Poll of the Day > Who else thinks that games are constantly getting better and better?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I know that there's a similar topic like this, but apparently it was started by a troll and I want to try to have a serious discussion here.

Personally I think that while a lot of both indie and AAA publisher tactics have gotten worse and worse over the years, I think that games themselves are constantly geting better. I find that almsot every year there's a bunch of games that continue to really impress me with games like even if they don't appeal to me personally, and it makes me me very happy.

I'm talking games like Skyrim, The Witcher series The Shadowrun Returns series, Saint's Row 3 and 4, Persona 5, The Yakuza games from this gen, Fallout 4, Battle Royale games. MMOS with a really good storyline, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Wasteland 2, Pillars of Eternity, and Final Fantasy 15. It's all stuff that again, doesn't always appeal to me, and it probably all doesn't appeal to you either, but dear god is the stuff impressive!

Especially The Witcher 3. Dear god The WItcher 3! I didn't expect a game to get this good within my lifetime! I'm just so blown away.
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Depending on the game/genre, I feel some are better while some takes away too much of what the predecessor had to offer. Take Skyrim for example. In my opinion better immersion than Morrowind and dungeons that actually feels like dungeon. At the same time I didn't like how we had less customization (not counting mods of course) compared to what Morrowind had to offer.

I enjoyed making my own magic spells, flying around, etc. I found it funny that I can rip merchants off with high mercantile skills or provoke guards to attack me by insulting them. I know mods fixes this but to compare apples to apples, I'm looking only at the base games.

Having not played Saints Row 2, I read 3 and 4 are too wacky compared to its predecessor. At the same time that was what I loved about Saints Row 3 and 4. I treat GTA as the more "serious" open world crime game whereas Saints Row 3 and 4 were fun to me due to the wacky aspects.

Between Deus Ex, DX:IW, DX: Human Revolution and DX: Mankind Divided, some aspects I thought the first did a better job at while some aspects I thought the successors did a better job at. I find myself replaying both DX and DX:MD depending on which aspect I want to enjoy again.

I could probably go on but this will just turn into a wall of text. As a whole I don't feel games as a whole are getting better or worse. Various aspects of games I feel are both improving and degrading.
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That's Fair. Thanks for the very nuanced response.
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I'm guessing you weren't around for the Super Nintendo days. There's a reason it's still regarded as the best system with the best library in gaming history. Not saying there aren't some amazing games out now, but back then there were a LOT of amazing games. I might change my mind about modern gaming if the companies ever decide to stop their nickel and diming bullshit, but I doubt that will ever happen.
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Some things are getting better while some things are getting worse.

But I would say games in general get better over time than worse.

I don't look back and say I would prefer games still be 8 bit and have very simple mechanics again.

But I'm also not a nostalgic person that looks back on the past fondly.
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I'm still waiting for them to hit a graphics plateau, so they don't have an easy out on "improving" their games.
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I've been around since the NES actually. While I love a lot of SNES titles, I think insane level of love people have for it is in large part their nostalgia for it. Don't get me wrong, it was phenomenal for its time, but I wouldn't go recommending the games to most people nowadays as most of the beloved titles haven't aged very well.

Take Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger for example. Without a rewrite of the script, the dialogue is really really bad. Same thing for almost every single rpg up until around the PS3 era. Plus with FF4 and 6 on the SNES it's so awkward looking seeing characters appearing to shoot numbers at the enemies. And while I still love the music from them, most people who didn't grow up from that era aren't gonna wanna listen to midi. I'm grateful for all the stuff that it's inspired though.

Edit: On a side note I do think that SMB and SMW have aged well, and if you didn't grow up during that era but you're a fan of indie games, you'd enjoy them.
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dragon504 posted...

I'm still waiting for them to hit a graphics plateau, so they don't have an easy out on "improving" their games.

While I agree that it's sad that AAA developers insist on spending all this money to make the game look THIS good(to a point where no one is really asking them to, they just feel they have to LOOK impressive.) I think it's unfair to say that the only thing that's improved is the visuals.

And I say that while believing that no game needs to look better than Jak 3 on the PS2. and if companies were willing to do so, framerate issues would never be a problem again regardless of the system it's on, and we could both have more enemies on the screen, and afford to take more risks.
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dragon504 posted...

I'm still waiting for them to hit a graphics plateau, so they don't have an easy out on "improving" their games.

To me, graphics plateaued after/at the ps2/gcn era.

I mean, obviously they got better, but the jump between generations wasn't as eye opening.

green dragon posted...

dragon504 posted...

I'm still waiting for them to hit a graphics plateau, so they don't have an easy out on "improving" their games.

To me, graphics plateaued after/at the ps2/gcn era.

I mean, obviously they got better, but the jump between generations wasn't as eye opening.

Oh, I've definately seen some more extremely impressive looking games since the PS2 ERA, but I'm just saying that I don't think it's necessary. The effect is awesome for like a minute, and then I straight up stop caring and focus on other aspects.
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Things have been improving overall, but I say that on the basis of what I've been playing. Like, back in the day AAA titles were the meat n' taters for me, and they were healthy. Free range, organize, full of protein.

Nowadays, AAA is a bloated, rotting corpse. There are occasional gems, but I'm sick of stagnant sequels. Fighting games in particular are suffering on that front. Poor SFV had so much potential.

But the indie scene has absolutely been killing it since the late aughts. Ever since Braid and Minecraft and Fez, it's just been an onslaught of fun innovations and polished revivals of retro concepts.

Hotline Miami, Don't Starve, FTL, Darkest Dungeon, Frozen Synapse, V41-h411a or however you spell it, Hyper Light Drifter, Monaco. That's just off the top of my head without repeating any genres. It's amazing. I'm afraid I'll never have time to get to all the good stuff.
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I think yes for the most part
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I feel like games peaked a few years ago.

Narrative gaming was on the upswing, and most triple-A games were focused on providing an "experience". Gaming had come as close to being the "art" that so many gamers wanted it to be as it ever had before, and was in a position to become as respected a form of entertainment media as any of those that came before it. Most of the best moments of my gaming life came from titles released at some point last generation.

Now with companies latching onto exploitative mobile gaming-style money harvesting mechanics, and focusing on multiplayer and MMO/MOBA/battle royale/etc-style gameplay as a means of forcing player engagement with a "live service" model, I feel like gaming as a whole has gotten qualitatively worse, and is destined to continue that downward slide into an even bleaker future. Any number of popular franchises have essentially had their souls cut out and been turned into controversial and disliked messes that have burned off decades worth of player goodwill or fondness (and potentially doomed those franchises forever), and a fair number of previously beloved development studios have either been outright annihilated or corrupted beyond any hope of redemption.

The only real hope at this point is PC gaming (which is a shame for those of us who hate PC gaming on principle, and is troubling consider the vast majority of gamers are still mostly console gamers either exclusively or semi-exclusively), but even that is a dim hope when you consider PC gaming has its own host of problems, combined with the fact that looking for quality games on Steam is like sifting for diamonds in an ocean of feces.

Honestly, the last few years are the first time in my entire life when I have zero confidence that the games of tomorrow will be better than the games of today or yesterday. For all my admitted cynicism and love of nostalgia, I've almost always assumed that a new generation would lead to better games (peaking with the Xbox 360). But now, while there have been some true gems on the PS4, I'm less and less confident that we're going to continue to see them showing up, and even less so when the next inevitable console generation ticks over and we get the PS5/Xbox Too/etc).


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I feel like games are mostly boring now.. idk if thats my fault or what
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Games have continued to improve but it's been awhile since a game has blown me away.

Games like Diablo 2 and even Phantasy Star online were ground breaking for me, a while new world of video games to play.

Castlevania Symphony of the night is still my favorite game of that type, even though metroidvania games are very common now.

RPGs if you discount graphics (which I mostly do), have not improved that much in my opinion either. I enjoyed many earlier RPGs more, if only because what they did was fresh/new back then, and everyone just clones older games for the most part now.

So while games do improve, then are not as "new" as games used to be, I'm jaded, and have played similar games before usually, so it doesn't grasp my attention as much. I often find myself not even completing games because of it.

VR might be the future if it really starts to ramp up, that is probably going to be the next big step since graphics can't improve (we wouldn't even be able to tell at this point). New, more immersive ways to play will change gaming eventually.

Until then, there are limits to what can be done. Honestly I would rather any of these large companies spend years making a REALLY great/long RPG with massive character growth/customization etc, instead of working so hard on amazing graphics.

MAke a Zelda 2/side scrolling action/rpg, that plays more like an MMO in length and customization/growth of your character. Multiple classes/playstyles, with hundreds of hours of growth for each class. The graphics don't even need to be better then the original zelda, although you could probably do something along the lines of Salt and Sanctuary graphics and still create a game of that scope.

There are still plenty of gamers who don't really care about graphics past a certain point. It's time to focus on actual gameplay, advancement, skill, and possibly eventually multiplayer as well.

There is no reason to not have a really good Dark souls esque 2d platform/rpg game (like salt and sanctuary but much larger/more advancement etc) MMO at this point. It could be created WAY easier then many of the generic MMO's that nobody even bothers with, and it would be a freaking blast.

Muds can be a good source for making games that you can play endlessly, just adapt a mud (like 3 kingdoms) to a 2d/rpg platform, with limited multiplayer (one hum for many people and then just questing together with up to 4-6 players) for actual missions/quests etc.

3 kingdoms for instance has entertained people for 20 years in real life, and many of them have a good 10+ years of actual game play (often with over 90% in combat).

Something like that, but in a 2d setting? I'd pay $20 a month happily for that for the rest of my life...I would probably not do anything else till I did pretty much lol.
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far cry 5, gta V and zelda Botw were a lot better then previous entries
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Not really. The graphics and some mechanics improve, but the added costs have been detrimental to the industry. The graphics race is pretty much a race to the bottom, considering we hit the point of diminishing returns right around the time of the ps2. And the obsession over tech, etc, has kinda sidelined design both because developers are more afraid to take risks and because they don't need to get as creative.

There are also overall trends where, despite everybody trying to mimic everybody else, you still wind up with lousy games. You'd think by the time of the ps3 we'd never see another bad game because people had a far greater understanding of design, insights into what gamers like, better testing practices, etc. However, even a lot of unambitious titles (ie, low-risk) played terribly, with some titles being worse than bad games found on much older consoles. Plus it's worth noting that there's a larger amount of shovelware produced today than any time in gaming history thanks to Steam and mobile.

At any rate, the majority of things that make games great aren't intrinsically tied to hardware (thus advances aren't necessarily going to bring improvements). In theory, we should be seeing better games today because there's a more solid understanding of design -- but we're not, partly because design has taken a backseat to graphics and devs care more about being fancy than creative (which also results from console titles tending to be more expensive to develop)

That said, some genres benefit from advancements. Racing games can render detail a lot better. Open world games like Skyrim look a lot nicer (even if the map is smaller).
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