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The Game Industry Is Choking Itself To Death (The Jimquisition)

February was ridiculous. Anthem, Apex Legends, Metro Exodus, Far Cry New Dawn, and Crackdown 3 all going head to head, and all of them demanding a silly amount of time. 

The game industry is an uncoordinated mess of market saturation and nonexistent long-term planning. The industry wide adoption of "live services" with long content "roadmaps" is already at breaking point. 

Companies have their hands around their own necks and we're supposed to believe everything is normal. This ain't normal. 

The Game Industry Is Choking Itself To Death (The Jimquisition)

Comments

"Roadmap", a.k.a., "This game will be worth playing around the time other games you're more interested in have their own releases... Hey, where are you going?..."

Kraken

Video could use more title belt.

Harry Moore

I'm glad I have interests outside of gaming; books, music, d20 RPGs, contemporary art, cryptozoology and Fortean subjects, etc. They may have their own problems individually as different scenes, but at least I can take a break from the TRIBBLEBIBBLY AAAAYYYY ludicrousness of video games at their worst.

Freakish Uproar

I'm even getting jaded around indie games, because of how much of it is either soulless retro nostalgia bait, meme filled, trying to be quirky and ending up being cringey, mimicking other successful indie titles, or just buggy and the devs don't care. A particularly egregious example of that last one is the performance problems in the original, Flash-based <i>Binding of Isaac</i>, which the developer never addressed, but instead remade the game, and didn't even offer owners of the original a discount on the remake.

Twit In A Hat

I did that for <i>Just Cause 3</i>, and that didn't even have this crap. It just had a bit of content carving into DLC (and bugs, of course). I think that may have been the last "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" game I bought…

Twit In A Hat

Another solid battering of the AAA gaming industry.

Perpetual Noob

7:06 - Holy shit! Oaky Doke! I hope you never stop inserting segments of weird British television that I'd almost obliterated from my memory into your videos, Jim. Whilst I'm totally on your side in regards to the noticeable dearth of single player experiences in mainstream games, if I had to play devils advocate one could argue that developing, marketing and selling a traditional uno-player game has become a unparalleled risk for flagship games companies. It strikes me that a lot of these live service games don't have to try nearly as hard to capture the imagination, interest or curiosity of their target demographics. A considerable amount of folks who are interested in online gaming seem to buy into whatever happens to be going on at the time, maybe as a symptom of FOMO and wanting to be part of something before the chance slips away, as it inevitably will. Your video got me thinking about several games I've been playing recently. Not long ago I finished Cyanide studio's <i>Call of Cthulhu</i>, I purchased and finished the Taiwanese game <i>Devotion</i> after seeing GG Gab's playthrough of it, and I've nearly made my way through <i>Resident Evil 4</i> again. I'm afraid I didn't heed your warnings in your Jimpression's vid about <i>Call of Cthulhu</i>. Being a giant Lovecraftian geek I'm doomed to hype any adaptation of his work and almost always being disappointed by the results. It left me feeling terribly underwhelmed and uninspired, serving to starkly remind me how difficult it is to capture the outré speculative-realist dread of H.P. Lovecraft's stories outside of the literary medium. <i>Devotion</i> was definitely a pleasant surprise. I was ready to dismiss it as another gorgeous but aimless walking sim, or even a folkloric P.T. clone. But I wasn't expecting a story that I actually felt invested in, an environment that intrigued and haunted me in equal measure, and three characters I genuinely cared about. It reminds me somewhat of <i>Layers of Fear</i> only mechanically and environmentally a lot tighter, and thankfully the voice acting/scripting was considerably less hammy and gauche. It left me with lots of questions but also deeply satisfied with the narrative. I do bring those games and Resi 4 up to make a point though. Given how industries of all kinds have dug themselves into an accelerationist zero-sum game of conjuring up markets to fill niches that don't even exist yet, is it really any wonder that The Triples A's put all their eggs in the live service basket? Why take a risk trying to get someone like me - the capricious individual, the itinerant and typically more selective gamer with interests outside of games themselves - invested in something unique and well-conceived? Why bother at all? When they can instead dump all of their assets into a couple of maps and draw upon a much bigger ready-made fan-base of people whose almost compulsory attendance will pay for the production costs alone. <i>“That's how it is on this bitch of an earth.”</i> ~ <b>Samuel Beckett, <i>Waiting for Godot</i></b>

Freakish Uproar

We are trapped in this cycle.

Ray Richards Thought Ray

Brilliant show i love the red shirt black tie look and i agree with what was said i miss single player games tho i got to a new pc as i think this is 10 year old it had windows 7 when new and i think 3 core amd . but new one need i may to a diy then it can be all chilled i'll run it on 710 instead of the 1080 as the difference ( TO ME) is nominal. Loving the content as always xxxx

I feel like they’re shooting themselves in the foot by presenting/planning for a “roadmap” for content. Because that just signals customers like me that “this game doesn’t have everything included yet, and you should buy it next year when it’s “done.” It’s basically what I did for Destiny 2, and its also what I’m going to do for Anthem.

I usually get most of fun for playing small indie games. Almost all AAA games are "same" with different eye candy.

Juha Linna

The never-ending stooooooooooooory....

Iochannon

Imagine having to read a book that never ends.

Thank you


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