Thread 724490692

>b-b-but shovelware

Why do young people find it so hard to admit games simply used to be better by every metric

>>724490692 (OP)
even old shovel ware games used to be ok compared to a lot of the modern fucking SLOPPA coming out now because they were like $3 and didn't try to always online live service lootbox rape you

Prove it without attacking the game personally or mentioning zoomers. Prove older games were better without using buzzwords like "soul" or complaining that your PC can't run UE5.

A lot of this has to do with the lack of internet and easy access to reviews. Back then, all we had to go on was cover art, the back case summary, and hearsay from friends. I actually ended up enjoying a lot of games that I later learned had mid to low ratings.

>>724490692 (OP)
There were more good games back in the day because there were more games back in the day because it was much faster to make games back in the day. The reason there's more indie and fan games? Faster to make. It's that simple.

>>724490692 (OP)
Because they would have to realize that elitism is a good thing. The "democratization" of video game development has been a disaster for all of gaming. The signal to noise ratio has been fucked for a decade plus by now, and the surplus of shit games is primarily caused by the flooding of every market with shitskin cashgrabs, thinly veiled propaganda, fetish fodder, etc. If there were less games there would thus be less people making those games, and natural selection would take it's course.

>>724490692 (OP)
I like indie games

>>724491119
If games are better now why are they just remakes, sequels and rehashes of old games.

If games weren't better back in the day why are all new games just rehashes, sequels and remakes.

>>724490986
>>724490692 (OP)
Simpsons hit & run, Croc, The Darkness, I'd play those a hundred times over instead of Concord.

>>724492185
"All" new games are not remakes. There's been new games and ips that blow up regularly. There's been sequels and remakes since the 1980s. MsPacman, Dj Jr etc. You gave a non argument and asked a question instead. I accept your concession.

>>724492185
Everyone always talks about how they want new ips, yet in practice this is not really true. You get a shit to of people bitching about why they abandoned the old ips and aren't making sequels to their beloved game series and then don't buy any of the new ip games because there's no attachment to them.

>>724490692 (OP)
Nice made up data

Games were better because the industry wasn't as Hollywood-ified prior to, say, 2010. Even efforts back then that used to make headlines (RE6's 600 man dev team, shutting Visceral down after DS3) look like child's play compared to the high risk/reward rate of the Concords of today. It's insane, and publishers are only doubling down instead of reading the warning signs. They see the lucky/timely successes and think failure can't happen to them.

>>724490692 (OP)
i cannot fathom anything gayer than a fake chart where all the "data" is pulled out of your ass

>>724490692 (OP)
Standards have changed, a 5/10 game from 2010s would receive 9/10 today because how fucking bad the average game is in 2020s.

>>724491395
>I actually ended up enjoying a lot of games that I later learned had mid to low ratings.
Same
Lower than Imagine Party Babyz even

>>724491918
This is just retard logic and it feel like an indie dev trying to cope with his game not catching on and becoming flavor of the month.

>>724494116
>Games were better because the industry wasn't as Hollywood-ified prior to, say, 2010.
Modern Warfare came out in 2007. Your golden era will always be the the bottom of some else's made up vibes chart >>724490692 (OP)

>>724492783
>not really true.
By sales metrics it's completely false. Most new IPs are actually suicide/burning money pits. Even AA titles are painful sunk costs nowadays.

It's why Capcom will release like eight remakes and casualized sequels and one new IP. You need an insane cushion to support a new IP invest at the AAA level because the margins are so thin that even some few fuck ups back to back mean you're stuck taking only the safest bets.

Besides, if you're a new IP champion, then the current state of the steam market place is paradise for you.

>>724490692 (OP)
Ok, so I chose 2 years, 2005 and 2025, and took January-March for each of them on Wikipedia. Obviously this won't list all games released, but not sure how much more I could do. Anyway, there were 91 games released in 2005, 189 in 2025, pretty much double. Then I got 10 random numbers for each period and looked at the games released during each. In in the interest of transparency (and because it's kinda funny) I got 3 come up twice on the first time, and that was Resident Evil 4, so I guess that really needed to be in the list.
2005:
>3, 10, 16, 20, 24, 34, 41, 46, 70, 79
>Resident Evil 4, Virtua Quest, Postal 2: Share the Pain, Shaman King: Legacy of the Spirits Soaring Hawk, WarioWare: Touched!, Project Snowblind, Ice Nine, Star Wars: Republic Commando, TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, Rayman DS
Some of these are damn classics, RE4, Republic Commando, Warioware, Timesplitters? I remember enjoying Rayman DS but I dunno if that might be shit now. Never played Postal or Postal 2, seemed kinda like edgy stupidity but hey ho there it is. Virtua Quest looks a bit shit, Shaman King looks like a Pokemon rip off, Snowblind looks like a generic shooter and Ice Nine looks shit but also is a 3D shooter on the GBA which is pretty fucking weird right? Somewhat notable?

2025 in the next comment just because of text limits.

>>724498673
2025:
>7, 22, 24, 92, 110, 113, 127, 129, 168, 170
>Heroes of Hammerwatch 2, Needy Streamer Overload, Mika and the Witch's Mountain, Tribe Nine, PGA Tour 2K25, Carmen Sandiego, Suikoden I & II HD Remaster: Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars, Oaths of Light – Chapter I, Atomfall, Blue Wednesday
Hammerwatch 2 might be fun multiplayer? Needy Streamer Overload is a shitty looking VN, Mika looks like an asset flip, Tribe 9 looks sort of like a Genshin thing, maybe fun for some? A yearly golf game, Carmen was a fucking Netflix game (I didn't even know that was a thing), Suikoden 1+2 I've only seen the disgustingly ugly images of that remake, awful graphics, Oaths of Light looks like a student game with 6 reviews, Atomfall is probably the best looking one on the list and Blue Wednesday looks like nothing.

I didn't expect it to be quite this bad, it looks like 2025 got utterly schlacked.

>>724492783
>yet in practice this is not really true
Is it? Do these new IPs fail because nobody wants cool new stuff, or is it because all the new stuff isn't actually cool and is in fact dogshit?

>>724499358
>company makes a shitty product
>learns the wrong lessons from it
Disney stopped doing 2D animation after The Princess and the Frog, for example. You make a game like Forspoken and then say well that didn't sell let's just do endless remakes.

>>724492783
New IPs inherently have an uphill battle. A majority of game IPs needed multiple games to get their shit together/improve over time, whereas nowadays, most people don't have the patience for that as much anymore, so most new IPs only really get one shot, and the first entry for anything is more or less a proof of concept.

>>724490692 (OP)
According to your image, 40% of the games "back then" were considered "good."
PS1 had 4,200 games. Can you say that at least 1900 of them were good?
1700 SNES games. Can you name more than 700 good ones?
388 N64 games. Can you name 180 good ones?

>>724500041
You're taking a bit too literally, when clearly it's supposed to be demonstrative of a trend in games. There were like 15k games released on Steam last year but OP isn't saying that 1k of them are good.

>>724500041
No. Most games have been shovelware for ... well, always. Most music sucks. Most movies are trash. Most art is dull.
That's why masterpieces are special.

>>724500438
Steam is taking the shovelware crown, but this is a recent change for them.
Less than 1% of the games from the retro era could be considered masterpieces. Less than 5% could be called good. Less than 10% worth remembering.

>>724500438
The only thing it demonstrates is that OP grew up with some 6/10 game he wouldn't bother with if his parents bought him anything better.

>>724490692 (OP)
OP confirmed for never having owned one of those magazined that came with a "300 free games!" CD.

>>724500041
Almost 20,000 games release each year these days, can you say that the ratio of good ones to bad ones is better than on the PS1, which had only 4200?

Those 4200 were made by dedicated professional teams with skilled workers and budgets at a time when experimentation was the default, here's 200 PS1 games no one's heard about, can you say 200 random indies from this year would beat them in quality, production value, or originality?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSlGv9aFk4o

This is all ignoring the main point, which is that the *notable* games that people actually talk about and consider main entries of an era used to be almost good by default, the games featured in magazines, on TV, getting awards, etc were far more often good than not, if a game was hyped it was basically expected that it would not just meet expectations but exceed them

Can you say anything of the like is true these days? Did FF16 make everyone feel the way FF7 did back then?

>>724500621
And what is the percentage today with the infinite amounts of slopware on eshops

>>724500750
Was anyone manually writing page-long reviews for each of the 300? No? Then they go in the pile on the right

>>724500654
PS1 was king of the "cheap but serviceable" 6/10 games. Kings Field and Azure Dreams comes to mind.

>>724500621
Yeah those %s seems fair, and I would say it's significantly lower now. 3.5k games on the PS4, are even 1% of those worth playing? How many of those that are worth playing are just remakes?

For the game to make its way to a retail store you'd need to convince a publisher to fund it.

>>724500041
Of those 4200 games there would be re-releases of older titles and games sold in limited amounts.
Something like Rule of Rose sold out after a month, they never bothered printing more copies.

>>724500751
I did not ignore any main point, unless the point you made originally (if you're the OP) was to rely upon hyperbole to paint the past as some bastion of an industry that exists only in the hearts of those with rose-tinted nostalgia glasses. Don't rely on your memories. Go manually sift through the PS1's library. I wouldn't praise much of those titles the same way you did
>Those 4200 were made by dedicated professional teams with skilled workers and budgets at a time when experimentation was the default
And I certainly wouldn't say that
> which is that the *notable* games that people actually talk about and consider main entries of an era used to be almost good by default, the games featured in magazines, on TV, getting awards, etc were far more often good than not, if a game was hyped it was basically expected that it would not just meet expectations but exceed them
Was the rule, rather than the exception.
You just forget (or weren't actually there) for the shovelware which was ubiquitous. It hasn't changed. Has it gotten worse? Maybe. Steam allows some absolute garbage to fill it's storefront, but to pretend that forgettable trash wasn't more than 80-90% of games released in the past is pure folly.

>>724501148
>I did not ignore any main point
You literally just ignored it again with the rest of your post

>You just forget (or weren't actually there) for the shovelware which was ubiquitous
Literally ignoring the main point of the OP image, no one was writing reviews for shovelware, or giving it awards, or talking about it, or running ads for it on TV, or demoing it at conferences

>>724492185
those affirmations aren't true

>>724500823
>manually writing page-long reviews
Fuck does that matter? OP is pretending the past had a much higher proportion of non-shit games and that is simply not true. You literally cannot fathom how much garbage I sifted through as a kid with those godawful compilation CDs. Not that it's any better today with asset flip trash mind you, but yes, there were A LOT of forgotten pieces of shit in the past.

And if you want to look at the shovel ware peak for certain portions of the industry, then I'd say that PC is having it's shovelware peak right now, but I would not say PC was free of shovelware in the past.
Handheld's was the GBA and DS.
Console's shovelware peak lasted from it's inception all the way to it's 8th generation.

>>724501270
Then your point is worth ignoring, as it's a stupid reason to care. If you need an industry shill to tell you if a game is good or not, then you're not worth talking to, and all your points are worthy of ridicule.

>>724501148
>You just forget (or weren't actually there) for the shovelware which was ubiquitous.
NTA but while I think you are right to a degree, I think what you miss is the way in which we viewed these games. There were so many PS1 games, but I never even saw the vast majority of them because most shops didn't even both to stock the dogshit slop. Well, certainly not most of it anyway. There was a curation done by retailers and reviewers combined that kept the worst away from consumers.
Nowadays, it's all mixed together in this digusting slurry we call Steam and eshops. The retailers and reviewers are now directly working with the developers to shovel shit down our throats, significantly moreso than in the past.

>>724501368
It matters because that's the whole point of the image

The "muh shovelware" argument is as stupid as denying the heights of e.g. New Hollywood because cheap B movies existed in the 70s, which makes the New Hollywood era just as bad as today, even though no one made anything even remotely resembling Godfather, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now etc in the last 20 years

>>724501514
>There was a curation done by retailers and reviewers combined that kept the worst away from consumers.
I'll also add to this that sometimes this fucked us over as consumers and kept great games from us, but much like Steam curating the games they posted, it seems to be a necessary sacrifice.

>>724501489
>Then your point is worth ignoring
Why do young people find it so hard to admit games simply used to be better by every metric

>>724492424
None of those games are shovelware games.

Its funny when you realize that people don't even understand the meaning of the buzzwords they use.

>>724490692 (OP)
35 years here.
Game quality barely changed, all in all we probably have more good know because the % stayed the same, while we have much more games now than in the past.

You're just a nostalgiafag.

>new thing bad
>old thing good

>>724501719
36 years here.

Nah, you're just a malding larping zoomer

>>724492185
>remakes, sequels and rehashes of old games.
Because the Playstation has no games.
Just switch to PC already.

>>724501719
33 here, stop baiting, or larping.

>>724501790
>malding
Joke's on you, I was already balding with 18 and it didn't change by much.
>larping zoomer
Born 03.01.1990.

>>724501665
Because I'm old you "literal" faggot, and lived through the era you're jacking off to, you spazz.

>>724501148
This whole "b-but shovelware always existed!" shtick is so stale and retarded it's unreal. Shovelware existed. Good games also existed. Nowadays shovelware exists, but good games don't. See the difference?

It's like how music/film poptimist mouthbreathers will screech "m-muh survivorship bias!" ignoring the fact that we've had a decade of hindsight in regards to the 2010s yet "survivorship bias" doesn't seem to help in painting modern output as anything but trash in comparison to the classics of old.

>>724492783
Maybe if Capcom put kunitsu-gami on sale I'd buy it

>>724501869
I do neither.
I just really enjoy games, instead of just pretending to be interested in games to endlessly shitpost on /v/ like you.

>>724501905
And yet you have the knowledge and opinions of a clueless zoomer, curious..

>>724490692 (OP)
>Why do young people find it so hard to admit games simply used to be better by every metric
Why do old farts get stuck in their nostalgia? Obviously graphic quality now is better than everything 2010 or earlier, so your statement is easily proven false. You could make an argument for art style, but that's completely subjective and I doubt that you play many modern games to actually have an informed opinion

>>724502009
>Obviously graphic quality now is better than everything 2010 or earlier, so your statement is easily proven false
lamo grafics whores in 2025

Are you indian by any chance

>>724490692 (OP)
When I was a kid I got one of those pirated Game Boy cartridges with 200 games in it. After trying them all, I ended up only bothering with like 10 of them
Our memories are kind to us, making sure we only remember the better parts of our pasts

>>724490692 (OP)
Then
>a game like Braid or Portal is a green box
Now
>a game like Braid or Portal is a red box

>>724501986
What're you playin'?

>>724501514
Bullshit. GG pretty much exposed the entire industry as one big payola scandal. You can get just as much exposure to good titles through word of mouth (if not more) than you could back then through magazines, or looking at the back of a box. If anything Steam gives you more control over this, not less.

>>724502123
>When I was a kid I got one of those pirated Game Boy cartridges with 200 games in it. After trying them all, I ended up only bothering with like 10 of them
How many of them got coverage, promotion, awards, discussion etc

>>724502141
Also looking forward to Arc Raiders and EU5 soon.

>>724502150
>the year of our lord 2025
>still pretending goobergate was anything but a massive embarrassment for everyone involved, in both sides

>>724501926
>good games don't exist
It's because you have depression, Stan. You're not eating a real turd, that's actually your hamburger.
>Well, I've been 'fraid of changin'
>'Cause I've built my life around you

>>724490692 (OP)
barrier to entry issue.
any retard with a computer can throw together some unity/UE template game nowadays.

>>724502009
>nostalgia
>implying
Most of my favourite media was created before I was born, discovered well after adolescence. You just have shit taste and 0 capacity for critical thought.

>>724502194
I don't know anon, I was a little kid. I don't see what that has to do with the topic at hand however

>>724502309
It's literally the topic presented in the OP image

>>724502235
>being this fucking obtuse to the fact that some slut was trading handjobs for shilling, that everyone was in on it, and knew about it, and that all journalists from all competing outlets were all friends with one another and were taking bribes from industry execs for coverage
Yeah, okay. But it was le cringe le glooberglabber. Right. xD

>>724502150
Zoomanon, GG was the mid 2010s, we're talking quite a bit earlier than that as being the time when games were good. Yes, there was always collusion between the games industry and reviewers/retailers, but you could still get some value from the opinions of magazine reviewers sometimes. No such thing as good reviewers now.

>>724502263
Not him but I still have a blast discovering and playing old games I never knew about back then, playing new games makes me depressed

>>724501991
Based on what? Your personal butthurt metric?
All you're doing is going by how the shilling industry made you feel. It's all about the feelings that big releases gave you back then vs now. You're a woman, which explains why you say literally so much.

>>724491119
Older games with much lower budgets allowed
a) More niche/strange games to be viable. Examples are Drakengard and Killer 7
b) Those games that were from "AAA" devs had the resources to quickly release a sequels so that gameplay improvements were constant. Examples are Majora's mask, Ps2 GTA, Rachet and Clank, SMT ps2 and DS era games and Yakuza.

>>724502287
This. It's Poe's Law, and affects pretty much every single type of media out there. Books have been largely trash for their entire existence because they have the lowest barrier to entry, but that doesn't mean books as a whole are bad

>>724501926
>Nowadays shovelware exists, but good games don't.
Yes they do you disingenious retard.

>>724502386
Retard anon, the point was that you actually could not trust reviews at all because they were all paid. Good job missing the point. It was also going on the entire time where was a games journalism industry.

>>724498673
>>724498741
If we're talking percentages, you should've done twice as many games from the 2025 list

>>724501715
those are all trend chaser games, and were seen as lower quality back when they were released although a lot of people played and enjoyed them. shovelware is a bit too harsh, i agree.

>>724502480
Based on your lack of knowledge about the times you were supposedly alive for and have dogshit opinions

>>724502574
>because they were all paid
The point is dingus, that they weren't all paid by the developers, some of them were genuine people actually giving their opinions. You weren't there, so why are you commenting?

>>724502574
>then
>read paid off magazine review
>buy and play game
>it's good

>now
>read paid off journo review
>buy and play game
>it's bad

You see the difference

>>724502232
>arc raiders
oh wow extraction shooter #5021 hyyyyyyyyyype

>>724502637
Counterpoint; rose-tinted glasses and low IQ mixed with butthurt when confronted with a contradicting opinion.

>we didnt have shovelware back then!
>when the fucking great vidya crash was ushered by the shovelwariest game imaginable

You people are too fucking young to be having opinions about this shit

>>724502723
Because I was there, faggot. I was born in 85. Stop being mad. The truth is in front of you; journalists were always paid shills.

>>724502307
First, you're not OP or an old fag apparently, so you're getting offended over something not directed at you. Second, it's funny how you were too scared to actually mention those games

>>724502742
OP literally lists shovelware as a thing that existed

>>724502637
NTA, you're a jaded fuck who never actually liked games.
You should leave /v/ and find a hobby that other philistines like you enjoy, like mowing lawns and complaining how everything back in the day used to be better.

>>724502742
>>we didnt have shovelware back then!
Said who? Where? Backlink the post.

>>724502730
>then
>read paid off magazine review
>buy and play game
>it's good

Tell that to 11 year old me when I got tricked into buying fucking Batman Beyond

>>724502856
I like games right now, I just don't like insipid uninspired games made by soulless husks chasing a buck

>>724501719
If your argument is that a person that plays a wide range of games and they buy only a certain amount 1-10 games a year yeah I would say that person that games quality haven't changed a ton.
It falls apart if you say like fighting games because the 90s were strictly better for variety and frequent releases.

>>724502732
Go ahead and name 10 recent/alive extraction shooters out of those 5000+.
I'll wait.

>>724502807
I saw plenty of reviews for big games that were surprisingly negative, then again I'm not from the US so maybe it was worse there, assuming that's where you're from based on the fact you're an annoying tubby cunt

>>724502742
They're not young, just bitter and depressed. It's nostalgia for a time that they look back on fondly because their minds have forgotten about all the bad and focus on all the good. Strange how we consider such optimism for the past such a bad thing. My guess is because it clouds our judgement on how things really were, thus clouding our judgement on the current era.
It's like they've forgotten what it was like to go to a rental store, pick up an NES cart, and play the Russian Roulette game of whether it'll be good or a soul-crushing disappointment.

>>724502906
Oh yeah? Name them.
They are guarandteed to be uninspired mainstream stuff.

>>724502930
Well Gamergate WAS a US phenomenon, so...
>being pissy
lmao. What a fag.

>>724502974
see
>>724502307

Lots of retardation and projection all in a very vain attempt to cope with your dogshit taste.

>>724502928
>that argument falls apart if you are a dudebro that plays 1 genre and doesn't actually like videogames
Wow, you got me.

>>724490692 (OP)
Dog, old games used to be so bad the early videogame youtubers made a LIVING out of laughing at them on camera

>>724502974
>It's like they've forgotten what it was like to go to a rental store, pick up an NES cart, and play the Russian Roulette game of whether it'll be good or a soul-crushing disappointment.
Which is why you referred to magazines, awards, etc and got much better odds, like OP says, as opposed to today when even literal shit games can be GOTY nominees and people praise games out of social obligation

>>724503078
>uses swear words
>assumes it's pissy
Americans are so boring

>>724503106
Inability to actually address the point, and instead resort to adhoms. Nice job at proving only one thing: you mad.

>>724503113
Quite zoomerful post

>>724503153
You cannot possibly be serious lmao, vidya magazines were shillrags back then too, come on

>>724503156
Sorry, I don't speak Retardese. I speak American English where "pissy" means being a twatty cunt.

>>724503153
How many fucking magazines do you think we had available to us at any given time back then? How many games do you think they were capable of reviewing per month? Rewards? Do you think we had the Dorito Pope back in 1990?

And you people are the ones calling ME the zoomer.

>>724503174
Address what point? Your shitty projections that are completely off the mark? Do you expect me to write a Psychology PhD dissertation on why you're a fucking moron based on easily observable criteria, such as an inability to read through a thread before posting?

>>724502139
there is no world where portal is a red box dipshit-san

>>724502123
This was also my experience. I got one with 150 games and a lot were repeats, but I ended up mostly using that cartridge to play Wario Land 1, Dr Mario and a weird TMNT Metroidvania thing

>>724503226
Shillrags for good games, >>724502887 brings up being tricked into buying Batman Beyond but that game got dogshit reviews, meanwhile today you have shit like Concord where the reviewers might as well be living in an alternate universe

>>724502496
We used to have much faster evolution of games. It is sort of weird how games have those giant budgets and long dev cycles but somehow the end result plays the same. Gaming has been really stagnant for like 15 years. Even graphically the improvement just isn't that great.
In 2010 a game form '95 would feel ancient, in 2025 game from 2010 is essentially modern.

>>724503413
No, I expect you to stop being such a whiny bitch because I broke your argument down to nothing more than a feelings-based metric which revolved around industry shilling and your own nostalgia.

>>724503226
PC Action wasn't.
They were coomers like neo-/v/ though.

>>724503463
>that 90%

lmao

>>724490692 (OP)
>source: dude just trust me
This board has the collective Iq of a soggy sandwich

>>724503402
I lived in a backwater country no one ever heard of and had 3-4 local gaming magazines available monthly, each of which reviewed 15-30 games and various columns covering older games, I literally never had a bad experience buying a game they recommended

>>724503463
Modern day journalism might as well not exist today. Journalism in the past was extremely limited in scope.

>>724503549
Nintendo bonus, it's the GBC version

>>724503592
Well good for you, fag. In the US during that era we had GamePro, Nintendo Power and... Game Informer, maybe?

>>724502887
This but with Aydin's Chronicle or whatever it was called. My magazine of choice shilled the shit out of it for months, calling it 'the new Zelda' and it turned out to be dogwater

>>724503546
>nostalgia
>for games made before I was alive that I discovered a couple of years ago
Full of hubris, retarded and illiterate. An iconic combo.

>>724502887
>>724503713
Or when the magazines would bash something like Breath of Fire III or IV for not being Final Fantasy VIII. Or when they'd praise Final Fantasy VIII for being the second coming of Jesus.

>>724502496
>Drakengard
Literary riding on recent Dynasty Warriors trend, nothing niche about it outside of butchering classical music, which was a really hot topic upon the game's release (and I like the music and the game, but that's how it was back then lol). And no, it being edgy wasn't really unique at all in 2003.
There's plenty of "strange" games nowadays like Devil Daggers or whatever you think is cool, strange and edgy now.
I can't wait for next generation of kids to say that Gravity Rush or whatever is now some niche hidden gem that cannot be made "nowadays".
>Killer7
Suda is still making those games, like the upcoming Romeo, so what are you on about with this example?
>Yakuza
They still release those games annually to this day, probably the worst example to bring up here.
And there is still plenty of studios releasing annual dogshit like Remedy, Bandai Scamco, EA, Activision, Ubisoft and all the other usual suspects.
Did gaming change? Absolutely, but not so much that we're suddenly not getting shovelware piece of shit releases and even more hilariously claiming that they are not advertised/awarded, when in fact, Dorito Pope's recent game awards were mostly FOTM indie shovelware that somehow caught on.

>>724503810
Don't forget about them just shitting on everything japanese for decades

>>724503752
So basically your enjoyment of the games revolves around the hype that surrounded said games decades ago? I dunno what your issue is, then. But don't tell me I didn't live through an era you just admitted that you didn't experience first hand, yet I did.

>>724503713
>calling it 'the new Zelda' and it turned out to be dogwater

This but with DK64 being 'the new Banjo'. Not a bad game but it doesn't even come close to BK nor BT

>>724503862
Which is ironic because 99% of non-Jap titles were steaming hot dog shit on a plate.
At least with Jap games you could probably get something decent, as localization was costly so they tried to do some curation. Whereas western devs were just unloading turd after turd like a shit machinegun.

>>724503892
>shit, my retarded projection was off the mark
>better make up some more retarded projections. If I employ the flak cannon strategy, surely I'm guaranteed to hit something!
Imagine being such an intelectually dishonest shitbird and having the gal to whine about someone "not addressing your point". The absolute shamelessness. You are a genuinely repugnant little subhuman.

>>724504273
The sheer amount of vitriol tells me I'm right and you're angry, which makes me double correct.

>>724503592
I sometimes got game informer and I got literally nothing of value out of it. No article or review was worth a damn. I can't actually remember a review at all, now that I think about it.

So in conclusion:
The industry is not worse now than it was in the past. It's just as bad as it always has been, but for different reasons. Video games are like good threads on 4chan. Diamonds hidden inside of a mountain range of shit. You've gotta go dig them out yourself, because you should take all suggestions as to the location and quality with a grain of salt as you have to assume everyone offering advice is out for themselves.

>List of PlayStation 5 games
>There are currently 1054 games on this list.
>List of PlayStation (console) games
>There are currently 4074[a] games
I suppose the question is, are there 4 times as many good games on PS1 vs PS5? I'd say yes, since PS5 has no fucking games at all.

>>724504334
Like I said. Full of hubris, retarded and illiterate. There is nothing of value within you.

Are we all pretending to ignore the God Hand fiasco now?

>>724504650
Oh get over it, you fucking drama queen.

>>724504596
It quality games shifted from AAA studios mid sized and indie studios for the most part.

>>724490692 (OP)
The hallmark of a normalfag is thinking that whether or not people care about a game is relevant.
Because normalfags don't do things out of genuine curiosity. They do things that they understand to be the socially acceptable thing to do.

>>724504596
That's your conclusion, not the conclusion of anyone who isn't a window licker. Of 1,000 games released per year, 10 were great, 50 were good, the rest were utter tripe. Now there are 20,000 games released a year. 5 are great, 25 are good, the rest are utter tripe, and now those worth playing are hidden under an infinitely growing pile of pig slop.

>>724504629
>PS5 has no fucking games at all.
In comparison to what console?

>>724504596
No in conclusion, the opposite of what you said

>>724504839
So the industry is still bad but for the same reason?

>fan games
Sorry, but if the existence of shitty fan games is somehow a problem to you then I think that's weird. Who gives a single fuck if some literally who made a ROMhack that sucks. Why is this a problem to you

>>724504790
Basically. And when you call that out they start screaming at you.

>>724504970
Why does the existence of shovelware somehow mean the golden era of games wasn't golden?

>>724502929
marathon

>>724505094
Not out.

>>724505085
Just because it means that there was always a problem with crap everywhere, and that the issues plaguing the modern industry is something else entirely (like a hostile corporate/publisher/developer relationship with the consumer that didn't exist back then).

>>724490692 (OP)
>games that no one cares about
>flash games

>>724504934
The industry is worse, that's the takeaway.

>>724505687
Because?

>>724490692 (OP)
Imagine the slopageddon when AI games really get going. The future is bleak

>>724505687
Because there are more shit titles that take space, money and time away from consumers, and instead of having more high quality titles to compensate there are significantly less.

>>724498741
Why did you pick a year that's not even over?

>>724490692 (OP)
If those games are better why isn't everyone playing them?

>>724506245
Same reason people are watching Netflix slop instead of the hundreds of movie classics

>>724506212
I picked a 3 month period of a year, and while the year might not be over, that 3 month period is. I don't think any games are getting released in January-March of 2025, anon.

>>724491119
I shouldn't have to pay $80 for a game only to wait for an update to "fix" what should have been in the base game

>>724506694
Poor example there's literally games over 20 years old that released with worse bugs or even permanent softlocks that had to be fixed and redistributed. Meaning you had to buy the game again in some cases.

>>724506820
This. I'm so tired of acting like there's no benefit to the modern industry or that the past was perfect.

>>724506820
These were rare though, but also I am from the PAL region and our games always came way later, so I assume we got the fixed versions.

>>724490692 (OP)
this is actually not an issue with gamedev directly. this is an issue with social media, algorithms, and the attention economy that has gripped all of society. decent indies and AA games aren't even visible, everyone just devours whatever garbage is shilled to them via twitch and tiktok. the attention economy also influences gamedev, making remakes the best thing for big publishers to do. but if someone fixes this and is able to make people break free from the algos, we might see games become more like they used to.

>>724507139
>50Hz
Grim.

>>724507139
They were rare but old games have significantly more bugs in them overall. You're more likely to run into something jank in an old game than a modern one. Games like OOT had softlocks that never got fixed afaik, and I distinctly remember Sphinx and the cursed Mummy having a disgusting game ruining one where if you hit a certain save point then went backwards it deleted the next progression point in the game leaving you stuck forever.

>>724502232
Looking forward to Paradox games is foolish.

Unless you mean you're looking forward to pirating it after they release hundreds of dollars of DLC to finish the game.

>>724508289
Secret of Evermore having bugs that would straight ruin an entire playthrough.

>>724508362
>Looking forward to Paradox games is foolish.
Worked out for CK3.

>>724490692 (OP)
It's very easy to act like this, but lets look back at 2007.
Specifically, lets look at the PS3 in 2007. 160~ games thereabouts. I'd say 90% of them fit that "shit nobody cares about" category, we're talking
>SingStar
>NCAA 08
>PAIN
>The Golden Compass
>Farm Frenzy
>Timeshift
>The Simpsons Game
>The Trials of Topoq
>NBA Live 08
>Blazing Angels 2
>Super Stardust HD
>Transformers The Game
>THE DARKNESS
>Folklore (before any revisionists come out, nobody gave a shit about this game)

Now, let's look at the "NOTABLE RELEASES" on the PS3 for 2007
>Uncharted
Mostly shit. There's a reason nobody talked about this series before the second game.
>Lego Star Wars
Shovelware that is only good if you are like 6 years old.
>Call of Duty 4
Generally well liked I suppose.
>Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
Mostly a retread and significantly worse one at that, there's a reason nobody remembers this game anymore.
>Heavenly Sword
Shit. It's just shit.
>Lair
LAUGHABLY shit.
>Dynasty Warriors: Gundam
If you're a Dynasty Warriors fan it's good.

>>724508096
I know. Worse still is that I had an American friend with an N64 that played Mario Kart properly. Going back was rough.

>>724492783
It was pretty funny watching people FOR YEARS talk about how shitty Sony was for "letting Japan Studio die", and then the biggest devs at Japan Studio made their own studio and released their own new IP... and nobody bought it, and the game failed, and the studio is likely to shut down in the near future.

>>724509556
2007 is accepted as the dogshit year that ended the golden era

>>724509556
>Specifically, lets look at the PS3 in 2007
PS3 has no gamez was a popular meme for a reason, anon. Why in the name of fuck would you pick that of all eras?

>>724509556
Timeshift and the darkness were cool, fuck off

>>724492424
That's just b-list games

>>724509698
Slitterhead was beyond niche and that's not talking about how much of a bait and switch it was, marketing itself as horror when it's a jank action game.

>>724490692 (OP)
Back in the day you had to be a nerd with tech/computers to know how to program at all, which meant such high skill floor would at least demand a bare minimum guarantee of quality for the games due to the devs being dedicated enough to do it in the first place.
These days any random nigger can whip up an UE5 asset flip and sell it on steam.

>>724509698
I bought it

That said, I don't think that's ultimately a fair point. Gravity Rush was not exactly a mega hit even with being a Sony IP, and it wasn't exactly clear to the average individual that its director and part of its staff went on to form bokeh and then make a horror game.

People will only do that shit on en masse for people like Kojima or Kamiya. Only a dedicated base will do it when it happens to someone like Toyama.

>>724492185
>If games are better now why are they just remakes, sequels and rehashes of old games.
Let's see
Using an unnamed but popular gaming "social media" site, here are the top 5 most popular games and the top 6 highest rated games of various years:
>2025 Popular
Expedition 33 (New IP)
Silksong (Sequel)
Deltarune (Sequel)
PEAK (New IP)
Monster Hunter Wilds (Sequel)
REPO (New IP)
>2025 Top Rated
Expedition 33
Deltarune
Silksong
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 (Sequel)
Death Stranding 2 (Sequel)
Donkey Kong Bananza (Sequel)

>2015 Popularity
Undertale (New IP)
The Witcher 3 (Sequel)
Rocket League (New IP)
Bloodborne (New IP)
Fallout 4 (Sequel)
Arkham Knight (Sequel)
>2015 Top Rated
Bloodborne (New IP)
The Witcher 3 (Sequel)
Yakuza 0 (Prequel)
Undertale (New IP)
Majora's Mask 3D (Remake)
Dragon Quest VIII 3D (Remake)

>2005 Popularity
Mario Kart DS (Sequel)
God of War (New IP)
Resident Evil 4 (Sequel)
Shadow of the Colossus (New IP)
Ace Attorney (New IP)
Kingdom Hearts II (Sequel)
>2005 Top Rated
Shadow of the Colossus
Resident Evil 4
Kingdom Hearts II
We Heart Katamari (Sequel)
Killer 7 (New IP)
Devil May Cry 3 (Sequel)

>1995 Popularity
Chrono Trigger (New IP)
Yoshi's Island (Sequel)
Donkey Kong Country 2 (Sequel)
Rayman (New IP)
Mega Man X 3 (Sequel)
Kirby's Dream Land 2 (Sequel)
>1995 Top Rated
Chrono Trigger
DKC2
Terranigma (New IP)
Yoshi's Island
Ultimate DOOM (Reissue)
Panel de Pon (New IP)

>1985 Popularity
Super Mario Bros. (Sequel)
Ice Climber (New IP)
Balloon Fight (New IP)
Ghost'N'Goblins (New IP)
Bomberman (New IP)
Wrecking Crew (Sequel)
>Top Rated
Tetris (New IP)
A Mind Forever Voyaging (New IP)
Super Mario Bros.
Ultima IV (Sequel)
BattleCity (New IP)
The Oregon Trail (New IP)

Seems pretty balanced all things considered.

>>724502009
>graphic quality now is better than everything 2010 or earlier
It easily could be, but it's been spoiled by poor execution.

>>724509698
Well, they should have tried making a game that looked halfway appealing.

>>724490692 (OP)
there are too many people today that just want to cash out and be set for life off one game. they see the success of toby fox, notch, or concernedape, and wish for that for themselves. so they shoot their wad and hope for the best, then when that doesn't work they either try again or move on. the result is what you see before you; a barren wasteland of both AAA and indie shovelware that exists because someone thought it would be the game to make them a mogul.

the fact is, the games that people care about have always been propped up by some element other than the game's actual quality, whether it was some sort of controversy, some sort of marketing, or just "organic" hype for whatever reason. your game most likely won't get any recognition, even if it's "good" because sentiment sells more than quality and people are sheep in the sense that they just follow along with everyone else. this is illustrated by the grand irony that is the "lengthy video essay game analysis"; the creators of such media want you to think they have some sort of insight into the medium that you don't, when most of the time they have the same access to information that you do, so really any asshole could take time out of his life to make that sort of video, and it leads to a situation in which every dickhead who is clamoring for some recognition will just follow along with the trend of trying to be some insight-haver in the hopes that it gives them a social or financial return. the irony is that the true "intellectual" who has something insightful to say about a topic is making those sorts of videos to SAY THE INSIGHTFUL THING WITHOUT WANT FOR INFAMY.

anyway I waxed poetic for too long.

>>724510075
>Slitterhead was beyond niche and that's not talking about how much of a bait and switch it was, marketing itself as horror when it's a jank action game.
Maybe you should watch the trailers instead of sitting catatonic in your chair going "HOLY SHIT THEY SAID SILENT HLL!!!"
It was obviously an action game from the first look at the actual gameplay.
>>724510334
My point was more that people do not want new IPs. Gravity Rush was also something only "beloved" in retrospect. Nobody here actually bought GR, nobody complaining about Japan Studio's demise actually played any of their games, it's just nice to think about for whatever reason.
And then, nobody bought Slitterhead, after years of talking up how IMPORTANT it is to have new IPs and how Sony was EVIL for killing poor little Japan Studio. Almost like they died for a reason.

>>724490692 (OP)
The "Then" section is being veeeery mild here. Even flash games back then were amazing, some still better than the average modern slop

>>724490692 (OP)
>80s, 90s, and 00s weren't all 90% shovelware

There is way less shovelware now (not counting PC indie stuff) because games are way more expensive to make. 99% of the NES, SNES is actual broken, unplayable slop.

>>724491119
>the game personally

>>724510685
>99% of the NES, SNES is actual broken, unplayable slop.
Just don't count it the way you don't count PC indies stuff or the Nintendo eShop

>>724510685
>There is way less shovelware now
20,000 games on Steam last year. 20,000. How many of those are garbage? 99% might often be used as an embellishment but in this case it might actually unironically be true.

99% of NES, SNES games? ~700 SNES games released in NA, ~500 in EU, you think only 5-7 of them aren't "actual broken, unplayable slop"? What about the PS1/N64?
Jesus fuck what a fat sweaty mong you are.

>>724510664
>Nobody here actually bought GR, nobody complaining about Japan Studio's demise actually played any of their games,
>And then, nobody bought Slitterhead
nta but i bought GR 1 and 2 remastered (didn't have a vita, so i couldn't play the originals). i played locoroco and patapon, bloodborne, the last guardian, white knight chronicles, echochrome, tokyo jungle (this one sucked), every single ape escape game i could. i also bought slitterhead on launch. don't tell me i don't support the things i like.

>>724511001
Maybe 30% of SNES games are playable. Half of that worth mentioning. Half of that great. Half of that veritable classics.

>>724510675
They were still outnumbered by the barely functional ones

>>724513768
I only played the games on the frontpage of Newgrounds. There were a TON of them and they were all great.
Also you're very clearly a posing zoomie

>>724513986
I'm just saying that even though there were great Flash games, they were outnumbered by bad ones 10:1, which is demonstrated in the OP image

>>724513986
You're another one that's cherrypicking what you remember from what you've forgotten. You've likely forgotten all the terrible slop you passed over after a cursory glance.

>>724490692 (OP)
Why do poor people refuse to admit that Sturgeon's Law is still in effect, and games didn't stop being good when your poorbox couldn't run them anymore?

>>724490692 (OP)
do you not know what shovelware means? They were the equivalent of mobileslop nowadays. They were low-effort nonsense games that nobody liked and your grandma bought you because she didn't know any better.

if you mean quantity of games, then yes, it's much much easier these days to turn out more slop. but even back on atari and NES plenty of shit games came out. look at all the bootleg shit. there are still great games being made today. the ratio is off because it's just easier to grab assets and make a game these days.

>>724513986
Newgrounds had a system where low ranked content would get completely obliterated from the site, known as "blamming". You didn't see all the bad stuff because it would get removed fairly quickly, especially so since you only looked at the highly rated front-page content. For every Super Mario Z you'd have 1000 India-tier flash movies/games made in an hour.

>>724490692 (OP)
>games that no one cares about
>flash games

Flash and browser games had a larger influence on people and the whole gaming market at large than just about anything else of the time.
There's a reason "we used to have flash games for free that played better than this" is a valid criticism of some games

>>724516393
That's why there's a green box in that section but no green boxes in the "now care about" section

People have less time now. I only play 10s and 9s.

>>724492185
>>724490692 (OP)
People that only consumes the biggest games of the year should be shot to death.

Opinion from people like you are beyond worthless

>>724490692 (OP)
The average has shifted due to falling standards. What people considered a good game back was in reality a 7. Nowadays a "good" game is a 4 or 5.

>>724490692 (OP)
Nobody cares about mechanics and is willing to think about gameplay abstractly anymore. All that matters is that it "feels" right even if it's braindead shallow shit.

>>724510664
>My point was more that people do not want new IPs.
I want new IPs that are good. Gravity Rush wasn't.

>>724496397
2007-2009 was an initial onset, and while CoD4 is a good example it'd still be a hell of a AAA game compared to today's stuff. 2010-2012 is when the room really started to stink, and it's been on a steady decline ever since.

>>724519674
I feel like games stopped evolving around 2010. If you go earlier you can feel it's an older game, but anything post that feels exactly the same. The only thing that improved is graphics and even that is a mixed bag because every other game is blurry ghosting upscaled fake frames that still look ugly because the visual design just sucks.

>>724519394
>Gravity Rush wasn't
NTA but to each their own. The game design was a bit anemic but the gravity gimmick was a unique spin on superhero games and the aesthetic direction was 11/10.

>>724490692 (OP)
Indie game haters are NPC retards. Triple A games are made for mindless cattle.