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[bender]

No One Gives A Damn Now was the name of my punk band in high school.

 

[HRK69]

GTA games suck. The controls are bad and the mission structure rigid and outdated. All Rockstsar games have shit gameplay.

I know this isn’t what the thread is about, but I saw an occasion to shit on that overhyped and overrated franchise and took it.

Every time I see someone complain about bad controls in Rockstar games, my first thought is how unskilled they must be at gaming in general

 

[Gaiff]

Every time I see someone complain about bad controls in Rockstar games, my first thought is how unskilled they must be at gaming in general

Not how tapping to run is one of the most retarded things ever? Lol.

 

[64gigabyteram]

The indie scene is absolutely making a bunch of "spiritual successors" and glorified ripoffs.

Yeah. They're called genres for a reason.

indies making "spiritual successors" is basically just them making new entries in otherwise dead genres abandoned by AAA. said dead genres don't have many landmarks apart from a couple games that came out decades ago so as a result people like you label anything new in said genre a ripoff of X old game. Like calling Selaco "doom with a chick"- Yeah that's a boomer shooter. Remember when every shooter didn't require you to aim down sights to kill, reload ammo, had more open level design, and tried to be more than the 2 current archetypes of candy crush happy-go-lucky fortnite or dark and gritty calladuty? Boomer shooter. Subgenre of FPS games.

Besides, from the past 5 years Indies have been creating crazy new game experiences that even AAA has taken influence from. Hades like you just mentioned, Ultrakill, Balatro which went wild last year, Vampire Survivors, Webfishing, Mouthwashing, Pseudoregalia, Your Only Move is Hustle, Slay the Princess, Penny's Big Breakaway etc... but sure it's all sequels and rehashes of 90s video games.

Every time I see someone complain about bad controls in Rockstar games, my first thought is how unskilled they must be at gaming in general

Maybe not unskilled but definitely just odd. GTA games don't particuarly control weird or sluggish. What types of movements are people trying to make that makes the movement of the character so awful???

 

[Woggleman]

Rockstar games have their own flavor which I love but some people don't. Judging by their success more people are in the former.

That being said if you hate it then there are many other options so let Rockstar be Rockstar.

 

[HRK69]

Not how tapping to run is one of the most retarded things ever? Lol.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, there's a setting that lets you adjust sprinting so you can simply hold the button instead of repeatedly tapping it. That option was there from the start

GTA5 got exact same option after an update

So no, I haven't bothered with tapping a button to sprint in their last game

Didn't you tweak the setting in Red Dead Redemption 2 to avoid button-tapping? Because it's retarded and all.

 

[Gaiff]

In Red Dead Redemption 2, there's a setting that lets you adjust sprinting so you can simply hold the button instead of repeatedly tapping it. That option was there from the start

GTA5 got exact same option after a update

So no, I haven't bothered with tapping a button to sprint in their last game

Didn't you tweak the setting in Red Dead Redemption 2 to avoid button-tapping? Because it's retarded and all.

I played GTA V well over a decade ago. It most certainly wasn’t an option at the time. As for RDR2, it has its own issues with the 300ms+ input lag. Not that it would change much because it still controls like shit anyway.

 

[Radical_3d]

What did they feed that horse?!

Pure 20s game design in vein.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Every time I see someone complain about bad controls in Rockstar games, my first thought is how unskilled they must be at gaming in general

The fact we can breeze through their games despite them controlling and playing like shit says all it needs to be said about their design.

Tbf though that's mainly the most recent GTAs and RDR games, their older stuff usually play fine.

 

[Schmendrick]

Some people take videogames way too serious.

 

[Robb]

The only reason this is the case is because Nintendo and Sony are both insanely successful at the moment. There’s lack of competition and they have the luxury of not having to feel much pressure.

Had Nintendo been in a worse position, we’d have seen more games in Switch 2 reveal, just like with the Switch 1, for example. But they don’t need to because they have +150 million potential buyers already.

Desperate Sony/Nintendo is the best Sony/Nintendo.

 

[64gigabyteram]

The fact we can breeze through their games despite them controlling and playing like shit says all it needs to be said about their design.

they made their design and missions work for the type of controls and gameplay they employ?

that's kind of basic...

 

[SlimySnake]

Enthusiasm in core gaming is down, and the companies don't seem to realize it or don't care.

The reveal for the Switch 2 was the lowest effort a generational hardware reveal has ever been. One of of the top yt comments says the following:



It would be something if this Wendy's Twitter account attitude was coming from Nintendo, but fans are just projecting that image onto them. To me, it comes off more like they're taking the Switch 2's success for granted.
"Here's some muddy ass footage of Mario Kart Not8, now piss off and get ready to preorder for maybe 3 new games of consequence and an avalanche of inferior ports"

Nintendo isn't alone here: Sony hasn't had a showcase in over 18 months, and their last was abysmal. State of Plays are contractual obligations on video. No one brings their A game to the content or the presentation. Third parties think that dripfeeding on Twitter and showing a 90 second trailer at one of Geoff Keighley's shill auctions does the trick.
Microsoft is able to put on a convincing effort for NotE3 because they've bought out half of the industry and dedicate most of their energy trying making things look better than they actually are.

And to that point, you might be thinking:
The presentations don't matter. It's about the games.
But this devil may care attitude to selling people on buying their games has also bled into the games themselves, and it's hard not to notice that this started as trade shows, expos and press conference became less of a concern.

Because we don't have regular conference dates, we're left for 5 or more years without having a clue what premiere studios are doing. We didn't know what Monolith Productions was doing for more than 4 years before they revealed Wonder Woman - and it's clear the lack of pressure got to them, as they'd barely started before the reveal which is why we haven't seen shit since.

It just seems like everyone is running on cruise control. Sequels are becoming lesser rehashes even when they take 4+ years to make with heavy asset reuse; new IP of significance is rare, and is either a pale imitation of old IP or looks fucking stupid; major publishers have swathes of their schedules filled by remasters and remakes, and dragging out old IP that was probably let go of for a reason; none of the platform holders are curating their stores; trailers are not as well put together as they were 10 years ago; top developers are more than happy going 5-8 years without releasing a game while collecting six figure salaries; and they increasingly don't give a festering fuck about making a game that sells if it isn't a Stockholm syndrome designed live service they can use to climb the corporate ranks.
And before any of you indie yahoos come in here telling us all about your "hidden gems", most of this stuff applies to that space too.

Who solves it, if anyone? Do we lay all our hopes on GTA6? Do we wait for Hermen Hulst to be dismissed, a major publisher like Ubisoft or Microsoft to crumble, Andrew Wilson to leave for Disney, and the half-century old guard of Nintendo to bow out? I think it's a mixture of all of this and more. This generation looks to be a total wipeout.

To Herman's credit, he's cancelled 9 or 10 of the 12 GaaS games they had planned. 1 after release lmao. I think Sony seems to be self-correcting. Sadly, like you said this generation is lost.

I think MS already did that a few years ago, and has been laser focused on creating single player games. They released Hellblade 2, Indiana Jones and Starfield in the last 18 months alone. I dont think anyone of these are great games, but at least they arent chasing gaas trends. Avowed, Fable and Doom are next and should be way better than those games.

Ubisoft also has been making mostly single player games. Sadly, Massive sucks at making them and AC Shadows took way too long.

I think thats the biggest issue here. Games are taking way too long to make. 6 years to make an AC game when they used to make them in 1-2 years is insane. Watch AC Shadows be a 100-200 hour game like Odyssey and Valhalla, and why?

Lets hope publishers force these developers to reduce the scope and mandate 3 year dev cycle. Anything more and you go suck a dick. If its 20 hours so be it.

Jason said that mismanagement is the reason why the industry is in this state, not a focus on graphics and some people were like, then why is it affecting every studio?? Well, because every studio is mismanaged by the same retards. Even productive studios like KojiPro took 6 years between games. He made DS1 in 3.5 years starting with literally no people and no studio. And then took twice as long to make DS2? Clearly herman mismanaged him and didnt greenlight DS2 immediately.

You look at the Metro Exodus devs. Its been 6 years since their last game. Why? Clearly that game is in development hell and not because devs forgot to make video games. Its the same shit Rocksteady and Warner Bros Montreal went through. Its the same shit Dragon Age went through. Same shit Naughty Dog, Bend and Bluepoint went through. Same shit CD project is currently going through. 4 years it took them to make and release witcher 3, and 4 years after shipping cyberpunk they cant even show us a realtime trailer? Get fucked. i am pretty sure devs have been working on something. But its probably been trying to save cyberpunk or constant witcher 4 redesigns. 4 years of pre-production lmao. used to be 3-6 months max.

These suits arent going anywhere but lets hope that they learn like they learned in the ps3 era that shoehorning MP modes in every single player game didnt work.

 

[GigaBowser]

ahah Switch 2 fastest viewed console ever on sorcal media course peoples care

shhhhhhhhh the sales are coming

 

[SlimySnake]

I don't really care about the pomp and circumstance either, in itself. But as I said, the issue is that they clearly take that reduced pressure to mean that there's also reduced pressure to perform when it comes to the games themselves.


I think your reaction to my take is the only thing that's deranged here. I'm not going feral because of a lack of specific info about the console, it'll be what it'll be. All I'm pointing out is that they've gone about the announcement of this thing as if it's an accessory. It feels rushed despite the Switch having come out 8 years ago and the biggest selling point so far is backwards compatibility. You might even mistake the new Mario Kart they showed as visually inferior to MK8 - which is an 11 year old Wii U game by origin.

If the reveal of the next gen is so unremarkable, I cannot help but wonder how it will play out. The console already has the problem of being at least 1.5 gens behind in tech; they're not going to have a new Zelda ready before 2030 if TOTK's dev cycle is any indication; Metroid Prime 4 will probably be one of the flagship titles they push, but that game looks almost exactly like the MP1 remaster and is cross gen.

Even the way people talk about it feels so managed decline-ish. Kinda like the PS5 as compared to the PS4. It's just accepted that this thing will not be as successful as the first Switch. Why shouldn't it be? Are people not tired of an 8 year old machine that was anemic in tech when it first launched? Or is there a lack of incentive with the games they're pushing and how they're pushing them?

complacent sony was a meme turned truth this year. Now we are watching complacent nintendo.

Nintendo coasted this gen because people just didnt apply the same rules to them. If they didnt get RDR2, AC games, CoD games or any of the goty contenders like sekiro, elden ring, re2 remake then people made excuses. It's not a console. Or its not a primary console for most people. They released way more remake and remasters than Sony and got away with it because again, excuses.

That's why you are seeing them phone-in a reveal like that. It's so fucking lazy you'd think they are taking the piss. If a youtuber had made a fan trailer with that aliased Mario Kart footage, he would be relentlessly mocked, but Nintendo gets 90 million views in 3 days. That's the standard gamers have set for themselves. Nintendo will charge $500 for that bundle and people will flock to it. And Nintendo knows it.

Same reason why Sony and MS thought they could increase the price of the PS5 and XSX 3 years after launch instead of decreasing it. Same reason Nvidia is launching a $2,000 gpu thats just 25% faster than their previous $1,649 gpu that effectively sold for $2,000. Consumers have spoken and they are ok with all of this. Nintendo is simply following suit.

 

[Madflavor]

I feel like most of the problems we're having in gaming right now can be tied to the fact that it takes 5-10 years to develop a AAA game nowadays. I've been singing this tune for awhile now, but this is a real problem and I don't know how it gets solved. Even when you look at smaller projects, they take many years to develop. You only need to go back to the 7th Gen 360/PS3 Era, and even then the developers were able to develop games in 2 years.

What the fuck happened? Why is this happening? When is the industry as a whole going to start saying the quiet part out loud and acknowledge how fucking ridiculously long it's become to develop games now.

 

[ProtoByte]

To Herman's credit, he's cancelled 9 or 10 of the 12 GaaS games they had planned. 1 after release lmao. I think Sony seems to be self-correcting. Sadly, like you said this generation is lost.

I'm not giving Hulst any credit. He was head of PS Studios since 2019 and greenlit all this crap. No disrespect Slimy, but I can't do it. I've been more skeptical of him than of Jim Ryan. Even Greg Miller said it, and you know when he drops the shilling, it's serious: Any PlayStation fan could have and did say that this live service thing wasn't going to work even before they announced this initiative.

But because Hulst is just a corporate climber driven purely by numbers with no perspective on games, he ran with it.

 

[SlimySnake]

I feel like most of the problems we're having in gaming right now can be tied to the fact that it takes 5-10 years to develop a AAA game nowadays. I've been singing this tune for awhile now, but this is a real problem and I don't know how it gets solved. Even when you look at smaller projects, they take many years to develop. You only need to go back to the 7th Gen 360/PS3 Era, and even then the developers were able to develop games in 2 years.

What the fuck happened? Why is this happening? When is the industry as a whole going to start saying the quiet part out loud and acknowledge how fucking ridiculously long it's become to develop games now.

Its mostly mismanagement. People at the top. if devs speak out against it, they dont get hired or get fired. hence, everyone is hush hush over it.

read up on rocksteady and suicide squad. And Jason's expose on Naughty Dog, Sony Bend, and Bioware starting from Andromeda to Anthem. It's always the guys at the top who simply mismanaged the crucial first few years then doubled and tripled down on things despite everyone at the studio saying this shit isnt working.

 

[ResetEraVetVIP]

"core" gamers used to be the only game customers, but since then the "casuals" have flooded into the hobby and game makers don't care about dedicated gamers any longer. Even a lot of the "players" these days no longer concern themselves with good games, only bottom lines for corporations.

This is no longer a hobby of wonder and fun and innovation, just dollars, specs and political activism.

Exactly.

 

[MasterDerico]

GTA games suck. The controls are bad and the mission structure rigid and outdated. All Rockstsar games have shit gameplay.

I know this isn’t what the thread is about, but I saw an occasion to shit on that overhyped and overrated franchise and took it.

Agree

 

[xanaum]

It’s time to be real.

We need E3 back ASAP. The lack of a centralized hype hub during pre-E3 conferences, where we all got hyped and dreamed with that butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling about what everyone would show, is killing the vibe.

This digital, cold, and impersonal streaming era that took over gaming presentations during the pandemic brought nothing good. It just made everything feel insignificant and depressing, like games are being revealed in a virtual AA meeting.

 

[ProtoByte]

1. Those are games we on GAF have been vocal they shouldn’t exist and Sony finally have started correcting course, this is a good thing.

We were vocal that they never should have been greenlit. It's a pyrrhic victory now, after losing out on a generation. 10 fucking years when it's all said and done.

2. It’s not like the old days where studios developed only one game at a time.

Bro, please. We all know by now that the studios that even try to do this multiple project thing fail by any definition of the world. Every game goes full hands on deck. The other stuff is background shit. 250 ND employees and 4 years, and Intergalactic probably isn't coming out in 2027, with everyone at the 500+ person studio eventually on the game, + another few hundred going up to 1000 in support.

Bluepoint and Bend were absolutely NOT working on other games. All of this comes at the expense of something else.

Most of those studios you had listed are also developing at least one single player game in conjunction with the MP game.

It doesn't matter. The resources are wasted on MP. Maybe Spider-Man 2 would've been a more worthy sequel if Insomniac wasn't dicking around with a multiplayer version, for example.

 

[bitbydeath]

We were vocal that they never should have been greenlit. It's a pyrrhic victory now, after losing out on a generation. 10 fucking years when it's all said and done.

Better late than never, as they say.

Bro, please. We all know by now that the studios that even try to do this multiple project thing fail by any definition of the world. Every game goes full hands on deck. The other stuff is background shit. 250 ND employees and 4 years, and Intergalactic probably isn't coming out in 2027, with everyone at the 500+ person studio eventually on the game, + another few hundred going up to 1000 in support.

They’re aimed to release years apart.
ND are working on Intergalactic and TLOU3, they won’t release at the same time, games take years to make. If a game takes 4 years to make then a two year gap would be on point.

That’s the benefit of multiple projects.

Bluepoint and Bend were absolutely NOT working on other games. All of this comes at the expense of something else.

I don’t know about BluePoint but Bend were confirmed to be working on two games.

One was the built on the Decima engine (the cancelled game) and the other is utilising UE5, however that was recently rumoured to be a Days Gone remaster.

They’re now said to be picking their next title to replace the cancelled one.

It doesn't matter. The resources are wasted on MP. Maybe Spider-Man 2 would've been a more worthy sequel if Insomniac wasn't dicking around with a multiplayer version, for example.

I’d say that’s more of a bad writers + cross-gen issue.

 

[ProtoByte]

I don’t know about BluePoint but Bend were confirmed to be working on two games.

That was definitely not confirmed anywhere. And don't kid yourself or expect anyone else to surrender their common sense, you know that Bluepoint doesn't have anything else going.

 

[bitbydeath]

That was definitely not confirmed anywhere. And don't kid yourself or expect anyone else to surrender their common sense, you know that Bluepoint doesn't have anything else going.

Confirmed through job ads.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

I think you’re maybe extrapolating based on GAF too much. I’ve seen tons of excitement for the Switch 2. The rest of that though, idk, I think the industry is just struggling right now between whether they should throw money at big AAA single player games or adopt service elements for more revenue. It’s resulted in a lot of studios working on genres and features they aren’t used to which has lead to longer dev times and lower quality games.

You also have bitterness towards other things in life seeping into games like the anti woke grift showing up in almost every thread for big games and loads of gaming personalities focusing on it and making people too angry to ever be excited about the games.

This gen has mostly been a disaster but AA’s and indies have kept my interest.

 

[tylrdiablos]

Congratulations. You're getting old and, as such, becoming more jaded a cynical. Happens to the best of us. (You're comparing the recent lacklustre events in gaming to the golden age of your childhood and it's comparatively shit.)

 

[DoubleClutch]

im very excited about the future

and these are just a few , not to mention there are alot of great upcoming indies

All this is just marketing currently. Until it all releases and turns out great, it’s just another Starfield.

 

[DoubleClutch]

Congratulations. You're getting old and, as such, becoming more jaded a cynical. Happens to the best of us. (You're comparing the recent lacklustre events in gaming to the golden age of your childhood and it's comparatively shit.)

But it’s not just nostalgia. Halo Infinite is an example of that. It’s modern, has the latest tech, lots of money invested, but it’s just not good. The old games were better and there are more people playing the Master Chief Collection than it as a testament to that fact. It’s also why Gears is rebooting the series to what Gears 1-3 was.

There are modern games I’ve played that are better than anything in the last. Sekiro is an example. The gameplay quality blew my mind. Bloodborne, Elden Ring, Dark Souls 3 aren’t PSX/PS2 and they’re legendary.

Gaming has blown into needing to appeal to everyone when it’s never been like that. There is a core audience and once you move away from that, it becomes a disaster. Look at the trash that is Call of Duty. If they released pink guns, high heels, and bunny costumes as DLC for COD4 during its heyday, there’s no way anyone playing the game at the time would’ve bought it. But again, now a game has to try to appeal to everyone now.

It’s akin to if you try to please everybody you please nobody. The further you move away from what your core product is, the more diluted it will be. It’s why (for the most part) Japanese games haven’t faltered as much. They remained true to their core.

 

[MMaRsu]

Not how tapping to run is one of the most retarded things ever? Lol.

You haven't had to do that in the past two games, guess you're not smart enough to check the control schemes

 

[clarky]

Loads of great games came out last year and loads coming this year.

Maybe take a break if you feel this way OP. I did that a few years ago and it was awesome when i finally got back into it.

 

[Hudo]

I recommend putting in an old game that you like and playing that. And I don't mean it in an asshole kind of way.

 

[samoilaaa]

All this is just marketing currently. Until it all releases and turns out great, it’s just another Starfield.

ok i will give you examples from the last 5 years

let me know if you want more , good games are still being made , you just have to look for them

stay away from the drama games , you know the kind of games that developers use politics to describe it instead of actual game mechanics

 

[Three]

I'm glad someone else pointed out the obvious with Nintendo's 8 year plus half ass switch 2 reveal. Once we know the specs then I'll know just how much that half ass effort they actually went through with.

I'm convinced that the design/specs for Switch 2 was done years ago with the Switch Pro rumours but they were just waiting for it to hit a certain price point.

 

[Three]

Not how tapping to run is one of the most retarded things ever? Lol.

It's great, your own stamina is the characters stamina

 

[ProtoByte]

Confirmed through job ads.

? I'm gonna have to see what you mean by this. If they already had a game in development other than their service slop, they would've said that in the Bloomberg response for damage control, just like ND did when they cancelled Factions.

Some of these job postings also stay up for years on end.

 

[Hypereides]

I actually played and beat more games last year than I have in ages, thanks to my Legion Go( before that I had the Deck). It's been the perfect marriage of accessibility, portability with just enough performance for like 80% of the stuff I play. Speaking as an 'Indies yahoo', that's pretty much my happy space along with older AAA and recent AA( stuff like A Plague Tale, Terminator Resistance and Robocop Rogue city are fantastic).

Which is not to say I'm like the meme where the dog is sipping tea in a burning house thinking 'this is fine'. But I compartmentalize my enjoyment of just playing games from the inherent industry issues that I have no control over. That's on the stakeholders to resolve if they want their bread to continue getting buttered. In the meantime there are niches and pockets of the industry to enjoy if you look past the usual suspects.

OP decries such games as not being worth getting excited for.

Personally, I think any further graphical advancements will be pointlessly minuscule and that's a relief imo. It might finally push the bloated, creatively bankrupt AAA companies to apply some visionary imagination and push interesting ideas in other departments for once. For a better part of a decade, these mammoth companies have been using graphics as a crutch. Now, its time they roll back to their roots and realise this space is a competitive arena of creative ideas/worldbuilding as it originally was. The tech has always just been the tool and nothing more.

 

[hyperbertha]

im very excited about the future

and these are just a few , not to mention there are alot of great upcoming indies

Which is that third capcom game?

 

[hyperbertha]

Every time I see someone complain about bad controls in Rockstar games, my first thought is how unskilled they must be at gaming in general

Ah yes rockstar games the epitome of skillbased gameplay. I beat all from games. Rockstar games control like trash.

 

[samoilaaa]

Which is that third capcom game?

onimusha way of the sword

 

[cireza]

im very excited about the future

and these are just a few , not to mention there are alot of great upcoming indies

Horse drifting like its Initial D. Time to listen to some Eurobeat.

 

[HRK69]

Ah yes rockstar games the epitome of skillbased gameplay. I beat all from games. Rockstar games control like trash.

You’ve beaten all the FromSoftware games? What do you want, a cookie, a hug, or maybe both?

You're being hyperbolic. Funny how Rockstar's controls are "trash," yet they've sold over 400 million copies of just one of their franchises

 

[b0uncyfr0]

Well OP, what is 'core' gaming? You mean just gaming..

I think people are done with average games that pretend to be special. You can hype up anything nowadays but it doesn't make it a good game. People here and on era are less than .0001 something of gamers, unfortunately. Just because we call bullshit doesn't mean others will. Also there's the age factor: as gamers get older, there's less tolerance for BS (or maybe that's just me).

Good games will always be in demand and will always perform well. Most men under 40 will probably play GTA 6 at some point. It will make tons of money off gamers. Thats core gaming too isn't it?

 

[ProtoByte]

What the fuck happened? Why is this happening? When is the industry as a whole going to start saying the quiet part out loud and acknowledge how fucking ridiculously long it's become to develop games now.

I blame Jason Schreier for a lot of that. And even though they'll never admit today that they can't stand that dork, even Neil Druckmann and Cory Barlog pushed back on his shit.

https://archive.is/zymtC

He aired so much dirty laundry (not talking about actionable cases of abuse btw, so many of those stories fall apart on further examination) and inside information, and eventually started leading an online picket in collusion with others in the media and disgruntled employees at the major publishers. Every few months there would be a Kotaku exposé about which premiere studio was "overworking" their six figure paid employees. Crunch became a curse word. You can even argue that this sustained campaign pushed dev studios to abandon proprietary tech in favor of UE (the Graphics thread guys will love that part). Watch this video from one of the creators of Fallout, and ask yourself how many of those vague horror stories about unreasonable expectations and crunch are similar to this:



Alongside the r/antiwork bullshit now permitted and supported by game journalists constantly brown-nosing and "networking" with devs, other communitarian, Marxist thought pervades top tier studios. I always go back to an IGN Bungie exposé that went over like a dud, where one employee says that their boss is "very hierarchical". Like, duh?? The fuck do you the think this is?

Then lockdowns come along, and devs take advantage by claiming that WFH is actually way more productive for them. Meanwhile, games are getting delayed and cancelled left and right, aren't coming out as polished, etc.

The quiet part out loud is Hellblade 2 and Ninja Theory. Get bought out by Microsoft, and spend 5+ years getting paid to vacation in Northern Europe, only to release a game that has less "game" than the prequel you made without the safety net.