[HN Gopher] Did too many games release in Q3 of 2024?
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Did too many games release in Q3 of 2024?
Author : vyrotek
Score : 38 points
Date : 2024-10-25 20:34 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (howtomarketagame.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (howtomarketagame.com)
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| Videogames are rapidly becoming the predominant medium of
| artistic expression. Especially horror (even Undertale could be
| categorized as horror or at least with horror elements). I've
| seen horror games that are far more complex thematically than
| anything coming out of Hollywood or in literature these days.
| foolfoolz wrote:
| it's been this way since vice city
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| While I won't necessarily agree with Vice City being the
| appropriate demarcation, I recently learned that GTA Vice
| City (2002) is closer in time to its settings (1986) than it
| is to the present day, and that made me feel things.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| And yet, there's few early-2000's nostalgia, even 90's
| nostalgia or retro hasn't really taken off yet. Closest
| thing I can think of is Breaking Bad, and that came out in
| 2008, so at the time it wasn't even "2000's nostalgia".
|
| But the thing with BB is that cheap feature-phones are an
| important plot device, but 2008 was a turning point in that
| the iPhone and Android smartphones were taking the world by
| storm, as did fast always-on internet. I posit that it's
| not so much the year or time, but the technology and
| experiences of the time that determine if something is
| considered retro.
|
| 80's was cable TV and walkmans; 90's wasn't much different,
| but late 90's / early 2000's was marked by the rise of the
| internet. But people sitting at their computer doesn't make
| for good TV. Late 2000's to now is the era of smartphones,
| but again, I don't think anyone will feel nostalgic about
| people sitting alone together browsing Reddit or HN for
| hours on end.
| anthk wrote:
| - Broken Sword
|
| - Curses!/Jigsaw
|
| - The Longest Journey
|
| - Trinity
|
| - Outcast
|
| Text/graphical adventures were like 20-30 years ahead of
| Hollywood, but 20 years behind paper books and fandom.
| hawski wrote:
| Would it be true to say that technological and educational
| progress makes art increasingly complex as it is easier to use
| a specific art medium having means to do so?
|
| I did not think of AI generation starting my comment but here I
| am with my last sentence.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| I think that's generally the case. In _Aesthetic Theory_
| (which is fairly inaccessible to the general public, probably
| best to read this[0] article instead) Adorno suggests that
| art mediums progressively annihilate each other as technology
| advances and the condition of possibility for an artwork is
| also the destruction of all previous works of art, both
| solidifying them in the history of art and also restructuring
| it entirely around the artwork itself, which contains all
| previous art historical ruptures inside it.
|
| [0]https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/adorno/
| GrantMoyer wrote:
| Some of my favorite stories are from videogames, but I don't
| know if the medium as a whole is outpacing films. AAA games
| have a lot of the same problems as Hollywood; they're usually
| very formulaic and safe. And while indie games are more
| thematically varied, they're hit or miss on execution, a lot
| like indie films.
|
| That said, horror movies specifically are often very
| underwhelming in the themes they explore, so horror videogames
| don't have a high bar to beat.
| Brainspackle wrote:
| Couldn't tell ya. I'm still playing games from 2019. With so many
| game releases nowadays, I have the patience to wait for a good
| sale to pick up anything new. The only game I've bought on
| release in the past few years is Baldurs Gate III
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Apart from factorio the games I play are 20 years old and
| older. I was looking forward to Homeworld 3 but they hashed
| that up so bad that it's far less fun than the original.
|
| The point being that new stuff isn't just competing with new
| stuff but also old stuff.
| yreg wrote:
| You might also be getting older and more nostalgic...
| bjelkeman-again wrote:
| Are we turning into old farts with our old games? I play a 25
| year old game on a cloned server (EverQuest clone, 1999 MMO).
| And a newer first person shooter, but free to play.
|
| I was looking forward to a new Homeworld. Shame.
| thepuppet33r wrote:
| I think we just probably have less time to play. In college
| I could blow an entire weekend on a subpar game and be fine
| with it, because I didn't really have competing priorities.
|
| Now, if I waste $60 and four hours on an abysmal game, it's
| $60 that I could have used to take my kids to the movies,
| get takeout for my wife and I, or any number of other
| things. Same with the time. Five hours is time I could have
| spent cleaning the house, working on my side projects, etc.
|
| I love gaming, and I destress by playing games, but it's
| not worth the now much higher opportunity cost to play the
| newer (usually worse) stuff.
|
| That said, not all new games are terrible. Dredge is a game
| made last year that was absolutely phenomenal in my mind,
| and well worth the cost and time. Spent way too many late
| nights fishing in that game.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I viscerally feel like I'm wasting time when i play
| computer games, such that it runs the enjoyment.
|
| I'm making a list of all the games I want to play in
| retirement...
| litenboll wrote:
| I use the two hour return policy on Steam to make sure I
| avoid paying for bad games (and get out before I spend
| too much time on it as well)
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I think part of it is because gaming used to be avant garde
| and now it's being made for the general masses - especially
| the more expensive games. This is probably why I like
| Factorio - it knows what it is and really leans into it.
| tokinonagare wrote:
| Well with Factorio Space Age I'm hooked for a long time. New
| DLCs coming for AoE II too, one dropped recently for Wargame
| Red Dragon, they're really nice to keep "old" game even more
| relevant than they were. Also remasters when they are well
| made like the Red Alert one.
| thepuppet33r wrote:
| Already spent way too many hours in Space Age. About to
| start on Red Circuits and realized I need to completely
| reconfigure my main bus.
|
| On a more serious note, I'm really feeling like it's safer
| to buy dlc and updates for old games than new ones. I was
| one of the people who freaking preordered Kerbal Space
| Program 2, thinking it would be amazing and so excited for
| a new KSP. And then it was such a dumpster fire, I haven't
| played it more than a dozen hours. From a pure ROI in
| playtime vs cost, I've gotten literally nine times the
| value from Factorio then I have from KSP 2, and twenty
| times the value for KSP 1 (my most played game). And I
| still play both of them regularly.
|
| Why risk wasting $60 when I know these old games are still
| good?
| chainingsolid wrote:
| I did the same with ksp2... Part that really hurt there
| was finding out it was a production disaster the entire
| time.. One or 2 of the correct people in the right place
| could have saved it!
|
| Busy waiting on bots to build out 16 lanes of copper
| smelting in my space age base right now, funney enough.
| Though I'm fixing LDS shortages.
|
| On the topic of old games, many times the Minecraft
| Modding scene can solve the all the new games suck
| problem on its own!
| copx wrote:
| >The point being that new stuff isn't just competing with new
| stuff but also old stuff.
|
| I think that this will become a bigger and bigger problem for
| the games industry.
|
| While movies, TV shows, literature, and music are always
| expressions of a particular time/culture/generation, games
| are usually much more universal.
|
| E.g. young people today find Friends more problematic than
| funny, but have no problem enjoying Mario Kart.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I wouldn't say that at all. People are thin-skinned about
| plenty of games too.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Why is Friends problematic?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Humor that didn't age well but was funny for its time.
| the gay/crossdressing/fat jokes that were normal 20 years
| ago that wouldn't pass today are a starting point.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| [delayed]
| tombert wrote:
| I would say that about 90% of my gaming in the last few
| months has been on the MiSTer. I am not sure that there
| exists _any_ games released in the last 15 years that work on
| there.
|
| That's probably not true, but I can't think of any.
| glimshe wrote:
| People still make new games for old consoles, even full
| commercial releases. These are done by enthusiasts, of
| course, but I think some people are possibly making enough
| money to pay their water bill this way :)
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| McDonalds of all parties had a new Gameboy game
| commissioned last year:
| https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/06/for-reasons-no-
| one-ca...
| tombert wrote:
| Oh yeah! You know, I actually played that game _on the
| MiSTer_ and it still didn't register to me that it was a
| game released in the last 15 years.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Sins of a Solar Empire 2, on the other hand, lives up to how
| good the original was
| PeterCorless wrote:
| I played Baldur's Gate for a while, but then I went back to
| Crusader Kings 3 (2020), Europa Universalis IV (2013), and Sims
| 4 (2014).
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| That is a big factor. I believe over half of the top 10 most
| played games on steam at any given time are 5+ years old. GTA V
| was played across 3 generations and its still in the top 20
| most played games.
|
| Market's being captured, and there's less to appeal to when
| people are stuck in a service bubble instead of moving on.
| That's a big part of why consoles are stagnating in Gen 9;
| economy and a lot of people are fine with PS4's, which still is
| getting new games.
| autoexec wrote:
| Part of the problem is that new games are too often filled with
| bugs, ads, microtransactions, pointless timegates, etc. You
| can't trust reviews, so there's no telling what you're going to
| get. Game companies have burned players so many times that
| buying a game at launch, even if you like the franchise, just
| isn't wise.
|
| That said, while I'm normally the type to play 10-15 years
| behind, I did pick up a copy of stellar blade on launch day
| just on a whim and it was amazing. No ads, no parts of the
| story paywalled off, nothing but fun and they've put out a lot
| of updates since making improvements, and dropping new outfits
| and gameplay modes. I kind of felt like I hit the lottery
| buying a game I knew basically nothing about on day one and not
| feeling like I was ripped off later, but that should be the
| norm. I'm tempted to get Astro Bot although it seems pricey.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| > The too many games argument always seemed toxically Malthusian
| to me. Like who made too many games? Who should stop making
| games?
|
| It's exactly the same as farmers planting too much. It doesn't
| matter if people love what they planted. There is a limit to what
| people can reasonably consume.
|
| Only, unlike farming, I don't expect governments to intervene in
| the market. Video games aren't exactly a critical good.
| digging wrote:
| Just as you say, it's a matter of it just being comparatively
| very easy to make games. These questions have easy answers:
|
| > Like who made too many games?
|
| Everybody.
|
| > Who should stop making games?
|
| Nobody.
|
| It's simply that more games get made than anyone can possibly
| consume. That counts as "too many [to consume]". That doesn't
| mean anything _should_ change.
|
| It only feels weird because we recently came from a time where
| it felt like you could play every game coming out (except if
| you allow flash games, that actually hasn't been true for a
| longer time than it seems).
|
| But nobody is complaining that "we made too many t-shirt
| designs in 2024 and I can't wear them all."
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Amateur musicians do complain all the time about not getting
| enough attention... at least in every country that I've heard
| of?
| recursive wrote:
| Some of everyone is complaining about some of everything.
| Some people want more attention. I don't think there's a
| serious proposal to limit the amount of music made. There
| will always be people making music for the love of it. And
| since distributing it is now free, you'll need some kind of
| special angle if you want to get paid.
|
| My point is that not all musicians are complaining. And nor
| are all the game publishers.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >And nor are all the game publishers.
|
| they don't need to complain. Just lay off people and make
| the rest work harder. Ubisoft is falling in real time and
| their grand plan to recover is "make 2 Assassin's Creed's
| a year for 5 years". Denial is worse than ignorance.
|
| No one does everything. But there is a valid reason to
| understand these complaints. That's all that matters.
| 486sx33 wrote:
| I'd say quantity is no replacement for quality. 3000 games could
| have been released in Q3 of 2024 but I wouldn't have noticed
| because there are exactly zero I want to play online with game
| pass or be permanently connected to the internet for.
| pier25 wrote:
| The problem is not too many but games but not enough good games
| being released.
| YesBox wrote:
| For juxtapositional context: This article [1] came out in 2016
| and gives a great overview of why and how difficult it is to be
| successful (especially more than once) in the video game
| industry.
|
| Entertaining people is _very_ challenging work.
|
| John Carmack [2]: "The work in the aerospace industry is "simple"
| compared to the work he does in video games"
|
| [1] https://lostgarden.com/2016/11/17/autumn-of-indie-game-
| marke...
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carmack#Armadillo_Aerospa...
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