What do you think will be gaming's next Boogeyman?

Grey Swordsman

Grey Swordsman

CAGiversary!
Feedback
5 (100%)
What I mean is, what do you think will be the next big negative trend to hit the gaming scene? We've come a long way from Skyrim's Horse Armor DLC, and witnessed a lot of bad things since the rise of Micro-transactions, Battle Passes, etc. etc. So let's have some fun and speculate a bit. As usual, I'd like to throw my hat in the ring and take a guess that the next thing that gaming companies will try to go ham with is advertisements in games. Some companies have tested the waters with it, so it's obvious they want it normalized. From loading screens, to eventually adverts in-game as your playing it, I can see this becoming a thing to be considered normal in a couple of human generations from now. (Not console generations)

What do you guys think? Any guesses what's next for us?
 
Jodou said:
All digital future, for better or worse.
Click to expand...
That will especially suck for when people get locked out of their accounts, banned falsely/legitimately, and just be overall shitty in general. Lots of different reasons why I'm personally not looking forward towards all digital too, even though I enjoy the convenience of it and always tend to go digital in the past few years. That said, losing your biggest library of games on any platform sucks hard. So yeah, it's gonna be bad when companies have all the power to make every single game you own go poof at the drop of a hat.
 
Jodou said:
All digital future, for better or worse.
Click to expand...
I have to second this one. This will affect the brick-and-mortar places. Plus, the content of games may change over time, like GTA losing rights to certain songs.

Nintendo comes to mind too. Transferring Wii eShop purchases to the Wii U, but the entire implementation changed from the Wii U to the Switch. There was even a story of someone that had hardware failure and lost hundreds of dollars in purchases.

What will likely happen is that everyone goes along with it until something popular gets deleted and everyone loses their business.
 
OneMoreHardDrive said:
What will likely happen is that everyone goes along with it until something popular gets deleted and everyone loses their business.
Click to expand...
I'm a bit confused on this last bit. Do you mean companies losing a lot of business? If that's what you mean, the only outcome I see are the big gaming companies possibly taking a hit, then bouncing right back like nothing ever happened. Wish that weren't the case, but it's what I tend to see a lot of lately across industries.

There's still quite a bit I want to discuss, from enshitification and saturation of the gaming market, to the idea of a gaming crash in the future. I don't see that last one happening though - not in my lifetime at least. I also want to talk about the indie game scene, since I've rarely tried that many indies.

So, does anyone have thoughts on:
  1. Enshitification
  2. Game Genre Saturation
  3. Possible Gaming Crash
  4. Indie Games
  5. Patented Video Game Mechanics (Shadow of Wars Nemesis System)
I threw #5 in there as I just remembered this happened. It was a surprising news story when it first happened, and I'm definitely not for these type of restrictions on creativity. With all that out of my system, and to add to some positivity to any readers here, Persona 3 Reload... Yeah, I bought it the day it came out, and it's so sick. I highly recommend that JRPG to any fan of the genre.
 
Grey Swordsman said:
I'm a bit confused on this last bit. Do you mean companies losing a lot of business? If that's what you mean, the only outcome I see are the big gaming companies possibly taking a hit, then bouncing right back like nothing ever happened. Wish that weren't the case, but it's what I tend to see a lot of lately across industries.

There's still quite a bit I want to discuss, from enshitification and saturation of the gaming market, to the idea of a gaming crash in the future. I don't see that last one happening though - not in my lifetime at least. I also want to talk about the indie game scene, since I've rarely tried that many indies.

So, does anyone have thoughts on:
  1. Enshitification
  2. Game Genre Saturation
  3. Possible Gaming Crash
  4. Indie Games
  5. Patented Video Game Mechanics (Shadow of Wars Nemesis System)
I threw #5 in there as I just remembered this happened. It was a surprising news story when it first happened, and I'm definitely not for these type of restrictions on creativity. With all that out of my system, and to add to some positivity to any readers here, Persona 3 Reload... Yeah, I bought it the day it came out, and it's so sick. I highly recommend that JRPG to any fan of the genre.
Click to expand...
In reality, most consumers have their eyes on the next game not the last. So, changing content on older titles won't get much attention. Companies like Square-Enix have been doing all sorts of questionable things, but their products sell. I feel like the company-consumer relationship in the industry now mirrors Hollywood and moviegoers.

It didn't used to be like that. The PS2/Xbox/Gamecube days were fantastic. The Wii/PS3/360 age was more like the bad later seasons of your favorite TV show.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots wasn't fun to play compared to Snake Eater. That trailing mission took up over an hour of what was already about six hours of actual gameplay.
Resident Evil 5 didn't have Shinji Mikami, but Resident Evil 6 really didn't have the magic.
Sonic '06 spoke for itself
Uncharted was a barebones game that sold on its graphics.
Both Banjo & Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and Perfect Dark Zero were seen as missteps for long-awaited sequels.
Dead Space 3 and its microtransactions
Final Fantasy XIII did not enjoy good word of mouth, and i think XIII-2's ending was locked behind DLC.
Duke Nukem Forever finally came out, but, oops, nothing from the 90's trailers is in it.
SEGA fans got NiGHTS: Journey to Dreams, but it didn't resonate with the audience.
Assassin's Creed was the collectathon's dream game. It put me to sleep, no joke.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 launched with all the content in a day-one patch.
Several glitchy compilations, but Silent Hill HD Collection is pretty bad.
The PS3 version of Lost Planet 3 had no framerate to speak of.

I know I have a ton of hot takes. Feel free to tell me your thoughts.

I have thoughts on other stuff, like genre saturation, but i've already written too much. Until next time!
 
That's one hell of a reply, and a very good read. One thing I absolutely agree with is that the PS2 Xbox and GC generation was just that great. You got the systems and your games, end of the transaction. No internet or MTX like stuff required.
 
Whoa, thanks for reading all that. I could go all day on this stuff.

I know it's part-objective and part-opinion, but the seventh generation of consoles felt so different. For the PS3, everything had to be pretty first. So, no small-tier or mid-tier projects, only big properties that'll SELL. I didn't feel like the gameplay was quite there. The games felt more streamlined but simplistic and dull. QTE's replaced a lot of gameplay that gen. It was like we were sent back to preschool. Achievements made people focus on the wrong priorities. (I know because I tried to Platinum Infamous and I had an awful time.) Also DLC didn't mature fast enough. Paying extra for on-disc content may just be business, but it was a bad faith practice. It made consumers feel more disposable. I felt like the industry was unrecognizable while still advertising the properties I grew up with.

Maybe that answers your first bullet-point. "Game Genre Saturation" was really a problem in the seventh generation because companies wanted manageable, familiar game designs to develop. So, we got a lot of FPS releases at the start. Bioshock and FEAR come to mind. I think the growing pains are over, but we definitely don't get the same variety we used to. Indies have attempted to bridge that gap, for better or for worse, but we're not getting the Mr. mosquito's or even Dark Cloud's of before.
 
"Achievements made people focus on the wrong priorities"
I struggle trying to get the whole idea of achievements out of my head to this very day lmao, so true.

"Paying extra for on-disc content may just be business, but it was a bad faith practice."
Yeah, it's funny how when you purchase even digital content on Steam, that it's Kilobytes of data or something that's downloaded. Not too familiar with this specific subject or how it played out exactly because I wasn't too up to date with the news at the time.

As for your last paragraph, game companies playing it safe I'm actually 50-50 on that one in a way. I love stuff like the Resident Evil 4 Remake, stuff like this is so up my alley that I can't resist a refresh/revisit of some of my favorite franchises. Half-assing releases like Persona 3 Portable though? I steered clear of that one easily enough - as a huge Persona fan I just saw that lazy cash-grab from a mile away.
My brother in law always tells me his opinions on about game companies "banking on nostalgia" though, and it makes him sick to his stomach lol. One thing that all three of us would agree on would definitely be that we need a lot more variety & passionate game creativity to surface in the form of new IP's. Even though they are risky AF, I personally feel like if you're out of touch with what gamers truly would want from games in general as a leader in the business, you've already lost the fight. I'm currently thinking of a game I will use as an example as soon as I look up the name...

Okay, well like 5 minutes later I can't even find that title on google. It wasn't Crucible or XDefiant, but I could've sworn Ubisoft cancelled an FPS game before it released. I was going to use that as my example but it's buried deep.
 
Grey Swordsman said:
"Achievements made people focus on the wrong priorities"
I struggle trying to get the whole idea of achievements out of my head to this very day lmao, so true.

"Paying extra for on-disc content may just be business, but it was a bad faith practice."
Yeah, it's funny how when you purchase even digital content on Steam, that it's Kilobytes of data or something that's downloaded. Not too familiar with this specific subject or how it played out exactly because I wasn't too up to date with the news at the time.

As for your last paragraph, game companies playing it safe I'm actually 50-50 on that one in a way. I love stuff like the Resident Evil 4 Remake, stuff like this is so up my alley that I can't resist a refresh/revisit of some of my favorite franchises. Half-assing releases like Persona 3 Portable though? I steered clear of that one easily enough - as a huge Persona fan I just saw that lazy cash-grab from a mile away.
My brother in law always tells me his opinions on about game companies "banking on nostalgia" though, and it makes him sick to his stomach lol. One thing that all three of us would agree on would definitely be that we need a lot more variety & passionate game creativity to surface in the form of new IP's. Even though they are risky AF, I personally feel like if you're out of touch with what gamers truly would want from games in general as a leader in the business, you've already lost the fight. I'm currently thinking of a game I will use as an example as soon as I look up the name...

Okay, well like 5 minutes later I can't even find that title on google. It wasn't Crucible or XDefiant, but I could've sworn Ubisoft cancelled an FPS game before it released. I was going to use that as my example but it's buried deep.
Click to expand...
Yeah, Capcom was guilty of charging for DLC when the content shipped right on the disc. This was another growing pain during the 7th gen.

Safe isn't necessarily bad. It's more that higher costs come with higher risks, which leads to less creativity. I do want to play through RE4Remake some day. I'm sad that the RE3Remake was rushed, repeating the exact same mistake as the original. RE3's development cycle is forever cursed, but maybe the second remake will be the charm!

I do agree, though. We need more creativity and less by-the-numbers thinking.

I've been thinking about the "Gaming Crash" concept. We still have people pre-ordering, despite how much more risky it is. I think we'd see a slow and downsizing of the industry, in an extreme scenario. It's not like Hollywood, where everything has to be new. Publishers can release compilations and remasters, long-awaited sequels to bait customers in, and generally develop a solid product. So, the industry would slow but not vanish. Consoles wouldn't likely go anywhere, especially for Nintendo. Development would downsize and prices would lower to entice more customers.

Basically, a lot of companies would need to make some serious mistakes because people do take notice. People are generally tolerant of some bad practices, so it'd have to really get everyone's attention.


Ha, another Persona 3 fan? I was privileged to play FES back in the day. Man, what an ending. I didn't play through The Answer because the story was spot-on as-is. For me, it's PS2 FES or nothing. No remake, no Portable.
 
OneMoreHardDrive said:
Yeah, Capcom was guilty of charging for DLC when the content shipped right on the disc. This was another growing pain during the 7th gen.

Safe isn't necessarily bad. It's more that higher costs come with higher risks, which leads to less creativity. I do want to play through RE4Remake some day. I'm sad that the RE3Remake was rushed, repeating the exact same mistake as the original. RE3's development cycle is forever cursed, but maybe the second remake will be the charm!

I do agree, though. We need more creativity and less by-the-numbers thinking.

I've been thinking about the "Gaming Crash" concept. We still have people pre-ordering, despite how much more risky it is. I think we'd see a slow and downsizing of the industry, in an extreme scenario. It's not like Hollywood, where everything has to be new. Publishers can release compilations and remasters, long-awaited sequels to bait customers in, and generally develop a solid product. So, the industry would slow but not vanish. Consoles wouldn't likely go anywhere, especially for Nintendo. Development would downsize and prices would lower to entice more customers.

Basically, a lot of companies would need to make some serious mistakes because people do take notice. People are generally tolerant of some bad practices, so it'd have to really get everyone's attention.


Ha, another Persona 3 fan? I was privileged to play FES back in the day. Man, what an ending. I didn't play through The Answer because the story was spot-on as-is. For me, it's PS2 FES or nothing. No remake, no Portable.
Click to expand...
This meme is what I thought of after I finished reading that lol.

This is why I love this site so much, you get to nerd out all about gaming and it's awesome. People fight for updoots on Reddit & YouTube, Steam Forums are waaay stricter than CAG, and Twitter is such a dumpster fire of a place that I don't really get to hold a decent conversation with anyone other than right here. I kinda have a couple gamer friends IRL, but they like other games like WoW... and don't really get Civilization games like I love haha.

PS2 FES or nothing huh? You can't go wrong with that whatsoever. It's been my favorite for years now. Also, and I know I'm jumping all over the place here, but in response to everything I quoted just now my takeaway is that you seem very informed in the gaming sphere. Right on!
 
Grey Swordsman said:
This meme is what I thought of after I finished reading that lol.

This is why I love this site so much, you get to nerd out all about gaming and it's awesome. People fight for updoots on Reddit & YouTube, Steam Forums are waaay stricter than CAG, and Twitter is such a dumpster fire of a place that I don't really get to hold a decent conversation with anyone other than right here. I kinda have a couple gamer friends IRL, but they like other games like WoW... and don't really get Civilization games like I love haha.

PS2 FES or nothing huh? You can't go wrong with that whatsoever. It's been my favorite for years now. Also, and I know I'm jumping all over the place here, but in response to everything I quoted just now my takeaway is that you seem very informed in the gaming sphere. Right on!
Click to expand...
All right, I won't throw out Persona 3 Reload, but I'll probably replay FES before I approach the remake.

I'm a full nerd about video games. Not a modern corporate "gamer," but an actual nerd's nerd. I followed the industry and played the games since the retro days. I started with magazines and IGNorant/GameSpot. I've been in a pre-med program for the last few years, so I've really just followed the news articles instead of actually playing. (That doesn't stop me from buying them occasionally.) Even though I've been out of touch since the 8th generation (PS4/Wii U/Xbox One) onward, I still enjoy discussing the culture and industry.

Someday, I want to play The Last Guardian and maybe the Super Mario RPG Remake.


Also, I'll tackle your indies question. Basically, it's a real mixed bag of a topic.

In the console world, indies weren't really a thing during the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube days. The Behemoth releasing Alien Hominid was a big achievement because of that. For the 7th gen, we got the rise of indies. From Braid to Super Meat Boy, people were interested in smaller, cheaper releases. Some big companies even released smaller games like Pac-Man Championship Edition and TMNT: Turtles in Time ReShelled.

Indies sometimes have big names associated with them, like Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night had Koji Igarashi behind it. Then you have Keiji Inafune with Mighty No. 9, which turned out to be a bad thing. (Inafune tried to turn Might No. 9 into a cashcow at the cost of making one really excellent game. I contributed to the Kickstarter, and I walked away thinking he was more conman than creative.)

Indies also don't need to do all the corporate checklists. No bloat, no red tape, no nothing. They just have to find the time and money to make the game. If they can make a prototype and get crowdfunded, it's another way to make the dream come true.

Some indies just hit it right. I think Braid benefited from being an early XBox Live Arcade release with a lot of coverage. Everyone knew who Johnathan Blw was overnight. I'm not sure who's dominating the indie scene these days, but it'd be an interesting topic. The last thing I remember is Yacht Club Games' Shovel Knight being a big thing, and they supported it post-release really well. Subsequently, they started licensing Shovel Knight into every other indie game ever.
 
Grey Swordsman said:
I'm a bit confused on this last bit. Do you mean companies losing a lot of business? If that's what you mean, the only outcome I see are the big gaming companies possibly taking a hit, then bouncing right back like nothing ever happened. Wish that weren't the case, but it's what I tend to see a lot of lately across industries.

There's still quite a bit I want to discuss, from enshitification and saturation of the gaming market, to the idea of a gaming crash in the future. I don't see that last one happening though - not in my lifetime at least. I also want to talk about the indie game scene, since I've rarely tried that many indies.

So, does anyone have thoughts on:
  1. Enshitification
  2. Game Genre Saturation
  3. Possible Gaming Crash
  4. Indie Games
  5. Patented Video Game Mechanics (Shadow of Wars Nemesis System)
I threw #5 in there as I just remembered this happened. It was a surprising news story when it first happened, and I'm definitely not for these type of restrictions on creativity. With all that out of my system, and to add to some positivity to any readers here, Persona 3 Reload... Yeah, I bought it the day it came out, and it's so sick. I highly recommend that JRPG to any fan of the genre.
Click to expand...
Sorry for the double post, but I'm taking a break from my studies to talk games. I realize I never answered the final bulletpoint: "Patented Video Game Mechanics."

I recall when Bandai Namco (formerly Namco Bandai) had the 20-year patent on mini-games as part of loading screens. The patent expired in 2015, but by then, the industry and technology had both changed considerably. It raised the question of how specific a game mechanic has to be to allow for a patent.

It comes down to this. If you're a company and want to protect your creative idea, a legal method like a patent sounds like a great choice. If you're a competitor, you're suddenly creatively limited, and you'll have to hire a legal team to ensure a similar idea isn't "too similar" to build a case against. As a consumer, you'll see fewer games including the patented mechanics for obvious reasons, so your choices will be more limited. It can be argued from multiple angles.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top