-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
The Game Industry Is Choking Itself To Death (The Jimquisition)
- Thread starter Empyrean Cocytus
- Start date
Sensationalist fear-mongering is how Jimbo makes his money.
There's lots of games on the market and lots more being released everyday. That doesn't mean everyone needs to play everything. If you like single player experiences, there's lots of those. If you want to commit to one game and have it be supported for years, there's lots of those too. Variety is the spice of life and options are good. This doesn't mean you need to play every single game release.
User Warned: Antagonizing other members
This post is brought to you in whole by EA's Board of Trustees. Thanks for paying for whatever bullshit scams we put out there.
"There aren't enough SP games" tends to = "I'm literally not buying SP games aside from a few titles which are highkey the most hyped up titles of the year. I also adhere to the only 8.5-10 titles matter rule."
I'll agree that this winter has been strangely packed. Some expected and one major surprise.
For gamers, its a good problem to have. The early days of the 7th gen consoles have really been forgotten, before Indie games and smaller experiences became widespread, we had the same 15-25 games over a two year span. (or it felt like it)
Go on a delay, wait 6 months or a year until you purchase a game. Or only jump into a live service game if you've got a bud playing with you. The truth is that you missed out equally on the game you don't buy compared to the game you do buy but never launch that sits in a backlog. I'm sitting out game purchases this year, need time to catch up.
For gamers, its a good problem to have. The early days of the 7th gen consoles have really been forgotten, before Indie games and smaller experiences became widespread, we had the same 15-25 games over a two year span. (or it felt like it)
Go on a delay, wait 6 months or a year until you purchase a game. Or only jump into a live service game if you've got a bud playing with you. The truth is that you missed out equally on the game you don't buy compared to the game you do buy but never launch that sits in a backlog. I'm sitting out game purchases this year, need time to catch up.
Ace Combat 7 is literally a GaaS title that expects you to come back at some point to spend more money on new content months after release.
Reality doesn't matter much when it comes to the narrative set by channels like Jim's. Aka,
"Youtubers explains to jaded GAMERS™ why the game industry is dying edition #13713526472424524624821465214612472164521412461254671247126"
These live-service games stresses me out. Having a limited time to finish certain quests in AC Odyssey and certain races in Horizon 4 is fucking horrible. I hate it.
He is right. And even if companies want to go down this line they should at least present quality from the start and not the promise of quality.
Yeah, he did.
And I kinda agree to be honest. I think it's the first time in ever that I have missed a major XBOX exclusive being released. Just found out about it 1 day later (or two, can't remember).
Just remember going "wtf".
Yeah, he did.
And I kinda agree to be honest. I think it's the first time in ever that I have missed a major XBOX exclusive being released. Just found out about it 1 day later (or two, can't remember).
Just remember going "wtf".
I knew Terry Crews was part of the game. I didn't know the game came out the day that it came out.
I'm frequently on Era, Twitter and Reddit and I work retail at a Videogame department - granted, XBOX doesn't sell shit in my country so, communication with them is zero - so it's pretty normal to know when a game is launching.
Even Dirt 2.0 I knew when it was about to come out, and i don't play racing games.
Anyway, I'm truly sorry if my post and opinion just offended you so much, mate.
Hyperbolic and super dramatic as usual but I don't necessarily disagree with the general sentiment about these massive AAA games. Similar to Jim, I more or less set my own working hours and I simply don't have the time to invest in all open world and/or GaaS games so I stick to one (if that) and fit in other, shorter games like Resident Evil 2. But that's just my personal tastes clashing with the AAA space at large. I wouldn't mind more shorter games from the large publishers but I'm not really sweating it because there's a good mix for my tastes.
Is there seemingly a surplus of GaaS live service games? Perhaps. Pretty much every large game has some form of post-release support and the lines are starting to blur. Is this going to kill the industry? I find that doubtful.
Is there seemingly a surplus of GaaS live service games? Perhaps. Pretty much every large game has some form of post-release support and the lines are starting to blur. Is this going to kill the industry? I find that doubtful.
I looked up the list of releases for the past few years and well over 80% are single player games, even in the AA/AAA segment.
Games succeed and games fail. That doesn't mean that MMOs like any kind of GaaS should be condemned because publishers try to copy something that works and some of them find success while others don't.
If you don't like longrunning GaaS, then don't play them. It's simple as that. The existence of Destiny and The Division doesn't stop good, storybased singleplayer games from being made by any means.
My dude, when it comes to whether or not something is a stealth release:
Add the word specifically to that gif. Calling a game with millions upon millions of incredibly blatant marketing a stealth release is ridiculous.
Are you telling me that the narrative that there aren't enough SP games to play is complete bullshit? Because that would really go against the idea that the industry is dying as a result of player retention being a higher focus across the board.
Why is the summer always so dry? Do they not want to compete with summer blockbuster movies as separate of mediums as they are? It never made sense to me since that's the prime time kids would be playing games.
Last edited:
They are and have been competing for your time for years. The logic is that the more time a user spends with a game, the more likely they are to spend money on it.
Regarding your last sentence though, I mean, what's your avatar about? :)
That 90 hr investment is over the course of several months.
Why would they do this when the other model makes more money?
Maybe the higher ups still think that kids play outside lol. Out of touch......
*cries for our youth*
Even as an adult, I don't play as much during the summer months. Dec-April are prime gaming months for me, as is sept, weirdly enough.
I really wonder how many sales they got out of the "gimmick" of releasing older remastered games as a preorder-only bonus? I think I saw the game was down to 40 now and if not for that preorder bonus, I think I would have waited, as I usually do for single-player games.
Jim's not wrong. People haven't got time for all these online service based games that want people to play for month's and month's. I'm struggling to catch up on all the narrative driven single player games, with how big they have gotten these days.
I have felt the same way for a a few months now. The whole GAAS and the silly padding of video games having them overstaying their welcome by considerable time nowadays is really starting to pull down my enjoyment of the medium. More often than not, I am catching myself slogging through something rather than enjoying it.
I do enjoy Exodus though, but Ive had to put that down to try and get through Anthem to then make room for The Division 2. I could not play them, and that would be the logical thing to do. But we all know, early on in the GAAS games with new content is where the game will actually be fun (if at all).
That said, Im cutting back my gaming time now. There is just too much to get through now.
I do enjoy Exodus though, but Ive had to put that down to try and get through Anthem to then make room for The Division 2. I could not play them, and that would be the logical thing to do. But we all know, early on in the GAAS games with new content is where the game will actually be fun (if at all).
That said, Im cutting back my gaming time now. There is just too much to get through now.
Really good video that spoke to me. I just don't have the time to deal with multiple live service games and games that want to help themselves to 100 hours of time. It's been on my mind for the last several months. Please let me also have a selection of short games too, please. Everything long and demanding of major life investment means I play and buy less games.
Ha! Touché, my two fav games are open world games. That being said, playing open world games is too time consuming: each of those games took me personally 75 hours to complete! They are my favorites for sure, the point being though in 75 hours I could have bought, played and beaten 8-9 other games instead. That's more money the industry would have seen from me if I spent my time elsewhere!
I'm of two minds on this subject.
For PVP games I'd agree that the industry is choking itself. Only a handful of games will capture a significant audience while the rest will be discarded. Every few months we get a new challenger but it's not always pretty as we saw with Radical Heights. It reminds me of what Serge Hascoet said recently which I thought was spot on.
https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/1...e-future-of-assassins-creed-and-splinter-cell
On the flip side, I'm a fan of where we're headed when it comes to single player, PVE-focused games. With more stuff transitioning to "live service" you know you're getting plenty of bang for you buck. Hell, I'm still playing Ghost Recon Wildlands two years after launch. That's a positive to me. I don't need to or want to play every game that drops. Nor do I want to go back to a bunch of linear 8-10 hour experiences with little replay value, so the games I want to play and invest significant time into getting constantly updated is nothing but a good thing.
For PVP games I'd agree that the industry is choking itself. Only a handful of games will capture a significant audience while the rest will be discarded. Every few months we get a new challenger but it's not always pretty as we saw with Radical Heights. It reminds me of what Serge Hascoet said recently which I thought was spot on.
https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/1...e-future-of-assassins-creed-and-splinter-cell
On the flip side, I'm a fan of where we're headed when it comes to single player, PVE-focused games. With more stuff transitioning to "live service" you know you're getting plenty of bang for you buck. Hell, I'm still playing Ghost Recon Wildlands two years after launch. That's a positive to me. I don't need to or want to play every game that drops. Nor do I want to go back to a bunch of linear 8-10 hour experiences with little replay value, so the games I want to play and invest significant time into getting constantly updated is nothing but a good thing.
Record hardware sales. Record software sales. Yes, clearly we are teetering on the brink of collapse.
This has been the same old song and dance since the letters columns of late '80s game magazines decrying Mario as the end of creativity and the death knell for interactive entertainment as a medium because nobody buys CinemaWare games.
This has been the same old song and dance since the letters columns of late '80s game magazines decrying Mario as the end of creativity and the death knell for interactive entertainment as a medium because nobody buys CinemaWare games.
I agree, and I think more people need to adopt this line of thinking. Too many times the answer to a post I read here is "then don't buy it" and the person might as well respond with this face:
It's not exploitation if a thing is offered for sale and you don't want to buy it. Then just don't buy it! I promise, you'll live. My brother game shares with me, so I have RDR2. I haven't gotten past chapter 2 yet because I was busy, and then started playing something else. I'm still doing fine!
That is not how I remember things at all. Most people bought whatever was popular or heavily marketed. Maybe the PC market cared about these things because role playing games were prominent even back then, but the home console market was mostly arcade ports or Nintendo-hard games. Game length either didn't matter or wasn't really considered. I can't recall a single time anyone complained about the length of Super Mario Bros 3 or tried to argue Zelda was better because it was "longer."
I think Jim's point is that revenue streams only work by exploiting people into paying more money IE adding excessive grinding or lootboxes. The vast majority of excess profits after a game release comes from whales who spend thousands of dollars on microtransactions. And Jim has pointed out repeatedly how the design of the game itself suffers because anyone who isn't a whale quickly gives up on a game that doesn't respect their time and ends up hurting the core gameplay of these games. IE it makes them less fun by design.
I think a big difference between a GaaS title and Persona 5 is that Persona doesn't compromise on its gameplay in order to stretch out game length. It's actually 100 hours of content, rather than just 20 hours of content that is prolonged by design choices that pad the time spent playing the game by a large magnitude.
I couldn't agree more.
I have felt for quite some time that the game industry has completely ignored and/or forgotten about a huge segment of the gaming population that got them here to begin with. Those of us who grew up playing video games.
I am not some anomaly being a 44 year old gamer. It also means I have a hell of a lot less time than I once had. Yet this seems to be completely overlooked or outright ignored.
I have felt for quite some time that the game industry has completely ignored and/or forgotten about a huge segment of the gaming population that got them here to begin with. Those of us who grew up playing video games.
I am not some anomaly being a 44 year old gamer. It also means I have a hell of a lot less time than I once had. Yet this seems to be completely overlooked or outright ignored.
He hit the nail on the head for all of the GaaS/LS games coming out: I play Destiny. I'm fine with Destiny. I downloaded and legit wanted to try Apex Legends, but have yet to fire it up. I went back to play Warframe a bit after ignoring my character for years and now I've put it down again to play more Destiny.
I don't have FOMO and I enjoy playing some other games occasionally. The thing is, I have neither want nor need to play another game like it because I'm getting what I want out of it. when my interest wanes or I've "run out of things to do" as so many say, I just take a break and play some other stuff from my backlog. Hell, I do that even when there are things to do in Destiny because I don't always want all of my precious little free time to be playing JUST Destiny.
If/when the day comes that Destiny either shuts down entirely or I just get bored with it (or when my daughter is old enough to play games) I doubt I'll move onto to the next timesink game unless we move on as a family.
I don't have FOMO and I enjoy playing some other games occasionally. The thing is, I have neither want nor need to play another game like it because I'm getting what I want out of it. when my interest wanes or I've "run out of things to do" as so many say, I just take a break and play some other stuff from my backlog. Hell, I do that even when there are things to do in Destiny because I don't always want all of my precious little free time to be playing JUST Destiny.
If/when the day comes that Destiny either shuts down entirely or I just get bored with it (or when my daughter is old enough to play games) I doubt I'll move onto to the next timesink game unless we move on as a family.
"You think I like this? You think I enjoy this? You think I like when I do a positive video about half of you actually watch it?" LOL
I feel that single player/shorter games will regain popularity again once people get burned out from the large amount of "always online" games and live services and stop buying/play them as much.
I feel that single player/shorter games will regain popularity again once people get burned out from the large amount of "always online" games and live services and stop buying/play them as much.
Every video game requires your time, without exception.
Tuesday has never been the only "regular" video game release day.
We're hardly getting "one epic a week". And if we don't have time for such a frequency, the games are less expensive when you finally do have time to purchase them to play.
People asking for games to be more like "Destiny" or "Bloodborne" or whatever their favorite game of the generation is? Happens all the time, everywhere.
Jim has pretty much adopted a serial format to the Jimquisitions now, they used to be much more topical. Yes, I think he does like making specious arguments that get double the views of a "positive" video.
But I wasn't aware people were asking for "fair and balanced" from Jim. Certainly not in these threads. On Era people have been asking for more coverage and investigation into the THQ AMA. Another THQ video would have been preferable to "back to the triple-ayyy grind" of this one.
Tuesday has never been the only "regular" video game release day.
We're hardly getting "one epic a week". And if we don't have time for such a frequency, the games are less expensive when you finally do have time to purchase them to play.
People asking for games to be more like "Destiny" or "Bloodborne" or whatever their favorite game of the generation is? Happens all the time, everywhere.
Jim has pretty much adopted a serial format to the Jimquisitions now, they used to be much more topical. Yes, I think he does like making specious arguments that get double the views of a "positive" video.
But I wasn't aware people were asking for "fair and balanced" from Jim. Certainly not in these threads. On Era people have been asking for more coverage and investigation into the THQ AMA. Another THQ video would have been preferable to "back to the triple-ayyy grind" of this one.
I watched the entire video and I found it hard to disagree with him.
Especially in regards to the lack of shorter games that are happy to just be games and not live services, it really does feel like a "gold rush" as he states in the video.
I have found myself wanting shorter games because I simply cannot keep up with these huge open world experiences and I find a lot of these games have so much worthless filler in them just to pad the time or grinding mechanics which just sap the fun away.
That's not to say I dislike open world games, I don't, it's just I don't want every AAA title to be one, sometimes I just want a nice 6-12 hour experience with all the bells and whistles you get with a AAA budget, even some more fun/arcade like titles in the AAA space.
Especially in regards to the lack of shorter games that are happy to just be games and not live services, it really does feel like a "gold rush" as he states in the video.
I have found myself wanting shorter games because I simply cannot keep up with these huge open world experiences and I find a lot of these games have so much worthless filler in them just to pad the time or grinding mechanics which just sap the fun away.
That's not to say I dislike open world games, I don't, it's just I don't want every AAA title to be one, sometimes I just want a nice 6-12 hour experience with all the bells and whistles you get with a AAA budget, even some more fun/arcade like titles in the AAA space.
I'm getting so tired of these always-online live "experiences". I generally don't want to play with strangers and my friends and I don't really like playing things multiplayer most of the time so I'm essentially stuck playing solo, which is generally DESIGNED to be awful to encourage people to group up and make their friends buy copies.
Combine that with how overextended and yet surprisingly shallow the games tend to be on a content level and it just...feels pointless to even try to get involved in any of the "big" zeitgeist games nowadays.
Jim's right. We're seeing the GAAS version of the WoW/Call of Duty bum rush mentality and we're gonna see a bunch of studios die in the process before the industry finds the next big thing to hurriedly try to rip off in an attempt to clone someone else's success.
Combine that with how overextended and yet surprisingly shallow the games tend to be on a content level and it just...feels pointless to even try to get involved in any of the "big" zeitgeist games nowadays.
Jim's right. We're seeing the GAAS version of the WoW/Call of Duty bum rush mentality and we're gonna see a bunch of studios die in the process before the industry finds the next big thing to hurriedly try to rip off in an attempt to clone someone else's success.
We're not getting 1 a week, but we did for February 2019, and even so, more and more games are trying to be 500 hour long GaaS titles that developers want players to keep coming back to over and over for potentially years
The show is still topical, last week it was on THQ, which blew up last week, and this week it was looking at the titles released in February as a whole to highlight a wider trend of everyone in the AAA space shooting for a huge GaaS title
I'm not saying another THQ video wouldn't be warranted, but he's seemingly damned whatever he does. He's accused of repeating himself already so I doubt he was super keen on doing a second THQ video in a row unless he has anything new to add to the conversation
Too many time sink service games, not enough time to go around.
Reminds me of this Verge article on games now even competing with services like Netflix: https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/3/18246868/attention-economy-fortnite-advertising-user-engagement
Reminds me of this Verge article on games now even competing with services like Netflix: https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/3/18246868/attention-economy-fortnite-advertising-user-engagement
Citation needed.
Keep in mind that in the big bad GaaS genre of looter shooters that is in the public consciousness right now, there are 5 examples, period. Destiny 2, The Division 2, Borderlands 2, Warframe, and now Anthem, and one of those is a last gen title that hasn't seen updates in years. The games industry isn't "choking itself to death", market competitors are competing and Jim Sterling doesn't know what that means.
What are some recent non first party AAA games that are not a GaaS?
Metro Exodus, Resident Evil 2 remake, Crackdown 3 (not sure why you want to specify non-first party studios) all came out recently. I don't know enough about Jump Force or Dead or Alive 6, and while Stellaris is a GaaS it's not at all the same genre as the loot shooters and so isn't competing for the same market.
There's a lot more than looter shooters being released and GaaS transition has been happening for about a decade for western publishers now.
In fact if you go 'by' publishers its hard to find those whose output is not predominantly GaaS at this point. Just because many of those don't stay in public eye doesn't mean they aren't being released.
Well because it's a recent trend...
Anyway since you wanted a citation
Pretty much all fighting games are GaaS titles now, and first party games are designed to sell consoles, so they don't need to adhere to the GaaS model
Either way, you can't deny more and more AAA games are designed to be longer, and designed to encourage the player to keep coming back and investing in the title
Which is fine, some games work really well with that model and some people are happy to sink 100s of hours into one game, but if everyone tries to make games like this, some will clearly fail as free time is only finite
If I'm putting 20 hours a week into one GaaS title, I don't have time to sink 20 hours a week into another 3 GaaS titles
Even SP games are leaning into this, last gen Assassin's Creed games took 15-20 hours to beat, now they take 30-60 hours and have roadmaps and a drip feed of content that comes out for a year or more
As if indie developers aren't in large part developing these same type of games...
For Live Services presumably the day they choose to launch doesn't matter so much, as the idea is people play them for months and years.
He's right you know. But this is a weird video all things considered. He's essentially burnt out and wants shorter games?
Effectively what this video tells me, is that he can't compete with full time streamers that sit there all day and stream games. He can't write the story for the video, shoot it, play the actual game for research. Which is something I also understand, as I used to write reviews casually while maintaining a full time job. There's just not enough time in the day to do it, and for the money you make back its not worth it.
But regarding the games, most games are just too freaking long for their own good. Take something like Assassin's Creed. It's awesome in some ways that the world is so big and grand, its an amazing technical achievement, but the missions are just flat out boring.
And the other thing that wasn't mentioned in the video that I feel is related is that the gaming industry, all things considered is pretty toxic compared to other hobbies. One of my other hobbies is board gaming, and while there could be a bit more diversity in board gaming, by and large, most people online seem to be very friendly. I think that makes me not want to deal with video gaming sometimes.
Effectively what this video tells me, is that he can't compete with full time streamers that sit there all day and stream games. He can't write the story for the video, shoot it, play the actual game for research. Which is something I also understand, as I used to write reviews casually while maintaining a full time job. There's just not enough time in the day to do it, and for the money you make back its not worth it.
But regarding the games, most games are just too freaking long for their own good. Take something like Assassin's Creed. It's awesome in some ways that the world is so big and grand, its an amazing technical achievement, but the missions are just flat out boring.
And the other thing that wasn't mentioned in the video that I feel is related is that the gaming industry, all things considered is pretty toxic compared to other hobbies. One of my other hobbies is board gaming, and while there could be a bit more diversity in board gaming, by and large, most people online seem to be very friendly. I think that makes me not want to deal with video gaming sometimes.
