Modern “gaming” bears more resemblance to those other-mentioned vices than it does to when it was a nascent thing and still fun. The parts of my brain that light up when playing an NES game is not the same as the ones that light up when it (very briefly) tries to engage in any of the unfinished ones in my increasingly-seldom-visited steam library.
*shitty overmonetized slopgames, also known as AAA games are losing the “attention war”. The indie and AA scene is blooming.
I’m losing my attention for everything. The color in the world is fading and there’s little joy left in vice.
No no no there’s lots of good happening you just to look out and see it. Yes a lot of the bad news sucks but there is a lot of good still happening and a lot of people getting things done:
Read https://goodgoodgood.co/, and https://goodnewsnetwork.org/. Also watch Good News (That’s the name) and Sam Bentley YouTube channels
For good good good.co there is also 2 articles where they cover studies on Hope (They cover many other studies, hopeful and good news too in their other articles):
- New study finds hopeful people live better lives
https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/hope-key-in-meaningful-life
- Hopeful people live better lives
https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/hopeful-people-live-better-lives-study
There is a 3rd site that covers issues but in problem solving way forgot name of it though.
Never give up!! We the people have the power to make this life wonderful and free! -From Chaplin final speech video. Great video to watch
You can do anything in this life. Keep going. Connect with others and do! Find things you enjoy doing and find fulfillment from in life! Much love to you brother/sister!
Games were just supposed to be games, they were never meant to compete with those things. But thise CEO’s want it all.
The stock market wants it all. Infinite is no good. This is why Valve is best in that regard. Private company that moves as one without external influences
This is simply not true
“Gambling and crypto” reminds me of when I was in DARE and they would refer to “drugs, alcohol, and tobacco,” and I thought “aren’t those all drugs?”
I mean, at that point a lot of games are also gambling.
I’m old enough to remember when games were being demonized. Don’t sound too bad now, eh?
Me too. Pretty funny 😂
Can someone explain to me how cryptocurrencies are even in this fight in the first place ? How are they grabbing and holding people’s attention ? Are they staring at the graphs all day !?
Because the article is badly written.
It’s confusing money spend on X must equal time spent on X.
The total amount of money spend on video games has gone done but more money is now being spent on things like crypto currency. This is being claimed that it means that people are spending more time on crypto since they are spending more money there. It ignores other issues such as who is spending on what (its countries as a whole, not amlunt on average per user), gaming is more expensive, more games are being made as a live service and are flopping (Highguard anyone?), retro gaming is getting bigger (doesn’t cost a fortune), etc…
Totally. Been a gamer for 30+ years, and none of the new stuff holds my interest. Also, my hardware being less than a full time mortgage, means most new games run poorly. So, old stuff it is.
Gambling with make believe money and lots of economy and trading “experts” telling you where to “invest” in
Yes, trading is addictive
*gambling
Kind of… it can be far more structured and methodical than typical gambling
People follow “rules/systems” and notice “patterns” when pulling slots too.
The thing they are tracking is primarily money. If people are playing games they already own and spending money on crypto chasing a big win, that speaks more to increased economic desperation than loss of interest in video games.
Thank you. I was wondering the same thing. The conclusion that attention must be on porn/gambling/crypto is such a wild jump.
correlation != causation
PREACH!
Bollocks. I call this bullshit.
Not playing games, or not playing the current live service shovelware they keep pulling out?
Lots of people are realizing there were more quality games released between 1985 and 2015 than you could ever play in a lifetime. We don’t need new shit if it’s just gonna suck.
Older games are also meant to be beaten. I remember games that had reviews saying, “This game will take 40-60 hours to complete”, and that was it. You could replay it if you wanted, but it was just an experience.
The new idea is live service games. Games you can never really beat, you just grind at it forever. That or they have a bunch of add on things to make the game take a lot longer so you keep playing the same thing over and over again. I’m not saying they’re not fun, just that they lack a satisfying conclusion and variety.
There’s plenty of great new stuff too, often times even modern iterations of the retro stuff we loved, but it doesn’t get the same level of marketing, so it’s harder to find.
You’re right, of course. Indie devs with passion are still putting out some great stuff.
My ire was much more for the AAA studios, which seem to have tossed out all the talent and vision that brought them to the top.
I mean, I was Ride or Die with Square Enix for decades, when they were different companies. After 16, I think I’m just done with new Final Fantasy games altogether. Fuck you guys, imma go play 6, 8, and 9.
To be honest I think Final Fantasy might be a bad example. FF16 feeling so weird and being so divisive isn’t because it’s AAA slop, it’s because they always experiment with something in each entry.
This time, they experimented with doing a dark, gritty and punishing word that had basically no levity in it. Even your home base had nothing but NPCs either being quietly depressed or LOUDLY depressed, emphasis on the loud. There was nowhere to go where you could take an emotional break from the impending end of the world. Every chapter of the story up until the very final cutscene did nothing but make the world more depressing.
Rebirth proves that they can create a world that feels massive but not empty, that they can create a gritty story without being emotionally oppressive, and that they can create a game that feels like the classics but in the modern age.
I don’t believe the source material is the only reason they made Rebirth as good as it is. Yes, they knew they couldn’t fuck this one up or else it was the end as a relevant company, but if they had truly lost their soul, they wouldn’t have been able to rise to meet that challenge.
In other words; I won’t write off new FF games unless FF16 becomes the template rather than an experiment I personally choose not to replay.
I don’t play AAA games anymore (haven’t in years) but I still feel somewhat sympathetic to their plight. What has happened to them is the same thing that happened in the music industry and the film industry and a long time ago in the book publishing industry.
The marketplace is too crowded with quality stuff and so it’s extremely difficult to compete with what’s already out there. The only real answer is to take massive risks and hope you can hit a home run. Unfortunately, AAA studios just like big movie studios aren’t set up to take risks anymore. They’re set up to spend a huge amount of money on a project that’s supposed to be guaranteed to succeed. Indies can survive more easily in this space because they’re small so they can take more risks.
It’s like the dinosaurs after the asteroid impact. The big ones are dying off and the tiny ones are surviving and will eventually become birds. Or something I dunno!
YES! 6 ftw
Anytime I see FF6 mentioned, I have to refer that person to view Ethra. I’m super stoked to play this game. it’s the sprite style game I’ve wanted for a while. octopath was fun but I dunno…this game looks amazing.
I am dedicating a week off just to play StS2 early access.
Hey buddy, those live service shovelware games are manufactured by Shovel-Spyware-Freemium Holdings Inc. They are returning valuable profits back to their shareholders!
And isn’t that what video games are really about anyway? Think of the shareholders.
No. We lost interest in corporate fuck heads with no ties to gaming, using any imaginable way possible to milk, manipulate and fuck their customers over. We still love games.
milk, manipulate and fuck
That definitely sounds like porn /s
just spent 45 on 3 new indie games. gonna play the shit out of them. also playing cash cleaner simulator and loving every minute of it.
anytime I see any AAAAAA slop on steam from companies like ea, ubisoft, activision etc…i click their game, then click ignore so I never see it on my lists again.
Those three companies are dead to me, even if they hold some IP I used to hold dear.
Exactly
That’s because most games suck.
I don’t know whether to upvote this or not. On one hand, I know plenty of great and amazing games. On the other hand, plenty of slop is being created or forced into existing games.
I thought GCP is Google Cloud Platform but turns out it’s Gambling Crypto Porn.
I mean, they are trying to turn video games into porn, crypto and gambling.
I mean, isn’t this what Gacha games basically are?
They got the gambling part down pat.
They have been trying to get crypto in with little success.
And while porn games do exist, very few of them are both good at being porn AND being a game. Which sucks, because this is the only one of the three that would actually be cool.
