Reasons I me personally just talking about myself here not you don't care about 9th gen going forward:
1. I already own more video games than I can reasonably expect to finish. I'm sure I easily own over a thousand physical games (6th, 7th, 8th gen and PC, I emulate 5th gen and back) most of which are as of yet unplayed, because I tend to sell or give away a game once I beat it. Meaning my existing
backlog library consists of new-to-me stuff almost 100%. When I add my digital purchases, and ROMs/ISOs to the mix, well that's a tremendous many more games available as well. At some point this becomes ludicrous to keep adding more games to the pile. (Some would argue I surpassed ludicrous in the 7th gen alone.) Ergo it'd be extra specially ludicrous for me to buy into the 9th gen and beyond, given the scope of what I've already got to play. I don't have infinite time to play video games, nor do I want to do that.
2. I don't want to spend loads more money on more video games. Since the late '80s, I've spent a small fortune on this hobby. Now that I'm in middle age, I'd rather put more of my money towards retirement investment funds, big vacations, asset building and so forth. Once I clear the 8th gen collecting I'm doing now, I'm done sinking money into this hobby.
3. I'm not a fan of all-digital and that's where we are headed, period. While I realize that most 8th gen discs are just glorified download initiators, I can still SELL those discs. Ergo I can recoup some of my financial investment (beyond the entertainment gained from playing the game I mean). You can't resell a digital purchase in general, it's a one time buy no time sell. All-digital puts all the power in the hands of the publisher, and no power in the hands of the consumer. That's a totalitarian future I'm not interested in.
4. Western designed games have become too political. I won't go into details. Let's just say, I'm sick of seeing a certain political ideology front and center in many modern, western-designed, video games. I refuse to support that crap. On that note:
5. Sexy females are going extinct in western games. I enjoy sexy female protagonists and sexy women in games in general. If that makes me a despicable, shallow,
Simple Man™ - I assure you not one iota of a fuck is given on my behalf. I play video games to enjoy myself, and being bombarded with fugly vidya females works against that enjoyment. Thus far Japan has avoided this trope, and I hope it stays that way. But this is an endemic issue for western designed games (both American and European). Meanwhile western designed games still have handsome muscle men galore - oh there's no double standard obviously.
6. The monetization is out of control. Not sure how much I need to expound on this. I'm just tired of seeing every new AA or AAA game being monetized to absolute death. I want to buy a game and own it succinctly and holistically. Not buy a game, only to have a good 30% of its content sanctioned off as DLC, IAP, NFT, "F2P", subscription services, premium tiers... all while being subjected to in-game-advertisements as well. It's medium diluting, anti-consumer bullshit, and I refuse to support it going forward.
7. The homogenization is lazy and real. Too many games using the same exact design tropes, over and over and over. Linear narrative tunnels, open-world whack-a-mole, battle royale, legions of this crap lately. I understand there are exceptions, but put aside your binary thinking for a minute, and look at the bigger picture. Holistically there has been a homogenization of game designs en masse into an ever-narrowing envelope of genres. I miss the wild west days of the 5th and 6th generations, when crazy unique game designs were aplomb... and that stuff wasn't relegated to indies either. Publishers are simply far too risk-averse these days.
8. Diminishing graphical returns. It's the 9th gen, and guess what? That ray tracing was a lie! I don't think that 9th gen games have, thus far, been much of a graphical improvement over the 8th gen. And the 8th gen wasn't really all that huge of a leap from the 7th gen. We've simply reached the point of diminishing returns on graphical evolution. At least until real-time high FPS ray tracing happens... which looks like it might be the 10th gen for that. Even so, there's only so much money a publisher/studio can spend on developing graphics regardless, and still be able to hit an appreciable ROI. This is a problem for a medium that has been largely visually driven, insofar as the primary impetus to upgrade to the newest consoles available. Or to build a new PC rig. Without ever evolving eye candy, where's the impetus? Moore's law simply doesn't apply to video game graphics, and that's disappointing.
9. Innovation is at an all time low. Be honest with yourself, did the 7th and 8th gen really feel all that different? Or did it feel like the 8th gen was just a slightly prettier reiteration of the 7th gen's games all over again? I know how I feel in that regard. Have you played/watched the available 9th gen games? Well, to me, they look like marginally nicer visuals of 8th gen games, which were only slightly prettier reiterations of 7th gen games. This is all to say, that despite the increasing processing power, we're not seeing evolved genres or new game designs entirely, that could only exist thanks to improvements in hardware. Instead we are seeing marginally nicer looking rehashes of the same game designs we've had since the 7th gen, if not the 6th and 5th. I don't care how much faster the framerate is, or higher the resolution is, if I'm constantly bombarded with deja vu. And don't give me that
"well indies are where the innovation is" crap. Yes there are some innovative indie games, but the vast
majority of indie games are platformers, or wannabe JRPGs/VNs. The indie scene is just as laden with a lack of sincere innovation as the corporate scene is.
10. The amount of sequels and remakes is too damn high! If you need proof of just how creatively bankrupt this medium has become, take some time to explore the amount of sequels and remakes lately. It's ridiculous. Also look at the upcoming ones! It's sad. There are still as of yet, unexplored design concepts, untapped demographic appeasements, and novel technological implementations to attempt (especially in the realm of augmented reality). But we'll never see them as long as the masses keep buying rehash sequels and slightly glossier remakes galore. Developers will remain just as lazy as their consumers' tastes are, because that's where the easy money is.
And a
bonus reason is what OP mentioned; The releasing of unfinished/broken games is really out of control. I'm not going to pay money for "early access" to be a beta tester, and I'm sure not paying $70 to be a beta tester either. No thanks.
Ergo I'm tapping out after I'm done collecting for my Switch and PS4 libraries. Ya'll can have the digital dystopia future.
