So I actually thought about this a bit more and another problem that I have is the ever widening gap between AAA developers and AA developers. Nowadays it seems like there isn't much of a middle ground so to speak. You got Activision/Blizzard, Ubisoft, R* and Nintendo and Sony studios, etc. making things on the major scale, but then there's a big drop to the next level. A lot of the lower studios either have 1 or 2 games or were grandfathered in from previous generations. And that's not to mention smaller studios who kept getting swallowed up by the bigger studios.
So ignoring what we have now in the PS4/XBX era, go back to the Xbox/GameCube era and there was just MORE games. Games games games, and that's what I loved. Splinter Cell, Scarface, Punisher, Prince of Persia, Manhunt, Bully, Hulk Ultimate Destruction, etc. All different games available for all systems, from different studios and devs. Yes, Persia and Splinter Cell were Ubisoft, but where are they now, dead. My point is that before the HD era, games came out and there was just SO MUCH available to us. And that's not counting the bigger franchises and exclusives we had back then, nor the exclusives each system had as well. If you wanna say we were spoiled, fine, but that's the best way for things to be.
Now move to the 360 era and things were more apparent when you looked at the gap between AAA games and those on the next rung down. You have Assassin's Creed (Ubisoft), COD, GTA(R*), and the plethora of exclusives like Halo, GoW, GoW, Ratchet, Uncharted, Mario, Zelda etc. at that top/higher tier. But you also had games and series like Saints Row, Left 4 Dead, Sleeping Dogs, Prototype, inFAMOUS, Spider-Man games, Batman Arkham games, Borderlands etc etc. Again, we had games on games on games. Remember when it was odd that Prototype and inFAMOUS were made and released at the same time? Completely different games but still funny to think about when it happened. Now fast forward and both franchises are dead.
That moves me to the PS4/ONE era. The generation that I questioned from the very beginning. And you can see it in my first post, what were we getting with this new console generation? Because if it was just graphics, then we were going backwards. And then things got weird. We stopped getting as many new games. We started getting more remasters. Why are we re-doing the Uncharted series? They were JUST made, what the fukk? Remaster, remaster, remaster! All for the pretty graphics! I could understand taking games from systems that are defunct, from games that are at least 2 gens old. But remastering a game that came out 2 to 3 years ago is just greedy. And sadly a lot of people lapped it up that's why it's a cornerstone of what the industry is doing today. But I'm talking about games, right?
So yes, we still got games on the PS4/ONE systems, but the problem we ran into is that the industry had shot itself in the foot a bit. Microsoft made some bad choices early on and people didn't forgive them moving forward. But Sony did something right and that was their exclusives. The problem we ran into was that it was just exclusives. The big Sony exclusives are mostly good to great but we ran into the fact that there were less and less viable non-exclusive triple A and double A level games being made. The dev time got crunched and the budgets got tighter. So for example, on the PS/360 you had Mass Effect. 3 games that I'm told are amazing up until the last 20 minutes of the last game. Now fast forward to the PS4/One, you had Andromeda which everyone says was an abortion! Assassin's Creed was a big franchise on the 360, then starting with the first game of the new gen, Unity shyt the bed and hard. Shot the franchise in the foot and it limps on today. Square was a great studio that had set themselves up for failure by setting their goals too high with Hitman and Tomb Raider. They then cut ties and sold off their non Japanese properties. Things just continued to get weirder across the board.
We still got games but the widening gap was more and more apparent each year. Yeah we could get Shadow of Mordor, but the sequel pissed people off by making it unbeatable or something. Like you had to put an inhuman amount of time into the game to get the ending. Or you could just pay them for the time saver and get the ending. I'm not 100% sure on that, please correct me because I know I'm not all the way on point with that.
Finally I wanna touch on the games as a service problem that's a major fukk you to players. Business 101 says it's better to get the consumer to keep giving you money repeatedly with no end in sight. That's true. That's what Rockstar has done with GTA. They made a great game then released it (PS3), re-released it (PS4), then re-re-released it (PS5). All to keep getting that billion dollar shark card money. We all know about microtransactions, no need for me to elaborate. But even the biggest studios are guilty of it these days.
But go back with me. To Red Dead Redemption. Amazing game. Game of the Year. Game of a generation type deal. But look at what you got. The base game, online multiplayer and the upgrades that came. And then...SINGLE PLAYER STANDALONE DLC! HOLY SH!T!!! And it was amazing. Undead Nightmare was everything you wanted in a dlc. R* did it again. Same with GTA 4, a dreadful game that R* poured everything they had into. Multiple standalone dlc's came out for that game and people were happy.
Fast forward, no dlc for Red Dead 2. No dlc for GTA 5. Why? You literally have all the components, why not give the people what they want. Why does everything GTA have to be in the freaking online portion? Even though you're putting actual stories with voice acting and cutscenes. Why can't any of that be the single player dlc?
Because you can only charge the customer ONE time. 70 for the base game and 30 for the hypothetical single player dlc is only $100. But GTAO with countless shark cards is infinitely more money than that. One of the biggest studios/developers has given us the finger and said let's ride the wave. And sadly it's worked for them....for OVER A DECADE!!!
And that gap between Triple A and the next level is just too wide. And then the gap between lower level Double A games and the games under that is wide too. There are games that I wish were more polished. Take Vampyr for instance. It's an ok game. But if it had just a bit more budget, it would have been a lot better. The graphics aren't gonna blow you away. The character design is right out of the 360 era, but what they had was a great base but it lacked polish. And it hurts because I wish we had more games on the level of say, a Hulk Ultimate Destruction. Games that won't blow you away but they are fun a fukk to play. I wish we had more games with more variety in setting. Steampunk is over done, modern day is the standard and open world fantasy is more often chosen over a more supernatural setting. Whether it be historical or modern. I wish we had more werewolf and vampire games that were good. Werewolf Apocalypse looked alright until you played it and it wasn't polished either. Again it's a symptom of the divide in quality based on budgets.
Gaming used to be fun first and foremost. Now it's big business first and the fun can be patched in later.
