Couldn't tell ya. I'm still playing games from 2019. With so many game releases nowadays, I have the patience to wait for a good sale to pick up anything new. The only game I've bought on release in the past few years is Baldurs Gate III
The point being that new stuff isn’t just competing with new stuff but also old stuff.
I was looking forward to a new Homeworld. Shame.
Now, if I waste $60 and four hours on an abysmal game, it's $60 that I could have used to take my kids to the movies, get takeout for my wife and I, or any number of other things. Same with the time. Five hours is time I could have spent cleaning the house, working on my side projects, etc.
I love gaming, and I destress by playing games, but it's not worth the now much higher opportunity cost to play the newer (usually worse) stuff.
That said, not all new games are terrible. Dredge is a game made last year that was absolutely phenomenal in my mind, and well worth the cost and time. Spent way too many late nights fishing in that game.
I'm making a list of all the games I want to play in retirement...
This appears to be the reason with all the recent remakes of “not so old” games. People like us are much more likely to pay to relive our past joys in 4K resolution.
However a part of me often wonders if video games have got to the point where every viable idea has been attempted and it’s only downhill from here. When I was a teen, I definitely did NOT envision myself still playing Age of Empires 2 PvP with strangers online but scene is still here.
That’s why I prefer to buy older games that have received enough reviews from regular people.
I know I sound like the oldest gamer here, but I miss the ratchet and clank style games. Long enough to be engaging, very replayable, but not a full-time job.
On a more serious note, I'm really feeling like it's safer to buy dlc and updates for old games than new ones. I was one of the people who freaking preordered Kerbal Space Program 2, thinking it would be amazing and so excited for a new KSP. And then it was such a dumpster fire, I haven't played it more than a dozen hours. From a pure ROI in playtime vs cost, I've gotten literally nine times the value from Factorio then I have from KSP 2, and twenty times the value for KSP 1 (my most played game). And I still play both of them regularly.
Why risk wasting $60 when I know these old games are still good?
Busy waiting on bots to build out 16 lanes of copper smelting in my space age base right now, funney enough. Though I'm fixing LDS shortages.
On the topic of old games, many times the Minecraft Modding scene can solve the all the new games suck problem on its own!
I think that this will become a bigger and bigger problem for the games industry.
While movies, TV shows, literature, and music are always expressions of a particular time/culture/generation, games are usually much more universal.
E.g. young people today find Friends more problematic than funny, but have no problem enjoying Mario Kart.
Big difference is definitely that separation of realism. Literature is from a specific experience, TV shows try to reflect experiences. Games about a fat italian plumber throwing mushooms at go-karts doesn't really reflect any society in the last century.
very tru. Much unlike Rock n' Roll racing, which reflected the very real American experience of trying to get ahead in life by angrily launching missiles directly into the car in front of you, all while rocking out to Black Sabbath.
That’s probably not true, but I can’t think of any.
But 20 years+ ago? This would have been a dime a dozen licensed game.
Market's being captured, and there's less to appeal to when people are stuck in a service bubble instead of moving on. That's a big part of why consoles are stagnating in Gen 9; economy and a lot of people are fine with PS4's, which still is getting new games.
That said, while I'm normally the type to play 10-15 years behind, I did pick up a copy of stellar blade on launch day just on a whim and it was amazing. No ads, no parts of the story paywalled off, nothing but fun and they've put out a lot of updates since making improvements, and dropping new outfits and gameplay modes. I kind of felt like I hit the lottery buying a game I knew basically nothing about on day one and not feeling like I was ripped off later, but that should be the norm. I'm tempted to get Astro Bot although it seems pricey.
Japanese games feel just like the 2010's but slightly better graphics. They leave all that stuff to the mobile scene, but console games have about the same expectations when you hear "single player game". Unless you are addicted to buying skin DLC, there's not much add-ons to buy once a game is out. If these current western sentiments are a detractor, I'd start looking more into where a game is made in addition to all other research.
Korea (which is where Stellar Blade was made) and China (Black Myth Wukong) are entirely different stories, but similar outcomes. Let's just say they are rediscovering console/PC gaming and they are starting off from the 2000's model, not the 2020's western model.