The Video-Game Industry Has a Problem: There Are Too Many Games

Comments

• impudentmortal@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Dear video game developers,

  There are too many video games nowadays. Please eliminate three.

  I am not a crackpot.

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• kratoz29@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  This becomes even worse when you also want to play old gems that missed because you weren’t even born, or because you had kid taste in your early gaming days, but there are worse things to complain at.

  My first two video games that I had were Gran Turismo and Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Battle 22, so at my 6 years old or so I already had negative time of hundreds of nice jRPG gems LMAO.

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• rozodru@piefed.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  It’s not a problem for me just because of the cost. I want to play Expedition 33 but I’m not sure I want to pay $70 to do so.

  I’m happy just playing my old ROM collections or booting up Cyberpunk or whatever. but now I just can’t justify dropping $70+ on a game anymore.

  sigh, I’ll probably just end up going back to EVE Online.

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  • ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Not every game costs $70. Expedition 33 in particular only costs $50 when it’s not on sale, unless you’re in a different region where $50 USD converts to $70 in your country.

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    • rozodru@piefed.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      yup, am a Canuck :/

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• paultimate14@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  The article seems primarily focused on new games. And the article still makes some great points, but when you factor in older games the problem gets bigger.

  I am not going to say that old games were better or that “they just don’t make them like they used to”. What I will say is that a lot of older games that are super cheap on Steam or out of print entirely are still great. There are occasionally new great games being released of course (I haven’t played Hades 2 yet but I expect it to be great, for example). But there’s a lot of new games being released where I think… “Why would I spend $70 or $80 on this when I already have this backlog of older games? Why would I spend my time playing 7/10 games when I have dozens of 9/10’s sitting in my library waiting for me?”

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  • elvith@feddit.org ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yeah. When they announced the new Silent Hill I was somewhat interested - although I felt the peak was back then with SH2. But having read about the remaster of SH2 and some reviews that said, it’d return to the roots? Nice!

    Then I saw a streamer play it early, watched a bit and it looked promising. So I went to wishlist it. Then the release day comes and steam lists it for 70 bucks (available in two days) or 90 bucks now. Well, no. Let’s see how long the price will be that high, but WTF? I don’t wanna know what’s the price on console for it - usually it’s 10-20 bucks more?!?

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  • ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Very true. And sometimes there’s an answer to those questions, even if we discount the games designed to disappear after a few years. You might be sensitive to spoilers, it might be the perfect game for you in the moment (like the right game for a handheld system just before a trip), your friends might want to play it with you or talk with you about it when you’re done, etc. But that competition with back catalogs absolutely exists.

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• MudMan@fedia.io ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  And you know, if wouldn't hurt my ability to play more games if more of them were shorter.

  From the article:

  In 2024, a staggering 18,626 games were released on Steam, according to SteamDB, a website that tracks data on the popular PC platform. That’s an increase of around 93% from 2020, when 9,656 games were released.

  By my count, if you don't sleep or eat and only play videogames you need every game to be about 30 minutes long on average.

  I mean, it wouldn't hurt, but I'm gonna say it's not enough.

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• ushmel@piefed.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  And then i play some city builder that cost $20 for 300 hrs

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  • msage@programming.dev ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    OpenTTD is free

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    • Minnels@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Considering the hours you put in a good building game just about every one of them is “free”. But yeah, OpenTTD is great and a lot of fun. TTDX was my first PC game which was an instant buy (before I even had a computer but was getting one in a couple of months) after I saw a review on TV. The 90s was something else.

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  • SharkWeek@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Or in my case, old driving games

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  • calliope@retrolemmy.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Which city builder? I think I have 300 hours in Cities Skylines by now

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    • ushmel@piefed.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Workers & resources, captain of industry are a couple I've sunk my life into recently lol

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    • Lemminary@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Cities Skylines

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• brendansimms@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  EVE ONLINE UNTIL I DIE

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  • rozodru@piefed.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    please, don’t. I’m on another 3 month break from EVE and I don’t want to go back just yet but….please…don’t I’m tired boss.

    this has been my life since 2003. EVE, take a break, EVE, another break, EVE, so on and so forth.

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  • Quazatron@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I’m still playing Doom, the original!

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• bacon_pdp@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  [deleted]

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  • missingno@fedia.io ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    That's an answer for you as a consumer, but the article is from the perspective of the industry. If no one ever bought new games, game development would not be sustainable.

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  • paultimate14@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Back when I was on Reddit years ago, one of my favorite subs was the Patient Gamers one. There are a couple of similar ones on different Lemmy instances but they’re nowhere near as active.

    I remember friends of mine assuring me I absolutely HAVE to get games like Atomic Heart, High on Life, Avowed, the Oblivion remaster, Starfield, Prey, the Outer Worlds, and many more. There are series that I have enjoyed in the last that have way too many entries to keep up with- 3D Sonic, Assassin’s Creed, Monster Hunter, Yakuza (with all it’s spinoff games like Judgement and others). I’m sure a lot of those games are great, but I just don’t have the time to play then all. And with hundreds of games in my backlog already, these games need to be on sale for dirt cheap and without anti-features like DRM and micro transactions and online requirements in order to get me to buy them.

    So I think it’s worth asking- are there enough whales willing to buy these games for $70 or even $80 to subsidize people like me picking them up for $10 in five years? If not, perhaps these developers and publishers will need to move to a different business model. Maybe there are simply too many devs and too many games getting made.

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    • Lfrith@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I have a friend that insists on getting games at launch. When I get the games years later though I notice they haven’t even played them for a hour while I go on to actually finish them.

      So I think some people buy because of the hype than to actually play the game, since the act of purchasing gives them the high.

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  • MudMan@fedia.io ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The answer to what?

    I mean, that's the problem, from the article's perspective.

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• DarkFuture@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Yup.

  The overabundance of games is killing great games.

  Can’t tell you how many fantastic multiplayer games I’ve bought only to find out they’re ghost towns or become ghost towns soon after purchasing. And it’s because players are so spread out over so many games. 20 years ago these games would have been major successes with a huge player base for years, but they’re dead on arrival or within a few months. It’s a real bummer.

  That being said, I’m going to plug Mycopunk. Just got it and it’s great. Like Deep Rock Galactic and Risk of Rain 2 had a baby. We need more players though. Came out in July. Currently on sale. But base price is cheap.

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  • Master@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Will give mycopunk a shot.

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    • DarkFuture@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It’s great. It’s early access, so it needs some polishing, but it’s already pretty solid. It can be a little overwhelming at first, so make sure you’re doing one of the easier difficulties. Get your weapons and character leveled up and it starts becoming more engaging. Try out different weapons too. I was struggling until I started branching out.

      Oh, and it allows gifs in the in-game chat. Something I’ve never seen in a game before. Type “/gif” followed by any keyword and it tosses an appropriate gif into the chat. It’s a lot of fun to mess around with.

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  • eleijeep@piefed.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    There are multiplayer games from 30 years ago that still have 30 people who play on the first Friday night of each month, and they will put that in their calendar and keep the game alive.

    The idea that multiplayer games need huge communities of players otherwise they are “dead” is what is killing multiplayer games.

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    • missingno@fedia.io ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      There are three tiers of activity:

      • Active enough that I can queue at any time of day and find opponents close to my skill level with good ping
      • Active enough that I can queue at peak hours and find opponents
      • Need to schedule games via Discord matchmaking

      If I really love the game enough, I'll put up with jumping through hoops to play it, but it does get frustrating when the games I like are a lot more convenient to play than the games I love.

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    • DarkFuture@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I mean I get what you’re saying. I’ve been playing Sven-Coop for 26 years and counting. People are still playing. People are still making new levels for it.

      But it’s mostly people on the older side and it’s because it was a mod for a HUGELY popular game and the mod itself used to have a ton of players.

      But a lot of these new, good games never get that big following that allow for a small fan base decades later. Or even months later. Because there’s so many other options spreading gamers out.

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    • janonymous@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Maybe smaller titles should enable players to actively communicate times to meet.

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  • ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Multiplayer games 20 years ago were also built to be more scalable to different numbers of players, and they mostly had bots and such, too. I might push back on how long they sustained huge player bases though. Those games were often sequeled very quickly, and most of the players would move to the next one, leaving behind a small percentage. At least the old game was always still playable for those who bought it, though.

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• Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Elden Ring has been praised by everyone.

  It’s one thing if a reviewer says it’s good. His livelyhood relies on the video game industry thriveing. If you stop buying this game, the studio won’t make the next game. If the studio won’t make the next game, the reviewer can’t review the next game. If the reviewer can’t review the next game, then where does their paycheck come from?

  So I’m not saying they knowingly artificially raise scores and sell games. I’m just saying maybe a 7 gets reviewed as an 8 just so the reviewer won’t feel awkward when meeting with industry folk at the next industry get together.

  But when gamers collectively band together, and say itxs 10/10, and game of the year, I feel rest assured that Elden Ring is as good as people say.

  I have not bought Elden Ring. I have not played Elden Ring. In all honesty, I probably won’t. Why?

  BECAUSE YOU DON’T NEED TO PLAY EVERY SINGLE GAME JUST BECAUSE IT’S AMAZING!!! YOU CAN JUST NOOOOOT PLAY IT!

  Don’t blame too many games. Don’t blame reviewers. Don’t blame anything. This is only a problem if you let it control your life. Variety is good for everybody. Some games you can just let others enjoy. I’m glad Elden Ring is so great. I don’t feel bad I missed it. I’m happy for you if you loved it.

  Isn’t that so much healthier of an attitude to have?

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  • ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The article is about how so many games are coming out that many of the companies making them are going under even when they make games that are evaluated as being good or great. I provided an anecdote about myself that probably contributes to it. I didn’t really share it to be about my attitude toward being able to play these games. I’ll be just fine.

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• commander@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Going to need a global wave of union organization to at least get royalties on sales determined for contribution levels. That’s unlikely to be incredible money but anything is better than nothing as you age towards their elder years

  Besides that, no real solution. It’s happened to every art industry. It turns out there’s probably been an incredible amount of artistic talent every year throughout the millenniums but it’s just the last couple decades where it didn’t require super levels of luck and financial backing to make it

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  • ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I believe Gearbox has always done this royalty situation union-less. But that doesn’t spread out sales to other games that need customers. There are still going to be plenty of games that just don’t move a lot of copies because other games suck the oxygen out of the room.

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    • Goodeye8@piefed.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Let’s not toot Gearbox’s horn. While Borderlands 3 was their biggest success when it launched the people working on it got less royalties (per person) than they got for Borderlands 2. Meanwhile Pitchford bargained himself a 12 million bonus before the game was even released. Oh and when people complained about getting less royalties Pitchford said, like the asshole he is, they’re free to quit. Gearbox does royalty situation union-less (as I know 40% of the royalties are split between the employees), but that comes at the cost of having to put to with one the biggest assholes in the industry who will tell you to eat shit if you don’t like something.

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• Sanctus@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  You dont have to buy every game a reviewer hypes.

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  • kratoz29@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    No, but I find fund in adding them to my backlog list anyway.

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  • ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I literally can’t. The article is speaking from the industry perspective of sustaining its jobs though.

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    • GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      And it’s a problem that will hit the smaller dev studios harder.

      As they are the ones fighting for attention. Especially on the monopolised PC marketplace.

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    • crmsnbleyd@sopuli.xyz ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      There are enough people to buy the new games. The market for games has expanded along with the number of games in the market

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