-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Compared to last generation, are People generally more jaded on AAA games?
- Thread starter Jubenhimer
- Start date
I think AAA games went from solid, fun, memorable experiences with high production values to this weird min/max meta where devs and publishers focus on hours of gameplay/dollar value above everything else.
Devs/publishers saw how players have been judging various games by "Hours of gameplay" (IMHO a useless metric), so now instead of multiple AAA titles lined up in the pipeline it's now one AAA game designed to be played for hundreds of hours for multiple years. In an effort to deliver on the xxx hours of gameplay that players look for AAA games are now bloated beyond belief with tons of repetitive quests/daily tasks/challenges that are meant to keep you locked in.
Ask anybody to play the same game over and over again for multiple years for hundreds of hours and they're bound to become quite jaded. Some of these AAA games are more like second jobs than a hobby these days.
Devs/publishers saw how players have been judging various games by "Hours of gameplay" (IMHO a useless metric), so now instead of multiple AAA titles lined up in the pipeline it's now one AAA game designed to be played for hundreds of hours for multiple years. In an effort to deliver on the xxx hours of gameplay that players look for AAA games are now bloated beyond belief with tons of repetitive quests/daily tasks/challenges that are meant to keep you locked in.
Ask anybody to play the same game over and over again for multiple years for hundreds of hours and they're bound to become quite jaded. Some of these AAA games are more like second jobs than a hobby these days.
Animagic
Banned
On AAA, I think the trends have been to pack as much shit into the game as possible so the games take hundreds of hours to finish. Maybe that’s not fair to big budget games, as there are many varieties...
I guess if I feel like I’m clocking into work to play your game, I’m going to quit playing, sell it, and do something fun instead. I got enough work in my life as it is.
I honestly don’t know what the feeling at large is with respect to how AAA games are received, all I know is if I personally think it’s going to be a chore at all, I actively avoid it.
I mostly play mid tier games, remasters, or indie games these days. Having a good time too.
I guess if I feel like I’m clocking into work to play your game, I’m going to quit playing, sell it, and do something fun instead. I got enough work in my life as it is.
I honestly don’t know what the feeling at large is with respect to how AAA games are received, all I know is if I personally think it’s going to be a chore at all, I actively avoid it.
I mostly play mid tier games, remasters, or indie games these days. Having a good time too.
I'd love to know how the generally audiences are receiving these games (assuming that sites like NeoGaf and smaller Youtube channels etc are considered niche).
Are people actually happy to get a game like Assassin's Creed Odyssey that consists of many, many hours of the same repetitive gameplay loop?
I do find myself enjoying Ubisoft content in general but I also tend to play for a few hours here and there to the point where it can take me over a year to just finish the game. The story is just really, really, terribly paced when you are playing them like that.
60 bucks for a 100+ hour game is good value for money but at the same time it often feels like these games are full of pointless filler and the DLC content always feels really half-hearted.
Plus people will definitely complain if a 30 buck game only has say 5 or 6 hours to complete "story mode". Sometimes the same people have massive "backlogs" too so I don't get it, really.
The goal of AAA seems to be endlessly playable and endlessly monetizable games that players will get "hooked" on. Not EXACTLY endless though since every couple of years the old game will be cast aside and the new sequel will come out.
It does seem like there is an absolutely massive audience for that kind of stuff though. FIFA and CoD seem to be massively popular and it sounds like GTAV is still raking in an absolute fortune after all these years.
I am definitely in the same place as you where some of these content heavy games just feel like an absolute chore to play.
It's more like work and less like entertainment.
Roni
Gold Member
What you're describing in your own way is the GaaS model, where instead of selling people an experience they play for a few hours and then move on, you're now selling a gameplay platform you can endlessly update with new content and MTX's.
I don't know if anyone has any research on why this is a trend, but I believe it came about partly because of the fact a very large portion of the playerbase has grown older and is now busier with real life affairs. This leads to less play time, so instead of playing everything that comes out, you're instead suppoed to get the one or two games that give you your favorite experience and play those in smaller sessions for a very long time.
This became a great way of selling more repetitive games, with a perceived "huge" offering of content. Game design-wise, this could actually be a good thing. But since games are looking for that angle, they are shifting away from narratives once again and starting to focus more on gameplay, because gameplay is inherently repetitive. Therefore a better match for the new market model.
Last edited:
I think it can definitely work for some games.
Personally, I really enjoyed the 2 new Hitman games and think their "season" approach was pretty cool. They give you a location that has a decent chunk of possible game time and interesting things to explore and then down the line there is a bit more.
The story is, of course, pretty bare bones and not exactly groundbreaking but that's OK.
I would absolutely hate to be given a game like Dark Souls or Sekiro in that same format though. Imagine just getting one new level every few months until the game is done in 5 years. Then they release the "box set" or something.
I suppose online multiplayer games are actual "games" in the category of sports and board games etc. This does open them up for being a GaaS experience in kind of the same way that you might pay to hire a pitch to play football with your mates at the exact same location, at the exact same time, week after week, for years.
Where your big story driven games fit into this is a bit more confusing. I don't think many games have a storyline that could match up to, say, a twelve episode season of a TV show. It would be incredibly hard to break that down also and then spread it out over a period of time. I could see something that was mission based making a go of it but a pure "interactive story" experience like Uncharted etc kind of won't work in that framework.
What we call "AAA" definitely seems to be more dominated by online multiplayer these days. Back in PS1 & PS2 days it felt like a MAJOR release was for sure going to be a single player story driven game.