I though “accessibility” in video games meant, like, color blind mode and shit.
“People are buying indie games instead and I’m not happy about it”
I seriously wonder if more competent mobile gaming picks up some of the slack considering the “retro emulator” machines are starting to run PC games via Game Native app. If i didn’t already have a steam deck i would seriously consider one of those devices.
I’m not convinced that we are going to see a renewed push for optimization. I think streaming will be aggressively pushed with low time limits in the forthcoming next gen to “make it affordable.” Xbox was ahead of the curve in that regard.
Not just indie games, every game. Every new game is in competition with every other game in existence. It’s a battle for recognition and attention, winners take all. Brutal situation.
Same goes for books, movies, TV, music.
It’s not: “Gaming is unaffordable.” it’s “People aren’t willing to give us more money.”
Yar har fiddle de dee
Paying these prices is bullshit, you see!
They don’t deserve all your hard-earned money!
Come be a pirate!
Every industry has an accessibility crisis. Lazy MBAs don’t want to sell products that appeal to everyone if they can sell products that only appeal to rich people with less effort.
Maybe if they would stop burning through all the RAM and shoving AI down our throats…
I’m surprised they haven’t come up with a mandatory paid service where AI finishes your game for you. Just pay for the device. Pay for the game. Pay for online access. Pay for the mods. Pay AI to finish the game…Pay extra for a summary of your achievement’s.
There was an article like a month ago ago an AI assistant to play the hard parts for you.
A cross-game AI coop player that doesn’t suck would be kind of cool tho.
Even shitty video game “AI” outmatched human players 20 years ago. 90% of video game AI development is dumbing that shit down enough that it’s fun, but still convincing.
That’s what Elon does already.
Lmaoooooo
The arms race inherent in the world of computer gaming is reaching a point of unsustainability. I started thinking that way back when I could donate cpu time on my ps3 to protein folding simulation.
And, like most of our field, it’s a ratchet that only goes up. Efficiency and clever engineering to create an accessible experience is almost always lower down the list of priorities for these big corporate AAA publishers .
They’re more interested in swinging their dick further than the other guy. A lot of the time this doesn’t actually buy something more fun, popular, or playable. But the mind of an exec beholden to shareholders is obligated to invest in bloat. meanwhile I’m having a delightful time running clever little indie games on my steam deck.
If things going like this long enough, people won’t be able to play pirated games too.
I could’ve sworn there was some girl who was fit …
All the wealth is being concentrated in the hands of too few people. I’m not going to buy a $120 game when my salary is down, or I’m just laid off.
Problem is becoming a platform where you cant just buy the game anymore. You can obtain a digital licence that they can revoke at any time. So it’s more rent the game. And the price is up. And they have interfered with the studio and development. Plus you also have to pay for gamepass to even launch the game you ‘paid’ for.
This feels like a setup so they can present, “cloud gaming” as a solution. That way they can sell cheap hardware and yearly subscriptions for consistent revenue.
Reminds me of the Sim City 4 launch. The game was always online. People couldn’t play it because their servers couldn’t handle the load. One hiccup in the connection or servers and you’re out of the game. It was single player but you couldn’t play on laptop on a train, or plane.
It’s a not good experience. And if things are like with Stradia you still have to buy the full game and pay the subscription for access. And because you’re paying a subscription, people try to get their money’s worth. That goes against the profit model that assumes you pay full price but only game a few weeks per hour. So companies start limiting hours per day, add premium tiers, that kind of thing. That’ll cause a lot of resistance with the young crowd with no money but lots of time.
I think you are confusing SimCitys. SimCity 4 came out in 2003. Where there was a SimCity that came out in 2013 that had had those issues. I got a free game out of it, BF3 maybe. But imma be real I don’t remember the SimCity 4 launch, I do recall the SimCity 2013 launched and it was bad. Haven’t bought an EA game since.
Might be. The sim city line and EA are dead to me too, so I don’t remember the version numbers exactly.
I’m not In that category and don’t begrudge gaming funds…but I still resist as it’s a form of enshittification.
I’ve been expecting this for a whilst. It’s what they did for business users. Most office workers pretty much have a glorified tablet.
That’s also a problem, yes. DRM free is best. I’m extremely reluctant to pay for a game I can’t play offline as much as I want. (Barring MMOs and the like, I guess. Don’t play a lot of those, myself)
Ultimately AI is an unaffordable industry. It’ll crash in time, and there’ll hopefully be a whole lot of price drops on ram, graphics, etc. People will not want to stop playing games. The industry has had crashes before and always bounced back bigger than ever.
It will be bad for whoever’s economy is most dependent on it though… And any businesses really heavily invested in it. Won’t it, Microsoft.
deleted by creator
This, too, Shall pass
Is it though? I feel like there are a ton of indie games these days that are reasonably priced and run well without using a fuck ton of resources.
I don’t really care if GTA 6 is $100+. It’s the best of the best, maximum effort, no expense spared tier of video game making. I might eventually get it and I might not.
Keep in mind that Super Nintendo games were $60 or $70 in the mid 90s. Games have come down in relative price recently and are only now starting to creep back up, but that’s because gaming has become a massively popular hobby and a lot of people want huge masterpieces like GTA 6 or Elder Scrolls 6.
It’s honestly shocking to me looking back that we were able to afford new games back then. I saved up literal pennies to buy SMB3. The lady at Toys R Us was visibly pissed at me, and more pissed at my mom for letting me pay that way. We weren’t rich, though we were slightly above the middle of middle class. But even my lower middle class friends could afford to buy video games back then.
Conversely, games had little to no resale value back then despite self-evidently coming with the entire contents right there on the cartridge. Basically everything in my NES library when I was a kid except, perhaps ironically, SMB3 came from yard sales and so forth where I bought them for a quarter or fifty cents or whatever.
It helped that there were used and rental markets for relatively “modern” titles that are now almost entirely non-existent.
It’s probably never been a better for indie games.
Emulating is becoming Easier.
Introducing a monthly subscription for next gen consoles and hiking game pass prices /s
Sadly that could actually happen at some point.
Already happening with cars and many things so it is inevitable
That CEO has no room to talk about gaming being unaffordable and the industry ignoring the signs, when it’s that very industry that made it unaffordable to begin with.
You can’t claim ignorance towards something your own industry directly caused, Asha.
It’s like shitting your pants and when everyone calls you out on it, you deny it even though they can all smell it.
Works for the president of the US
I like my ‘breaking a stick’ analogy better, but yeah, that too.
This is it, on so many aspects. And during that they ruined the fun.
Hehe “Gaming has become unaffordable”. Continues to buy ram and other component capacity for AI data centers, while actively enshittifying every single game with microtransactions and forced game as a service bullshit. driving customers to increasingly purchase cheaper indie titles that are actually fun.
“Whatever can we do to fix this problem? “ <lays off veteran team so the shareholders can make 5 more Pennie’s a share, causing talent to look at different industries where they aren’t laid off every 2 years, causing every game to be made by devs fresh out of college>.
“This industry isn’t profitable anymore!” <transfers AI investment losses to game division to cover stupid ass speculative investments>
A quick and controversial argument in favor of MTX: MTX allows them to extract more money from those with excess, subsidizing the game for those who can’t afford to pay as much. Sure, when it’s done poorly it’s horrible. It can be a good thing though, like a supporter edition bundle that gives you like an icon next to your name or something.
Budget management should still be the primary option. Does your game need to cost this much to make, such that you have to have insane revenue to make up for it? Could you make something cheaper that’s just as good (if not better, as limitations are the mother of creativity, or however that phrase goes)?
Except it’s a race to the bottom, MTX causes games to be designed around MTX. Instead of rewarding gameplay the design philosophy becomes rewarding purchasing. Which then leads to games designed around gambling triggers. Don’t need to make an entertaining game if you can create an addictive loop.
Which then causes people to give up on gaming and move to other past-times, which means less sales. Which means more aggressive MTX, which leads to the CEO of Microsoft bitching that gaming isn’t profitable enough because of the very problem he himself helped create.
I don’t disagree, when done poorly by industry giants. There are some smaller games that have done it well, as just a way to find development. It isn’t purely bad, and in a world where things are this unaffordable it can be good to keep in mind. Ethical MTX can exist that don’t ruin the experience. It just isn’t what these massive companies want.
Something like the DRG founder’s pack, for example, is pretty good, or the Stationeers DLCs, which add purely optional ways to play that change how things work, which is only really useful to experienced players.
It’s like breaking the stick and then telling the watchers they need more sticks, but they cost too much.
