...

Fall Guys
Rocket League
Human Fall Flat
Blood Bowl
Lethal League

Was really thinking more along the lines of SSX and NFL Street, but I'll looking into the last three.
Xiahou Shake posted...

Remnant: From the Ashes
Borderlands 3
Warframe

Kay.
Xiahou Shake posted...

BPM (also a rhythm game in addition to what you asked for)

Ew.
Xiahou Shake posted...

Hitman
Metro Exodus
Little Nightmares
Dishonored
The Last of Us 2
Literally Assassin's Creed

Little Nightmares? I know I said stealth in general but...And I definitely wouldn't count TLOU. You can shine a flashlight on an enemy and they won't even turn around. Its stealth mechanics are a joke. Didn't even think Dishonored was stealth based on the name.

demonfang178 posted...

Was really thinking more along the lines of SSX and NFL Street, but I'll looking into the last three.

We literally just got THPS1+2 and its future is starting to look bright again

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We just got a new Mutant League Football not too long ago, too. Think it's called Mutant Football League to get around copyright, but it's by the people that made the original, I believe. And then there's stuff like NBA Playgrounds which is basically a new NBA Jam.

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I should note that those were all off the top of my head while limiting myself to releases that are from the last couple of years, are still being supported or have a new game in development.

There are many more even within the last couple of years and if you're willing to go as far back as even 2015 - nevermind including the entire eighth generation - the variety and quantity completely explodes. Gaming has absolutely never been better, and if you feel like you're not getting what you want you just need to look around a bit more. (Even survival horror is in kind of an amazing place if you're willing to dig into ground level indie ventures.)

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BetrayedTangy posted...

We literally just got THPS1+2 and its future is starting to look bright again

we... had that... 10 years ago

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SantaRPidgey posted...

we... had that... 10 years ago

Yes, and his point is we still have it since it was just rereleased in an improved state, and his post was in reply to somebody saying we don't have these things anymore.

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HashtagSEP posted...

Yes, and his point is we still have it since it was just rereleased in an improved state, and his post was in reply to somebody saying we don't have these things anymore.

as in they're not made like this anymore

thps 1+2 is the exact games with a new coat of paint (which to be clear, I think is awesome) it doesn't get to be counted as a game for the present.

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SantaRPidgey posted...

as in they're not made like this anymore

thps 1+2 is the exact games with a new coat of paint (which to be clear, I think is awesome) it doesn't get to be counted as a game for the present.

...Yes it does? He's not counting it as a game we have now that we didn't have previously. He's counting it as a game of that type that we still have because it's a spruced up rerelease on current consoles. You're randomly trying to disqualify it for no reason.

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Though, honestly, it's not a debate worth having, since trying to nitpick one title when over half a dozen were named is kinda silly.

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2008-2010 was like one of the worst periods of games and 2018-2020 was like one of the best so

SantaRPidgey posted...

as in they're not made like this anymore

thps 1+2 is the exact games with a new coat of paint (which to be clear, I think is awesome) it doesn't get to be counted as a game for the present.

Eh it goes a step beyond a new coat of paint. It was more like the Pokemon remakes, as they added mechanics and features in the later games. Plus online play and added modern skateboarders in addition to the classics. It feels like it stands on its own

Regardless it was mostly in response to how he was acting like extreme sports franchises were dead. Even though Tony Hawk proved they can still exist and be good. My bad for the confusion

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Yeah, the 2000s were more of a decade of decline than the 2010s.
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Paratroopa1 posted...

2008-2010 was like one of the worst periods of games and 2018-2020 was like one of the best so

2017 is one of the great gaming years of all time!

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They've been consistent, albeit with a few QoL improvements. I'm not clamoring for a return to 2010 game design, but I'm not against playing games from back then, either.

LeonhartFour posted...

2017 is one of the great gaming years of all time!

I was being kinda arbitrary here to fit the 10 years thing because I think 2017 was a better year than 2020 but I didn't want to include 2007 with 08-09 because 07 was a good year

point is that I personally feel that gaming had a decline from 08-14 but a resurgence from 15-20

Yeah, there was a bit of a lull for about a five year stretch at the turn of the decade, but it's definitely back and as good as ever these days.

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It was really interesting because for a while I kind of thought maybe I was just growing out of games, or gaming was just becoming something I didn't recognize anymore because I was too old, or maybe gaming had just peaked and was in decline forever because people ran out of ideas. then all of that turned out to not be true, gaming just kinda had a dip and then it came back, lol

(I know there were good games released around 2010 you don't have to tell me)

Theres never been a better time to play video games.

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2008-2012 is probably when I played the least traditional video games? Lots of visual novel playing in that time period...
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