What's your opinion on today's video game industry?

Dear gamers in the Giant Bomb forums

I would like to share my thoughts on today's video game industry on things that I like and dislike on dotted points:

What I like:

• Racing wheel brands such as Fanatec, Thrustmaster and Logitech G have designed their new products and improved over their respective predecessors.
• Assetto Corsa sequel confirmed.
• A lot of car lovers still playing iRacing.
• Gran Turismo 7 and Forza Motorsport Reboot are both appearing to be improved over their respective predecessor in terms of features.
• The newer generation of Sim Racing and Simcade Games have their physics being improved.
• Having a lot of brilliant motherboards, CPUs and GPUs to choose from.
• RGBs are amazing for gaming especially computer cases, peripherals, etc.
• Having so many good TVs and monitors to choose from.
• Both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X console designs are awesome!
• Nintendo Switch being a hybrid console is a good idea.
• PlayStation and Xbox both have a good lineup of 1st parties but needs to be better.
• Nintendo is a legendary company as they keep distributing heaps of amazing 1st parties.
• PlayStation 5's Dualsense, Xbox Series X Controller Pad, Nintendo Switch's Joy-Cons and Pro Controller pad are good.
• When I heard a new Twisted Metal installment is on works, this makes me want to see more 1st party driving games to come!

What I dislike:

• PS5 and Xbox Series X's game price raised up but oh well, we better deal with it.
• PS5's Dualsense, Xbox Series X Controller Pad, Nintendo Switch's Joy-Cons and Pro Controller pad may drift which is very unfortunate for their owners.
• Ubisoft (Publisher) doesn't seem to care about PC gaming (Judging that their developers appearing to uncared about PC port's optimization plus poor online multiplayer gameplay) as they pretty much only care for PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo consoles.
• Rockstar Games only cares for GTA and Red Dead Redemption while they don't care about the majority of their other franchises including the Midnight Club series.
• EA loves to put so much micro-transaction for the games that they publish.
• Sony Interactive Entertainment and Xbox Game Studios both don't really seem to care about their driving game IPs other than Gran Turismo and Forza series respectively.
• PS5 and Xbox Series X among other electronics are going on shortages.
• Most style-arcade racers are pretty much Free 2 Play mobile games (Relying on many pay to win in order to unlock rarer content).
• Square-Enix's Final Fantasy 16 is too brutal (This is potentially going to ruin the franchise IMO).
• Newer PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X games may have a smaller amount of content than their respective past generations because to reduce the cost of making gamers otherwise they will end up as DLCs.
• Even games that I don't seem to like because of their genre/sub-genre, the roster of playable content, and setting (No matter if it's 1st or 3rd party), I'd rather not play with them.
• Nintendo is still refusing to bring the F-Zero franchise back apart from Nintendo Switch Online, which consists of F-Zero (1990) on SNES and F-Zero X on N64.
• I cannot handle most of M-Rated gruesome games including the God Of War series. Because it's too disturbing as they will give me nightmares.

Here is my side note about thoughts on gaming communities:

There are good and the dark-side which I've seen across the internet but the differences are:

• The good side consists of nice people that talk a lot of sense, respecting others while the majority of them refrain from talking about products that they dislike.
• The dark side consists of immature people that they're being elitists, disrespecting others as they talk non-sense constantly including ranting on products that they hate. Say, for example, if a user personally likes a product that they're interested in (No matter if it's superior or inferior to others), they will get antagonised which is not nice at all.

That's why I feel bitter about the dark side of the gaming community especially the Sony elitists, however, if you see them, please do not bother to engage in arguments with them.

Dislike the subset of gamers who are absolute assholes. The sexist, racist trolls who harass and dox anyone they think are "SJWs". You know the type.
Dislike the increasing focus on subscription services and microtransactions.
Dislike the failure of the Vita preventing me from getting Vita 2.

Like the attention that smaller non-combat games have been getting. Stuff like Chicory, Spiritfarer, etc.
Like the attention that accessibility has been getting. Hope to see it improve and be included in all games.
Like the visual and performance quality of Sony's PS5 first party output. I only mention Sony because that's the only platform I play on.

@peffy: Yeah, a lot of people don't like toxic culture in general.

Great games. Fascinating technology. Terrible work environments. Greedy publishers. Pretentious armchair developers. And the holier-than-thou justice warriors and puritans who don't realize that they're as juvenile as the trolls.

The video game industry has become as cold and heartless as any other major industry that generates billions of dollars a year. And like many of those industries, most people don't care as long as the games keep coming, like a family doesn't care how bad the animals are treated on a corporate owned farm, as long as the steak looks pretty on the plate during dinner time. Or how people don't care how much poor countries are used as slaves to make clothing, as long as there available to purchase at their favorite retailer. It's the cruel reality of capitalism and most people are fine with it, even many who claim they aren't. And the sad truth is, whenever a corporate blow up or scandal happens, its usually because of infighting for power within the industry, not because the commoners stormed the gates.

The only positive thing you can say about the video game industry is the existence of the indie developers. A lot of them are small studios of people with a real passion for making video games. This results in cool, innovative, games with the small budgets they have. Some of the best games to come out in the past decade were indie games, not corporate backed so-called AAA games. If not for them keeping things fresh and optimistic, the video game industry would be dead by now IMO.

The bigger the publisher/developer, the blander the games have become. My eyes glaze over at the biggest and brightest, which is disappointing. Even publishers I used to trust have fallen back on formulas. Even the games that are supposed to sell me on next-gen are feeling more like re-treads than exciting forward thinking software. I don't think the cross-get period is holding anyone back - these games have the budgets to push things and try something new across all hardware, they just don't. Toss in all of the revelations about all of these publishers and, well, it's an easy skip anyway.

Gamers are also some of the worst, closed minded people I've ever had the displeasure of knowing they existed. It's hard to find a gaming website without people crying about how there's a black character or a slightly less femme woman character and how this is woke and bad. Plus people opposed to anything new - everything is trash, everything is the enemy, console warring mentality, "I should care because why?" attitudes, etc.

That being said, even in the flurry of delays and such happening right now, I've never had more of a promising suite of games at my fingertips. It's never been easier to dabble around, find what I like, and play to my heart's content. We're seeing some old favorites get modern remixes in really cool ways. It's also cool that I have plenty to play as someone who doesn't see much value in upgrading their various plastic boxes, especially when I'd have to go hunt online or pay for some terribly overpriced bundle. Throw in the ongoing glorious backwards compatibility included in every platform and honestly I'm having a grand time.

Chip shortages have affected the industry creating groups of haves and have nots. PS5 and XBox Series X launched almost a year ago, but many people who want them still can't get them. It also doesn't help that PC gamers who want to play the latest AAA titles at decent framerates at 2k or 4k resolution have to pay ridiculous prices for video cards due to scalpers.

The pandemic has caused the industry to take a very conservative approach. Think of the latest GamesCom event and how many games featured were sequels, re-releases or remasters.

In a positive spin, due to the pandemic, gaming has never before been more popular. Turns out when people are forced indoors, playing video games has become an acceptable hobby not relegated to kids or a typical "gamer" demographic. Indie companies are also receiving way more attention than normal due to many AAA games being delayed and indie games being playable on older consoles and PCs.

As for where the future is headed, I'm going to bank that the video games industry in China and Korea will start to dominate. Initially the industry there has been swamped with cheap mobile ripoffs or games with heavy micro transactions. But lately, they have been showcasing games with exceptional detail, artistic talent and graphical prowess. Games like Black Myth: Wu Kong and DokeV truly look next gen versus the AAA games out right now that seem like games designed for older consoles but with higher framerates and resolutions.

If you care about the "industry" side of games at all. It's pretty damn bad honestly. All for the reasons people listed off above and frankly it's not hard to be cynical about it after absorbing so much news and rumors and the latest discourse.

But on the actual games side? To quote a former editor, it's never been a better time to play video games. The sheer breadth of releases and things you can play and enjoy and discover is insanity and if you can't find something you like to play in today's games you must be broken.

I'm going to repost something I put on the GB reddit.

"Don't know if anyone cares or has seen this ongoing spat between Jeff Grubb and David Jaffe, but as a paying premium member who has seen all of Grubbsnax and a semiregular viewer of Jaffe's content I feel like Grubb is really misrepresenting Jaffe. He seems to believe Jaffe is one of those rightwing outrage guys when he's an Elizabeth Warren Democrat with a gay brother and trans son who does speak his mind and occasionally puts his foot in his mouth which I know is not as progressive as most of GB and its audience is. I've never seen Jaffe come off as being purposefully bad faith and he does like poking fun at things but not out of malice unless it was done to him first. If I had to guess it would be because of Jaffe's friendly relationship with Colin Moriarty that he got that perception, but Grubb literally shouted out MrMattyPlays who works directly for Colin on Grubbsnax. I think it's a shame Jaffe is seen so negatively since he has some of the most interesting content about the games industry as a former creator with several great in-depth longform interviews of developers past and present and he's fairly honest about his own successes and failures. He's doing the type of interviews that Jeff did during E3s that people wish more for."

Even just today with the Twisted Metal news a bunch of articles are going after Jaffe without seeing the full context of the video he posted about it. He also had some thoughts about the very hot developer crunch and unionization debates and that is that while he is overall supportive he remains skeptical, and for certain sectors of the industry a nuanced opinion like that is not even worth debating, you either have to be completely in support of or you're scum. This reminds me of the end of MGS2 during the Patriots speech about how everyone is retreating into their small gated community and I think it's a bit sad that even people I'm a fan of in the industry sphere are so blindly guilty of the same thing. There's a quote from the late progressive commentator Michael Brooks who said, "be ruthless with systems, be kind to people". Like come on Jaffe is a corny middle aged guy who rubs cake frosting on his face while watching game trailers and now he's a villain for being a little upset that a company he gave 20 years to didn't give him a little courtesy.

ok buddy

Regardless, dunking on dumb devs is like the least of the industry's problems.

Never been a better time. There's something for absolutely everyone.

Trying to be a part of every game community at every moment is an impossible task, so it was kind of neat to be in a more exclusive club back in the day. But I love where the industry is at with a niche for anyone to jump in and enjoy themselves.

The games are good

The people are bad

Yeah, during online gaming in general, I've heard stories of grumpy players use their mics to abuse others so we always have to mute them because they want attention from everyone.

Summed up how I feel perfectly!

I think gaming's biggest issue now, is where games are made. As in the technlogicla hub cities where developers set up show and why they are put there. To many development studios are in teh chicken & egg puzzle of being situated where other game developers are, but those game developers are so concentrated that those area are TOO EXPENSIVE for employees to live. On the other hand developers/publisher want to be where there are many of disposable and replacemebale employees

The whole game industry need create more 'tech-hubs' of development that merely Texas, So Cal, Silicon valley /Berkeley Calif, Redmond Washington. Gaming needs to start diversifying the hubs of development. They of course won't like this because happy employees don't move around and quit so you can replace them with cheaper fresher labor. However, I think more development will go that direction because trying to keep anyone is LA, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle will start to get harder - there is a breaking point.

Here is a list of seven respected school not on the west coast that offer game development curriculum, and are in cities where the cost of living is 1/3 of that in those western "tech-hub" cities.

• Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
• Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA
• Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA
• Champlain College, Burlington, VT
• Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
• Northeastern University, Boston MA
• New York University, New York, NY

There are more school, but honestly if you want to be on teh programming side they are likely no technical enough to ensure a job. Of course you skill is art, then most arts school will be more than sufficient for illustration, animation and 3D modeling.

Players are spoilt for choice. Unfortunately, the price we pay for industry is all the shady practices that inevitably come with it. Crunch, harassment and all that. On the one hand, you'd hope employers would get a handle on the actual people management but games are always going to be very weird projects to undertake.

I don't need to repeat the issues already brought up, bad stuff is bad, so i'll focus on the games.
The last 3 or 4 years has seen me gradually care less and less about new games, and i think it's due to the number of clones there are, most games are trying to be Fortnite or Dark Souls or a rogue like, i guess it's similar to when loads of Call of Duty clones were coming out but the difference is there were plenty of other types of games coming out back then.
I also feel like i've aged out of the gamer demographic somewhat, i'm 32 and feel like games aren't trying to appeal to me anymore, the new audience is the hyper cool smart phone poggers generation.
I'm an enormous fan of Perfect Dark and a PDZ apologist so i should be excited for the new one, but even that's dampered by the questionable style of the teaser and the apparent trouble they're having making it.
I'm currently playing the first Max Payne again, then i want to play Metal Gear Solid 3, then i'm thinking about emulating Pikmin on the Gamecube because i never played it, and that's generally my approach to games these days.

@gtxforzasaid:

• Racing wheel brands such as Fanatec, Thrustmaster and Logitech G have designed their new products and improved over their respective predecessors.

Logitech G? you mean the G29? what's new in the steering wheel G29? it's a good low end steering wheel but it's old. No DD just the same old G29.

Grand Turismo Sport & 7: I hate the radar thing please let me play with more monitors or with an ultrawide one.

PS4 version? Why?

For Logitech G's wheel, I was meant to refer to G923 TRUEFORCE for the PlayStation and Xbox versions.

So if you don't understand why the PS4 version of GT7 will exist? because a lot of GT fans who own a PS4, really want to play this game and wanting to buy a PS5 while it's hard to find one from retailers apart from scalpers.

I've heard GT7 was supposed to be a PS4 game to be released around 2015-2016 then it seems that FIA has forced Polyphony Digital to turn it into more of an online simcade racing game so it ended up being called Gran Turismo Sport plus it's a spin-off in the series IMO.

Edit: I still don't get why Logitech G won't design a wheel that utilises direct wheel drive, while I heard Thrustmaster is designing a direct wheel drive wheelbase but it's exclusive to PC though which I don't mind about that.

I'm more of an Assetto Corsa guy these days.