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From time to time, I see articles/essays that speak negatively about modern games in ways that are mostly true but not really getting at the heart of the problem, and then comments ripping them apart and saying 'the games haven't changed, you have' and I hate this! It's completely and verifiably true that games have changed - a lot - and I miss what I still think of as video games; not that none are made anymore, but that the industry has moved on and the word means something else now and I mostly have to go to various poorly publicized indie corners to find what I want. I just haven't actually gone through the effort to put together my own competing essay to explain what the change is and why it happened. So here's a prototype/outline/draft/braindump:
Video Games were a fixed, finite product with a defined, finite audience. Somebody would have an idea, some people would think about how much effort and cash and time it would take to make that idea into a game and how many people might buy it, if it seemed like it had a good chance of a healthy profit they'd do it. The developers would develop the game. The publishers would hound them about deadlines. The devs would either buckle down or push back, but the game would be (mostly) done before it released because there was no way to turn back once the physical goods were produced. And the number to be produced had to be figured out, because if too many were produced money would be lost manufacturing and warehousing and shipping, and if too few were produced the lead time to produce more would be a drain on the hype.
Games needed to be (mostly) complete and free of game-ruining bugs, but alongside this developers had a little more pushback power because going gold was a line in the sand - if they felt something needed tweaking, they could meaningfully press the publisher for a bit more time. The target audience needed to be figured out and sized so they could produce the right number of copies, and this meant that games needed to know what they were and who they were for.
That's right. I'm blaming digital distribution for the vast bulk of modern gaming. Ever finer sanding off of edges, dumbing down of gameplay, yellow paint (though this also has another technological cause), open worlds and crafting systems everywhere, pretty much all of it comes downstream of the dissolution of the idea of a 'finished product'. There's no longer any meaningful way for devs to push back unless the game is totally non-functional - patch it later! There's no longer any pressure to tailor your game to your audience - just keep casting a wider net, there's not cost to overproduction! A wider net will surely fall around many who are less versed in your niche - just make it
simplermore accessible! A net can be widened by aping the successful bits of the big boys - open up that world, add in that crafting system! Some devs may somehow stand firm, but even if they don't buckle they still feel these pressures. Incentives are powerful, and the industry today is shaped by incentives I despise.Something like that. Things have changed. I'm not so much a fan of games these days. I miss video games.
Things were on a worse path around 2003 before we had digital distribution. Gaming had a great late nineties when computers were good enough to not cripple every complex game idea with technical limitations, but games were still small enough that a handful of people could get something cool and unique made and into shelves. A lot of the PC game franchises were visibly crippled by the mig-oughties because suddenly games needed to run on XBox as well, and XBox was lower spec than an average gaming PC and dictated a more simplistic user interface. Also the AAA expected quality creep had started going with mandatory voice acting, elaborate cutscenes etc., with bigger budgets leading to more design by committee and people playing it safe and making boring things. You started seeing lots of samey cookie-cutter action-adventure games filling the shelves, with little market left for the older simulator, strategy and complex RPG PC game market until Steam opened up the indie market floodgates.
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I see your point, I think it is interesting, but ultimately wrong. I do agree that they have changed, but I don't believe the change is bad. Digital distribution has been absolute boon for video game lovers.
This is not hard? In fact it is often fun and entertaining. The gaming subreddits that follow a niche genre or specific indie game are one of the few places on reddit I still enjoy visiting.
Steam has also made discoverability very simple. They have every imaginable way to discover and filter games on their platform. You can listen to curators who care about the same thing as you, use game tags, look up "games similar to what you already play", see sales, get bestsellers in your country, or best sellers internationally, user ratings, price, etc etc etc.
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