The Problem with Modern games like Starfield & Diablo 4

Great topic because you see the same thing in many creative spaces, especially those that are outward facing.

I believe this is due to a few things (in the context of gaming):

– Years ago most every studio wanted to  make an amazing game and possible make some pretty good profit off it.  Now that many studios are part of conglomerates they don’t care about the quality of the game so much as what it makes.  So even if a great game brings in more, it also takes more and so they are happy with low effort and some moderate profit because they will churn that out quickly relatively speaking.  And if you are thinking, that damned capitalism ruins everything!  You are wrong, large monopolies controlling everything and stomping out competitors while the Gov looks the other way IS NOT capitalism.  And thus is an example of how the lack of capitalism stifles the evolution of everything.

– Indie game companies operate and do wonderful games that are fun.  They operate on the original motivation of making a bad arse game.  Until someone buys them then it changes as it’s no longer indie and the motive changes.

– Combine the above with a new wave of woke wingnuts working their way into creative spaces (organically sometimes and sometimes not) where their motive is agenda and to hell with fun or profit and here we have another reason for.  I heard Ethan Van Sciver explain how he and others in comics were pushed out.  He said they were overrun by woke females coming saying it was a man’s world and it was not fair for them to be excluded.  And then of course once there was enough of them they excluded everyone else.  I think this has happened in a number of spaces and I don’t think it is incidental most times because if you control culture you control people.

I am fine with microtransactions if the game is free to play or the cost is very low.  That’s just another way of making money but it must be balanced.  Full priced games with microtransactions are an abomination and a scourge on the gaming landscape.  I actually think this situation is only a thing because now the gaming scene is mostly controlled by mega corps.  And  if you don’t think they work together to make such pricing models possible so they can rake it in I have some oceanfront properly in Arizona to sell you.

The only thing that is making bad AAA games and abusive pricing a possibility is the lack of choice.   If more companies were out there making games that did not do such things no one would buy the garbage games.  Which again brings us to the NOT capitalism we have going on now where big companies are allowed to stifle competition without fear of consequence from the government.   And this has been going on in tech for sometime as the big companies in that realm work together to curb stomp other companies in front of you and dare you to do anything about it.

It boils down to what I have said on here a few times (I just said this in another thread).

Developers care more about keeping you in the game (an over abundance of boring repetitive side activities or collectables and slow long drawn out dialogue conversations) and monetization.

Developers forgot that a video game is supposed to be fun. There is nothing fun about 6000 collectables and secrets. 25-50 is fine, but they go WAY off the deep end with this stuff now. Jedi Survivor is a prime example of it. It got utterly ridiculous who how many collectables there are. Then there is the 6000 side quests (I am calling your name Starfield). Why so many? I fail to see the point in THIS many side quests. Did Mass Effect need 50 side quests to be a GOOD game? No. It had a few, it had a few collectables and side activities, but nothing that stopped the game from being fun.

Diablo IV has some of the most slow dialogue I have EVER seen in a video game. People do NOT talk that slow. It was designed that way to keep you in the game, and it drove me nuts playing it.

This all boils down to devs saying “Hey, look at how HUGE our game is”. “Our game takes 300 hrs to fully complete”. But, they don’t mention that 75% of it is boring, repetitive, full of long drawn out conversations (that you end up just skipping after awhile) and only designed to keep you inside the game. To keep you playing. The fun is sidelined.

That is the state of the industry now. They spend 100 million to make a “huge” game, but could have saved a lot of that money had they taken out 75% of the collectables and side quests and focused on the story and main characters. They need to stop making you read a novel every time you have a conversation and GET TO THE POINT. Video Games have got away from developers. They are too big, too costly, and far to full of filler and monetization. Video games need to be tightened up and condensed for a more fun, engaging, and productive experience. We don’t need 100+hr games, we need good 40hr games.