Poll of the Day > Who had the biggest impact on gaming between 2017 and 2020

(+) Yeah! (+)

Who had the biggest impact?

tencent

Lord Gaben

Probably EA/Activision, with the extent to which they've pushed the envelope on loot boxes and worked to normalize "live services" as the primary focus on the AAA industry. A lot of people seem to conflate "largest impact" with "doing the most stuff I like," but large impacts on an industry scale usually mean paradigm shifts, and these days most of those come in the form of new levels of monetization becoming normalized.

I don't know.

I don't feel like gaming has changed much since like 2014. Things like microtransactions and early access have done serious damage to gaming, but both of those were widespread in 2014 already.

I can't think of much positive developments in gaming, aside from Nintendo finally merging their console and handheld platforms into one system. Hopefully they never go back.

InnerSloth, AmongUs

As far as shaking the status quo, I cant think of any one that has.

Raid shadow legends

Ebin Games

faramir77 posted...

Things like [...] early access have done serious damage to gaming,

Eh, I wouldn't say that. There's no shortage of examples of it being abused to sell as many copies of a half-finished project as possible before scrapping it completely, but it's a very powerful tool that has made games like Minecraft, Factorio, and Hades far greater than they'd be without it. Used properly (that is, by a developer that's committed to gradually improving their product and listening to community feedback), it's a fantastic idea, and I don't really think it's damaged gaming as a whole.

Now, the informal "early access" approach of shipping a half-broken game for the sake of meeting deadlines and patching it later? I'd agree that that's damaging. That's not formal early access, though, that's just executives not understanding how to make good games trying to please shareholders who don't care about anything other than meeting deadlines and sales targets (fuelled in part by a customer base that's also not very tolerant of delays). Early access as a development strategy is fundamentally a good thing.

Nintendo. Even though the Switch is nothing more than a port machine that I have little interest in, it has to be the most hyped console since the Wii. I mean the thing is so prevalent in our society that I even have stogy middle aged coworkers talking about thier Animal Crossing islands & how to most efficiently acquire bells and the thing is pretty much crack cocaine to kiddies. And because of this most of the Youtubers have made the switch to ,erm, the Switch, so they can spam content for it. Switch, Switch, Switch. I find Switch mania to be obnoxious, but what can you do.

Animal Crossing is a bit of a weird case because it came out at the absolute best possible time: In mid-March 2020, lockdowns were ramping up around the world, leaving everyone with a ton of free time, massive disruptions to their regular routines, having to come up with new ways to interact remotely with their friends and family, and a whole lot of fear about what was happening. So when Nintendo released a game on March 20, 2020 that offered plenty of play time, defined routines, new ways to interact remotely with friends and family, and a really relaxed, comforting aesthetic and atmosphere, it absolutely exploded. It's by no means a perfect game and there's plenty of room to improve it, but Animal Crossing was exactly the game the world needed at the time it was released, which paved the way to it becoming a genuine social phenomenon.

That said, calling the Switch a "port machine" is pretty silly. Most of the WiiU's notable library has been ported to it and MK8 still dominates monthly sales charts, but it's no more reliant on ports/multiplats than any other system and has plenty of notable exclusives.