Nextbox infinity anticipation station

[Sophismata]

That being said let's get BTT people.

Just a shame that the topic isn't as worthwhile as a Mass Effect 2 discussion

[Jeff Kelly]

If I had to list the games I spent the most playing this generation it would be:

World of Warcraft (more time than I care to admit, even to myself) which I've played since the first invitational US Beta
Fallout 3 (more than 200 hours played over at least three playthroughs)
Fallout New Vegas (more than 200 hours played over at least three playthroughs)
Uncharted Series (Each game twice)
Mass Effect Series (probably close to 500 hours if I count all playthroughs of all three parts, yes I'm a fanboy)
Rock Band Series (don't know the exact count)
Guitar Hero Series (don't know the exact count)
Red Dead Redemption

plus a lot of other titles like X-Com, Heavy Rain, MGS 4 etc

With the exception of WoW all of those were console titles which made my purchase of this generations consoles pretty much a bargain if you count amount of money per hour of entertainment.

Nevertheless I also feel fatigue setting in. For example I still haven't even started Skyrim. I have the disc here and had it since release but every time I try it it reminds me that I basically have played that game at least five times already. It might be the best incarnation of the type of game Bethesda does but it's mechanically so similar to the Fallout series or Oblivion that it feels like I'm playing a reskinned and modded version of another game. The shooter formula is now so entrenched and polished that even games from different franchises feel like iterations on the same theme, there's only so much you can do with the 'cover-based first or third person shooter' formula before it becomes repetitive.

A lot of releases last years have just been like that: the same game just bigger more polished and with a multiplayer mode of varying quality while some studios were already in 'waiting till the next gen is announced' mode. If it weren't for the indie scene and some reissues of classics I wouldn't have bought a single game (except X-Com) in 2012.

I'm scared that this trend will continue on the next gen consoles. If GTA V and CoD 4 are any indication of a larger trend we will continue to see 'the game, just bigger and with better graphics' going forward. Eight more years of cover-based shooters with tacked on multiplayer or single-player campaigns is not something I'm looking forward to.

[Merusk]

It will continue.  Stakes are too high for AAA innovation, all we'll get is further 'refinement' and homogenization.

[Azazel]

Nah it's not fatigue.  I'm playing Metro: Last Light right now (came free with my graphics card).  I haven't played first person shooters in probably 3-4 years due to not having a PC to game with, and holy hell first person shooters have become ridiculously on rails in my absence.  It makes me sad :(.

If you want something closer to free-roam (not quite a sandbox, but as close as most FPS will get without being Fallout 3+) try Far Cry 3. Lots of freedom, either way.

[Paelos]

It will continue.  Stakes are too high for AAA innovation, all we'll get is further 'refinement' and homogenization.

I sort of disagree. Again, I've stated before the reason I believe that we've had so much homogenization and iteration over the last 5 years is because the economy went into the shitter in the last 5 years. You don't and can't take risks in that environment because the money simply isn't there. However, as the money from lenders and equity is coming off the sidelines now, you have companies that are more willing to take a risk, especially if they have free cash flows from operations.

I don't think many gaming companies who make the AAA stuff can afford to ride current IPs for the next console or the next 5 years. They have to adapt to an expanding marketplace. They will have to create new franchises. The last big push for franchise creation was 5 years ago.

[Merusk]

I see where you're coming from, and time will tell.  If the consoles themselves flop (which is beginning to look like might happen) then it could just be more of the last 5 years and suddenly we're back in the early/ mid 80's.

[Goreschach]

For the next several years, the AAA market is going to continue to homogenize as production costs continue to skyrocket. The increased hardware assets of the next gen consoles will do nothing but exacerbate this problem, as all those gigs of ram and compute units require multiple times current texture data/polygon complexity/level brushes/wangdoodles. More major publishers/developers will fold and/or get bought out as the % of market capture required to turn a profit increases as the hardcore gamer market continues to not increase.

We'll see plenty of innovation and market shifting, but it'll all take place in the sub-AAA space.

[Bunk]

You would not be able to tell what this thread was even about from the last ten pages (welcome to F13). I'll take a stab at going back on topic.


So I started thinking about this new XBox, and the bizarre marketing behind the reveal (TV! TV! TV!), trying to figure out how this was supposed to appeal to me. What is the number one thing that keeps me from playing a given 360 game at any given moment? I'm too damn lazy to get my ass off the couch to change the disc.

This sounds silly but it's true. If I get a new 360 game that I want to play, I'll go put it in the machine (its likely there already) and sit down in front of the TV to play it. If it's not a new game - it sits there getting dusty. The only games I ever play "spontaneously" on my 360 are the ones I've DL'd from Live.

Now, let's picture the XBone. Assuming it interfaces with my TV in an actual useful manner - as in it's just as easy, or easier, to control through the XBox as it would be using the regular remote - then there's a good chance I'll keep it on by default. So assuming that they get that part right, the XBox will be there, readily available, when I'm watching TV. My show ends, I flip to the guide and see there's nothing on for a while that I want to see. If I can now quickly flip over to any game in my XBox library and start playing it - no having to power the machine up, no having to look for discs - I can see my "spontaneous" play time going up dramatically.

It will all come down to how smooth the whole experience is. I'm not convinced that they will pull it off. The 360 is how many years old and still has bizarre interface issues - try finding your active downloads without hitting the XBox button and using the old dashboard. Kinect didn't exactly change that. Yes, it's slightly quicker for me to say "Xbox, Recent, Play" than it is for me to power up the controller - but I still need that controller powered up to play the game anyways. 

I need to see more on how its all going to connect together. Are there actually going to be TV features that I give a shit about? Hint - anything to due with Social Media is not a plus to me. If it lets me pull up the IMDB page for a movie I'm watching in an overlay? Ok, maybe that peaks my interest. Make it a smooth, seamless experience, and maybe, just maybe, I can see this device appealing to my innate laziness enough to get me interested.

All that being said though, both consoles I've bought in the past ten years have been almost entirely for one big game at the time (GTA VC, and Mass Effect).

I'll probably just get a Steambox. Unless ME4 ends up an XBone exclusive.

[Goreschach]

So I started thinking about this new XBox, and the bizarre marketing behind the reveal (TV! TV! TV!), trying to figure out how this was supposed to appeal to me. What is the number one thing that keeps me from playing a given 360 game at any given moment? I'm too damn lazy to get my ass off the couch to change the disc.

This sounds silly but it's true. If I get a new 360 game that I want to play, I'll go put it in the machine (its likely there already) and sit down in front of the TV to play it. If it's not a new game - it sits there getting dusty. The only games I ever play "spontaneously" on my 360 are the ones I've DL'd from Live.

Now, let's picture the XBone. Assuming it interfaces with my TV in an actual useful manner - as in it's just as easy, or easier, to control through the XBox as it would be using the regular remote - then there's a good chance I'll keep it on by default. So assuming that they get that part right, the XBox will be there, readily available, when I'm watching TV. My show ends, I flip to the guide and see there's nothing on for a while that I want to see. If I can now quickly flip over to any game in my XBox library and start playing it - no having to power the machine up, no having to look for discs - I can see my "spontaneous" play time going up dramatically.

I've been thinking this is probably the reason they have 3 gigs of the ram partitioned for OS use. That's way excessive for typical usage, so I'm guessing they have some kind of funny app cache thing going on. Like keeping your tv, game, and net environment loaded so you can switch between them instantly. Either that, or just significant pre-caching are really the only reasons you'd ever need a console OS to have 3 gigs available.

[Simond]

If I had to list the games I spent the most playing this generation it would be:

World of Warcraft (more time than I care to admit, even to myself) which I've played since the first invitational US Beta
Fallout 3 (more than 200 hours played over at least three playthroughs)
Fallout New Vegas (more than 200 hours played over at least three playthroughs)
...
Mass Effect Series (probably close to 500 hours if I count all playthroughs of all three parts, yes I'm a fanboy)
...

With the exception of WoW all of those were console titles

Um.

[Bunk]

Clearly he means available to play on console. I'm an avid PC gamer but I played all three Mass Effects on the 360 because I felt it suited the games better.

[Margalis]

If I had to list the games I spent the most playing this generation it would be:

World of Warcraft (more time than I care to admit, even to myself) which I've played since the first invitational US Beta
Fallout 3 (more than 200 hours played over at least three playthroughs)
Fallout New Vegas (more than 200 hours played over at least three playthroughs)
Uncharted Series (Each game twice)
Mass Effect Series (probably close to 500 hours if I count all playthroughs of all three parts, yes I'm a fanboy)
Rock Band Series (don't know the exact count)
Guitar Hero Series (don't know the exact count)
Red Dead Redemption

...

Nevertheless I also feel fatigue setting in.

Your list genuinely makes me sad. It's a classic list of games gamers are supposed to like - event games. Well-produced cinematic experience non-games. (Minus the guitar games)

How can you play through each Uncharted twice? The game has 3 pillars (platforming, puzzle solving and combat) and 2 of those 3 pillars are trivial.

Do you have any personal taste? That might sound insulting, but it's my pet theory that the internet age has basically destroyed personal taste in many people. Your list is a list of generically good games. Is there any type of game or genre that you like beyond "well-produced mass market game"?

I think these days a lot of people get caught up in the hype, being part of the zeitgeist, and playing all the "big" titles. Which is why games need to crack the top 4 or so of NPDs to be relevant - everyone is playing the same narrow range of stuff without exhibiting much personal preference.

Big titles do a lot of things well but being mechanically interesting or feeling fresh aren't two of them.

Edit: When I was in college I was really deep into a few musical genres, as were my friends. Then I started noticing that people a few years younger than me didn't seem to have any musical preference, they simply liked the most popular acts regardless of genre. So while they didn't like world music they liked Dave Matthews, they didn't like rap/R&B but they liked Jay Z, they didn't like pop but they liked whoever was big in pop at that time. (The Spice Girls? lol)

They basically liked the upper strata of all genres as defined by sales. But mass market products make certain concessions almost by definition. IMO these kinds of people pleasers are not deeply satisfying and tend to run together after a while. Games like Red Dead, Mass Effect and Uncharted may appear to be three very different games, but they end up feeling largely the same, in the same way that top of the charts Country, Pop and R&B tend to run together despite ostensibly being wildly different genres.

[Paelos]

If I had to list my games this generation it would be:

WoW
D3
Just Cause 2
Saints Row 3
Assassins Creed 1&2
Anno
Blood Bowl
Dragon Age Origins
Skyrim
Mount and Blade Warband
Tropico 4

[Fabricated]

If I had to list the games I spent the most playing this generation it would be:

World of Warcraft (more time than I care to admit, even to myself) which I've played since the first invitational US Beta
Fallout 3 (more than 200 hours played over at least three playthroughs)
Fallout New Vegas (more than 200 hours played over at least three playthroughs)
Uncharted Series (Each game twice)
Mass Effect Series (probably close to 500 hours if I count all playthroughs of all three parts, yes I'm a fanboy)
Rock Band Series (don't know the exact count)
Guitar Hero Series (don't know the exact count)
Red Dead Redemption

...

Nevertheless I also feel fatigue setting in.

Your list genuinely makes me sad. It's a classic list of games gamers are supposed to like - event games. Well-produced cinematic experience non-games. (Minus the guitar games)

How can you play through each Uncharted twice? The game has 3 pillars (platforming, puzzle solving and combat) and 2 of those 3 pillars are trivial.

Do you have any personal taste? That might sound insulting, but it's my pet theory that the internet age has basically destroyed personal taste in many people. Your list is a list of generically good games. Is there any type of game or genre that you like beyond "well-produced mass market game"?

I think these days a lot of people get caught up in the hype, being part of the zeitgeist, and playing all the "big" titles. Which is why games need to crack the top 4 or so of NPDs to be relevant - everyone is playing the same narrow range of stuff without exhibiting much personal preference.

Big titles do a lot of things well but being mechanically interesting or feeling fresh aren't two of them.

Excuse me, I only play artisan bespoke games.

[Rendakor]

Should we just start a "Top 10 Games of This Generation" thread?

[MrHat]

If I had to list my games this generation it would be:

WoW
D3
Just Cause 2
Saints Row 3
Assassins Creed 1&2
Anno
Blood Bowl
Dragon Age Origins
Skyrim
Mount and Blade Warband
Tropico 4

None of those games can be played like this:



/xboxone

[Margalis]

Should we just start a "Top 10 Games of This Generation" thread?

No. That is exactly the opposite of what I am talking about.

Rather than playing the consensus best games IMO people are much better served playing the best games for them.

If someone who only watched summer blockbusters complained that movies were all sort of samey I think it would be fair to point out that that is at least in part due to what they've chosen to watch.

I don't think Earth Defense Force is ever going to appear on a "Top 10 Games of This Generation" list but for me it's certainly much more fun than a lot of the games that would. Because it tickles my personal fancy.

[Rendakor]

Well, I meant for us to list (and discuss?) our personal favorites. Suffice to say that I agree with you, and generally don't enjoy AAA games.

[Kageru]

There definitely is a "block-buster" effect. Where a game can put out luscious trailers thanks to immense amounts of money having been spent, spend even more on huge amounts of advertising in very public spaces as well as game culture, and build a degree of consensus that this is a game that you "have got to get" and which people will rush to buy. It's also why successful franchises are seen as so valuable because they are much easier to sell than an unknown title.

And this isn't really that tied to whether it is that good a game. Indeed the amount of money spent means it is probably going to be short (but oh so flashy!) and the need for cinematic set-pieces and maximum market penetration means it has to be idiot proof. It could even be true that EA's business model only makes sense applied in this way.

And I expect the xbox to be fine with this. Microsoft want the "block-buster" audience as well, ideally with exclusive titles.

... thankfully mobile games can be readily ported to PC and the platform is already generating a very nice culture of indies and independents so I'm fine with xbox having the "callowfdooty", halo and EA sports games. I do hope valve can package up a nice  "steambox" to give the consoles some competition, and I think they are potentially vulnerable,

[Jeff Kelly]

Do you have any personal taste? That might sound insulting

That's because it is.

I won't list all of the games I have ever played since I got my first Atari VCS 2600 in 1982 just to prove my gamer cred to you. If you think you know me and my tastes just from a single post on a gaming related thread and can throw around assumptions (most of which you not unsurprisingly got wrong) then I can't help you except to recommend to you to never go full hipster.

Gaming might be some sort of e-peen measuring contest to you where only the people that know all of the obscure boutique and indie games count and anything mass market has to be sneered at (do you also accuse successful bands of being sellouts?) but I won't engage in that discussion. I might have an answer for you but I see no need to defend myself and my tastes to some bloke on the internet. I'm too old for that crap.

[Margalis]

I won't list all of the games I have ever played since I got my first Atari VCS 2600 in 1982 just to prove my gamer cred to you. If you think you know me and my tastes just from a single post on a gaming related thread and can throw around assumptions (most of which you not unsurprisingly got wrong) then I can't help you except to recommend to you to never go full hipster.

Gaming might be some sort of e-peen measuring contest to you where only the people that know all of the obscure boutique and indie games count and anything mass market has to be sneered at (do you also accuse successful bands of being sellouts?) but I won't engage in that discussion. I might have an answer for you but I see no need to defend myself and my tastes to some bloke on the internet. I'm too old for that crap.

Uh...you are taking this about 10,000 times more seriously than it should be taken.

[Jeff Kelly]

Nice one. You get to accuse me of having no taste, period, and of blowing things out of proportion once I call you out on it.

[Ingmar]

If I had to list my games this generation it would be:

WoW
D3
Just Cause 2
Saints Row 3
Assassins Creed 1&2
Anno
Blood Bowl
Dragon Age Origins
Skyrim
Mount and Blade Warband
Tropico 4

None of those games can be played like this:



/xboxone

Sounds like someone has never seen Cyanide's Blood Bowl interface. I'm pretty sure Kinect would be at least as accurate.

EDIT:

Also, whoever called XCOM a AAA game upthread gets a  . Unless we're dividing games into exactly two categories, AAA and plucky indie titles, XCOM falls in between.

[taolurker]

Well this 100 pages of speculation about the next console (plus console wars), should be fun.



I think a top games thread is a pretty good idea, but also don't mind the derail, IF IT'S NORMAL. This last page = not normal.

[Margalis]

Also, whoever called XCOM a AAA game upthread gets a  . Unless we're dividing games into exactly two categories, AAA and plucky indie titles, XCOM falls in between.

In terms of budget it's most likely low compared to AAA shooters but high compared to games in its genre. It also has an increased emphasis on production value and a decreased emphasis on gameplay systems. And was positioned as an event game of sorts - a tactics game for people who maybe aren't into tactics games.

I agree that it's not really AAA in the same sense as a big shooter, but it's about as close to AAA as that kind of game gets. You aren't going to make a $50 million tactics game with a $100 million marketing budget.

[Azazel]

If I had to list the games I spent the most playing this generation it would be:

World of Warcraft (more time than I care to admit, even to myself) which I've played since the first invitational US Beta
Fallout 3 (more than 200 hours played over at least three playthroughs)
Fallout New Vegas (more than 200 hours played over at least three playthroughs)
Uncharted Series (Each game twice)
Mass Effect Series (probably close to 500 hours if I count all playthroughs of all three parts, yes I'm a fanboy)
Rock Band Series (don't know the exact count)
Guitar Hero Series (don't know the exact count)
Red Dead Redemption

...

Nevertheless I also feel fatigue setting in.

Your list genuinely makes me sad. It's a classic list of games gamers are supposed to like - event games. Well-produced cinematic experience non-games. (Minus the guitar games)
...

Do you have any personal taste? That might sound insulting, but it's my pet theory that the internet age has basically destroyed personal taste in many people. Your list is a list of generically good games. Is there any type of game or genre that you like beyond "well-produced mass market game"?

There's a clear reveal of personal taste in there. You can read it through the absences, if you like. No Call of Duty/Battlefield. No Madden/FIFA/MLB/NBA/WWE. But then again, how (or why) is liking Mass Effect more than HOMM an inherently bad thing? Or liking Uncharted more than Darksiders, or even Call of Duty more than The Darkness?

[Lakov_Sanite]

- event games. Well-produced cinematic experience non-games

How does this fit FO3,FO:NV or Skyrim at all?

[Velorath]

I think a top games thread is a pretty good idea, but also don't mind the derail, IF IT'S NORMAL. This last page = not normal.

I always thought it would be nice to revisit the Top 20 thread sometime after the current gen ends to see how our tastes have changed, and whether or not anything from the current gen left enough of a long term impression to make it onto the list.

[Rendakor]

That's the thread I was thinking of when I suggested another one.

[Margalis]

There's a clear reveal of personal taste in there. You can read it through the absences, if you like. No Call of Duty/Battlefield. No Madden/FIFA/MLB/NBA/WWE. But then again, how (or why) is liking Mass Effect more than HOMM an inherently bad thing? Or liking Uncharted more than Darksiders, or even Call of Duty more than The Darkness?

It's not bad, but as Jeff himself observed high-budget event games tend to feel rather samey.

This is what he said:

Nevertheless I also feel fatigue setting in. For example I still haven't even started Skyrim. I have the disc here and had it since release but every time I try it it reminds me that I basically have played that game at least five times already. It might be the best incarnation of the type of game Bethesda does but it's mechanically so similar to the Fallout series or Oblivion that it feels like I'm playing a reskinned and modded version of another game. The shooter formula is now so entrenched and polished that even games from different franchises feel like iterations on the same theme, there's only so much you can do with the 'cover-based first or third person shooter' formula before it becomes repetitive.

A lot of releases last years have just been like that: the same game just bigger more polished and with a multiplayer mode of varying quality while some studios were already in 'waiting till the next gen is announced' mode. If it weren't for the indie scene and some reissues of classics I wouldn't have bought a single game (except X-Com) in 2012.

I'm scared that this trend will continue on the next gen consoles. If GTA V and CoD 4 are any indication of a larger trend we will continue to see 'the game, just bigger and with better graphics' going forward. Eight more years of cover-based shooters with tacked on multiplayer or single-player campaigns is not something I'm looking forward to.

But at the same time the games he has spent the most time playing are these reskins, cover-based shooters with tacked on multiplayer, sequels with increased polish (and often simplified mechanics), etc.

If those are the games you buy and those are the game you play the most those are the games publishers are going to keep putting out. Let's move this beyond Jeff - there is a downturn in demand for $60 games, and many people site fatigue with the samey AAA franchises as a factor. Yet many of those same people won't buy anything that isn't one of those franchises.

We seem to be in a weird place where people don't want to pay $60 for any game without a large hype cycle while claiming boredom with those same games.

Now it's possible that $60 is just not the right price point and that the perceived cost of a $60 game has gone up, making consumers extremely risk-averse. But for $60 games publishers are going to make what people buy.

[Velorath]

Well to be fair Jeff said in that same post that he also bought indie games, he just didn't list any. Also a list of the games you've put the most hours into isn't necessarily a list of your favorite games. I thought Journey was a great game but it only takes a few hours to play through and it's not something even most of its fans are going to play over and over again.

[Fabricated]

There's a clear reveal of personal taste in there. You can read it through the absences, if you like. No Call of Duty/Battlefield. No Madden/FIFA/MLB/NBA/WWE. But then again, how (or why) is liking Mass Effect more than HOMM an inherently bad thing? Or liking Uncharted more than Darksiders, or even Call of Duty more than The Darkness?

It's not bad, but as Jeff himself observed high-budget event games tend to feel rather samey.

This is what he said:

Nevertheless I also feel fatigue setting in. For example I still haven't even started Skyrim. I have the disc here and had it since release but every time I try it it reminds me that I basically have played that game at least five times already. It might be the best incarnation of the type of game Bethesda does but it's mechanically so similar to the Fallout series or Oblivion that it feels like I'm playing a reskinned and modded version of another game. The shooter formula is now so entrenched and polished that even games from different franchises feel like iterations on the same theme, there's only so much you can do with the 'cover-based first or third person shooter' formula before it becomes repetitive.

A lot of releases last years have just been like that: the same game just bigger more polished and with a multiplayer mode of varying quality while some studios were already in 'waiting till the next gen is announced' mode. If it weren't for the indie scene and some reissues of classics I wouldn't have bought a single game (except X-Com) in 2012.

I'm scared that this trend will continue on the next gen consoles. If GTA V and CoD 4 are any indication of a larger trend we will continue to see 'the game, just bigger and with better graphics' going forward. Eight more years of cover-based shooters with tacked on multiplayer or single-player campaigns is not something I'm looking forward to.

But at the same time the games he has spent the most time playing are these reskins, cover-based shooters with tacked on multiplayer, sequels with increased polish (and often simplified mechanics), etc.

If those are the games you buy and those are the game you play the most those are the games publishers are going to keep putting out. Let's move this beyond Jeff - there is a downturn in demand for $60 games, and many people site fatigue with the samey AAA franchises as a factor. Yet many of those same people won't buy anything that isn't one of those franchises.

We seem to be in a weird place where people don't want to pay $60 for any game without a large hype cycle while claiming boredom with those same games.

Now it's possible that $60 is just not the right price point and that the perceived cost of a $60 game has gone up, making consumers extremely risk-averse. But for $60 games publishers are going to make what people buy.

I dunno, Red Dead Redemption was pretty fucking good there chief, as was New Vegas.

If you want to know what bores me to tears, it's indie puzzle games.

[Margalis]

Well to be fair Jeff said in that same post that he also bought indie games, he just didn't list any. Also a list of the games you've put the most hours into isn't necessarily a list of your favorite games.

That's true, which is why I tried to move to a more general discussion of buying habits with $60 games. I didn't intend to single Jeff out as much as I did, I wanted to use it as a launching point for my erosion of personal preference with regards to buying habits theory.

The current state of $60 games (especially "core" games) is as follows:

1. There is very little sales depth - sales are very front and top loaded. If you aren't in the top 5 NPDs on month of release you are fucked, and if you are in the top 5 you probably won't be the next month.

2. Similar to PC games during the WoW/Sims era the charts are dominated by a few familiar titles - COD, sports, etc. Debut titles often chart well under evergreen games.

3. There is a general sense of fatigue with what is selling well, and titles that sold well in the past are more frequently slumping. (Think Gears/God of War)

4. But at the same time that slack is not being taken up by other titles. Sales are down across the board, and if you look at sales vs install base they are awful. Most people who bought consoles just aren't buying games any more.

I think it is in many ways very similar to the "PC gaming is dead" days where WoW and Sims expansion packs along with some Tycoon games were the only things that were more than a sales blip.

I dunno, Red Dead Redemption was pretty fucking good there chief, as was New Vegas.

If you want to know what bores me to tears, it's indie puzzle games.

Again, it's less about quality than what Jeff himself observed as games of a certain type running together. Ostensibly RDR is an old west game - a genre that has very few entrants. But I would argue that the old west is mostly a different skin rather than a different game design.

And why the false dichotomy between indie / artsy games and blockbusters? I play very few indie games. Especially puzzle games which I generally can't stand. (I don't even really like Tetris!)

My taste is very squarely what I would consider "normal" games - as in the games that were standard from the NES to PS2 era. Games where you fight dudes and jump around on platforms and dodge bullets and all that jazz. These days those types of games seem to have split and become either gameplay-lite cinematic games or low-fi "retro" indie games.

IMO the indie/AAA divide is very unhealthy, both for the industry and for me personally, given that almost every game I like is squarely between those two extremes. I find both ends annoying in their own way. And it doesn't make for a healthy marketplace.

[Rendakor]

Doesn't this sales downturn always happen at the end of a console generation?

That aside, the AAA game is a catch-22; a game won't sell if it isn't heavily marketed, but big publishers are reluctant to invest that kind of money on a new IP. Speaking of which, few companies make stand-alone games anymore; it's all franchise bait so the first game usually has a shitty cliffhanger ending.

[Velorath]

My taste is very squarely what I would consider "normal" games - as in the games that were standard from the NES to PS2 era. Games where you fight dudes and jump around on platforms and dodge bullets and all that jazz. These days those types of games seem to have split and become either gameplay-lite cinematic games or low-fi "retro" indie games.

IMO the indie/AAA divide is very unhealthy, both for the industry and for me personally, given that almost every game I like is squarely between those two extremes. I find both ends annoying in their own way. And it doesn't make for a healthy marketplace.

Could you maybe give some examples of what you consider "normal" games? I'm having trouble thinking of much that falls into the middle ground between that AAA/indie divide, particularly when it comes to games I would consider my favorites. As far as my personal preferences go, Rocksmith is the only one I can think of off the top of my head. Maybe Dead Island which was pretty janky but I had a lot of fun with.