And if this is the case, why are such profits turning out to have such tiny budgets for sequels? Remember, the popularity of gaming has grown alot since the old days. It sounds to me like certain AAA devs ('cause this is not really happening with every AAA game, really, as things like Monster Hunter are doing just fine) are mismanaging resources terribly. It's not like people aren't buying the AAA titles, either. We have AAA level indies like Shovel Knight, as well, so what gives? Obviously, something horrible is going on in the market, 'cause the money flow per quality output isn't make much of any sense. I have my own theories, but i'm a bit more focused on getting people thinking outside of the box before pointing the finger: usually makes people more receptive to my ideas.

I hope the change to GOG's review visibility will change that some. I think a lot of it is people want to discuss interesting things. If they love it or hate it, it's more interesting to talk about than something just being okay. Nobody loves talking about the weather.

I've played plenty of good or okay games this year. Most of them just aren't interesting enough for me to want to post a review.

I should've known better than not see this coming, yet I still laughed.

It's not quite on topic, but as you talked about advertising and how we are conditionned to be triggered by some chosen elements I've noticed a trend amongst reviewer/streamer/entourage.

Whenever a game is marketed as "Hard/difficult/hellish" from the start, it's a good point. People know what they are going into and are willing to put the effort to beat that game. Whether it is to prove to themselves they are bigger or to put up the challenge for someone watching.

But when a game is not marketed as being an hardcore veteran gamer candy ? Surely the gameplay is not that good. Yep, that hitbox is wonky and hell, too much bug, was this not beta tested ?

There's as much hype train (look at Red Dead Redemption 2, for a recent example) as there is a hate train (same example). Oh, and for that "difficulty rage", same example again. A streamer I like to watch disliked Red Dead 2 so much 'cause he kept dying. "Buggy mess", "awful gameplay" "way too hard". The same dude finished Dark Souls 1 in under 10 hours on his first attempt without dying too much. But RDR2 was not sold as a difficult and challenging gameplay, so failing something is frustrating, to more anger to more failing. The more he failed the harder it was to admit it's not the game fault.

I feel it's the same deal with hype/hate. It's even worse with pricey games, with sequels, etc. The more people are attached or detached from a licence, the more they to ignore/accentuate certain aspects when it serves their narrative. I'm really surprised Fallout 76 get the bashing it deserves, I seriously thought the fanbase would defend it to the grave.

Well, it didn't focus on what the fans of the series wanted more of, hence why it fell apart. Fallout and The Elder Scrolls are about NPCs and the lore, both of which, from what little i've seen, were pretty much missing from 76. And, i saw one of the coolest things they put in 76, which is totally on par with the other things they've done in previous games, was the Mothman. However, to stay true to the promises of violating everything people loved about the series, he just kinda exists, doesn't talk or anything. Like, you had one job when people hear about Mothman: make him explain that he's chasing all these cars 'cause lämp, but no, they didn't, they failed to even make him anything other than just standing there. I'm more honestly surprised that people played it at all when the no-NPC thing was announced. They effectively admitted that they aren't interested in doing more than a bare minimum game, and that all this time they were really working on something else.

Oh no, I get ya. As soon as it was announced to be a MP game, I dropped my interest. Never understood that will to play a TES/Fallout in MP, but yeah, the No-NPC was a no brainer.

I've played and replayed every TES/Fallout through the years and own multiples copy of each iteration, but when Skyrim came out ? I felt it was mediocre. Yet, you couldn't say that at the time. Fallout 4 ? Same deal. Yet time had changed and people started realizing Bethesda weren't trying anymore.

But Skyrim/F4 could at least be improved and tweaked at leisure, so much so that even the DLCs fiasco couldn't ternish their reputation too much.

Even if many people played the beta, I still know people that defended F76 up untill its release and the newly fresh debacle around refund. I predicted fans would be more vocals, seems Bethesda really did destroy everything.

Well, to be honest, I could say the same about Blizzard.

Well,my personal feeling is total trash and the last great game as far as I am concerned is Skyrim,F3,FNV and to each their own.But,really since M&M series they just got worse and the trend has continued.

To be fair though, some games now are the best ever. Look at the exponential growth of graphics, sound, script writing etc. That goes into some blockbusters. There are also a lot of examples of the worst game ever as well floating around. Too often these valid options get derided, and companies continue to pump the same thing out over and over.

That's a very good point.
These days people grade and even value moneywise games based on how long it takes to finish the game. "I completed the game in four hours, it's not worth the money."

At the same time, people expect games to be easy, not involving any backtracking or trial and error, there must be hint buttons in the game, and if there are any puzzles which require thinking, there should be some autosolve to pass them. I guess some people want those Steam achievements very bad and very fast.


That's true, but "exponential growth of graphics and sound" is based on more computing power and more storage space. It doesn't mean that a game is even worth playing otherwise.

I am completely happy with 16 colour pixelarts and PC beep sounds, if the game is otherwise good. It can also be argued otherwise: almost anyone can create a decent looking game, using enough "new stuff" to create it. But if you limit the number of colours and number of pixels, it's actually harder to create something that looks good.

Maybe even further than that. If multiverses exist, our universe may or may not be "the best ever", but just the best we've ever seen.

I get it. I got it right from the bat. The problem is, peoples' perception of multiplayer doesn't always match the way multiplayer is, so people wanted multiplayer for the idea of co-op, to bring their friend or girlfriend into the world they enjoy so much. Also to have companions that don't suck. The world is immersive, and you want to share it. Prior to playing morrowind, i never played a game before where the people in the game acted like regular people, that if you stole something they'd try to catch you for being a thief. A game where you had the ability to break the law, but were not obligated to, and got heavily punished for doing so. The game feels real and immersive. Naturally, someone would want to share this with others, and do co-op with someone to help them find their way, to share the obscurities of the quests with (ever notice when you talk about the games people end up sharing their stories about the more obscure quests?), etc. However, the realization that multiplayer would just end up with you getting paired with someone who acts like a dumbass and causess trouble knocks this idea right out of you. You could, and many did. Which was a good thing, too: when people said that Skyrim sucked compared to it's older games, that convinced people to try the older games. Honestly, Bethesda hasn't been trying for a while longer. I'm playing through New Vegas right now, and it's plagued with the same thing 3 was: most of the quests aren't even marked, so most quests you pass over, and the game ends up feeling really, really short. Oblivion needed the difficulty tweaked, and it got it. Skyrim disabled the magic system that made the previous games awesome, 'cause they couldn't balance magic. So Morrowind was the first and last game that they really put alot of effort into. I don't know about fallout 4, but for skyrim i don't see the DLC fiasco (at least for the standard iterations). Most companies these days really are doing that. They're trying too hard to appeal to new bases to get more customers, to the degree that they're loosing track of what people really wanted. The modern fighting games are showing this clearer than any other genre, IMO. They want more people to play, so they make it so that there's more ways to make "comebacks," which is especially good for tournament hype, but the core fans are getting jaded and new players aren't comming. They lost track of what the old players want, and they have only terrible guesses at how to get new players in (instead of really good training programs in the games, with really good tutorials, they focus on turning it into mario kart, while newer fighting games like Skullgirls seem to be doing way better, since they address the problem).

Well, this comes from the lack of addressing issues properly. People want more content, and they want it without "cheap tricks" like backtracking (though backtracking is good if there's alot of stuff that was hidden before). People like Metroid, but Risky's Revenge simultaneously encourages and discourages back tracking. Rehashing the same bosses, like Ookami did? But i kinda understand the ease thing: how many times have we been burned by a ridiculous challenge that was poorly planned, thought out, etc, and the actual solution didn't make sense or had a difficulty curve beyond the final boss, yet wasn't optional? How many times have you spent hours upon hours for something really stupid? The problem there is, like with TES multiplayer, people who say "that horribly done stealth section of a non-stealth oriented game" don't understand that there's an overton window involved with that. That said, the final blockhead of Ookami was just plain wrong, as the game was not about this kind of memorization.

But, you'll find people appreciate roguelites like crazy, arcade games like starfox 64, etc. And remember, too, that everyone's different. The same people complaining about completion time usually aren't the same people complaining about difficulty. There's money and prestigue in achievements. It's kind of like welfare, really: people want easy money very bad and really fast, despite not knowing that it invariably degrades the value of said currency. People are actually making money and fame off of "gamer score." I heard people saying that some guy who left Rooster Teeth "has the highest gamer score in the world" and therefore "is the best gamer in the world." Wait, there's a market for being good at gaming, and this market can be manipulated by cheating? Could you imagine if there was a competition for reading bo--oh wait, there is... I can understand for competitive multiplayer games, but why the hell would you want to be "the best person at skyrim" or something like that, when it would basically mean you're not even enjoying the content of the game. IMO, having a low "gamer score" should be a badge of honor at this point.

It's even pretty improbably that it's the best ever. Maybe the best for us though, since we grew into it...

Is there even an objective standard if we can't even have an objective standard for morality?

I'm certainly not against MP games. For as long as I remember, I always associated TES/F to a lonely single experience I could tailor by my mood and wanderings. How could someone in the world feel and think the same way as I do ? Surely impossible, they would ruin my rythm. An opinion I had for a long time since I first played Morrowind in 2002 on my Xbox, can't get more isolated !

But I spoke too hastily, I changed since 2002 and discovered since the concept of RP. I suppose I'm like many fans, I thought Fallout 76 would be an improved version of TES Online, a massively coop game that still can be played solo, for that lonely itch. I played Star Trek Online for a long time, an MMO in which I could follow a storyline of quests and cutscene, sending me on many different planets and location all alone if I wished. I played 200 hours without sharing my experience with anyone but when I wanted to, I could group with the first comer.

Fallout 76 presented itself (or at least, that's what I understood) as a poor man's Day-Z. Which could've been great. After all, as clunky as Day-Z and all its clones are, the interaction with players creates an inherent RP when every player are fighting for survival. There are video where even trolls are creating a dynamic scenario by frightening players with the randomness of their actions. This could've fit in a Fallout world. The lack of NPC when it comes to the bare bones gameplay of Fallout 4 ? That's the downfall.

As for why people are talking about their more obscure quest, it may come down to the sense of discovery in such massive games. While it's not high litterature, I can enjoy the story writing in Bethesda's work and I've found it's always a pleasure to share what script did or did not happens in a save. I saw people talking about Red Dead 2 recently and it was funny to see people being surprised to have missed important quest or tidbit of lore. And let's be honest here, TES gameplay isn't great so why would it be memorable to once again one-hit and enemy.

MP games rarely match my expectations, I'll just have to admit they are not made for me and deal with it.

I may give nostalgia too much credits. While I enjoyed every TES and Fallout, I can't but agree with everything you said. I feel Ubisoft is trying harder whith each games than Bethesda. I always loved the "Expect it to be bugged" attitude going along with Bethesda, it was cute for a time. I'd be curious to see a documentary on Bethesda explaining evolution of their relationship with the fanbase.

My tendency to speak in hyperbole. Wasn't much fiasco for Skyrim, more disgruntled in the face of Besthesda releasing DLC while still having a buggy game. I'm sure it was fine on PC, but playing Skyrim on my 360 was like russian roulette and I couldn't mod anything. So I wasn't too pleased to pay 20€ to build a house when I couldn't load my saves any longer. Many of my consoles/peasants friends stopped buying TES/F product when Skyrim got its first DLC announced.

As for Fallout 4, the game was already being targeted by many reviewers for many different reasons. The Season Pass wasn't good at all, adding more elements for the building mechanism and not enough story content. It felt like Bethesda did not care about the fan outcry. Then came the Creation Club with a nice reminder of the first Oblivion DLC. Yeah, maybe not a fiasco, but seeing its many attackers on the web, loving Fallout 4 was like admitting of having poor tastes. It became a witch hunt, at least in the parts of the web I wandered. That's somewhat on topic. But yeah, it maybe was just me magnifying my distates for DLCs.


I mentionned Blizzard since I'm a long time Diablo fan (bought every books in two different language, own 17 copies of Diablo 2, 10 of Diablo 1...) and couldn't even get into the Diablo 3 hype after the first announcement. Nothing to do with the visuals, more the changes in gameplay and the fiasco (here, I hope I'm using it accurately) of the infamous "Error 37" on lauch day didn't help.

Seeing the launch of F76 and the refund debacle (No refund if the game was downloaded, "lol") reminded me of all that. I'd buy Fallout 76 if it was at least a bit like TES Online which I'm sure wasn't great either at launch.


I never got any money for my 140.000 Gamer Score on 360 but believe it or not, it made me the "Authority" of gaming in my entourage for more than a decade while the reality was that I simply liked doing everything in a game, even if it was dumb, grindy, or burned me out.

I'm still doing it in an extent on PS4, I love achievements but it can ruin my experience when I'm forced to add 50h to my gameplay just to 100% a massive game in auto-pilot. But I have my ins and out, I know what I like and how I like to play. Aalas, I'm having fun playing, otherwise I wouldn't bother. A friend of mine bought games and played just to overpass my gamer score (which he never did, as I have a lot of free time.) haven't heard him touching a pad in the last 5 years.

The "best thing evar" isn't limited to games, movies get this too. It also isn't recent. Remember when the Star Wars prequels come out, you had people claiming George Lucas ruined their childhood.

I don't want to start anything political here but also look at US elections and university debates and look at how people act there as opposed to 30 or even 20 years ago.

IMO, this hyperbolic behavior is a symptom of the culture we live in, not just gaming culture.

Worst culture ever !!!