Will we ever get PS2-level of variety with games again?

[arglebargle]

i loved the breadth and variety in the ps1 and ps2 generations and i think indies have filled in many of the gaps that smaller games did in previous years. my view on what is missing is the smaller japanese games. someone mentioned mr mosquito, but also games like incredible crisis, early tenchu games, jrpgs felt more diverse (moreso during ps1 than ps2 id say), stuff like that. we still get some creative japanese games (like disaster report 4, though the fun of the first games in that series were that they felt experimental which almost by definition a 4th entry wont) and some formerly small japanese games have gotten big (yakuza) but overall i dont think we get the same variety from japanese devs that we used to. maybe that is starting to change with the indie scene developing and some of the most successful kickstarters (bloodstained, shenmue, eiyuden) coming from japan, but i think ps1 and ps2 were the golden age of stumbling upon a cheap japanese game i had never heard of but enjoyed a little time with.

 

[Host Samurai]

The Wii has them

 

[Hazzuh]

You aren't actually disagreeing with anything I said, lol. I was specifically talking about 15-30 man teams during that generation. The budgets were definitely higher because these were salaries, full time employees working for these developers for years and years, not indie developers leveraging their mortgage or relying on crowdfunding for cash to get through development and hopefully have a big hit at the end.

I also said that there is more variety now than before, multiple times. Did you actually read the post or not?

Click to shrink...

There are tons of midsized indie game studios including many the person you are replying to mentioned. Most of the games they mentioned probably had a higher budgets than a game like Katamari Damacy. For example, Mediatonic have about 250 employees, not sure how many worked on Fall guys. Klei employ 35 people. Hello games employ 26 people. All these companies have existed for years and years and there are tons of studios exactly like them. They clearly don't fit your caricature of indie devs.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

there is more variety now if you include independent downloadable games

 

[Sumio Mondo]

From Japanese devs specifically? Nope. Never again.

 

[Glimlocker]

100% Agreed.

There are few mid-tier games that still
1) Take advantage of the hardware
2) Provide a unique, relatively non-iterative experience
3) Have a good amount of unlockables/content/new game plus.

People are completely missing these points.

PS2 alone had Chulip, Rule of Rose, Katamari Damacy, Mr Mosquito, God Hand, Ostatz, Mojib Ribbon, Graffitti Kingdom, Skygunners, Silpheed, Klanoa 2, the OG Disaster Report series, Frequency, and quite a few more quirky games that were able to take advantage of the hardware to provide an experience that couldn't have been completely done on the hardware of the last generation.

There aren't many true "indies" that couldn't have been released on the last gen consoles or much weaker hardware.

New Fresh First-Third Party IPs
What's also being missed here is that those games were being released alongside completely fresh or revamped IPs doing things we hadn't really seen before - PS2 has Ratchet and Clank, Sly Cooper, God of War, Grand Theft Auto III, Guitar Hero all released on it for the first time.

GameCube was absolutely flooded with new, amazing experiences - Animal Crossing, first person Metroid, Luigis Mansion, full featured Smash Bros, a bizarre Mario, a cartoon Zelda, Chibi-Robo, Pikmin, DK Jungle Beat with 3rd party games like the Capcom 5 and Super Monkey Ball.

To reiterate:
1) The PS2 era had multiple quirky, innovative, full-featured mid-tier games that couldn't have run on hardware from the previous generation.
We don't get this very often with console indie games.

2) A slew of completely new 1st-3rd party IPs or just an entirely different take on IPs OR a dramatically expanded version of previous IPs (Smash Bros.). The graphical upgrade from PS1 to PS2 was enough to make everything feel fresh.

These days, we are incredibly lucky to get new IPs, and when we do, it's typically an iteration of gameplay that we've seen before.

3) A massive graphical leap from generation to generation.

Those three factors combined made everything feel consistently fresh, full of crazy new ideas, and all around more exciting than modern console gaming.

 

[Samiya]

A lot of people are dismissing OP and saying it's nostalgia or that there's more variety than ever...but you are delusional and out of touch with reality if you are denying that:

1. Market consolidation has happened and lots of mid-sized devs and pub have either gone bankrupt or become support studios
2. fewer high profile games exist these days because of ballooning budgets and go big or go home
3. the mid-tier budget game has almost completely disappeared and it's mostly indie, A, or AAA.

These are observable, empirical facts and if you go with "lol nostalgia", "you're just old", or "just go to PC and see the variety", then you're not getting the point.

 

[Magic Mushroom]

OP is talking about the largely non-existent mid-tier.

Click to shrink...

It does exist though. Focus and THQ are build on it. Also, many indies are much bigger in scope now.

Many games that are indies now would be AAA in the PS2 era.

And just look at the cast of something like 12 Minutes.

 

[Deleted member 11413]

There are tons of midsized indie game studios including many the person you are replying to mentioned. Most of the games they mentioned probably had a higher budgets than a game like Katamari Damacy. For example, Mediatonic have about 250 employees, not sure how many worked on Fall guys. Klei employ 35 people. Hello games employ 26 people. All these companies have existed for years and years and there are tons of studios exactly like them. They clearly don't fit your caricature of indie devs.

Click to shrink...

I mentioned a few of those studios myself, I'm aware of their existence. They are not the majority of indie developers. You keep framing this in a way that is making this conversation seem adversarial and it's not at all, we don't disagree about the state of the industry today really. Like yeah Supergiant, Klei, Hello Games are good examples of studios that exist in that space. But there is a specific type of developer and midrange game that pretty much does not exist anymore, and this is largely regional too.

Like if you were really into midrange Japanese games in the PS2 era that's almost entirely gone.

 

[J2C]

Wonder if anyone's ever done a breakdown/stats on AAA games, to see if there's any truth to this

 

[The Silver]

I mentioned a few of those studios myself, I'm aware of their existence. They are not the majority of indie developers. You keep framing this in a way that is making this conversation seem adversarial and it's not at all, we don't disagree about the state of the industry today really. Like yeah Supergiant, Klei, Hello Games are good examples of studios that exist in that space. But there is a specific type of developer and midrange game that pretty much does not exist anymore, and this is largely regional too.

Like if you were really into midrange Japanese games in the PS2 era that's almost entirely gone.

Click to shrink...

Best example is what ATLAS has become. They still make great games but back in the day they would be pumping out games like no tomorrow. Now? Well we aren't ever getting something like Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2 ever again when you gotta pump all your resources into the next Persona that's now 10 years away.

 

[Creation_Scapes]

I know what you mean OP and I sure hope so.

 

[Necron]

I think you refer to the mid-tier?

Well, I think what we've seen over the years is a growing indie community that is afforded a larger and larger budget.
I'd argue AA is back since a few years.

 

[Worldshaker]

It's never coming back, sorry. And it's definitely not just getting older either, there's lots of games but it's true that the PS2 was a different world.

Costs and time of large scale game development are exponentially bigger now, phones happened, console install bases are lower and the entire way the industry approaches monetization has changed radically.

Click to shrink...

Sadly this is the case.

The PS1/PS2 era simply can't happen in todays market/world. Gaming is no longer a niche hobby, and experimentation is too costly.

Thankfully we have a lot of amazing indie games filling the void, I just miss the weird/wacky Japanese games we got on the PS1/2.

 

[Muppet of a Man]

100% Agreed.

There are few mid-tier games that still
1) Take advantage of the hardware
2) Provide a unique, relatively non-iterative experience
3) Have a good amount of unlockables/content/new game plus.

People are completely missing these points.

PS2 alone had Chulip, Rule of Rose, Katamari Damacy, Mr Mosquito, God Hand, Ostatz, Mojib Ribbon, Graffitti Kingdom, Skygunners, Silpheed, Klanoa 2, the OG Disaster Report series, Frequency, and quite a few more quirky games that were able to take advantage of the hardware to provide an experience that couldn't have been completely done on the hardware of the last generation.

There aren't many true "indies" that couldn't have been released on the last gen consoles or much weaker hardware.

New Fresh First-Third Party IPs
What's also being missed here is that those games were being released alongside completely fresh or revamped IPs doing things we hadn't really seen before - PS2 has Ratchet and Clank, Sly Cooper, God of War, Grand Theft Auto III, Guitar Hero all released on it for the first time.

GameCube was absolutely flooded with new, amazing experiences - Animal Crossing, first person Metroid, Luigis Mansion, full featured Smash Bros, a bizarre Mario, a cartoon Zelda, Chibi-Robo, Pikmin, DK Jungle Beat with 3rd party games like the Capcom 5 and Super Monkey Ball.

To reiterate:
1) The PS2 era had multiple quirky, innovative, full-featured mid-tier games that couldn't have run on hardware from the previous generation.
We don't get this very often with console indie games.

2) A slew of completely new 1st-3rd party IPs or just an entirely different take on IPs OR a dramatically expanded version of previous IPs (Smash Bros.). The graphical upgrade from PS1 to 64 was enough to make everything feel fresh.

These days, we are incredibly lucky to get new IPs, and when we do, it's typically an iteration of gameplay that we've seen before.

3) A massive graphical leap from generation to generation.

Those three factors combined made everything feel consistently fresh, full of crazy new ideas, and all around more exciting than modern console gaming.

Click to shrink...

A lot of people are dismissing OP and saying it's nostalgia or that there's more variety than ever...but you are delusional and out of touch with reality if you are denying that:

1. Market consolidation has happened and lots of mid-sized devs and pub have either gone bankrupt or become support studios
2. fewer high profile games exist these days because of ballooning budgets and go big or go home
3. the mid-tier budget game has almost completely disappeared and it's mostly indie, A, or AAA.

These are observable, empirical facts and if you go with "lol nostalgia", "you're just old", or "just go to PC and see the variety", then you're not getting the point.

Click to shrink...

Good posts. My sentiments exactly. These people understand what mid tier / AA was and how current market conditions have made that kind of production a rarity these days.

 

[lusca_bueno]

There's more variety now than ever, you just got older.

Click to shrink...

Exactly how I feel. There are so many great games today that I could never imagine coming out during the PS2 era.

 

[Deleted member 11413]

Best example is what ATLAS has become. They still make great games but back in the day they would be pumping out games like no tomorrow. Now? Well we aren't ever getting something like Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2 ever again when you gotta pump all your resources into the next Persona that's now 10 years away.

Click to shrink...

There is a reason everyone who is saying that the OP is wrong is only naming Western studios. This part of the Japanese industry died, with the exception of Falcom, FromSoft (who are now solidly AAA), and a few midrange publishers in Japan who had to merge or be bought out to survive (Altus, Spike Chunsoft, Koei Tecmo, etc.). NIS is independent but they almost went out of business until Switch saved them.

 

[Jon God]

I think it's getting better? The PS3 was awful for this, but mid-tier games available on PS4.

Click to shrink...

I mean the PS3 still had arcade racers and 3D Platformers with stories. It also had a lot of bonkers high budget games like The Puppeteer or Starhawk.

 

[Dnomla]

I sure hope so, but I'm prepared to be eternally disappointed.

No more Haunting Ground, no more Echo Night, no more Kuon, no more Chulip, no more Steamboat Chronicles, no more Rule of Rose, no more Clock Tower, no more Forbidden Siren, etc. etc. etc......

The PS3 was pretty bad, the PS4 was awful, and the PS5 is looking to be abysmal for any kind of "mid-tier" games I would enjoy. I could not care less about Sony's AAA CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE type games they're trying to focus on now. Indies from what I've seen don't really capture what I'm looking for.

 

[Mona]

nope, sorry OP

 

[Deleted member 1839]

I do miss the days where FromSoftware had one of the most varied outputs by any devs, even though it mostly was janky stuff that wasn't really good. Their were the king of mech games for at least 3 gens and were once up there with Capcom and Blizzard as my favorite devs.

 

[ElCidTmax]

I think game fatigue is more a factor of too many options. I find there is so much that I don't give adequate time to legitimately good games. The PS2 did have a ton, but like every console generation it had some stellar games but many (probably the large majority) were just OK. Now I have 400+ games in my PS4 digital library and there's a lot of good stuff in there that I never gave much time to, only because of competition for attention with other games.

 

[HellofaMouse]

There is so much quantity these days that getting variety is mostly an issue of curation. There more variety now than there have ever been. Like, every single genre is well represented if you dig into the steam library

 

[Vitamin_B_Complex]

Anyone who thinks that we have less variety today is smoking something strong. We have more variety than ever.
People complaining that there aren't any AA games like there used to be are just as blind to these games as people were back then. There are tons of clunky but charming AA games to have your fill, you are just not paying attention just like people back then weren't. In 20 years, people will act the same and praise games like Greedfall or Styx or No Straight Roads or whatever.

The coming generation will probably be the new golden age with consoles that don't limit bigger devs and are easy to work with for smaller devs, the best middleware of all time that is basically free, even more connectivity between people across the world and technologies that let you play games even if you don't have strong hardware. I also assume that AI will make game development easier in the near future. Instead of making 10 unique houses for a medieval village, you give the AI some parameters and it spits out 1000 different versions that the artist can use as a baseline to pick and chose, improve upon and use in their game.

 

[Brhoom]

PS4:

I...think we never got as much variety as right now.
But this is just me.

Click to shrink...

Quoting an iconic post from an icnoic member,

YOU get a cinematic third-person action-adventure game! And YOU get a cinematic third-person action-adventure game! And YOUUU get a cinematic third-person action-adventure game!!!

 

[Eppcetera]

I don't think we'll see as much variety from major studios as we did in the PS1 and PS2 days. For example, Square greenlit a lot of weird and different games for the PS1 (like Xenogears, Chocobo Racing, Bushido Blade, Brave Fencer Musashi, Vagrant Story, and Einhänder).

But with indie games, I don't think you can say that gaming as a whole has less variety. The big developers focus on third-person cinematic games, open world games, and first-person shooters, but smaller studios and indie developers help fill in the gaps and make some weird and innovative games.

 

[FFNB]

WE have an insane amount of game variety compared to how it was during the PS2 era. I'm speaking from a console player perspective, as I was never a PC gamer back then.

Sure, the big publishers tend to chase the mega-blockbusters and GaaS dream, but even so, there are literally hundreds of games being released these days, and there is more access to games from all types of studios and genre than there has ever been in all my 3+ decades of being a gamer.

I can't tell you how many indie games, or games from smaller independent studios that I've been introduced to and purchased over the past 15+ years thanks to the growth of stores like XBLA Arcade and PSN. And across so many varying pricing tiers, that you could probably drop $60-$70 USD, and come away with a haul of 5-10 really awesome indie games.

Much like Hollywood, just because the big blockbusters get the bulk of the attention, doesn't mean that there aren't films smaller in scope being made and released.

For me, personally, there are more quality games in a variety of genres than I can keep track of these days.

I also think dismissing indie studios as "tiny" isn't really giving them the respect they deserve. There are a lot of indie studios making "mid-tier" games, just like there are indie studios making "smaller tier" games. I feel like there's this psychological "comfort barrier" when it comes to how some gamers view what qualifies as a "mid-tier" game. Like, if it's not a mid tier game coming from a Square, or EA, or Activision, or Sony, or Capcom, or Konami, then there's a bit of resistance to investing in those mid tier games. When the reality is that the indie games we're getting these days would very much be in that AA tier of games on the PS2 back in the day.

 

[ErrorJustin]

Download more steam and App Store games.

 

[KushalaDaora]

I keep hearing people talk about Steam sales and backlogs they cant finish and I get jealous. I really need to buy a better computer

Click to shrink...

I jumped into PC gaming scene in the last 1 year (using peasant tier laptop) and it opened my eyes on indie/AA scene.

A lot of this stuff also available for console (PS4 for me) and yet I never bother with them previously because they are kinda buried under AAA stuff in PSN store.

 

[The Iron Banana]

Quoting an iconic post from an icnoic member,

YOU get a cinematic third-person action-adventure game! And YOU get a cinematic third-person action-adventure game! And YOUUU get a cinematic third-person action-adventure game!!!

Click to shrink...

Pretty much. Not sure what they were trying to prove.

OP you need to expand beyond consoles. There's more variety in the console space for sure but man even mobile has good variety if you can look past all the gacha games. Then there's PC. This thread surely calls to the console fan that has no experience with PC because if you did you wouldn't make this thread. We really are in the golden age of game variety right now. It's almost unreal just what's available.

 

[AgonyRon]

Since Game Pass, I played a lot of games i would have never played and I feel like there's never been a time with more variety in games than now.

Get Game Pass OP.

I Also review games and my colleagues always let me do the lesser known Steam Ganes and boy what big choice of games there are today, it's really insane.

 

[Mentalist]

I sure hope so, but I'm prepared to be eternally disappointed.

No more Haunting Ground, no more Echo Night, no more Kuon, no more Chulip, no more Steamboat Chronicles, no more Rule of Rose, no more Clock Tower, no more Forbidden Siren, etc. etc. etc......

The PS3 was pretty bad, the PS4 was awful, and the PS5 is looking to be abysmal for any kind of "mid-tier" games I would enjoy. I could not care less about Sony's AAA CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE type games they're trying to focus on now. Indies from what I've seen don't really capture what I'm looking for.

Click to shrink...

Judging from what I'm seeing on Steam, Chinese devs of all sizes are jumping in to fill that "quirky Japanese games" niche.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Quoting an iconic post from an icnoic member,

YOU get a cinematic third-person action-adventure game! And YOU get a cinematic third-person action-adventure game! And YOUUU get a cinematic third-person action-adventure game!!!

Click to shrink...

In 25 games, 17 aren't even that. But let's keep reaching.

 

[Dr.Social]

Thought I would highlight some recent games that give me a PS2/GC/XBOX mid-tier vibe

 

[J_Macgrady]

I don't think so. Just on a basic level you can look at all the franchises that big companies don't even touch anymore due to rising costs in game development. I'm not sure a bunch of random indie games on Steam can make up for that even if those games maybe quality.

 

[Hieroph]

Something about PS2 (and a little bit of PS3) just allowed me to pick up a cheap game and buy it based off cool cover art. Of course there were plenty of games that sucked but it never felt like I wasted time or money trying shit out.

Now every game is either some big blockbuster shit or some tiny indie game and I get bored just trying to pick. Obviously there's still a variety of games out here but I don't think online stores really do a good job at communicating that. Sifting through PSN or Nintendo e-shop just feels like trying not to waste money on something instead of exploration.

Do you think we will ever get back to that atmosphere of gaming that the PS2 had?

Click to shrink...

Sounds like you have a shopping problem, not a games problem OP. Try specialist stores or mom & pops if you can find them, or browse physical games online. You'll find all kinds of great stuff, for PS4 in particular.

 

[arglebargle]

basically my problem is that kimura went from making chulip and rule of rose to making phone games. sakaguchi is also making phone games. treasure is...defunct? i dont know, seems like a lot of the japanese devs i liked are making phone games or out of the industry since ps2 generation.

 

[leder]

I think no, but not in the same way that others are saying, in terms of genre checkboxes. So much of videogame design is "solved" at this point, that it's just a foregone conclusion what your parameters are for progression, exploration, combat, dialogue, etc. in prior gens, this was not set in stone, and you had much more varied attempts at designing game systems. Take for example open world games. This really got going in gen 6, and there were tons of different approaches, everything from Shenmue to Morrowind to GTA to Shadow of the Colossus. Now everything has more or less coalesced on the best practices defined by GTA and Assassins creed.

There is a lot of potential for this kind of inventiveness and exploration to take place in VR, but it's kind of a chicken and egg scenario with having a big and broad enough consumer base for that.

 

[Ushojax]

We already have it. What we don't have is diversity in the lineups from big publishers, but that's to be expected with their focus on either AAAA or GAAS.

 

[Advance.Wars.Sgt.]

OP is absolutely correct in their assertion/opinion because the budget creep even affected the library diversity with the jump from DS - 3DS. And handhelds are typically the last bastion of low budget to low-end mid-tier games precisely because they're cheaper to develop for.

The diversity is still there for sure, but the frequency in which I see unique titles, or even titles with a little bit of character to them, is just not the same as before.

 

[Deleted member 17092]

I guess I agree now it is mainly AAA or indie titles with not much in between, but those indie titles are hitting much harder than they ever have so it kinda balances out.

 

[Corine]

Not in the AAA space. Indies are far beyond that though.