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E3 this year was ridiculously disappointing. In terms of games that I looked at and went 'Yeah, that'd be alright.' They were mostly the games that had a very gimmicky style of play, or where a spin-off of something that the developers have already done before. Watch dogs looked interesting because of the core concept behind the game and the 11 minute gameplay video DID do the game some justice, but I can't help but feel that they're purposely misleading the audience (not exactly a revelation at E3, I know). It feels like a dodgy news report, they misquote the words of someone with a perfectly valid point in order to cater for the people that are watching. That's all fine and well, target audiences are important, but you know what's also important? Real news reports that actually have some content. And the worst part? They're going to milk the shit out of the franchise now. That frustrates me.
These developers make it really hard to like the industry because of the way they approach the target audience. They completely ignore the competent gamers with valid points and keep shoveling out games to the 12 year old who just broke his Xbox 360 headset whilst he was jumping around whining for the new call of duty game. It's frustrating to watch the developers keep releasing the same game every September for the wrong target audience. The average gamer in Australia is 32 years old and the average non-gamer is 36. That gap is getting smaller and smaller every year and is expected to disappear sometime in 2015, yet the target audience for their games is still 12 year olds and high school students who aren't even legally allowed to buy the bloody game. I know you can hardly blame them when they sell 6.5 million copies on the day of release like Call of Duty last year, but it makes you wonder where all real developers have gone. They all seem to be shoveling out gimmicky gameplay for gimmicky consoles (Do not get me started on the Wii U) in that hope that they'll strike gold and be able to release a new one just before Christmas every year and reap the rewards. It can be pretty hard to like the industry when it just feels like you can't hear them behind the money fort they've built for themselves.
A lot of games used to be great. They had great gameplay, they weren't afraid to take time to release them and best of all, they were fun. Sonic is a great example of this. The first few sonic games had fast paced gameplay that was seriously awesome to play, but now they just release a new 3D sonic game every bloody year whilst the desperate fanboys yell 'They've done it, they've made a 3D sonic game that's good! Hallelujah!' I think the important part of that is that even the fanboys don't trust the games to be any good, and why should they? They're awful. The last 3D sonic game that I played and enjoyed was Sonic Adventure 2 and you know why I enjoyed that? I was 7, which doesn't do any justice to the sonic games, nor the audience, because you can't really expect that 'nostalgia' selling point to actually affect the people that end up buying the games. It honestly makes me wonder what the fuck they're doing in all those studios with the sonic franchise. It'd probably be worth letting the character just die and then releasing some awesome 2D sonic game HD remix crap in 10 years and going 'Remember this shit? Yeah you do, IT WAS AWESOME'. I have to admit I'd probably buy it. But again, I guess you can't really blame Sega because sonic was definitely the character that made them, because it sure as hell wasn't those Olympics games they keep releasing (seriously, who actually buys that shit?).
The good games will be milked until they're not good. They bad games will continue to be bad and developers will continue to release a game every Christmas and break records, There's nothing one person can say that'll change this model in the few years to come. Is there a way that developers could design games that they weren't afraid to wait a couple of years to release? Sure. Is it going to happen anytime soon? Probably not. Is it all bad? God no. Blizzard, Valve, Riot, Ubisoft and Naughty Dog really know how to capture their audience with some pretty awesome games and Valve and Riot have done even better by adding micro-transactions which specifically tell the people playing the games 'Look! We care about this game and will continue to release content!' Even if it isn't content that you particularly like, it can be hard to not at least admire the way they go about it, because it's better than everyone else.
So where do we go from here? It's hard to tell. But I hope to god that people start realizing that the release-every-year model is getting stagnant and won't increase the quality of games. And I hope the developers will realize that sometimes you just need to let the franchise die. But what can we actually do to make the quality of the games? Not much unfortunately. It's all in the hands of the game designers and publishers, which isn't exactly reassuring.
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E3 was also disappointing for me. We'll see what actually comes out though.
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On June 08 2012 13:28 Froadac wrote:
E3 was also disappointing for me. We'll see what actually comes out though.
Yeah, hopefully something a little better than what they showed.
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And that's why I keep playing BW while my friends all buy new 60 bucks games each month. Seriously, the only games I really enjoyed in the last 2 years were Amnesia and Skyrim. All the rest were a bunch of 60$ wasters. I'm really disappointed and I don't plan to buy a new game anytime soon. I kinda feel the same as you toward game development. Hate it.
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I hear you man. I'm 23 now and it felt like when I was younger, games were way better. I don't know if it's from the effort that they're putting in or the fact that I'm older and more jaded but games just arent the same, besides a select few. Even Blizzard isnt immune. I mean look at Diablo 3, Huge letdown for me. 12 years of development, and thats the crap that they release?
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If only it was only true for video games... Year after year, people's standards are lower and lower. Look at TV shows, look at everyone eating shitty processed food, look at how newspapers articles quality deteriorated... I know, we're supposed to punish producers with our wallet, but what can one do when millions of morons will just jump on the product ?
What's truely worrying for video games is the invasion of Facebook games and mobile games. I got an Android phone that is 100x times as powerful as a Gameboy Advance, yet I haven't found a single game as good as a GBA game. Apparatus was a super good puzzle game, but that's pretty much it. There are millions of Android phones on the market, so the popularity of the platform is not an issue. People throw birds with a bungee and it seems to be enough for them. In the end, I'm running SNES games with an emulator.
I'm not a hipster, but it sure was better before. I'm feeling more and more like in the movie Idiocracy. Sigh...
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Meh. Sort of agree with endy. I've got Diablo III, SC2, and Tf2. Those are the three games I play T.T
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Thats why I asked for a Wii a few years back for christmas. I've had it for 2 years but never actually bought any games for the system, every game aside from new super mario bros which came with the console is just old games. Megaman 2, 3, 9 and 10. sonic 2 and 3 etc.
Basically I play sc2 and d3 because I constantly get disappointed by the low quality I see in games. There are definitely some gems, but Sc2 takes up all my time anyhow. Otherwise, I play doom. I've been at it for around 3-4 months and just scratched the surface of usermade content made from 1997-2012.
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Back in 2005 when I was in high school. If you were asian (male) and didn't play DotA, something was wrong with you.
Till today, I still play Dota regularly. Trend in popularity wise, I treat it as something similar (in proportion) popularity as Broodwar in Korea. I'm in Australia btw.
Now that I have Diablo III now, my soul just got sold to it.
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Planetside 2 was there. Although it was the only thing at E3 that I did follow the progress of so your point is totally valid. I guess what I'm saying is that not all is lost. E3 is for business and investors, you won't see much real gamers there. I mean, I don't own a video game console; most of the games I play are indie games and I get more fun with those then I do with triple A games. It reminds me of how i felt playing the old mario and link games. These are now forgotten and when we meet we share that awkward look: you've change so much...
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The quality of games is higher than it's ever been in history. High-concept games like Heavy Rain are well funded and successful. The indie scene is thriving with hits like meatboy, minecraft, fez, etc. Even the batman games are fantastic.
Sure there is a bunch of companies who have run out of imagination and creativity but they are often paying for it (None more so than Nintendo). If you concede that 6-14 year olds need their stupid, vapid games then you have to be satisfied at what's actually out there IMO.
I'm baffled as to why you included Riot in the quality developers category though. That LoL game owes way too much to DotA for them to have a glowing commendation like that. It's also a crowded market with HoN, SotIS, DotA, DotA2 on top of LoL competing for attention when they're all pretty much the same game.
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On June 08 2012 14:49 Fyodor wrote:
It's also a crowded market with HoN, SotIS, DotA, DotA2 on top of LoL competing for attention when they're all pretty much the same game.
Sorry I just had to laugh at this for a second. Carry on.
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I'm not a fan of the huge budget spent on visuals and programmed details. The technology for procedurally-generated content has been around for along time, but people are just too dumb and/or too lazy to work on it. If they spent half as much money on artists and modelers and such on more advanced technology programming (like non-deterministic or procedural programming) there'd be some much cooler games out there.
Aside from that, there's obviously lots of focus on both milking an IP, and milking genres (namely shooters(FPS 3PS) or MMO"RPG"s). Frankly, all this just boils down to 1 thing: risk vs reward (and greed). There's really no point to deviate when they make good profit doing what they do.
Things are progressing though — there seems to bemore indie developpers than ever before, and to no surprise considering the ease of making games now. It's just rather sad that things have to go slower, but it's rather understandable if you look at the big picture.
It's kinda like biological evolution — the dominating animal that's successful might not evolve much over time, but something that encounters many problems will have to vary substiantially to survive.
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microtransactions are admirable? In what world?
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On June 08 2012 14:49 Fyodor wrote:
The quality of games is higher than it's ever been in history. High-concept games like Heavy Rain are well funded and successful. The indie scene is thriving with hits like meatboy, minecraft, fez, etc. Even the batman games are fantastic.
Sure there is a bunch of companies who have run out of imagination and creativity but they are often paying for it (None more so than Nintendo). If you concede that 6-14 year olds need their stupid, vapid games then you have to be satisfied at what's actually out there IMO.
I'm baffled as to why you included Riot in the quality developers category though. That LoL game owes way too much to DotA for them to have a glowing commendation like that. It's also a crowded market with HoN, SotIS, DotA, DotA2 on top of LoL competing for attention when they're all pretty much the same game.
You can bash on Riot all you want, but their marketing and business model is top notch.
From the games you listed, from a monetary perspective, we will still have to wait and see if DotA 2 can actually compete with their current lead in that market. Personally I'm hoping DotA 2 becomes even bigger than League, but right now it definitly isn't.
Besides all that though, the indie scene is just absolutely insane at the moment. I never thought I could have as much fun with so many games within such a short time period. Like, instead of D3 you might as well get about 20 pretty damn good indie games. <3
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On June 08 2012 16:18 Shauni wrote:
microtransactions are admirable? In what world?
It's more the fact that they have to pay attention to the game in order to succeed rather than sell it once and never listen to the players ever again.
It's definitely not admirable, I worded that pretty badly, you're definitely right, but I think I'll just let it sit for now.
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On June 08 2012 17:05 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 14:49 Fyodor wrote:
The quality of games is higher than it's ever been in history. High-concept games like Heavy Rain are well funded and successful. The indie scene is thriving with hits like meatboy, minecraft, fez, etc. Even the batman games are fantastic.
Sure there is a bunch of companies who have run out of imagination and creativity but they are often paying for it (None more so than Nintendo). If you concede that 6-14 year olds need their stupid, vapid games then you have to be satisfied at what's actually out there IMO.
I'm baffled as to why you included Riot in the quality developers category though. That LoL game owes way too much to DotA for them to have a glowing commendation like that. It's also a crowded market with HoN, SotIS, DotA, DotA2 on top of LoL competing for attention when they're all pretty much the same game. You can bash on Riot all you want, but their marketing and business model is top notch. From the games you listed, from a monetary perspective, we will still have to wait and see if DotA 2 can actually compete with their current lead in that market. Personally I'm hoping DotA 2 becomes even bigger than League, but right now it definitly isn't. Besides all that though, the indie scene is just absolutely insane at the moment. I never thought I could have as much fun with so many games within such a short time period. Like, instead of D3 you might as well get about 20 pretty damn good indie games. <3
Yeah, have got to admit the indie developers are stepping up their game, it's really enjoyable to watch their progress and some of those games are amazing, even if it's hit and miss. I'd rather buy a 5 dollar game that had some cool concepts than an 60-80 dollar one that doesn't really have much going for it, even if it the indie game didn't have the best gameplay.
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On June 08 2012 15:11 Morphling_ wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 14:49 Fyodor wrote:
It's also a crowded market with HoN, SotIS, DotA, DotA2 on top of LoL competing for attention when they're all pretty much the same game. Sorry I just had to laugh at this for a second. Carry on.
hahah :3
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On June 08 2012 16:18 Shauni wrote:
microtransactions are admirable? In what world?
Eh, it depends on how the microtransactions are implemented. They should be enticing enough to be purchased enough to support the game, yet shouldn't intrude too much on gameplay and the overall experience.
I think Valve did a decent job with TF2, and it seems that DotA2 will follow suit. By itself, DotA2 is already a great game with tons of gameplay and observer features despite only being in beta. Yet, it's going to be free to play due to being supported by microtransactions from purely cosmetic items like hats (haha). It's free to play, but not pay to win, which is what I think a good microtransaction system allows for.
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the gaming industry is just bullshit compared to the past. im playing games now on pc and consoles for about 15 years. and there were always these crazy games in the past like unreal tournament, deus ex or lands of lore 2 which had an insane impact not only on the gamers but also on the whole gaming industry. it wasnt just the quality content they delivered, it was the symbiosis of gameplay, story, mechanics and engine which just brought everything on a whole new level.even after playing 5 minutes i already felt like drifting into another reality because the games were that good. i know i sound like some kind of jerk or freak but this jaw drop feeling that i got back then, its gone for a long time now if i have to tell the truth. the last good games i played have been dragon age and human revolution i guess.
a few years ago the industry wanted to make the best games possible, now they want to create the highest sales and margins and this just reflects the low quality of the games they bring out
lots of my friends already turned their backs on gaming in general and only focus on their private life, studies etc. i still play but i dont know how long i'll do it
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Well the world is supposed to end this year so why bother ?!
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On June 08 2012 17:59 dsxrflol wrote:
the gaming industry is just bullshit compared to the past. im playing games now on pc and consoles for about 15 years. and there were always these crazy games in the past like unreal tournament, deus ex or lands of lore 2 which had an insane impact not only on the gamers but also on the whole gaming industry. it wasnt just the quality content they delivered, it was the symbiosis of gameplay, story, mechanics and engine which just brought everything on a whole new level.even after playing 5 minutes i already felt like drifting into another reality because the games were that good. i know i sound like some kind of jerk or freak but this jaw drop feeling that i got back then, its gone for a long time now if i have to tell the truth. the last good games i played have been dragon age and human revolution i guess.
a few years ago the industry wanted to make the best games possible, now they want to create the highest sales and margins and this just reflects the low quality of the games they bring out
lots of my friends already turned their backs on gaming in general and only focus on their private life, studies etc. i still play but i dont know how long i'll do it
I know what you mean, for the immersion. Very, very few games are immersive anymore. Even Skyrim, for me, I haven't been able to get into, and that was supposed to be the immersive game of the century. The last game that I truly felt part of, like it was alive, was Oblivion. I could spend hours just running around, talking to people, looking at the weather, the cities. It was incredible, to me. I actually felt emotions when I played the game, and I just couldn't get enough. Then something changed, and I can't play it again. It just feels different, and I can't do it.
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Can't wait for torch light 2 though it is in my eyes one of the few games where I would fork out my money without any hesitation . Long live Runic games.
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On June 08 2012 20:38 CyDe wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 17:59 dsxrflol wrote:
the gaming industry is just bullshit compared to the past. im playing games now on pc and consoles for about 15 years. and there were always these crazy games in the past like unreal tournament, deus ex or lands of lore 2 which had an insane impact not only on the gamers but also on the whole gaming industry. it wasnt just the quality content they delivered, it was the symbiosis of gameplay, story, mechanics and engine which just brought everything on a whole new level.even after playing 5 minutes i already felt like drifting into another reality because the games were that good. i know i sound like some kind of jerk or freak but this jaw drop feeling that i got back then, its gone for a long time now if i have to tell the truth. the last good games i played have been dragon age and human revolution i guess.
a few years ago the industry wanted to make the best games possible, now they want to create the highest sales and margins and this just reflects the low quality of the games they bring out
lots of my friends already turned their backs on gaming in general and only focus on their private life, studies etc. i still play but i dont know how long i'll do it I know what you mean, for the immersion. Very, very few games are immersive anymore. Even Skyrim, for me, I haven't been able to get into, and that was supposed to be the immersive game of the century. The last game that I truly felt part of, like it was alive, was Oblivion. I could spend hours just running around, talking to people, looking at the weather, the cities. It was incredible, to me. I actually felt emotions when I played the game, and I just couldn't get enough. Then something changed, and I can't play it again. It just feels different, and I can't do it.
Amnesia. Bastion. Bride. Minecraft (incl Mods). Batman series. Mount & Blade Series. Dwarf Fortress. Singularity.
All of those are incredibly immersive games over which you can easily lose lots and lots of hours. Just need to take a look around, besides the Batman series I'm having a hard time remembering a major title that was lots of fun. Actually I can think of another one; - the Warhammer 40k FP game last year was damn awesome. And those examples are just what I managed to come up with within a minute or two, pretty sure there's more stuff that I don't know about either.
Edit: I was highly disappointed by Skyrim btw, they still can't even get close to what I experienced with Morrowind. I didn't check recently, but OOO rescued Oblivion for me. If there's something similar for Skyrim I'll give it another shot. Modding communities. <3
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Germany112 Posts
I don´t think we have to like the gaming industry or the developers, only the game is what matters. There are two selling strategies the companies use nowadays.
The difference between the two is how long the "life" of a game will go on and where the money is made.
First strat is to make the money at the point where you actually buy the game knowing that you already work on the next title(which will be released in the following year=). That´s the reason why they care a lot about how the game looks and that it is "finished" at release date. The industry can´t allow their developers to take another year(maybe 7+ - blizzard style). On the other hand they won´t care much about the game after a certain time which means no patches, no leagues/support of competitive gaming. The focus is already on the next title of the series and when selling numbers of the latest title go backwards its time to abandon it.
This is probably the old fashion style of the gaming industry to make money and they notice it too. Because of huge development, server and marketing costs plus they huge competition at the growing market they have to change their business model. Focusing on one game, longer his life(support competitive play, patch it) and bind players on that "one title" for years will( at least in theory) lower development costs( no need to have multiple teams working on current/next title or support servers for all titles of a series- because there is no series, there is only one title).
Riot is probably the best example for that strat. They only have League of legends where one developer team is works and they use really easy marketing strat(its free to play...). They make their money because the gamers stay with that title and keep doing microtransitions. No one knows how long lol will go on(didn´t hear any plans about lol2^^) and a game which exists a certain amount of time will build its e-sports scene(good marketing).
This business model combines the desires of gaming industry(lowering costs etc.) and gamers(industry "cares" more about the game we currently play). Sounds pretty good. But lets stay with our example riot. The company has only one big title which makes the money. To keep that going they need to add more and more stuff people can buy which makes the game overloaded. When the time comes where profit gets lower and lower the company has no backup, no other title, maybe not even a new title(even if so they don´t know whether it will run as good as lol).
For me it looks like this: The life of a game becomes longer while the "death" of a company is more possible. Fewer companies and long living games have a lot of good points but on the other hand lead into monopoly and less creativity at the market.
Thats all a lot of theory and maybe everything goes into another direction and i am totally wrong. But i have to say that there is a change in the gaming industry and we aren´t at the end of it. It takes a lot of time until a company will change it´s business model but it will happen. There will be a change in the industry and there will be a change in the way we play games and the games itself. Whether this changes will be good or not is hard to say but i wouldn´t agree with the author of this blog and say this goes in the wrong direction. It is to early to say that.
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On June 08 2012 13:38 endy wrote:
If only it was only true for video games... Year after year, people's standards are lower and lower. Look at TV shows, look at everyone eating shitty processed food, look at how newspapers articles quality deteriorated... I know, we're supposed to punish producers with our wallet, but what can one do when millions of morons will just jump on the product ?
What's truely worrying for video games is the invasion of Facebook games and mobile games. I got an Android phone that is 100x times as powerful as a Gameboy Advance, yet I haven't found a single game as good as a GBA game. Apparatus was a super good puzzle game, but that's pretty much it. There are millions of Android phones on the market, so the popularity of the platform is not an issue. People throw birds with a bungee and it seems to be enough for them. In the end, I'm running SNES games with an emulator.
I'm not a hipster, but it sure was better before. I'm feeling more and more like in the movie Idiocracy. Sigh...
Totally agree. But the problem is really that we are to blame in the end. WE put up with all this crap. And we ask for more. In the end i think people deserve to be manipulated like that and treated like shit.
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I was looking at e3 this year an feeling the exact same thing. I thought I was the only one...and put it down to the "I'm growing old" thing.
For some reason the stuff they showed seemed like "been there,done that".
But then...kinda happy with dota,bw/sc2 and diablo at the moment.
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Germany2896 Posts
Not sure why you care so much about gamer age. I'm much more of a casual player now, that I was at 12.
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E3 was disappointing except for one game: Planetside 2. The original game invented the MMOFPS genre but it was a bit ahead of its time in terms of the technology available (back in 2003). But Planetside 2 is amazing. Custom engine built for the game with amazing graphics. 2000 players per continent, 3 continents at launch with more being added post-launch. No instances or anything, just 64 square kilometre continents with three factions battleling over 60+ bases and outposts. Six classes to choose from, switch between them at any point. Tanks, quad bikes, VTOLs, bombers and transport aircraft that can carry 12 people. You buy vehicles with resources earned from holding territory so every person can buy a tank or an aircraft if they want. Battles of hundreds of people or hundreds of vehicles. Years worth of unlocks in every area of the game, classes, vehichles, weapons. Squad system, outfits (guilds), in-game VOIP. To top it off, it's completely free to play (microtransactions are only for custom weapon/vehicle skins) and it's PC exclusive. Check it out guys, only great thing from E3. It won a best of show award too.
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On June 08 2012 22:30 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 20:38 CyDe wrote:On June 08 2012 17:59 dsxrflol wrote:
the gaming industry is just bullshit compared to the past. im playing games now on pc and consoles for about 15 years. and there were always these crazy games in the past like unreal tournament, deus ex or lands of lore 2 which had an insane impact not only on the gamers but also on the whole gaming industry. it wasnt just the quality content they delivered, it was the symbiosis of gameplay, story, mechanics and engine which just brought everything on a whole new level.even after playing 5 minutes i already felt like drifting into another reality because the games were that good. i know i sound like some kind of jerk or freak but this jaw drop feeling that i got back then, its gone for a long time now if i have to tell the truth. the last good games i played have been dragon age and human revolution i guess.
a few years ago the industry wanted to make the best games possible, now they want to create the highest sales and margins and this just reflects the low quality of the games they bring out
lots of my friends already turned their backs on gaming in general and only focus on their private life, studies etc. i still play but i dont know how long i'll do it I know what you mean, for the immersion. Very, very few games are immersive anymore. Even Skyrim, for me, I haven't been able to get into, and that was supposed to be the immersive game of the century. The last game that I truly felt part of, like it was alive, was Oblivion. I could spend hours just running around, talking to people, looking at the weather, the cities. It was incredible, to me. I actually felt emotions when I played the game, and I just couldn't get enough. Then something changed, and I can't play it again. It just feels different, and I can't do it. Amnesia. Bastion. Bride. Minecraft (incl Mods). Batman series. Mount & Blade Series. Dwarf Fortress. Singularity. All of those are incredibly immersive games over which you can easily lose lots and lots of hours. Just need to take a look around, besides the Batman series I'm having a hard time remembering a major title that was lots of fun. Actually I can think of another one; - the Warhammer 40k FP game last year was damn awesome. And those examples are just what I managed to come up with within a minute or two, pretty sure there's more stuff that I don't know about either. Edit: I was highly disappointed by Skyrim btw, they still can't even get close to what I experienced with Morrowind. I didn't check recently, but OOO rescued Oblivion for me. If there's something similar for Skyrim I'll give it another shot. Modding communities. <3
Thanks for the suggestions, I wasn't trying to say that I've played thousands of games and they all suck recently. But. A lot of games aren't living up. I'll probably check out those games you recommended, but again I am the kind of person who likes to stick to few games and get 'good' at those.
But yeah, modding communities are awesome. One game that I forgot to mention that I STILL fuckin' adore is Max Payne. The first one was actually incredible in it's ability for storytelling and making me so depressed. The second was great too, and the mods for the second were incredible. Modding tools are must for every game nowadays, I feel. Oblivion had some great mods too.
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