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[Thief1987]

It's surprising to see so level-headed article from gaming press. I agree with these points - the yearly sports themed casinos, cod and other popular gaas garbage will kill this industry faster than any DEI could ever dream.

 

[Boss Mog]

I'm buying tons of new games, they're just not the woke and lazy slop being served up by modern Western studios. The massive decline of Western games due to DEI policies has led to a resurgence in Japanese games but also opened up opportunities for fledgling studios from Korea and China.

Just look at this year's VGA Game of the Year nominees: Astro Bot, Shadow of the Erdtree, Metaphor, Wukong, FF7 Rebirth were all non Western games. The only Western game nominated was Balatro, an indie card game with SNES graphics. That kind of says it all about the state of modern Western games.

 

[ANoa]

It's surprising to see so level-headed article from gaming press. I agree with these points - the yearly sports themed casinos, cod and other popular gaas garbage will kill this industry faster than any DEI could ever dream.

Year 18 of COD killing gaming.

 

[ReBurn]

It's surprising to see so level-headed article from gaming press. I agree with these points - the yearly sports themed casinos, cod and other popular gaas garbage will kill this industry faster than any DEI could ever dream.

Those games are popular for a reason. If they disappeared it wouldn't fix anything.

 

[AJUMP23]

It is always the consumers fault.

 

[Idleyes]

COD and Fifa crowd is not the problem here. Let them play those games, they have become comfortable with them.

I think bigger issue is discoverability of well made games. A lot of fine games are releasing but are not finding audience.

That's a solid point, and it reminds me of the music industry. The big players control access to audiences by gatekeeping platforms like Spotify, radio stations, and TV networks. Similarly, in gaming, discoverability is a major issue. Great games are being made, but without the right exposure, they don't reach the audience. I wonder if Steam has its own 'pay-to-play' system, where some games get artificially pushed to the front, leaving smaller studios out of luck because they can't outspend the big players.

 

[Idleyes]

Just looked it up, Steam doesn't have a pay-to-play system. It's all algorithm-driven. Guess I'll take the heat for my above post with a side of Scotch bonnet. Yah mon!

 

[Darkmakaimura]

Source: https://metro.co.uk/2025/01/05/think-gamers-blame-gamings-decline-readers-feature-22244431/amp/

A lot of people who play games just play the same game, or newest iteration of it, each year. That means that other newer or more interesting and innovative games lose out on sales and the cash, therefore studios are much less likely to invest in them in the future.

If it is not another EA Sports FC game or Call Of Duty, many don't care to check them out.

Imagine if some of the more innovative games of this year, i.e. Unicorn Overlord or Metaphor: ReFantazio got the attention of those annual update release games.

However, the bigger issue, I believe, is that gamers have readily embraced digital gaming. Even with recent Black Friday sales I saw way better discounts on physical versions of recent games than digital. If all physical games stopped being released, publishers would have less incentive to discount their digital games due to lack of competition and so all gamers would end up losing out.

TLDR
A reader argues that many of the problems in the games industry are caused by gamers not being willing to try new games and insisting on digital over physical purchases.

He's not entirely wrong. I mean a lot of gamers are very complicit with DRM and other bad practices. Most people, if the same game is on Steam or GOG, will buy the Steam version instead despite GOG being DRM free just as an example.

You'll notice that people will only link the Steam version of a game here and if the same version is on GOG, they completely ignore it.

So there is some truth to the article. Not saying it's all true.

Plus many gamers will take a digital version over a physical version out of convenience. You have to remember not everybody is on a video gaming board and most gamers just don't give a crap about DRM and other issues.

I mean there are people here who are very okay with things like day one patches. A lot of those patches are practically required nowadays to make the game playable.

 

[Plague Doctor]

Real question: Has shaming and guilting a consumer base ever actually worked?

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

Real question: Has shaming and guilting a consumer base ever actually worked?

Crazy that it seems to be the go-to for gaming. So self-reflection or consideration that perhaps they're not providing what customers want that you might get in other industries (from businesses that want to be successful).

No, when it comes to modern day gaming, if your product doesn't sell, it's the customer's fault.

 

[MAX PAYMENT]

When did this blame the audience trend start?

 

[KungFucius]

Most big single player games are way to fucking long. When I play them I am exhausted and I have been gaming since the early 80s. For many people they probably drop them and later realize they wasted a lot of time and money.

Shorter, cheaper, better games could help.

 

[mayham2199]

If this is the decline of gaming then this is incredible. I have so many games in my backlog that I can't even keep up. Yet apparently gaming is declining. I'll believe it's declining when I can finish a game and have absolutely no idea what to play next because nothing interest me and I have to wait a month or two for a game to come out. This used to happen during the 360 era for me. Right now I don't know what to play next because I'm overloaded with choices.

Most big single player games are way to fucking long. When I play them I am exhausted and I have been gaming since the early 80s. For many people they probably drop them and later realize they wasted a lot of time and money.

Shorter, cheaper, better games could help.

This is another thing is the games are so long like jesus I only have so much time in my day.

 

[HogIsland]

It's pretty crazy to blame gamers for the shift to digital (if that's even a problem) considering how aggressively the publishers and platforms are pushing it.

 

[samuelgregory]

A lot of people who play games just play the same game, or newest iteration of it, each year. That means that other newer or more interesting and innovative games lose out on sales and the cash, therefore studios are much less likely to invest in them in the future.

If it is not another EA Sports FC game or Call Of Duty, many don't care to check them out.

Imagine if some of the more innovative games of this year, i.e. Unicorn Overlord or Metaphor: ReFantazio got the attention of those annual update release games.

However, the bigger issue, I believe, is that gamers have readily embraced digital gaming. Even with recent Black Friday sales I saw way better discounts on physical versions of recent games than digital. If all physical games stopped being released, publishers would have less incentive to discount their digital games due to lack of competition and so all gamers would end up losing out Best Names for Christmas Events.

TLDR
A reader argues that many of the problems in the games industry are caused by gamers not being willing to try new games and insisting on digital over physical purchases.

I've been seeing in my news feed that the UbiSoft CEO is blaming the underperformance of SW: Outlaws on gamers demanding "more than just a solid game". What is he basing that on? I can't think of a single time, in recent memory, that any AAA publisher has sent out any kind of survey to find out what we are thinking and wanting. My guess: is they know the truth but won't accept it. I don't think I'm alone in saying that I want games with smaller scope, worse graphics, shorter dev cycles, deep, immersive gameplay, a relatable story, and (most importantly) well-rested, well-paid devs. The AAA games business has hit critical mass. "Success" isn't selling millions of copies of a well-received game. Success is launching a live service that generates ongoing income, long term. That bar is too high because there can only be a couple of Fortnite/Overwatch success stories in a decade. We need AAA publishers to reset investor expectations. They need to fund more A and AA projects that can take risks without the cost of failure being in the hundreds of millions. If these Ubis and Microsofts have to split up to make that happen, so be it. As things stand today, my PS5 has been a paperweight since I finished Ghost of Tsushima (which was technically a PS4 game). I'm sure a lot of you are in that same boat. I'm holding out hope that Nintendo will keep the game console business alive, but I want more than Nintendo. I want the scrappy innovation of the XBOX/360 era of Microsoft. I want the variety of PS1/2 era PlayStation. I want gaming back.