I remember when shovelware was a thing. There were so many random games me and my friends played on DS, 3DS, Wii and Xbox 360 which were mediocre, but enjoyable nonetheless. I think two factors are not to be ignored:

1.) We were kids, as kids, everything is fucking awesome
2.) We had no concept of time and could just grind randomass games for hours.

Actually, Factor #1 isn't 100% true. Remember the movie Norm of the North at least a little bit? If not, Chris Stuckmann said the kids in the theater playing that film wanted to leave.

Actually, Factor #1 isn't 100% true. Remember the movie _Norm of the North_ at least a little bit? If not, Chris Stuckmann said the kids in the theater playing that film *wanted to leave.*


"Man, this industry sucks!"
"Are you going to stop financially supporting it?"
"N...no."
"Alright, then, what else is there to say."


Why modern AAA games suck:

People keep buying them

Why modern AAA games suck:

People keep buying them

@No Peaceful Solotions  Anymore Wrong - All AAA games are garbage.

and they have no choice for some genres like for EA Sports' games

@Her0 Pokémon stopped being as good for me after BW2

@Lilyachty fan account idk  you mean the studios not named ea or bethdesda

@Luka Magic man you must be fun at parties

@Luka Magic man you must be fun at parties

Because people that consume these games aren't giving a shot for research. Think about it. They mostly watch a trailer or an ad or don't even watch any of those, but encounter a new game in a platform then instantly buy it, if they're amazed by how it looks. Or perhaps their attention was caught by streamers playing it.

If people were so picky and actually have done, at least, basic research that is sorting out pros and cons from many reviews then this mediocracy trend would've died out by a longshot now. We aren't moving forward with this medium, but backwards, because games are only considered games.  People play games for the sake of dopamine. When that runs out, they don't give a shit if the game is flawed or not, they will leave it due to being exhausted from dopamine overflow.

@Kynareth6 so what? That doesn't change the fact that RDR2 was worse then GTA 5. And neither of them are as good as San Andreas or Vice City. Now if you're looking for a reason why it takes them so long to make a game and why they don't make as many it's two fold. 1. People are dumb and keep giving Rockstar money via microtransactions. 2. They have some obsession with good graphics which are entirely pointless.

@Skillganon but there has not been a new GTA since 2013 and they don't realase any other games, they used to release 10 games in a period the same length as GTA V and RDR2 (last 9 years)

@Her0 Switch is much much more powerful the the Wii, it's more powerful than the Wii U.

@launchbase Or at least the last few seconds

@launchbase Or at least the last few seconds

@Absolute Schmuck RDR2 is the best triple A game? I'm not sure if it's better then GTA 5 and that's not even the best game Rockstar has made.

Only Nintendo are making good stuff that isn't cash grab (most of the time, The fact I'm even daring to say that just goes to show how games have fallen in a downward spiral)

@Staringcorgi6 <br>Niceness and calm is not civility. There is no such thing as a civil nor rational anti-SJW.

@Staringcorgi6
Niceness and calm is not civility. There is no such thing as a civil nor rational anti-SJW.

@Afqwa I think rey is a bad charecter due to poor writing and progression

@Afqwathey're some good anti sjw people like dr shaym or possum reviews as he's now called because he's calm person and uses facts

NES to 7th gen AAA games: SO AWESOME!!

(Most) 8th gen AAA games: SO BAD!!!

Indie games, Minecraft, and a very little amount of AAA games are still awesome today...

@No Peaceful Solotions  Anymore I’m 22 😂

@No Peaceful Solotions  Anymore I’m 22 😂

not all AAA games are bad stop thinking in black and white boomer

Not me, haven’t bought a game in 5 years

Not me, haven’t bought a game in 5 years

@Grey Hood I'm assuming by "eaten" he was talking about smaller devs being acquired by larger companies.  Westwood Studios has always stood out in my memory because Command and Conquer was one of my favorite franchises.  But there are many, many more examples.  Sometimes it works out, like when Xbox bought Bungie and made Halo their main launch title.

Or he might be talking about the AAA industry being consolidated with deals like Microsoft buying Bethesda Zenimax.  Or Activision/Blizzard's merger.  Or Tencent doing its best to devour the world.  Or... The Embracer Group (dramatic music sting).

But it's not all doom and gloom - not all acquisitions end up erasing the acquired brand's identity.  With EA it usually does... but that's EA.

Also indie games are a thing now, so we actually have more options than ever.  And with increasingly powerful tools becoming available to them, the gap between AAA and indie games is shrinking.  I love it, no matter how much the AAA's spend, a cheap ass game made by a handful of people can come out of nowhere and outdo them all.

@Grey Hood I'm assuming by "eaten" he was talking about smaller devs being acquired by larger companies.  Westwood Studios has always stood out in my memory because Command and Conquer was one of my favorite franchises.  But there are many, many more examples.  Sometimes it works out, like when Xbox bought Bungie and made Halo their main launch title.

Or he might be talking about the AAA industry being consolidated with deals like Microsoft buying -Bethesda- Zenimax.  Or Activision/Blizzard's merger.  Or Tencent doing its best to devour the world.  Or... _The Embracer Group_ (dramatic music sting).

But it's not all doom and gloom - not all acquisitions end up erasing the acquired brand's identity.  With EA it usually does... but that's EA.

Also indie games are a thing now, so we actually have more options than ever.  And with increasingly powerful tools becoming available to them, the gap between AAA and indie games is shrinking.  I love it, no matter how much the AAA's spend, a cheap ass game made by a handful of people can come out of nowhere and outdo them all.

This is such a normie 5head comment. The floor is made out of floor

@Lilyachty fan account idk you can choose not to buy it. It's that simple. These are non essential items.

@Shade Pizza pirate those few games then

@Shade Pizza pirate those few games then

@Staringcorgi6
Yes, that's my point. People should stop buying shit they know they won't like just because of hype. It won't change anything broadly, but at least you won't be a hypocrite.

It's why I despise the anti-SJW crowd. Nobody gets more triggered by media than they.

@Afqwa hate-watching are haters that hate something but then watch or buy it

This is honestly the source of many of our systemic problems. We just can't or won't stop paying for things that we shouldn't. A few people boycotting isn't going to change anything.<br>Also: Stop hate-watching Star Wars.

This is honestly the source of many of our systemic problems. We just can't or won't stop paying for things that we shouldn't. A few people boycotting isn't going to change anything.
Also: Stop hate-watching Star Wars.

@Grey Hood Fifa for example. Shit game, but they have all the contracts for interesting players. Stuff like PES can't compete when fans want their favourite players

Just look at RDR2, that game is arguably the best game ever created imo and it’s a modern AAA game

The problem is ea make good games that you can't buy without supporting their bad games

Well it's either that or stepping into a noose.......

@Grey Hood the competition for example nfl 2k or madden edit also nfl blitz

@Lilyachty fan account idk remember nfl 2k

@Lilyachty fan account idk remember nfl 2k

That and ea and Activision own everything

That and ea and Activision own everything

@Grey Hood i don’t think they were talking about consoles..

tbh im more into niche shit more (1-100k sub yt channels and rlly good ones)

Pokemon in particular has this problem
Despite the continuous growth in not only budget, but team size as well, the game's quality have become shakier and shakier over time
And despite this, despite the overwhelming amount of flaws in the games, people still buy them as if it's the last time they'll ever be able to buy a game ever again
Initially, I was excited for sword and shield, that is until I saw the first screenshots and demos of it (that showcased a very unfinished looking game despite the proximity of the release) and I eventually lost interest entirely, not only in pokemon, but in modern nintendo as a whole, when I heard that pokemon (among others) were just not nearly as technically or mechanically deep as previous games (plus it didn't help it looked like a wii game despite the hardware being at least twice as powerful as the wii) but still sold as well (if not better) than almost any other game in the entire series
All's I'm saying is if a game doesn't look like it'll be as good as you were expecting, don't buy it, your instincts will probably ultimately end up being right

@Hunter Ansorge - Yeah, I don't get the guy, there's plenty of options to choose from four main platforms, while I consider consoles inferior to PC, you have that option, and Nintendo is it's own thing.

@Lilyachty fan account idk - What competition was eaten? You mean console variety?

No the competition was eaten so there are no other options on the market


Indie "boomer shooters" and VR games like Boneworks have restored my faith in gaming. I stay FAR away from everything else.


An example of the simple game series still ongoing is the Lego games but even then the earlier games such as Indiana Jones and Star Wars still beat out the more modern games such as Avengers and DC Super Villains. Sure, adding an open world on the contrary to a linear level design might seem like a less simpler gaming experience but it seems that the less simple game design made the games better for replayability and overall fun but worsened the level design. There seems to be a bit of a sweet spot in the complexity of a game that makes it either more fun to play or too exhausting to play.


The 2000s had the best games. Imo the first 3 Ratchet and clanks was my childhood and no game has made me feel as good as those games did


One thing that I completely agree with is everything about broken games being released. I am only 14, but when i was small, i had an xbox 360 and a 3ds (circa 2011-2015). I didn't do anything online with the xbox because my parents were strict, The great thing was that I didn't need online for anything more than updates, which my parents handled, there were no micro transactions, DLC, or pay to win mechanics to worry about in my perfect little gaming bubble. When I earned a game by doing something around the house, eg. raking leaves in the backyard (an acre), it was pure joy because I was getting a finished product. to this day i tend to buy games that are a few years old or just already completed (except for games like Breath of the wild and stuff like that) for the reasons listed in the video. All the unfinished stuff could take out the magic of the game for a new player and turn them off from gaming.

Love the Micheal Jackson 8-bit though :)


Yoooo I can agree with so many points in this video, I feel very similar about modern games.
Good games still exist and are still being made but they're either very rare or made by indie devs.
I wish games were more made as a form of art rather than for grinding money.
I hate how toxic online multiplayer can get, but I'm still glad it exists for my more distant friends that I like to play with.


I think there have been tons of great games and most of my favorites from the last decade. I think the industry is starting to suck, but if we vote with our wallet it should return to equilibrium. Example, I like single player games, but companies can make more money with live service games. Still great single player games come out so I'm good.


I'm lucky to find most of my favorite titles in 10's. Despite getting into gaming in late 90's when I was a kid. For example, even being nostalgic to classic sonic or fallout games I still see Sonic M and Fallout NV as a best series entries. There's just few titles I'm still nostalgic for and after revisiting I found that just few of them aged like a fine wine, because most of 00's games aged like a milk in my opinion. GTASA, HL2, MGS, HALO I could still load and play like this is modern titles. But I can't say the same about Oblivion, Crysis, GTAVC, Jedi Academy.


Some of the most interesting modern games are ones that push modern hardware in different ways. Rather than building in terms of fidelity or scope, they build in speed. Ultrakill is my favorite example of this. The game uses low fidelity graphics to process things as fast as possible with as many enemies as possible with as little input delay as possible.


It's so weird hearing his voice coming out of his actual face and not a static image of admiral ackbar

Same it’s odd but he’s moved on from that style of commentary videos. He now seems to make video essays which are still pretty good. I still like how some of his editing has a hint of his old ytps

@Balto Farlander More like that one high school computer nerd.

His real face kinda looks like a guy who could bully you in school

If you watch videos of Emp with Rusty Cage and Mumkey Jones, you'd know what his face looks like.

@topburger To be fair, the human brain probably automatically tries to picture the person talking, and if it has nothing else to go on, it uses whatever clues it can pick out to try to put a face to the name, even if only by dialect, vocabulary, interests, etc.

@Munky He showed his face at the end of the video, dude.

Couldn’t Disney and lucas film sue him for using admiral akbar in the way that he does, due to the fact that his channel generates real world revenue

@Ben David I first saw his face in that Mumkey Jones video.

Barfy Man/Henshin Kei he’s in the merch ad at the end

What are you on about? He's been showing his face since the State of the YouTube streams

@The Big Dawg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFCeJdP63iU literally coulda searched it it's the second result

@Ben David yeah he's a human being! wtf so crazy! you probably shouldn't put specific expectations on peoples looks. its a bad habit.

@Ben David You just have impossible expectations)

@Ben David he did a video with hungrybox where he showed his face

My god, are we seeing the man behind the downward spiral itself?

I had never seen him before, and I always wondered what he looked like. He’s so... average.


Man the amount of time it must take to edit these videos, you have to get the music, references, pictures, and footage


The two penultimate points honestly apply to not only games, but movies and television as well.


4:28 I'd also just like to point out that Nascar Racing 2003 Season still has an active community of modders and players, even almost 20 years later because it's so timeless, so eat shit EA.


I remember I bought a brand new PC with a 3070 cuz I was so hyped for Cyberpunk. Thank god I didn’t pre-order it because I heard it could brick your PC so luckily I didn’t get screwed over with it but it just goes to show how you can’t trust these companies whatsoever


"The harsh reality of online multiplayer is that it is very impersonal." This isn't necessarily the case for online multiplayer, and more about matchmaking. Dedicated servers used to build communities, so even if people in there were strangers at first, they quickly became people who knew. Nowadays with matchmaking, anyone you play with is a person you will likely never meet again.

The trouble is that matchmaking is incredibly valuable for creating balanced instances, especially for people that want to improve at a game. It might be helpful for games that rely on matchmaking to encourage players to team up more often, but I don't know how one would go about that.

Don't say that to any Call of Duty shill, it might tip them over the edge

TurboPikachuX I lost interest in cod for a different reason, the server optimization. It’s infuriating to me to have to have so many massive Gig updates

@Wolliver no F2P didn't kill tf2 but it saved it. What killed community servers is when Valve implemented casual mode into tf2 and that destroyed community servers. Before casual we had quick play which made it easier to join Valve servers and community server that hosted stock maps. I hate casual any ways due to hackers and I enjoy playing community servers since I see the same people everyday that enjoy playing/talking to them.

The death of lobby persistence (on top of the fact that most people ditched lobby chat in favor of party chat) did make for a very impersonal CoD and Halo multiplayer experience, and that's why <b>even after</b> looking past the scummy microtransactions that replaced previously challenge-based cosmetic unlocks, I still no longer have any interest whatsoever in CoD or Halo. Emp said what I've been trying to say for the past 5 years - It's like playing against a bunch of very good CPUs. It's just not fun anymore

The death of lobby persistence (on top of the fact that most people ditched lobby chat in favor of party chat) did make for a very impersonal CoD and Halo multiplayer experience, and that's why *even after* looking past the scummy microtransactions that replaced previously challenge-based cosmetic unlocks, I still no longer have any interest whatsoever in CoD or Halo. Emp said what I've been trying to say for the past 5 years - It's like playing against a bunch of very good CPUs. It's just not fun anymore

CabalCrow I suppose you have a fair point as discord kind of operates as a little bit of a niche service

The problem more comes from the party games being created nowadays , though mostly fun, are online server heavy and not reliant on in person interaction

I’m not gonna have to play among us with people near me for example

And in defense of local multiplayer fighting games still mainly thrive and function off of local play... However this is only because online play isn't very good on fighting games at the current day and it's taken a pandemic to force the genre to start changing.

i like both (at the same time), but id rather sacrifice matchmaking over server browsers<br>the fact that server browsing is being neglected so hard these days, is definitely a crime against gaming

i like both (at the same time), but id rather sacrifice matchmaking over server browsers
the fact that server browsing is being neglected so hard these days, is definitely a crime against gaming

@Josh Irby True discord could help, but there isn't a natural encouragement within the game to build a community, at least at a more personal scale. Matchmaking is obviously not just bad, but it suffers from that issue. There have been some attempts to at least mitigate that effect like for example, Overwatch had a system where if you want you can play with the same party again. I believe there could be a system which could have the advantage of matchmaking, while also not impersonalising, but it is a complicated issue, and I don't believe there is just a simple, easy to implement solution.

LOL WTF I WAS SCROLLING THROUGH THE COMMENTS AND HE SAID THIS AT THE EXACT TIME I READ THIS

So true man, as a kid I remember playing specific COD 1 & UO servers and seeing the same ppl almost daily

In tf2, certain less played maps usually have the same people in them. I saw this one sniper on doublecross around ten times.

@Henry Fleischer Yeah, and a lot of time online games have a sort of "party" feature so you can play with other players, which I prefer most of the time.

Some of the most fun I had online was on tiny tf2 trade and idle servers with friends I met on there, so I know exactly what you're saying.

That's why I think going Free-to-Play was so disastrous for Team Fortress 2. Not because of the players themselves--having tons of new players is great--but because of the strain the new players caused. It saw the shift from community servers only, populated by regulars, to public Valve servers populated by randoms, which eventually led to matchmaking as we see it today. I still love TF2, even if I don't play it much anymore, but it's a shame to see what it is today compared to what it once was.

@W Smith overwatch was great when it began it was just simple quickplay fun with my friends. the best moments were 6v6ing another group of friends then making friends  with them through a party. it got so competitive so quick though and thats why i left

Even on bigger more recent games like overwatch, i remember seeing certain players multiple times over the course of a few months

That's part of why most of my online gaming these days is in garry's mod. It helps me to connect with my friends, especially since I've been stuck in my home for the last six months.

I think apps like discord are very helpful for the impersonal issue


In terms of "unfinished and buggy", when it happened before 2010 it was much, MUCH worse.
If you were a PC Gamer in early 90s you'd have to contact the developers via snail mail or phone or email for a floppy containing the patch. Or floppies. Or CD. And when internet became a thing and they could distribute patches more efficiently , it would still be more "let's wait until we have more bugs to patch so we doing make a build after another in a short time". Some games still went on to be buggy and fan patches were made.
In terms of console... Hoo boy... Look at NES, Famicom Disk System, Mega Drive, and so many more. Bad hardware design prone to crashing (the Famicom Disk System was infamous for that, but mainly that the gentlest poke anywhere could cause it to have a read/write error and GLITCH!... Hope it wasn't while SAVING), or games released with dangerous bugs (Sketch Bug, FF6, can kill your save data. BADLY), obvious beta, obvious alpha (Action 52 IN ITS ENTIRETY), incomplete games (believe it or not, Alien Soldier is one), dividing a game in two to sell (Sonic3 and Sonic & Knuckles, although this is more good than bad).

So to say, it's not that it's in a downwards spiral, but rather it is fluctuating, and currently it's trying to come out of its depression (with varying degrees of success per publisher, developer, studio, franchise, you name it)


I think there are a ton of problems with the modern triple-A scene. In particular, it feels like having so many resources at your disposal and a fanbase that buys what you put out has led to a decrease in creativity, as the most creative games and mechanics are usually born out of the boundaries you have to work around, or the pressure to put out something people will play.

That being said, it's important to remember that when we look back at earlier decades we're only really remembering and playing the best games that came out. With the benefit of time, we can now just cherrypick the greatest titles of a console generation, which have had years to build up passionate fandoms and reputations. At the end of the day, the broken new sports games and mediocre triple-A titles will end up being forgotten, and people may look back at the 2010s more positively now that they can search out and play the best games they had to offer.


I feel like there was a bigger shift from 6th and 7th generation of consoles to 8th gen rather than a hard line at 2010


honestly, I've struggled to really latch onto or get fully immersed in a game for the past 1-2 years.  The last one I remember being fully immersed in for more than a couple weeks was Doom Eternal, and before that, I had Link's Awakening, Pokemon Sword, Luigi's Mansion 3, and Fire Emblem Three Houses (and I was still playing Smash Ultimate competitively).  Nowadays, it feels like nothing really grips me for very long anymore.  I played Metroid Dread this year, and I loved it, but I didn't feel like I was getting truly immersed, and it felt way too short (I did two 100% playthroughs in less than a month).  Other than that, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury had the same feeling to me, and Mario Golf: Super Rush just felt like a huge disappointment (Advance Tour was one of the first games I had gotten into EVER, and hearing about the adventure mode got me really hyped, but I ended up beating it in a weekend [yes, it was a summer weekend, but still]).

Escape from Tarkov is the only immersive gaming experience I've had in years.

The new gaurdians of the galaxy is fantastic


"Gamers don't know what they want"<br>Man... that needs to be its own video.

"Gamers don't know what they want"
Man... that needs to be its own video.

Ahaha just put Mr. Geraldo of trivia in the game 😂😂

@Puffle Point I love platformers too. My favourite game of all time is mario galaxy 2 and my favourite 2d platformer is tropical freeze.

@David Monreeuz agreed. I literally have gone back to playing Minecraft with my friends on a heavily modded server because it's more fun and we can all play together lmao

@Dark Mess Unfortunately, we are whiny minority. Vast majority of people don't even give a shit what games are about sadly. As long as they pursue this "it's fun" point of view despite how utterly horseshit the product appears to be then this trend will never end until people wake up from this disilussional utopia and stand up for themselves. But I bet $100 people will faster quit gaming in general than use their brains to analyze how milked they are by corporations.

@DatMageDoe This is why I want companies to stop prioritizing their games to "all" audiences and instead focus on advertising for certain demographics or types of gamers. No one game will be for "everyone". Yet they keep doing it, and while sure they maximize profits, it hurts almost everywhere else from the game's reputation, to legacy, to scaring ofd former and future gamers

The answer is pretty short: "Gamers" isn't a demographic, as much as it is a group of demographics which share some common traits. It's a lot like "Car owners" or "homeowners" where attempting to generalize what "gamers" want is an exercise in futility, as while there may be some things all members can agree on, there's even more where they can't. What someone who plays platformers wants will often be very different than what someone who plays competitive FPSes wants, and trying to appeal to both at the same time will only end in disappointment.

It's unfair to use gamers in a general sense to make an opinion or a design choice of a game. Every gamer knows exactly what they want. I know what I want and what I want gaming culture to be. The thing is, not everyone wants the same thing, and some things people want contradicts with other gamers.

@TheAweDude1 Yeah, there are tons of games genre out there. Some people like it some don't.

It would be a very short video. Here's the script:

"Gamers as a whole are a diverse group of individuals with many differing interests and desires. To try and find what 'gamers' as a whole think would be like trying to find consensus about religion or taxes."

@Linus Zarrouk I do, but I... wait... You can't-

MY BRAIN!


Man youre spot on with this video, well played!


Now, I'll start off saying that i started my gaming experience with nintendo ds and xbox 360, so i didnt have tbe pleasure to live the early 2000s gaming experience. I believe the problem with the gaming industry is the consumer atm. Way too many series keep on dishing out a new faulty game every year for the same exaggerated 70€ price and way too many people keep on buying them. Most of my favourite games came out in the 2010s (dark souls series, Warframe and a shitload of online games the likes of modern league, overwatch and so on). Imho online games are great, ofc with community problems and developpers not caring enough.<br>Back in my to childhood, you either played pokemon and fifa or you were an outsider, now it's way better in those terms, as communities can interact between each other and avoid contact with these outsiders. Microtransactions are imho fine, as long as it just buys you totally optional item (ie aesthetics), totally wrong if it gets to a pay2win situation. Problem with games atm is also expectations and impatience.  Everyone expects fantastic games each year, and that is a wrong mindset. And i mean as long as people preorder or blindly buy on day  one, company can and will exploit this to get as much money as fast as they cna, even with unfinished products. That said i really hate dlcs, the ones you have to buy, cause its a problem to buy a game for 50€ and then 1 year later another 50€ for the dlcs.

Now, I'll start off saying that i started my gaming experience with nintendo ds and xbox 360, so i didnt have tbe pleasure to live the early 2000s gaming experience. I believe the problem with the gaming industry is the consumer atm. Way too many series keep on dishing out a new faulty game every year for the same exaggerated 70€ price and way too many people keep on buying them. Most of my favourite games came out in the 2010s (dark souls series, Warframe and a shitload of online games the likes of modern league, overwatch and so on). Imho online games are great, ofc with community problems and developpers not caring enough.
Back in my to childhood, you either played pokemon and fifa or you were an outsider, now it's way better in those terms, as communities can interact between each other and avoid contact with these outsiders. Microtransactions are imho fine, as long as it just buys you totally optional item (ie aesthetics), totally wrong if it gets to a pay2win situation. Problem with games atm is also expectations and impatience.  Everyone expects fantastic games each year, and that is a wrong mindset. And i mean as long as people preorder or blindly buy on day  one, company can and will exploit this to get as much money as fast as they cna, even with unfinished products. That said i really hate dlcs, the ones you have to buy, cause its a problem to buy a game for 50€ and then 1 year later another 50€ for the dlcs.


Amazing take on the current situation within the gaming industry there's still plenty of fun games to play although I am disappointed of the fall of off the sports games really sad


Great video Emp but I can't help feeling you came down on competitive gaming a little too hard. Esports has turned competitive games into a complete joke and encouraged the toxic mindsets you complain about, but there are plenty of people who enjoy competition for its own sake and have the emotional maturity to keep trying to improve even through their frustrations because they just love whatever game they're playing and the rivalries in their competitive circles.


I like how when emplemon started talking about toxicity in multiplayer games, the music that was playing was (what seemed) like an 8-bit remix of toxic by britney spears. Interesting.

@No Peaceful Solotions  Anymore How to excuse bad behavior 101.

It is, his music list called it literally that pretty much.

Emplemon needs to grow a spine if he whined about "toxiciy" in online games

There was also a part when the video starts playing a 8-bit version of Billie Jean

No, it's a theme from TMNT games from back in the 90's I think


One of the biggest issues with modern multiplayer is matchmaking.


The pong scene from King of the Hill perfectly sums up the purpose that older games have in this current day and age


I think every point you make can also be a up side to. Competitive play can help you improve, find a good team. E sports and streaming can both be very fun fore the streamer/e sport competitor. It just depends how much pressure/depending there is.


you know i'll admit you made several valid points but some of them i don't entirely agree with.
you can interact or be friends with someone in a game tbh and that's what has happened to me
as how you said we are gonna find small independent creators, it's just a matter of finding them on the internet.


As someone who is in AAA production rn, the major thing compared to the past is that everything is researched and target audience focus groupped to hell and back, because that’s what investors like. Game dev used to be cheaper but due to games like GTAV getting massive revenue streams games suddenly mr business is really interested in making games but they need charts and research that shows games will be profitable. Basically risks can cost you money and people are not as likely to take risks with how much it costs to make an Aaa game

The people who make the most impactful decisions need to have a personal assistant that watches the state of gaming as a whole, watches YouTube videos, surfs Twitter and has a discord for popular opinions regarding the game in question or genre....basically they need to hire someone who actually plays games and is aware of what people want from their games....people only spend money on things they like...why not get a cheat sheet?

@ThotSlayer Ah I figure, I'm just joshin' him

@Pizzacubes hey he needs to put food on the table , its not like hes part of an indie title

Which is a catch 22 since too often them playing it safe cost them billions trying to make millions. Investors are idiots when they don't really know about what they're getting into without people playing it safe about the people playing it safe. I've noticed this when the Shovelware started to be "normal"

@unkono Hmm yes, people that have jobs aren't allowed to like things

>AAA Production <br>>Adventure time picture


I wonder if it's because so many gamers are adults nowadays, and we've become jaded. It's not the old games we want back, it's the enthusiasm of childhood.


I have to admit I'm finding myself buying indie games that look interesting to my taste and playing older games more so these days.


There is ALWAYS an old gem you missed from back in the day. And more often than not it's going be be a better experience than something you'd pay $60+ for today.<br>I'll tell you which one i'm discovering right now, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Absolutely fantastic game.

There is ALWAYS an old gem you missed from back in the day. And more often than not it's going be be a better experience than something you'd pay $60+ for today.
I'll tell you which one i'm discovering right now, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Absolutely fantastic game.


Speaking of local multiplayer, I remember playing A LOT of Smash, 64 and Melee, especially 64 later on when Brawl sucked. We would just get high and play with friends. I was the best among my friends group, my brother his, and we originally honed our skills in middle school just playing together at home.
Fast forward to my 20s, and I realize that both of us are REALLY good for 'casual' players when we attended local tournaments in a big city. Despite the distinct disadvantage of lack of competitive play, emulated online play, and mastery and knowledge of gamebreaking mechanics and matchups/stages, we can still occasionally win games against competitive players, even the only 'pro' and best player in our major US city.
The best times I had gaming were probably with friends getting high, as well as EQ. There won't be another game like EQ, the first 3D MMO that was broken as hell, but truly designed around the RPG experience rather than self-wankery of in-game accomplishments of MMO's, which it ironically started without intending to. I actually HATED vanilla WoW because of how streamlined it was, an irony that WoW players would actually miss vanilla WoW because of how streamlined the game got.
In my experience, the 90's was probably the best decade of video game experience. 64, Saturn, and PSX all had SEVERE limitations on graphics, but they did the most eeking out everything they could out of the hardware of the time, as well as experimenting with the new technology with the expectation that 2D games were a thing of the past. Some things worked, others didn't, but at least it was full of creativity, with some games getting it so right that they still hold up TO THIS DAY. Same thing for PC's, I mentioned EQ, but before there was TF2, there was Trubes. Before that, 2D games from the previous gen were already mature in design and development, and the best STILL hold up to this day.
The thing back then was that games really had to do something right to justify consumer dollars. 50 bucks back then was more than it was today, and to compound matters was the fact that the market was just smaller, so a big bust could REALLY hurt a studio. The best games had the creativity of passion projects, necessary to set themselves apart from their competitors, backed by the $$$ and centralized talent of top studios. Now top studios play it safe, because that is what is most profitable, while indie games are either 'same same, but different' with the occasional lightning on a bottle.
Oh, and also mods. For PC games, imagine AAA studio quality projects with more driven creativity, combined with the entire collective of the indie gaming community dedicated to modding a single game to create a myriad of amazing and unique experiences. It was like the best DLC you could possibly imagine, except 10x better and FREE. It was so good it literally created the most popular and successful genre AND games of the 2010's, MOBA's and League of Legends.


17:21 Oh boy! Back in the early 2010's you couldn't set foot in a game lobby without hearing a litany of AVGN and Zero Punctuation quotes. Those guys never meant to kickstart a wave of gamer cynicism, but they certainly unknowingly poured kerosene on the fire.

The point was for them to point out the flaws in the industry so the industry could learn from it's mistakes. Of course everyone missed the point.

hey Slap I love your videos, funny seeing you here

12:38 I'm way more impressed with the Knox reference XD

Also, just a question I need answers for: does James still care about AVGN? or videogames for that matter? I know his main passion is film making and film history itself, that is what he studied for, but is he forcing himself to do AVGN episodes now? I've heard he has writers to make videos about games he never played. I liked the Chex video he made some months ago :(.

Didn't expect to see you here but im glad I did


This is exactly why I still play my 3DS almost every day.


I love the subtlety of Emp playing an 8-bit remix of Toxic by Britney spears at 8:25 when talking about playing online.


This video reminded me why I left my computer games course a year back.
It felt impossible to enjoy creating something in an industry so depressive and obsessed with being addicative instead of being entertaining and creative

That and the course was a total scam and the tutors barely appeared at any of the workshops or lectures. Good times.


I find it odd how none of this has really managed to happen to simulators and tycoons. Well I’m glad of it too


"are video games on a downward spiral?"

everyone: you mean triple a games

Maybe everyone would benefit from watching the entire video first before making comments.
Triple A games nowadays are not the only problem when it comes to gaming. Mobile games started micro transactions. League of Legends proved the free to play genre was profitable. Then, games started taking the free to play game model and combining with micro transactions and then you had games as a service.
I like Rainbow Six Siege but at the same time it fits that description of a game as a service. You can pay for the game but you still won’t have everything unless you pay for all the characters. Oh no wait, you need this skin and this skin and this charm. Players are being nickeled and dimed for what is essentially eye candy.
Then you also had indie studios pulling early access bs. Day Z, Rust, Ark survival evolved.

The 2010s proved you can have an unfinished game and people would still flock to it. Hell you could have an addicting game with no real depth or fun like Flappy Bird and still make tons of dough.
Now because of this trend in gaming a lot of games are never really completed. Instead we are given a simple foundation of the game and a “roadmap” so that gamers can forever dream what kind of building will be resting on the foundation when it’s complete.

My point is Triple A companies may have corrupted some parts of gaming and indie studios as well but mainly the targeted audience’s taste or lack thereof is to blame.

That's because we only hear about the good indie games

That's because we only hear about the good indie games

@TSnintendogamer just because indie games exist and people review them doesn't mean that those games are good games worthy of anyone's time

Large majority, and I mean LARGE majority, of indie games suck tho

I miss when I could look forward to things nowadays I can’t

I miss when I could look forward to things nowadays I can’t

@Swapnil Gohil no one is denying it, the point id that the overall quality of triple A's seems to be going down

Not every indie game is good same goes for AAA stuff

Not every indie game is good same goes for AAA stuff

Lmao at this point, everyone thinks that EVERY. SINGLE. TRIPLE A GAME IS THE WORST OFFENSE TO GAMING HISTORY.

i feel like when most people talk about AAA games being bad they're mostly talking about games from bethesda, ea, activision, ubisoft, etc

@Nobody In particular when it comes to indie games the community is pretty much its only advertising, so if the community is obnoxious and stupid the game must be too.

@Doom58 if a game/cartoon/whatever's community is preventing you from enjoying something, then you've got it all wrong

Also, just... Actually try those games, rather than give them a quick look and discarding them immediately?

@aromardu any game made by a non company is an indie.  This is the good ones we’re talking about here, and the good indies have been better than ever in recent years.  Low effort crap indies have always and will always be a thing because of how easy they are to make, but that doesn’t mean that indie games as a whole are bad.

@NickThePringle examples: Call of Duty, Madden, Battlefield, the Mario games, aka very popular franchises

@Whaterman I can see myself getting into it, but not in the near future. (I’d obviously not play it for the multiplayer.)

@Lewa, Toa of Air do you like rdr2?<br>its next gen but still great

@Lewa, Toa of Air do you like rdr2?
its next gen but still great

@Whaterman I didn’t say that it’s all that I play, now. Albeit, most of the Triple-A games I play are last-gen.<br>It’s a matter of taste. I’m sure Uncharted is great, I’m just not interested (and don’t have a PlayStation).

@Whaterman I didn’t say that it’s all that I play, now. Albeit, most of the Triple-A games I play are last-gen.
It’s a matter of taste. I’m sure Uncharted is great, I’m just not interested (and don’t have a PlayStation).

@Lewa, Toa of Air why not play both?<br>You are missing out rdr2, sottr, uncharted and lods of other games

@Lewa, Toa of Air why not play both?
You are missing out rdr2, sottr, uncharted and lods of other games

Except Rockstar, they are still doing great.

Except Rockstar, they are still doing great.

@1 2I remember when mobile games used to be fun

@1 2I remember when mobile games used to be fun

@Nog goblin And generally games that are priced at 60 dollars

@Retrosta
Tbh the last AAA I found worth buying was half life alyx and RDR2
But hey those games actually had soul put into it

We don't speak of Rockstar online services...earning more off gta bucks and gold bars in rdr2 then they ever did off selling the actual game. Hence why gta:o  is going to be split from gta5 soon and sold for 5 bucks

@Nog goblin nah, looking at the  trailer and characters i think it wouldn't be my cup of tea that new age artstyle everyone's going for isn't for me.

@Doom58 expand your range, just go on reddit or something its easy to find recommendations, I personnally would recommend you hollow knight

@Nog goblin the only indie game I feel like I actually like is cave story other than that I can't think of any.

@Doom58 the only "new" indie game coming out I can guarantee will be good is silk song if it ever even comes out

@Nog goblin I've been playing old stuff for so long I want new stuff too I feel like I'm missing out on something but I guess I was wrong lol.

@Doom58 new doesn't necessarily mean good, only looking at the new stuff won't exactly get you anywhere also most games are a hit or miss anyway

@Nog goblin tried can't find a game i can sink hours into.

@Nog goblin tried can't find a game i can sink hours into.

All of them are ass now in my opinion, the indie games coming out now don't interest me.

@MR Penguin it's more of a look at the majority rather than the whole.

Also *they're

@aromardu this is true but the average for indie games isn't on a down ward slope, I'm not saying that indies games are always amazing ten out of ten games but frankly there are a lot more well like indie games nowadays than there are triple a titles which seem to be getting progressively worse. Also don't be that guy be fo the pretensions thing of "OoOoh you think your so UnIqUe by making your making pixelated? Ugh peasant." That and not all indie titles are pixel art style s piss off with that stupid sterotype

No, there's plenty of terrible indie titles. Too many sniffing their own farts. You're not a "quirky" artist just for using pixel graphics in your action adventure platformer.

One of the reasons why I’ve been more drawn towards indie games over the past 6 years.

Yeah paradox interactive is great I’d recommend all their games especially stellaris

@NickThePringle Big budget releases from large companies. The name AAA implies that the titles are essential purchases because of the amount of money and manpower poured into their development. It's a rather arrogant term.

@fabric since the general public doesn't care about anything but the big game companies with millions of dollars poured into advertisment of their games

@NickThePringle basically games made by companys rather than indie titles which are still made by companys, but small and they have souls

Wait what are triple a games again? I srsy forgot lol

Wait what are triple a games again? I srsy forgot lol

@Granpda Corey perhaps it is time that changed

@Granpda Corey perhaps it is time that changed


The downward spiral is the best thing that could have ever happened to this channel. Emp can now spit the hottest fire, and steer the moving mass with his words.

You have earned respect in one of the best ways possible: truth.


Games are more diverse than ever. Amazing games are continuously being made


We need more Half Lifes.
We need more Marios.
We need more early CODS and early Battlefields.


Man I remember a time where I actually had to go into GameStop and ASK if there were any Halo games coming out😂


checking your friends list and seeing your friends who havent logged in since 2012 is the zoomer equivalent of getting old and watching all your friends die

Actually I'd say the opiate crisis literally killing our friends and family is the zoomer equivalent.

Friends of 40 years dying = people not logging on

That one horrible feeling you get when you recognize someone's pfp

I dread the day when my friend will do that to me, I guess nothing lasts forever

No one can a 2010s game like Minecraft!!!

Change 2012 to 2017 and that's my steam friends list.

What does that have to do with <i>this</i> ?

"yea bro you cool man, we play tomorrow night" 11th of january, 2013. my niga dead lol


Halo's forge fearure was breaking planned obsolescence.

So it's apparent to anyone with a brain why Halo Infinite did not release with forge


I just have to mention that every Dishonored game came out in the 2010s, and they are honestly some of my favorite ever.


On one hand my fav games of all time are fairly new (dark souls series, nier:automata and witcher 3). On the other hand I do mostly agree with the video, as a PC only player racing games have been severely lacking to me. I had a blast playing Gran Turismo 3 on the PS2. Now racing games are obsessed with giving the player everything at once, I want to have to drive shitty hatchbacks and work up to lambos, I also loved the races which forced you to buy new cars. It gave a sense of progression that's missing basically all the racing games I've played, at least to the same degree.


also i feel like when gta 5 came out gta online ended up having the side effect of making it so there was to be no single player dlc which gta 5 single player desperately needs and infact could have kept the game still realivent and alive after all these years.


That's a weird peak of "Local Multiplayer". Everyone has to own their own consoles but not the same game, compared to N64, PS1, PS2, GC, or The Original Xbox where all you needed one person who owned the game, but spare controllers and accessories.

@Nelson Brown pretty much. Even the PSP and PSVita, which were pretty powerful handheld systems with respectable catalogues, are anomalies.

Yeah, but Nintendo has always been the only game in town for handheld. If you and your friends all had handheld consoles, 95% of them would be Gameboy, GBA, DS, or 3DS, depending on the time period.

Bomberman 2 on Super Nintendo, nuckaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

@hexzyle The peak for me was Xbox and ps2. Countless of co-op hours in the halo campaigns and local multiplayer. And countless hours playing turn by turn on the ps2.
The mechassault multiplayer was also a lot of fun. And I'll never forget the fun I had with midtown madness multiplayer.

It was so satisfying just finding the other player on the map.

@Brocolyrics Yeah. I'm super passionate about indie games (larger, more hits, more support for sharing with larger audiences like itch.io, more diverse politically, more positive environment, more skilled developers, more couch multiplayer, and more innovative design than ever before in the last 20 years) and I intentionally seek the games and communities i enjoy hanging out in, and thus gaming has never been better than it is today. Sure, BIG CORPORATIONS are making blander and blander money grubbing skinner boxes disguised as games, but this applies to the top 1% of every media market. They are riding on the coattails of the success of flukes of less well-known devs, they are not steering the ship of "gaming" - when the games "industry" crashed in 1983, that didn't stop good games from existing. The existence of some rich company making something that flops has no impact on someone in their basement making the next Undertale, Risk of Rain, or Crypt of the Necrodancer

@hexzyle yes. This, and for a lot of other forms of media honestly. I like his content but it all kinda reeks of "things were better back in the day" and that's even reflected in his political views

@Brocolyrics Yeah, the Switch is awesome, and contains a counterexample to every single point of the video. This entire video plays like EmpLemon forgot anything and everything that is good exists. Like he's being fed information from a spiral of social media that popularizes and circulates existential dread, and then assumes that means that videogames are actually getting worse.

Nowadays the Switch offers that experience, plus you can take it anywhere you want

Going to other peoples houses just wasn't an option for a lot of people, so the DS's setup was perfect for that. Everyone brings their console instead of going to someone else's.

@ProjectFM I think everyone's peak of Local Multi-player was when they had the most fun playing with their friends. Though as someone with little experience in this, I could see the Dreamcast or N64 being the peak for most people.

The 3DS was way better with single-card multiplayer. I'd say that was the peak, if anything.


One of the biggest issues with online gaming, other than the extreme toxicity in competitive games, is like you said, polarization. I watched communities go from people escaping from sad realities of life, to if you're not [political party name here] then you're a bigot!! Or the fact people make sexuality, victim syndrome, gender, or whatever else, their entire personality. The fact we've gone from befriending each other for being just yano, other fellow humans in a disastrous world, to hating each other bc of political climate and it just becoming a personality trait for people. Oh and then people just discrediting people who actually go through shiz in their life due to the people who use trauma identity as an excuse to bully people, and just absolutely making them feel like crap or "edgy" because they're going through tough times. <br>Gamin aint what it used to be

One of the biggest issues with online gaming, other than the extreme toxicity in competitive games, is like you said, polarization. I watched communities go from people escaping from sad realities of life, to if you're not [political party name here] then you're a bigot!! Or the fact people make sexuality, victim syndrome, gender, or whatever else, their entire personality. The fact we've gone from befriending each other for being just yano, other fellow humans in a disastrous world, to hating each other bc of political climate and it just becoming a personality trait for people. Oh and then people just discrediting people who actually go through shiz in their life due to the people who use trauma identity as an excuse to bully people, and just absolutely making them feel like crap or "edgy" because they're going through tough times.
Gamin aint what it used to be


We're definitely in the rise of indie games right now


Modern gaming feels so much like an addiction, because of the endless content that is forced into what feels like every game. I love to 100% complete games, and with modern games, it feels more like a chore that I have to do rather than something I want to do, just because there is so damn much that I have to complete! It only makes it worse that micro transactions are often forced into our faces, them being the only way to push forward. I don’t feel like there is an exact answer to exactly WHY video games just don’t feel as fun anymore, but I feel like this is a large reason why.


some of my lifes greatest times were when i was about 8-14, staying up until 3am with my cousin sleeping over in the lounge room on really shitty beds, with a bag of our favourite lollies and a bottle of coke in the fridge. during the day we would go to the local DVD store, and pick out a movie and a game each, the year was about 2010-2015, so the games were on the ps3, xbox 360 and then the xbox one. The games were COD MW3, Battlefield 4, battlefield hardline, cod ghosts, cod black ops 2, all games that most would regard as games with extreme nostalgia. these were the days. playing with my cousin at a sleep over, playing splitscreen multiplayer on our favourite games, laughing our heads off and having the time of our lives.


The way you realize that you're actually watching a Emplemon video is when NASCAR starts getting talked about.

@give me your fukin cookies Will check that one out.

@Fries he made a Dale Earnhardt video, who is a NASCAR DRIVER, two years ago

@give me your fukin cookies Didn’t discover him until mid last year, have watched a few before then, but none referenced it prominently.

@Fries you clearly haven’t watched many of his videos then 😐

Pro tip: You can also realize this when you see “Emplemon” under the video that’s playing

@Henry Crabs Watch his NASCAR videos lmao or if you're referencing those videos good job

@Henry Crabs what’s fun about watching people kick a ball around a field? Or someone hit a ball with a stick than run around a triangle? I think most of the enjoyment comes from being part of a community. I don’t enjoy watching NASCAR or any other sport for that matter but I can respect why one would.

What is interesting about watching cars go in circles?

I started caring about nascar because of him


I think all of the "simple games" you described have now become mobile games, but we can't appreciate them because they are stuffed with microtransactions and on touch controls


I feel like the price range from ps2-ps3 for games was also a major contributor. I remember when brand new ps2 games launched at 20-30 bucks.


On competitive multiplayer: I am a victim of taking playing CS way too seriously, but I also find it frustrating that you end up with people queueing for a ranked ladder who don't care about winning or losing. Especially when your team performance can effect your ELO so drastically. But that's equally a problem of game design and game culture.


You know I have actually been wondering for a long while if I have an issue being super negative towards games. It's actually really mentally draining trying to figure out if I'm being unreasonable... I believe P2W, Always Online DRM, Forced Mouse Acceleration/Smoothing, FPS Caps, Poor Optimization, Unrebindable controls, etc all need to die already, but my friends seem to think all of these things are perfectly fine and are more than willing to toss money towards them, toss in extra for the season pass, and then even more extra for other random crap that's convenient.


"Despite having the potential to connect us with an infinite number of people, online multiplayer has left us feeling more isolated than ever." That reminded me the time you said <<The rise of the internet provided humanity with a tremendous gift and a debilitating curse: Information was more accesible than ever, yet truth seemed harder than ever to find>>. They really seem related to each other.

You definitely deserve the 200 likes. Who do you trust when there's 8 billion voices?

@Antonio Klaic I kinda agree. That's because, from my point of view, humans aren't flawless by any means. All things that we do tend to turn badly and/or have negative effects.

Problems will always exist, they're just different every time.

A true utopia is impossible to achieve.


Really love your video essays, thank you!


I honestly can’t stand the fact that these AAA companies can’t manage to get it through their thick heads that all we want is the best parts of all previous games combined into one, seamless experience.


EA are about to lose their  exclusivity license for FIFA,can’t wait to see what happens next 😄


Thought I was just wack. Seriously, I stopped playing video games about 10 years ago. I stopped as soon as I saw the recycling of COD. As soon as the Xbox One came out that is when I was like.. Nah this is turning into something I don't care for anymore. I miss the old games. GTA (3D Universe), MX, ATV, Max Payne, Medal of Honor, Def Jam, Fight Night, Army Men (3DO series) Halo, Resident Evil (up to about RE4). My last favorite multiplayer and campaign game was definitely Gears of War.. Then that became recycled amd lost. But yeah the PS1-PS2 era was the shit and althought the graphics and physics and textures were trash, the games were absolutely fun for hours and hours that can or never will to todays type of monopoly trash

@C S insane c s lol mate it was the thing on a friday night for me and like 8 other people wud get high and fight it out on fight night dude this wud go on till like 3am it was crazy

@Conor Parker Lol the knockouts were hilarious


i still think that the one point that you should've gone over, even if it did counter your argument, is nostalgia. nostalgia is an incredibly powerful tool, and i think that it is one of the biggest reasons as to why some people will prefer 2000s games rather than 2010s

@USS Liberty what is your point with oddyssey? the cosmetic store is free. it uses in game currency. the only reason it exits is to play dress up with mario.<br>Or do you like odyssey?

@USS Liberty what is your point with oddyssey? the cosmetic store is free. it uses in game currency. the only reason it exits is to play dress up with mario.
Or do you like odyssey?

Cooper this isn’t true for me. 16 year old playing Mario 64 which is talked about like a gift from god was pretty disappointing. Fun, but pretty bad in comparison to other Mario games. No game is ever universally loved. I am pretty sure nostalgia plays a much bigger role than most people think, or at least how nostalgia hyping up old games makes the general public opinion better. Most the time I will not enjoy older games as much as newer ones, and this isn’t necessarily because of graphical limitations because I have played the original sonic trilogy to death.

I'm very much attached to my PS1 and PS2 games, because that's what I grew up playing, but whenever I try some of the most talked about video games at the time, it rarely lives up to the hype, just like many people may not enjoy the games I play on those older platforms now because nostalgia is what helps make that game good to me, replaying it is satisfying because it may be a good game in its core, but because it also brings back memories. I'm not one to shame people's likes and dislikes, everyone should be able to like whatever they want, but with the rise of the internet and online communities, it has bred somewhat of a different, weirdly incomprehensible type of human being that I have yet to understand (but respect) - the follower.

There are people that legitimately like things because they're popular, I've had talks in the past as to why they liked certain, older hyped games on the internet and they couldn't come up with a proper reason, it felt like they just liked it because it was universally liked, even if said games had the same problems or similar problems to games now-a-days that are considered bad and cool to hate on. Same for people that hate video games based on prebaked ideas, they read what people say online and cannot look past what other people had to say on the matter, they can't enjoy the good because they keep glaring at what was subjectively OR objectively bad about a video game, and don't make room to appreciate what they did right. We're developing a culture where we throw the whole sandwich away because of a weird looking tomato you can't unsee, because of the cynical and hateful nature of Online communities and "reviewers" that want to get clicks and brew up controversy between the fans and haters of whatever is being talked about in the comments section.

With all of this said, I think we can blame today's behavior on how irresponsible people were with the Internet, it has enabled and encouraged cynical, negative and mob mentality to be classed as something cool to take part of, this was briefly mentioned in the video and I have to agree. Social media is exactly like an unsupervised drug, humans historically love addictions and validation.

It's not even nostalgia. I just hate that contemporary games are designed around trying to peddle something to me like a door to door salesman at every given moment.

Want to collect all the shine sprites in Mario Sunshine, sure just go get them. Want to collect all the moons in Mario Odessey, don't forget to stop by the cosmetics store.

Want to unlock a weapon skin in MW2, better get more headshots. Want to get a certain weapon skin in Modern Warfare Reboot, better buy battlepass or lootboxes.

Want to buy a better weapon in Assassin's Creed 2, progress in the story and get it from the blacksmith. Want one in Assassin's Creed Unity, well you're not a high enough level to buy it normally, but you could get it with some Ubi-dollars.

Shadow of Mordor, a single player $60 game, trying to sell time savers and XP boosters to make their game less boring than the way they created it is the absolute epitome of everything wrong with developers being run roughshod by marketing and accounting.

Odyssey's movement controls and mechanics blow Sunshine out of the water. Modern Warfare's control refinement (balance) and customization beat MW2. And Unity's parkour, architecture, and combat are fantastic. But it's like that episode of Spongebob: "I feel like someone... IS TRYING TO SELL ME SOMETHING!" (He's onto us.)

I play new and old games everyday. Some is nostalgia, especially for 5th generation titles, but most of it is legitimate.
The original FEAR(2005) is some of the most responsive and impressive single player shooting action ever presented, and it easily trumps any singleplayer FPS campaign.

Burnout 3(2004) has the some of the greatest audio/visual design of any racing game, and the slickest most satisfying arcade racing that I haven't experienced since.

The sense of speed in NFS:S(2009) is unmatched to this day despite having a direct sequel.

The NPC interaction and the physics presented in GTAIV were downgraded for the online-designed GTAV, so GTAIV(2008) still epitomizes the gameplay to the genre.

Far Cry 2(2008), despite some obnoxious game-play features and a story that's as transparent as vaseline, still has a distinct advantage in environmental and enemy interaction in the series, and the weapons feel much more powerful.
There are plenty of examples to show how screwed we are in game evolution, but one shining case against this is RDR2, that game is a true testament for what any game can be when it comes to graphic and design detail.

nostalgia is only like 10% why gaming sucks now i can still find 1 or 2 games i like from the past 5 years

Not true, I know a couple of people who have never played games like Melee, TF2 or Mario Sunshine but would rather play those instead of Smash Ultimate, Overwatch or Odyssey.  Sometimes the old stuff is better.

The problem with that is that games like Ocarina of Time still have people go back and play it and think it lives up to the hype even if it is their first time playing it. While some games only seem good due to nostalgia there are still a huge number of games that are universally loved.


I dnt really play the most anticipated game anymore, with a few exceptions, I mainly play games from smaller studios. Because smaller companies tend to create content with more thought behind them.


I think the answer to most of these issues is indie games; indie devs are the ones pushing the scene forward at the moment. This is basically proven by the fact that companies like microsoft have been buying up all mid-sized studios over the last few years. Indie game studios will grow into these types of medium sized publishers, hopefully to one day compete with the greats.


I think in some way alot of video game studios peaked with their early stuff. Look at Nintendo, many people think The Legend of Zelda OOT is not only the best Zelda game but the best game of all time. Has Nintendo really ever topped that? Some say yes but there is no general consensus and that tells you something. I can't think of any game they've released since then that's had the same level of impact and acclaim.


I just wanna say....

Burnout 3 is really fucking good, 8.5/10
I remember playing it when I was 6 or 7 and I was so fascinated by how the cars would realistically crumple and stuff fly everywhere. Burnout 3 is the reason why I'm so fascinated by physics in video games.


I think the “No local multiplayer” option ignores Nintendo entirely. Switch has Smash, Monster Hunter, Mario, etc and seems to have no intention to remove local multiplayer.

@Bacon Sir oh, can you do that in Monster hunter?

@Joseph He uses the example of local via two systems connecting by proximity, so I count it.

Guy named Rick most of which exists outside of the development or quality of the games themselves. prices, bad virtual console replacements, scummy anticonsumerism etc. but the games stay good

@greg's bucket of crimes Uh Nintendo while they have allot of good things  they still do a bunch of bullshit

nintendo's multiplayer games are also graphically simple and/or not splitscreen.  splitscreen cod in 2013 would be impossible on console hardware without majorly dropping fidelity.

Crystal chronicles is a sad exception. No local :(

To my knowledge, Monster Hunter ain't local king

Regal Killager Because Nintendo doesn’t release subpar games that everyone decides are instant classics because of the distributor’s name.

@Promise I mean tetris is pretty important I think

Games have only been on a downward spiral if you choose to ignore the superpower that made gaming what it is.

Precisely. It was even touted as a core feature of the system.


I think addiction is the biggest problem about modern gaming. When someone plays Fortnite for 500+ hours, it stops being fun, but they still continue playing.


Damn, that downward spiral merch plug was absolutely awesome! Love the scorching remarks.


My God the part about the cynicism is huge, i was always an optimistic gamer till 2016, i got into Sonic games and enjoyed them, then i got insulted for enjoying some games and not adoring others. This is ridicolous, what happened to just reviewing a game without saying that gaming devs should be fired for having issues during developement?


I feel like at this point I try to "like video games" to fit in. Growing up I really only played wii sports and a few other Nintendo games. Nowadays I really only play Minecraft or smash ultimate, and only with friends either in person or over a discord call. And you know what? I'm happy with that. To me video games are no different from playing a card or board game. A fun thing to do with friends. I tried to play apex legends or some others and I just hated it. Plus gamer culture is kind of alienating to me pls don't shoot me


"I don't care how deep a texture is, so long as the game is fun."<br>-John Romero (Co-Creator of Doom)

"I don't care how deep a texture is, so long as the game is fun."
-John Romero (Co-Creator of Doom)

@The polish schizo including John Romero

@The polish schizo tho don't lie, the graphics were revolutionary for 1993

@The polish schizo DOOM 1 was groundbreaking though, not just from a graphical standpoint but also from a gameplay standpoint.

I think a better example would be DOOM II, which looked and played no differently from the first yet was still fun.

"Also check out my new taco truck mobile game"

 - Also John Romero.

I still love John Romero.  It's the hair.  It's made of pheromones and oxytocin.

@TheSpacedIsland i only had that problem in doom 2, doom 1 is really linear so i don't know how you can get lost there

Ngl I think doom is kinda boring both with mods and without and the new ones too. I was never a fan of backtracking simulator shooters. It gets frustrating trying to find the right way

“The game is so good, the water levels are good”

- videogamedunkey

@4nt doom 1 shows that a game doesn't need a great story or breathtaking graphics to be good

Doom 1 was the peak of John Romero's career. That being said, it lines up with another memorable quote...

"Because if its not fun, why bother?"
-Reggie Fils-Aimé

@sander sepp "we don't talk about daikatana"<br>-everyone

@sander sepp "we don't talk about daikatana"
-everyone

"I made Daikatana"<br>-John Romero (Co-Creator of Doom)

"I made Daikatana"
-John Romero (Co-Creator of Doom)


This video really spoke to my love of video games, fantastic vid Emp.


Is halo infinite also regarded as bad? I think it‘s quite decent, especially compared to the very disappointing recent CoDs. It‘s my first halo though


KlayWORLD!!! I love how you always incorporate vintage youtube channels.


Dunno man, Indies are on the rise in quality and when you find a gem it is like finding a gem in the 2000's. When you remove the corporate from the development of a game for some reason the result is more fun and filled with passion game.


"Then somewhere along the way, companies figured out how to make players purchase the same game multiple times."<br>Laughs in pokemon

"Then somewhere along the way, companies figured out how to make players purchase the same game multiple times."
Laughs in pokemon

nobody buys both counterpart pokemon games lmao

@ MelecieDancie

Actually, paid have hated this practice since at least 2007. Probably earlier.

It's a shame because Pokemon has so much potential. But any semblence of creativity dried up in the franchise years ago. It really is basically the same game over and over again. And it brings the money rolling in so what's going to stop them?<br>Not to mention that Sword and Shield, which should have been the greatest one yet, was easily one of the worst.

It's a shame because Pokemon has so much potential. But any semblence of creativity dried up in the franchise years ago. It really is basically the same game over and over again. And it brings the money rolling in so what's going to stop them?
Not to mention that Sword and Shield, which should have been the greatest one yet, was easily one of the worst.

@Adam Ski I think this argument never even began to make sense no matter what era of COD you are looking at. It perhaps makes even LESS sense nowadays considering that COD spent the better part of the 2010s struggling to find its audience back because, if anything, ever since Ghosts, you DIDN'T know what game you were going to get at the end of the year. The series kept bouncing back and forth between completely unrelated futuristic settings, WW2 and at one point one of the games (BLOPS 4) didn't even have a freaking campaign. COD has only sort of found stability again in Modern Warfare 2019 and Black Ops: Cold War, both of which use the same engine but they're really different games at the end of the day.

Even if you're talking about the unanimously agreed upon "golden era (2007~2012, COD4, WAW, MW2, BLOPS, MW3, BLOPS2), all of these are really different games overall. MW2 is a sequel to COD 4 not unlike any great sequel you'd see for any other series and does everything you'd expect and hope a sequel to do. The three Treyarch games (WAW, BLOPS, BLOPS 2) could not possibly be any more different from each other and from the three IW games (COD4, MW2, MW3). The only time the series had a "copy paste with minimal changes" problem was from MW2 to MW3, and COD fans absolutely railed that game for it at the time. It is probably the weakest game of the golden era, and even then, I'd still say it's mostly a fun game and it had several improvements over the previous game.

@Conrad Lorgar pokemon is not about just catching them all, its about trading and cooperating with others who own the game, the reason each game have various different pokemon from one another is because the games were meant to be played in a way where you have to trade pokemon with other people to complete the dex. COD is shooting each other with the same guns every year with literally the same everything since 2008

@Adam Ski that's still not as bad as selling the same game at the same times but pretending its different but just locking off content for no reason

Pokemon makes the game about collecting pokemon then doesnt even give you all the pokemon in that region on your game, if call of duty did that with guns you wouldnt be defending it at all

@Conrad Lorgar cod creates the same game every year with very minimal changes. Pokemon at least will release a new roster and movesets, and change up the regions. For cod its either WW2, BO, or MW

@Adam Ski no they dont they are the worst at this, at least cod doesnt release cod black and cod white at the same time and the only difference is 6 guns and 5 skins they made exclusives to each game

Pokemon at least adds new mons and regions and whatever, i think he was refering to sports games, COD, assassins creed etc

Some are moving back to physical media for movie and TV due to censorship. Movies and TV shows are being censored by streaming platforms making it to where the only place to see the original cut is to own the original DVD/Blu-ray! Heck they want to edit out Trump in Home Alone 2 because Orange Man bad! If I have that much of a problem with the orange man I'll just skip rewatching HA2. The vast majority don't give a shit!

@Flood that sounds like a gacha, and mainline pokémon isn't a gacha

@Rhavet literally every pokemon game past the second gen would like to have a word with you.

Wait no no they used to make the sprites prettier so you're right better graphics means it's a better, and changed game.

They didn't have to figure that one out really. Pokemon fans just like blowing money on pretty drawings.

Sad to say but this is starting to be true with recent Pokemon games

@MelecieDiancie My biggest problem with the swsh dlc is that you need to buy it again if you wanna play it on both copies of your game

@Slenderquil Ramcharge indeed, they seem like they aim to target the diehard fans because they're the only people who would have a reason to buy pokémon twice to get all the pokémon without trading

swsh dlc has a few advantages in it since it's cheaper (only $30 instead of $60) to get it if you already have the base game, but those who don't yet have to pay $90 to get the definitive experience compared to just $60 in previous gens

@MelecieDiancie It doesnt change that they are getting you to buy the same game twice. I am proud that they're trying to change up the next year rereleases though by making it a sequel or dlc.

@Slenderquil Ramcharge it is tradition at this point, however that they turned the second release (crystal, emerald, platinum) into double releases as well (b2w2, usum) could possibly be this

@Slenderquil Ramcharge it _is_ tradition at this point, however that they turned the second release (crystal, emerald, platinum) into double releases as well (b2w2, usum) could _possibly_ be this

@MelecieDiancie I do think that it had good intentions to start, but as the interbet emerged and we got more trade evolutions, the dual release system became less relevant. At this point most of the dual releases just feel like an excuse to have people buy more copies of the same game.

@Slenderquil Ramcharge oh. to be fair, i do think that was initially made to encourage trading as since neither player would likely have both versions and/or every pokémon in one version, they'd have to trade to get all of them

@MelecieDiancie That has nothing to do with the fact that it literally makes 2 of every mainline game to sell the same game multiple times

not really, pokémon was in a civil war abot whether it is good or bad last time i had been a part of it, which was around june 2020


I think what keeps people to games is the fact they can end. You need a game that is fun and satisfying to play through, and end in, like a campaign. Then you have another part of it like special missions for example that keep that amazing feeling you had for the game, but now you are able to explore more options to that. And when you finished that or got bored, you still had that spark that drew you to the game in the beginning to look forward to the next installment. Now, you have the same game that just consistantly has new content, but the content isn't even that good. It seems rushed and it is clearly there for a cash grab. That is why games now, are on a decline.


14:04 DNF had all the potential to be a wonderful classic if they were able to release the early 2000s version.


I always wondered why I was never hyped for any new titles and always went back to my PS3 and PS4 to play some old games from The 2010s. Open World were relatively new and unexplored front, now it's the meta videogame market. People actually cared about making good videogames back then. (Not as much as in the early 2000s but still some care). Right now, I'm revisiting The Evil Within 2 and happily shitting my pants from the well deserved tension and horror it gave me. Battlefield 1 had stellar gameplay when compared to it's 2042 counterpart. And Just Cause 3 can always be relied for mindless chaotic fun.


Well yes, video games seem to be on downward spiral, but only if you stay within the mainstream. Indie gaming scene is on the other hand better than ever.


I feel like it's the same with movies. There will always be sh!t (and maybe more then before). But there will also be great things out there too. You just gotta look harder XD

@Spongiroth EnaPants - EnaTenkiyoGaming I mean splitting into parts for movies is valid, because no one wants to watch a 7 hour movie or a movie that crams in soo much subplots or several upcoming characters/ sequels introduced in 2 hours.

yeah, I remember not that long ago when we DIDN'T have to "look harder". Also, it's a shitty excuse for movie companies to keep releasing garbage.

Name 5 films that came out in the past 3 years that are good.

I don't think that today's produce trashier media, but the media we consume from past decades is the cream of the cream that stood the test of time

Also applies to music, I think. A lot of the mainstream music is pure trash, but there's still plenty of gold out there if you know where to look; you just won't find it on the charts 99% of the time.

@Person I hate that everyone is pretending that the gaming industry is good now it isn't its fucked! If you have to look harder than before to find a good game then there's clearly something wrong.

Eh, I feel like the movie industry is doing a lot better than video games.  The vast majority of AAA games are just not very good, or at best just mediocre, with few taking risks or trying anything new.  Big companies like Disney consistently put out good movie after good movie with few hiccups, in stark contrast with the video game industry.

Look harder instead of the fixing the problem that made us look harder in the first place NICE.

@Richard Savolainen Opinions and mine is that doom 1-16 are better.

@Doom58 doom has become better over the years. Tf you talking about?

@Skeletor 1983 just consume product and get excited for next product.

@Jack I believe you havent heard but they kill animals

@Jack I believe you havent heard but they kill animals

@Matt J I read that in EmpLemon's voice.

@Matt J I read that in EmpLemon's voice.

@Lúzia A Morta thanks what i meant to say was "games with dnd-like character sheets"

@Lúzia A Morta arena fps (halo, quake, doom, preferably multiplayer) but since that genres dead im getting into rpg's with stat customization (ultima 3, elderscrolls daggerfall)

@Lúzia A Morta i used to love certain franchises but they became shittier at least in my opinion and now i cant find any game i can sink into.

@Lúzia A Morta games are already getting worse. and everyone lets it happen.

"You just got to look harder" you keep saying that as an excuse for games to get worse.

That's how I feel about the new Star Wars movies. Most people complain about how "bad" they are but I'm just grateful Star Wars was revived by Disney to allow me to watch more movies in the same cinematic universe.

I feel like Disney just consumed everything movie wise, Marvel movies being the most obvious example

@chocolate thunder9172001 Obviously I am referring the the quality of films, not output.

@Skrenja ever heard of the great depression

@Skrenja ever heard of the great depression

I always say about anime that too really enjoy anime you gotta be able to overlook the cringe (Shit like characters coming back to life, power of friendship, that sort of thing) and the same honestly applies to movies and video games, literally all media has problems but if you don’t let the small issues bother you too much you tend to be much less miserable and enjoy much more content out there

Just enjoy good stories, graphics, music, gameplay, etc. don’t let some political commentary drive you into a reactionary frenzy or the game being a little shorter than you hoped, or the game not having as nice of graphics as it could and most importantly remember that social media is quite literally designed to keep you as angry as possible for as long as possible

i honestly think the 2010s were a better decade for film than the 2000s, but i might be biased or uninformed. or both

Nah, Hollywood is at the lowest point it's ever been.

Nah, Hollywood is at the lowest point it's ever been.

I remember the exact moment I didn't wanna watch hero movies anymore, I was in the theater watching avengers, and it felt like I already had watched that before, the characters telling jokes out of nowhere,  comic relief scenes after any scene that is anything remotely close to being serious, and in the end, it was a success, and then I knew the formula was already saturated and everything else would be the same since it was a success, a few weeks ago I watched end game just to be sure and yeah, it's still exactly how I imagined it would be.

Movies are even worse. Disney’s is litterly remaking shitty versions do their own movies.  Like all of the popular ones.  Could y u have imagined that before 2010?

We shouldn't need QUANTUM BINOCULARS, though!<br>XD

We shouldn't need QUANTUM BINOCULARS, though!
XD

I 100% agree with you, like emp said people make up their minds before they even consume the media they are judging. It all results in mob mindsets where people aren't forming their own opinions on something.

It's the same with movies, anime, with everything, because this video is not about video games, it's about society in general, and the influence of social media over our enjoyment of everything

Movies like Annihilation, that were smart, interesting and thought provocating were absolutely shafted because they were different and general audiences want the same nostalgia bait shit.

Movies will always be good for now. A24 do be the shit 😍

A lot of his criticisms can also be applied to movies, in fact.
"Now that CGI has reached its peak, it just doesn't impress people anymore if the movie has good visuals and nothing else."
"People are willing to pay money for the newest Transformers movie, even though it's just the same garbage repackaged over and over again."
"Now that movies have been around so long, it feels like everything's been done. Now all you see are remakes and reboots, which everyone agrees are worse than the originals."
"The audience used to be discerning - now some snot-nosed children go out and see the Jimmy Neutron movie and ruin the fanbase for everyone."
These are all results of the game industry growing and maturing. Sure, it kinda sucks, but that's maturity for you.

true, especially horror theres so much trash now

true, especially horror theres so much trash now

Not at all, on gaming you got whole dead genres, not even exaggerating.

Just like Mortal Kombat games, there are the really popular one like mkx and then there’s mk11 (but on the plus side if the game didn’t exist we wouldn’t have gotten the masterpiece of rapping that is kk in wheelchair)

if there's more bad stuff than before even though we have way better technology then we have a consumer problem, "looking harder" is not an excuse to let companies do bad entertainment and not be vocal about it


What people forget is that what makes a game great is it's gameplay, replay value and content. If it's fun it will beat any flashy sexy game today that lacks all that and/or requires you to buy it all and/or wait for the developers to fix the bugs. Battlefield Bad Company 2 is a superior game in every way as opposed to the new Battlefield 2042.


2:52 actually sent me. Just wow. Honestly comedic genius 🤣


you know part of why its hard for me to pick up a new video game is because of how easy it is to find out any information about the game and what people think and to even be told what to think about it.


I totally agree with the bit about being content with games that you like a lot. As soon as you gain the expectation that you will like something more than what you already have, you are opening yourself up to the possibility of disappointment.<br>Not that it's bad to try new things. Just, sometimes what is best is what has already been achieved.

I totally agree with the bit about being content with games that you like a lot. As soon as you gain the expectation that you will like something more than what you already have, you are opening yourself up to the possibility of disappointment.
Not that it's bad to try new things. Just, sometimes what is best is what has already been achieved.


"There's a market bashing games now, more than praising it."
Couldn't be any truer than this.
Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 are perfect examples of this.
Once beloved by masses, now hated & "dated" today.

Absolutely. Sonic Adventure 1&2 were brilliant titles.

@RaidenPSX well the bugs were far from the only problem but yeah.

To be fair those games suck.  Knuckles was fun in SA1 but everything else was a boring, clunky mess.

@This is why aliens trash talk us. SA2 is really an awesome game that I still enjoy to this day. It's got so much charm that you just don't really get anymore. What's weird is there's really polarised opinions about it. Lots of fans think it's the best Sonic game period, but then there's the bunch that think it's horrible.

@AAA AAA Yeah NSMB2 definitely wasn't on the same level as 06, but my point is that people don't really hold it against Mario and don't keep constantly bringing it up for years in the same way people do for Sonic 06. And to be fair I think 06 would of actually been pretty decent if it wasn't rushed out before it was properly completed, because if it wasn't for the bugs I think it would of been pretty fun

I played both of those games as a kid, and I remember SA2 was especially my favorite that I held near and dear to my heart. I remember investing hours into that game, and enjoying almost every last second of it. SA2 was also local multiplayer, which made that game even more fun. My siblings and I used to always enjoy playing it together. If I had the console for it, I'd def replay it. Despite how "dated" it is. But then again, people are always bashing Sonic games, so I'm not surprised.

@RaidenPSX actually, a lot of people complained about Nsmb2 and that series in general but the thing is 06 was a buggy mess where the glitches actually hindered the experience unlike adventure. Nsmb2 was just extremely lazy. It was a low point but nowhere near sonic 06 levels. But yeah people really need to move on.

@AAA AAA Sonic 06 came out nearly 14 years ago now I think people really need to move on... even Mario has had some poor games here and there, New Super Mario Bros 2 comes to mind, that game was the definition of lazy, but you won't see anyone calling it out. People are just biased against Sonic because it's cool to be, even though when you look at the franchise as a whole, there has been more good games than bad.

@RaidenPSX it's because of 06, it ruined sonic's reputation so much that it made it cool to hate on him and made it cool for people to say his games have always been this bad.

I guarantee you if mario had a game as bad as 06 he would be hated now too.

And Mario 64 being an early 3d game is barely an excuse when sonic adventure was only made 3 years later, meaning it was still early 3d, but no mario gets that excuse for being almost as glitchy even though glitches don't inherently make games bad as long as they aren't game breaking.

@AAA AAA EXACTLY, I've been saying this for YEARS! Super Mario 64 has aged just as awkwardly as Sonic Adventure has but you'll never see anyone heavily criticising it the same way they do for Sonic Adventure. People just seem to have a fetish for hating Sonic in any way they can.

@RaidenPSX exactly, mario 64 aged almost as bad but no one has a problem with that, so why does sonic not get a pass but mario does?

@ThePsychoRenegade Not really. I think the treasure hunting and mech stages are really good because the former wants me to explore the level while being challenging unlike SA1, where the Knuckles levels were good but very short.

The mech stages are more focused on platforming and trying to get higher combos every time. I do have to admit the mech controls are a bit clunky, but otherwise it's fine in my opinion.

I still love the Adventure games though, DX is my favourite Sonic game period. I don't really care that they've aged it doesn't bother me.

@Mr. Jack because there are less people bashing them now

Eh, I mean I like sonic adventure 1&2 as much as the next guy but i'll also fully admit that the hate isn't entirely undeserved especially if you want to play a sonic game that is just straight traditional sonic gameplay from beginning to end. That's not to say that there aren't people who just arbitrarily jump on the hate bandwagon when someone else mentions it but at the same time it isn't like the hate is unfounded.

The dated argument is legitimately one of the most stupidest, hypocritical things i see from the overall gaming comunity, games contemporary to SA1 that have aged MUCH worse (most of the N64 library) get automatically praised but SA1 gets shit upon by people who have never even played it or using the increasingly worse ports or glitches you actively have to trigger as proof of the game being bad.

Idc, what anybody says sonic adventure 1, 2, and heroes are still my favorite sonic games despite the flaws. I just wish we stop getting mediocre play it safe crap like forces.

Sonic Adventure just got overhyped. When you're running fast and doing normal Sonic things it's great but all the rest is indeed terribly dated and bad.

Honestly I see people hyping the Adventure games up way more than I see people hating on them.

From a gameplay standpoint, those games are still excellent. I still enjoy playing as all the characters too, not just Sonic or Shadow.

Except for Big...


Video games used to be my oasis because I used to get bullied, rejected, ridiculed, unpopular, and get into trouble a lot back in school and felt miserable and stressful, nowadays both "gamers" and developer are becoming even more miserable than I was and beginning to find some different alternative to keep me entertained by watching a lot of anime's and play video games on a rare occasion


Have to get something of my chest here: I feel like some critique to the consumer/"gamer" is not really fair. We all love experimental games (Portal, subnautica etc.) But most of experimental games are just in Indie - which is an incredibly ugly genre from my point of view, I don't want ro play a 2D-Pixelart, I want the creativity of that pixelart in high quality optics and there are just not enough games that do that. The ones that do (subnautica) get praise all around typically.


23:36 That's me! Right there. Still playing my Sega Dreamcast and lovin' every minute of it.

Micro-transactions, online bullying and shouting, and games that don't work on release day are things that I have never experienced firsthand and I'm happy about that!

I was born in 1992 and the Xbox, Gamecube, PS2 & Dreamcast are the sweet spot for me. Yes, the PS3, Xbox 360 and the earlier PS1 & N64 are great, but, I think that era was just the perfect time where games had evolved to be awesome and before they devolved to be argumentative, online-multiplayer, shameless, cash grabs.

Just like NASCAR Thunder 2004, the best College Baseball game is MVP 06 and the best College Football game is NCAA 06.

Who remembers the simple perfection of games like Halo 1 & 2? Freedom Fighters? Brothers in Arms? Jet Grind Radio? Ratchet & Clank? Forza 1? Gran Turismo 3? Simpsons Hit&Run?


Being blinded by nostalgia is one hell of a drug.


The costs associated with the high end graphical fidelity are exponential in accordance with gameplay development linear increases. This is because innovative programmatic enhancements only require a few new developers, while the exponential increase in graphical fidelity requires gobs of artists to develop the content for the game. To address this, some have turned to procedural generation, but that certainly has its limitations. It turns out that people just want to play fun games and not have to pay endless microtransactions to unlock nonsense or get advantages.

@chbrules I just went through that site, holy shit that was a trip. How high were you when you made that ?

Hey, aren't you the guy who made TheMostAmazingWebsiteOnTheInternet?

another thing is that code gets exponentially harder to create and debug the more you have, and developers become linearly less productive the more you hire. This means as scope increases, a disproportionately high amount of devs are needed since work gets harder and devs less productive.

I just can’t wait for developers and big corporations to realize that just making a really good game is usually enough


i played midnight club 3 on a cpu in my preschool back in like 2006, my dad tried to burn the game to a cd but it never worked out. i completely forgot the name of the game and always wanted to play it again but i gave up years ago. Thats crazy, gna have to play it on emu sometime lmao


Too true, every time I play Melee, I'm surprised things arent the same for the current games


While I don't think videogames currently are exactly in a downward spiral, they're definitely not in their best shape right now. There have definitely been improvements over the years but those sometimes create bigger downsides than what we expected and with that, dissappointment.<br>In some aspects, there's a bit of bias depending on when and where you were born but we should not treat any criticisms to these problems as "U just nostalgic so STFU.", that's stupid.

While I don't think videogames currently are exactly in a downward spiral, they're definitely not in their best shape right now. There have definitely been improvements over the years but those sometimes create bigger downsides than what we expected and with that, dissappointment.
In some aspects, there's a bit of bias depending on when and where you were born but we should not treat any criticisms to these problems as "U just nostalgic so STFU.", that's stupid.


Playing a “new” and exciting game and then realizing they somehow shoehorned the same skill tree and crafting mechanics as every other game and sorta just accepting it as part of all gaming, with a defeated sigh.
I think it was Cyberpunk (may be a diff game) where I was lost in the world, something that doesn’t happen too often anymore, just to be taken out of it an hour or two in, by the same video game mechanics.

Elden Ring I knew to be different, but I hate DnD, castles and dragons, item and stat mongering, and the fantasy genre, so I never could get into Dark Souls. Didn’t have a PS4 for Bloodborne but I played the fk out of Sekiro.
I torrented Elden Ring cause I was skeptical, and sure enough, the mechanics were nothing like Sekiro, it was back to Dark Souls but with some GRRM lore sprinkled in. After getting marked by regular soldiers because I tried to parry like a fool, I gave up. But then remembered Vaati playing an early build and saying that From recommended Mage as a starter class for noobs. So I tried it.
Next day I purchased the game, and haven’t stopped to play any other game since then.