What happened to content?

[Descarte Yee]

Video games "then" and video games "now" have one major difference, that being that one is controlled every step of production by some mega corp. Videogames used to be made by a bunch of dudes with a passion for what they were doing, now, it's just about what's the most cost effective/makes the most money.

All those little cool features you talked about are considered a waste of time and resources when they've discovered they can churn out a literal pile of dogshit, and charge you 60-70 for it. Unless consumers "le voted with their wallets" in a serious way, nothing will improve in any capacity in the vidya industry.

 

[AMC_Squared]

Easier profit and they are kind of like Illumination Entertainment with their business model of appealing to the lowest common denominator. You see this with CoD with putting up more micro transaction skins that reflect pop culture figures that have nothing to do with the game. It's more or so getting more attached to real world entities instead of being its own world

 

[1980Miami]

Easier profit and they are kind of like Illumination Entertainment with their business model of appealing to the lowest common denominator. You see this with CoD with putting up more micro transaction skins that reflect pop culture figures that have nothing to do with the game. It's more or so getting more attached to real world entities instead of being its own world

This is a good point. I think a lot of internet connectivity ruins the immersion, even in single player games. Having micro transactions in Assassins Creed/Far Cry for example

 

[PizzaW0lf]

This is a good point. I think a lot of internet connectivity ruins the immersion, even in single player games. Having micro transactions in Assassins Creed/Far Cry for example

Ubisoft is the current king of turning a single-player game into a friggen game as a service. The audacity they have to do that.

 

[PizzaW0lf]

I'm really happy this thread exists since this is another major issue I have with modern games. And yes, it's a byproduct of having games be a service. Game companies are taking the minimalism approach way too far and it's really starting to hurt now.

To keep it short, I don't think updates or DLC have to be bad but it's become much more corrupted nowadays. What I really want is a game that feels done and has enough content and once it has that THEN do updates if you wish.

Now one silver lining to this is that I think I'm starting to notice some games than not actually having content nowadays. It's not every game but there are some standouts. Sonic frontiers has cool things you can do outside of the main game like fishing and seeing Big the cat. I don't know if there's more but this alone is a great addition.

Kirby is another interesting example. Kirby SA came out and people noticed that it felt kind of hollow and it really did looking back. But Kirby ATFL is the polar opposite and has a lot of stuff you can do in the hub world. Fishing, listening to the in-game music, boss fights, codes, and Kirby's house. So I think some developers are taking note but man it sucks to be at this point and I really want to see a full comeback, not just fringe devs.

It's not even just video games but technology and software in general. Modern Windows has practically nothing like Clippy or space pinball. The closest would be Cortana I guess but Cortana is awful anyways and just doesn't match up.

 

[Yabba]

This thread reminds me of one of the points Emplemon made in his video about the downard spiral of games. The video itself is kinda old but it's still relevant today. It also has some of the best editing and overall video quality I've ever seen in a video essay which is the same with a lot emp's other videos. Overall I think you guys would really like his work. You can find the video here:
View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gOovr8C_P6U

 

[Pink Fluffy Cat]

one of my main issue about contents in modern games is the lack of ability to create mods, back in days even games from greedy companies like EA allowed modding, now this feature has become extremely rare among new releases. Probably because the market has shifted from PC to console (and for god's sake, fucking moblie).

 

[PizzaW0lf]

This thread reminds me of one of the points Emplemon made in his video about the downard spiral of games. The video itself is kinda old but it's still relevant today. It also has some of the best editing and overall video quality I've ever seen in a video essay which is the same with a lot emp's other videos. Overall I think you guys would really like his work. You can find the video here:
View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gOovr8C_P6U

I will admit there's something about Emplemon's delivery that kind of irks me. Not like full-blown triggered or something but just irks me. Hard to describe.

 

[Yabba]

I will admit there's something about Emplemon's delivery that kind of irks me. Not like full-blown triggered or something but just irks me. Hard to describe.

Yeah you tend to see that a lot in his older videos but, I think that's somewhat gone away in his new stuff. His recent video on The Sopranos and American Psycho was really good. You should check it out and see what you think about him then.

 

[feeble_world]

Now every cent of the budget goes into graphics, but the content, story is mediocre at best, not mentioning gameplay which got over simplified and scripted so you don't have to flinch for a second.

Game Freak took this advice by removing the budget from the content and story and gameplay departments, but then forgot to add it back into graphics.

This is a full resolution image

 

[PizzaW0lf]

Game Freak took this advice by removing the budget from the content and story and gameplay departments, but then forgot to add it back into graphics.

This is a full resolution image

So they just straight up had no budget

Gamefreak just seems to be so chronically behind the times. And not in a good way. Monolithsoft needs to make an engine or something specifically for pokemon so gamefreak can just use it for about a decade or 2. Or maybe unreal engine 5.

I'll insert some subjectivity, I think Scarlet and violet are conceptually wonderful. I've always wanted a Pokemon game where you can go about it at your own pace and craft your own adventure in. Generation 1 is my favorite pokemon gen still because of how simple it is. You don't need to beat up some stupid organization, just you and your pokemon going on a journey to be the best. And the fact that scarlet and violet brought that very idea back, I'm actually shocked. Never would've expected that.

But they really should've delayed the game by a year.

I think Gamefreak bit off more than they could chew. PLA was enough for this year.

 

[feeble_world]

You don't need to beat up some stupid organization

Yes you do. Team Rocket is the only semblance of an antagonist in the game - besides your rival who shows up so infrequently he can barely be called a recurring character.

But they really should've delayed the game by a year.

They definitely should have, but I don't think even a year would have solved the fundamental problems with the poor graphics and the lack of content.

Disclaimer: I have been absorbing what the game is about via livestreams.

 

[PizzaW0lf]

Yes you do. Team Rocket is the only semblance of an antagonist in the game - besides your rival who shows up so infrequently he can barely be called a recurring character.

They definitely should have, but I don't think even a year would have solved the fundamental problems with the poor graphics and the lack of content.

Disclaimer: I have been absorbing what the game is about via livestreams.

I should've clarified, Team rocket is an organization but they're just your run-of-the-mill criminals more so than the other organizations that want world dominance. Team rocket was just there to get in your way. They weren't used as a plot point for a "save the world" story.

Will admit it's been a while since I played gen 1 so I might be missing some details but I know that team rocket wasn't that big of a thing in the game except for one section.

 

[Orlando Smooth]

Gamefreak just seems to be so chronically behind the times. And not in a good way.

I've wanted to want to play Pokémon for so long now. Every few years I work up some effort and look into the upcoming release, get a little excited, then look at some gameplay and immediately decide not to buy it. It's like the entire franchise has turned into a hand-holding grind, with an un-compelling story and shitty graphics. It's time consuming, not challenging. It's cartoonish, not animated.

I saw a great video on the business model of Gamefreak that really put it in perspective. Basically, they're a merch company first and a game company second. The amount of money they pull in directly from merch sales and through licensing agreements dwarfs what they make from any given game. So what do they do? Keep the game treadmill running full speed in order to have new merch-able content each fiscal quarter and keep those profits rolling in. It's been this way for over a decade at this point, and it still works, so they have no reason to change course. NPCs gonna NPC I guess, and as long as people keep buying this shovelware they'll keep making it.

Generation 1 is my favorite pokemon gen still because of how simple it is. You don't need to beat up some stupid organization, just you and your pokemon going on a journey to be the best.

Gen III was my favorite because, at the time, it felt big and explorable while still feeling manageable and 100%-able. Still feels to me as though it was the last generation that was a true improvement over the prior generation.

 

[feeble_world]

The amount of money they pull in directly from merch sales and through licensing agreements dwarfs what they make from any given game.

Precisely. That's why the creature designs are most important, because it can sell merch of those. There aren't any games where the creature designs have overall been bad, but every other aspect of the games has been bad or terrible at some point in the series. "Too much water."

(Also the music's good, but they're not selling an album.)

 

[PizzaW0lf]

Precisely. That's why the creature designs are most important, because it can sell merch of those. There aren't any games where the creature designs have overall been bad, but every other aspect of the games has been bad or terrible at some point in the series. "Too much water."

(Also the music's good, but they're not selling an album.)

I will admit it's pretty cool how they got Toby fox on board. Never would've expected that.

 

[manpaint]

This is probably a hot take, but I like gen 6 (X Y). That beig said, my best Pokemon experience was playing PokeMMO. While the game is kinda pay to win, experiencing past regions with modern interfacrs and QOL festures was a real treat.

I was never able to get into Heart Gold and Soul Silver, I hate how in that game you have a smart phones. The NPCs are constantly calling you and it's annoying.

 

[Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意]

I was never able to get into Heart Gold and Soul Silver, I hate how in that game you have a smart phones. The NPCs are constantly calling you and it's annoying.

I played Crystal/Gold/Silver as a kid and ironically that's one of the things I liked then and hate now. Stupid kid me.

 

[Mеченый Яков]

My first pokemon i've played was emerald at the age of 4, around 2006, since then i played every game until black and white lol, pokemon holds an special place in my heart, but i doubt to play another game again, not because of the quality, but because, is not my kind of rpg anymore, i've played more complex experiences, that just holding a button for hours doesn't entertain me as it used to be.

 

[Sketch Relics]

Imma be honest, games with good, well developed active side content like SA2B are more an anomaly than anything that's ever been consistently normal. In the case of the Chao garden, it was an evolution of a set of AI developed for the Nightopian NPC's from NiGHTS into Dreams, the battle mode was improved as part of the re-release for the gamecube version of the game and was much less a focus in the original, and the racing side game was a quick extension of the car driving levels and may have been more a holdover from the original version of the game that was dropped in response to player feedback.

I think a lot of this type of stuff was dropped due to critical backlash, since games with split focus were often docked for having underdeveloped game mechanics unless they were doing something unique like the Chao garden. Simple multiplayer modes tended to get the brunt of it, often being described as just being tacked on. So companies stopped implimenting them and opted to focus on a single core gameplay loop instead.

Good extended content, like your playable mascots example, still seems relatively abundant in modern games, hell Crash 4 is a good example and arguably has too much of it.