Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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2 years late to the party but I've started playing Elden Ring.
Long story short, I mostly agree with the majority sentiment, that it feels like how games used to feel like. It's not exactly controversial to assert that modern triple A games are terrible. Much has been said and written about why modern triple A games have regressed in quality and how Elden Ring was a breath of fresh air because it didn't make those same mistakes.
But here's my shower thought. And it might be dead obvious but I'll share nonetheless. It doesn't have to be that way!
Elden Ring feels more like the games from the 90s than games from the 90s. And that's obviously because we have better tooling and hardware in just about every aspect. It's infinitely easier to make good games now than it was in the 90s, we just don't make them.
It's also infinitely easier to write good software now. We have gpt, forums with decades of content, ides, YouTube, etc. Why do we keep on writing bloated shit? We don't have to.
Macdonald's fries would still be good if they used beef tallow.
Just about every way In which the quality of things regressed, it's easier now than ever to make an even higher quality version.
Something is wrong with us, that we don't. And I don't believe it's an eternal September the masses want slop situation, that's a copout. Elden Ring is one of the best selling games of 2022. It's a culture thing.
People who played Elden Ring on release were already 11 years late to the party. I like it, but it's de-facto Dark Souls IV. Not just mechanically, even many specific weapons and specific characters (welcome back, dear old friend Patches).
Triple A sucks because they ironically make too much money, so they can afford to hire way too many people. Add modern culture with its low hierarchies & trigger-happy hypersensitivity and you have a recipe for disaster. It's way too many cooks, and each cook is especially confident about the stuff they don't like, so everything ends up extremely bland, bloated or both.
Japanese culture doesn't really have these particularities. I strongly recommend Kojima's games as well.
Other good news is that the indie scene is also stronger than ever. The modding scene, likewise. So it's quite easy to avoid the triple A slob, though some issues extend beyond it (for example, even indie devs lean significantly more woke than average).
I think a major issue is the over focus on monetisation in the west. Almost all newer major studios are engaging in the most degenerate design possible, with little care actual game design and writing and handing that over to the DEI people or only pay perfunctory attention to it.
The few companies not doing this are legacy developers. Once one goes bad, which is almost inevitable over time, it's just gone and nothing replaces it.
Like with movies there is a mid budget gap in the market. Tons of great Indies but major productions that have to sell unreasonable amounts or use predatory monetisation strategies to make money.
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