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60% of playtime went to games 6 years and older...

Bernardougf

Gold Member
The culmination of diversity hires and DEI practices are upon them... it just took more time than Hollywood because games take more time to make... and newsflash this probably will affect games in production for the foreseeable future.
 

soulbait

Member
Modern AAA gaming lately is just letdown after letdown. Forza and Suicide Squad really make me feel like the industry has lost its way

The state of Forza and whatever the mess that is Suicide Squad is the attempts to have these games be played similarly to these older games. How do you make a racing game that keeps people engaged for years and years? How do you make a superhero game have legs as long as Fortnite?
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
You just posted the counter-evidence to your idea yourself....
Not if we consider what the data looked like at 2 year intervals going back to the start of the hobby.

Think of it in terms of StarCraft. The Zerg can produce units at 2.26 times the rate of the Protoss. The Protoss generate more powerful, longer lasting units.

What models do you think the Protoss and Zerg represent here?
 
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Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
old games like Fortnite and League of Legends.

The Office Lol GIF by NETFLIX
 
Personally this year I'm spending a lot less money and playing games a lot more.

So far for new releases I've picked up:

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (20 hours, completed)
Ultros (9 hours, completed)
Balatro (40 hours and counting)
FFVII Rebirth (50 hours and counting)
P3 Reload (bought on sale, 18 hours and counting)

So that's 4 / 5 games already at 20+ hours, two of them at 40+ hours.

All of last year combined I only had 5 games break 20 hours playtime, with only two of them at 40+ (Zelda and Theatrhythm)
 

Cyberpunkd

Member
Modern AAA gaming lately is just letdown after letdown. Forza and Suicide Squad really make me feel like the industry has lost its way

Yeah no wonder. Between a retro game which is focused on gameplay and fun and a modern game that's focused on my money, I think I'll choose the former any day of the week.

To many games released today are just crap. So it's no wonder.
Wrong. These are not games they released long time ago and are not developed anymore. They have new content being added all the time, making people stay with them. It’s no different than an MMO. The article is incredibly misleading.
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
I get about as excited for big AAA games nowadays as I do for blockbuster big-budget Hollywood movies. Nowadays they’re safe, same-y, design-by-committee, woke entertainment products.

Used to be that it was exciting when a megaton game was announced. Now at best I feel cautiously optimistic. The only big AAA game that really thrilled and satisfied me in the last few years was Cyberpunk 2077.

BTW in the last year my kids (4th grade and 1st grade) started almost exclusively playing Roblox and Minecraft. That’s what all the kids their age play. I bet they’ll move on to Fortnite when they get a bit older.
 

MarkMe2525

Member
In my case, this is probably closer to 90%. I've jumped back into gen 7 systems pretty hard. Ever since I got my component switcher for my CRT and filled my Wii, PS3, and 360 with my backups, that's all I have been playing.
 
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Guilty_AI

Member
BTW in the last year my kids (4th grade and 1st grade) started almost exclusively playing Roblox and Minecraft. That’s what all the kids their age play. I bet they’ll move on to Fortnite when they get a bit older.
Have them play DOOM, gotta teach them early.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Then how many live service games released during the last 5 years have been successful?

Enough for the largest, most successful game companies on planet earth to push considerably more towards Live Service
 
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Zheph

Member
Old games are cheaper, not riddled with microtransactions, play better, better designed, don't take 40 hours+ to complete and are not stuffed with shitty DEI politics?

no-shit.gif
I would take some time to read the post maybe
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Wrong. These are not games they released long time ago and are not developed anymore. They have new content being added all the time, making people stay with them. It’s no different than an MMO. The article is incredibly misleading.
Yeah... that's my feeling too. What many of these Live service games are doing is basically reutilize the software to release "sequels" within them. They aren't just there making money for free, they're games that are constantly being invested on in not a much different manner from making Spider man, then Miles Morales, then a Remaster update, then Spider Man 2, etc.
 

Zheph

Member
Wrong. These are not games they released long time ago and are not developed anymore. They have new content being added all the time, making people stay with them. It’s no different than an MMO. The article is incredibly misleading.
people just read the title and think they can have a dunk on modern gaming or mtx until you realise all those "older games" are GaaS
 

Guilty_AI

Member
You could have said this 5 or 10 years ago. Yet, GAAS grew considerably in those 5 to 10 years.
You mean the same few games grew rather than GAAS as a whole...

What will the next 5 to 10 look like?
The estabilished GAAS will still be the ones of today more or less, with maybe very few new ones, and lots and lots more of them that died along the way or never even truly lived to begin with. We'll still get great single-player games every year, some years better than others.

Or we'll all be dead from nuclear warfare;
 
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Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
You mean the same few games grew rather than GAAS as a whole...
We both know that's not true. Just pull up the top 50 most played GAAS from 2014 and compare it to todays list.
The estabilished GAAS will still be the ones of today, with maybe very few new ones. We'll still get great single-player games every year, some years better than others.
Wider and deeper. As markets always grow.
 

Havoc2049

Member
Core PS audience for sure plays SP games I think. They are vastly outnumbered by casuals though.

Look at any SP Sony game sales that was not bundled with console and you will get a good idea of their numbers. Am assuming its close to 10-15 million or so.

Rest are all casuals (100 million+ if we look at PS4).

Switch is curious though. Either its owners dont like playing non Nintendo games or a lot of casuals purchased it and its simply collecting dust. I would like to know whats going on here.
I think it's less of a hardcore vs casual and more of massive time sink multiplayer games vs single player games. I'm big into a few older multi-player communities and the hardcore players in those games are almost all hardcore gamers in general. We are always peeling off to play some of the latest and greatest single player games and talking about them as we continue to play multi-player community games.

I'm guilty, as last year I put the majority of my time into several older multi-player games and some newer multi-player games. I usually buy and finish around 5-10 new games each year though and I'm also a retro gamer and spend time playing and buying retro games to add to my collection. Like for example, I bought and finished and put like 130 hours into Starfield last year. Compared to the time I put into my main multiplayer games, Sea of Thieves and Halo MCC though from last year, that is but a fraction of my gaming time. I just checked and I have 3622 hours in Sea of Thieves and have been playing the game since the day it came out.
 

Chukhopops

Member
Only 8 percent of video game playtime was spent on new, non-annual titles like Diablo IV or Baldur’s Gate III.
This is the craziest part to me. It feels like play time is cannibalized further and further every year.

Feels like a big problem for the industry, although personally I’m ok with SP games going for smaller budgets and more variety.
 
BTW in the last year my kids (4th grade and 1st grade) started almost exclusively playing Roblox and Minecraft. That’s what all the kids their age play. I bet they’ll move on to Fortnite when they get a bit older.

My son is in 1st grade now. He plays everything. Lately he's really been into astrobot. I had to get a new PS and didn't uninstall the game. So he started playing it and is going hard. He's also played the messenger, Spiderman, minecraft dungeons, fall guys, roblox, genshin impact. He wants to play more of my games but my wife wont let him.
 

Paasei

Member
You have to very cautious with the games you (want to) buy. Not only are they more expensive, but the chances of them being more shit than usual is also quite high.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Another Men_in_Boxes thread shitting on SP games?
Not "****ing on" them. Single player games are / were a vital building block of the medium we all love. Couldn't get here without them.

But the industry is changing. To deny as much is to remain ignorant. Looking forward is exciting.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
We both know that's not true. Just pull up the top 50 most played GAAS from 2014 and compare it to todays list.
Counter strike... World of Warcraft..... FIFA........ Call of Duty............ Destiny................... Dota 2....................... League of legends...............................
 
I personally would want more immersive sim games but those are niche. I was hyped for new Deus Ex game but the damn Embracer just killed it off.

There's too many games with an open world design and shit ton of bloat.

Semi-open design games with 15 to 20h tops would work, especially I think for older gamers.

I'm curious to see if we ever get Dishonored 3, it may share similar fate to Deus Ex or Thief unfortunately. But I would absolutely love a new entry to the series.

Some of us just don't have the time to put 200h into games. But 15 to 20h is manageable.

Throw in a good story with at least decent pacing and writing and a fun gameplay, no microtransactions, no bugs and decent optimalization. Ground characters in the game world and the story if you want diversity, not just put stuff in at random for the sake of diversity that feels forced and feels like it was just added at the last 5 minutes. And I think you have a decent selling game...
 
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Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
There's too many games with an open world design and shit ton of bloat.

Semi-open design games with 15 to 20h tops would work, especially I think for older gamers.
This talking point needs to die.

Open world games have been the most successful SP games over the last 10+ years. "Semi open world, 15 to 20h tops" flop on such a consistent basis.

Driving in that direction would lead to the SP industry going bankrupt.
 
The state of Forza and whatever the mess that is Suicide Squad is the attempts to have these games be played similarly to these older games. How do you make a racing game that keeps people engaged for years and years? How do you make a superhero game have legs as long as Fortnite?
Forza Horizon 6 and DC Universe Online 2 would probably do the trick. I personally play FH4/5 and Injustice 2 regularly. The latter is more a fighting game than a superhero game though.
 
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Caffeine

Member
so good video games. I mean I just booted up dota 2 yesterday to hop into some bot games to finally learn the game. it came out 11 years ago.
 
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Tunned

Member
This fully checks out with me. I'm almost done with my 4th playthrough of Max Payne 3. I played through GTAIV and NFS Hot Pursuit 2010 not too long ago. I'm hooked on Red Alert (remastered) again.
And all this whilst slowly playing through Dying light and the newer, Cyberpunk and Yakuza 7.

I have little to no interest in the new AAA stuff coming out, only GTAVI will be an exception.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
The industry is dominated by casual gamers.

As good as single player games are, you play them for 10-20hrs and then they’re shelved or traded towards new games.

Obviously that’s not the case with GaaS titles that manage to capture players with fun gameplay. Timmy might stop playing GTA Online for Spiderman 2, but 20hrs later, Spider-Man’s a fart in the wind and he’s right back to GTA Online.

Then there’s the audience that only plays CoD or FIFA. They don’t give a shit about all of those big single player exclusives.

That’s reality.
 
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Ulysses 31

Member
Yup, thanks to the RetroTink 4K/CEMU/ homebrew Wii, I'm looking more at the past library to play the games in a "remastered" form than anything new recently.
 
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