A required internet connection for single player games is one that really pisses me off EDIT: What I mean is when someone plays a single player game that requires internet and their internet goes out for a minute and the game forces them to stop playing because of that
Same here, even gran turismo 7, never used online features but still have to adhere to them. Utter bullshit won’t catch me paying for similar games again
@@connerSphotography That's literally how capitalism works. A CEO only has ONE job - to make a return on the investment(s) of the shareholders. I'm an accountant and that's one of the first things you learn - A CEO only has a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders. Not the customer - who buys the product or service, not the employees - who make the product or provide the service - ONLY to the shareholders. I'm old enough (50+) to remember when America was known for quality products that would last. Now it's just hurry up, make it fast and make it break just as fast so they have to buy a new one. Capitalism ruins everything for the average person. Everything from healthcare (when healthcare is for profit there is no incentive to heal) to utilities are for profit when they shouldn't be - nothing required to survive should be for profit. Capitalism is great for those who have the capital to be capitalists but that is NOT the working class!!!
I don't blame the company for predatory practice. I blame the naive weirdo that keeps buying the same game🤦♂️ the unsocialized shut-in's armed with their Grandma's credit card, the young or naive that jump on a pre-sale because they are just *that* giddy about a video game. In fact I wish I could come up with a way to transfer their money to my account as well. Theres a sucker born every second of the day just waiting and ready to be preyed upon.
I smell a class action lawsuit around the "you don't own your games" philosophy. When i buy the game, the market place doesn't sell me a rental. There aren't any other commodities that I buy that can be stolen back because the company feels like it.
There absolutely are, every other digital media. Movies you buy on Amazon or whatever, e-books, anime on Funimation just got taken back. Class action lawsuit never gonna happen tbh because it’s right in the TOS of all these services
SOFTware is not a physical thing. You dont own shit. Ever. You only buy a license to use this Software. You are not allowed to change, copy or sell that Software. Only the Media which the software is stored on. Why do you idiots never understand that easy concept?
No lawsuit can happen because people's concept of ownership is flawed. People make assumptions about what they own and rarely look further than surface level. Games purchases have never granted ownership. Companies can absolutely revoke "ownership" if they feel the need or want to. I had a Galaxy Note 7 and planned to keep it because I wasn't concerned about them blowing up, but Samsung basically bricked it, and I had to get a new phone.
Read the TOS like you're told to when you sign up to Steam and other game services. You don't "own" the game because you are agreeing to a limited service whereby Steam does all the downloading, patching, collating and storage for you, along with social features. You agreed to wave any "ownership" in order to use this service. If you don't like this, stop using Steam. Very simple concept. The closest you will come to "owning" a game is GOG or an old console. Even then, you're forced to make many concessions in order to use them and even then you still do not "own" the games. Again. Read. The. TOS.
Just as much if not more blame should be stacked on the players for buying into it. Gacha wouldn't be widespread if gamers didn't get suckered in so easily. Games wouldn't be so buggy and broken on release if gamer idiots didn't buy games Day 1.
The majority of high budget media is committee designed unfortunately. In gaming, developers and artist are the last considered while a bunch of suits make decisions with focus groups and metrics. Imagine going through school to learn coding and you have some jerk in a suit that doesn't even play videogames telling you to shove microtransactions in a project.
@@-T--T- I love how in an industry full of predatory shit for profit maximization and mass consumption, people like you think what's ruining games is "I saw a brown person in too many games."
? What, lol?? Just don't watch them, then? I'm not really seeing how this is at all relevant. Just sounds like you have a personal vendetta against streamers.
No, it just turns most people into super sweaty players. When some people want to just enjoy the game after actually having a life and not make the game their entire life.@@Adelaide_Cuthbert
This reminds me of an issue I had with a small-time streamer several years ago on Gran Turismo sport. I smoked him with a 45 second lead in his own race. When I turned the console on the next day I had 10 or so hate messages from him/her that popped up.
Yeah... I've stopped playing competitive online games entirely. Co-op is fine. But any form of battle royale, global leaderboard or clan v clan game is officially off my list. Too many cheaters, too much toxicity, and too many titles of the sort. Also, disc format needs to make a comeback.
I wholeheartedly agree. My main gaming buddy and I talk about this all the time. We are playing Outward together, we both still play Skyrim. I just redownloaded The Outer Worlds to 100% it. We both have given up on Rocket League after putting many hours into it. We have fun playing the older games, these new games just suck.
@@keynanmartinezYeah except indie games don’t have the capabilities to have the same potential scope and vastness in experience. I am not interested in the millionth souls-like, 2D side scroller, retro graphics, or rogue-like. Indie cannot give me another Skyrim or Metal Gear. The extremely rare exceptions have been CD Projekt Red and Larian who are arguably AA studios by this point do their massive size for an indie studio and don’t represent the indie scene.
Fun fact - everytthing on this list has only one reason behind it. Corporate executives. One of the worst things imo is that if the game fails, executives (and sadly sometimes even devs nowadays) invent dumbshait explanation for it like "gamers are not interested in this genre" or lately very frequent "gamers just dont understand our game and/or are bigots". Instead of looking into their mistake, they blame us for their failures.
You're not wrong but its more execs are beholden to shareholders to maximize profits. It is about $ not art that creates an experience. Like most things, corporations screw it all up but maaaan I love seeing my 401k climb!... It's us, we're the problem 😂
@@krenshaw82 You are right, when it comes to execs, it is about money and nothing else. When it comes to devs tho, I assume it is ego? Because we see it more and more lately when AAA game fails, some devs start flaming fans and gamers on twitter and whatever. Unable to accept they did something we do not like, they start looking for excuses such as "bigotry" or low IQ and what not.
@@Syrin23Nah, execs are cancer. I work in medical and the CEO makes over half the money all the clinics makes and he doesn't even have a nursing degree. Your healthcare isn't expensive because your doctor drives a BMW. Same with gaming. You think Bobby Kotick knows how to code?
I don't blame the company for predatory practice. I blame the naive weirdo that keeps buying the same game🤦♂️ the unsocialized shut-in's armed with their Grandma's credit card, the young or naive that jump on a pre-sale because they are just *that* giddy about a video game. In fact I wish I could come up with a way to transfer their money to my account as well. Theres a sucker born every second of the day just waiting and ready to be preyed upon.
@@Dwaxxx The gaming community is bullshit. Ppl online with their "gamers opinion" barely make 10% of actual sales. Year after year the internet would convince you that the next cod won't sell a single copy yet it make billions. There is a silent majority which don't voice their opinions.
What is sad, it’s the same thing in other industries. My wife works in the Aerospace industry and the company had record profits for the companies history. They had enormous layoffs following because of unrealistic expectations in profits.
I know countless people have already said this in the comment section, and that you basically implied it by mentioning this case. But yeah, we can determine that "most" of the problems any video game industry has is directly related to the executives. Hell, any industry whatsoever.
You only have to look at since the start of the Ukraine war, everyone said they had to raise their prices and every company made record profits doing it, if they’re making record profits then they’re probably putting prices up by so much that they’re just exploiting consumers, the oil companies especially, they can set whatever price they want and people literally have to pay it, I bet half these scummy fuckers already have more money than they know what to do with and they’re always wanting more.
@@rsh650it’s true though. Paying for a game no longer gets your ownership of that game. They will take it or shut it down whenever they want. I agree Piracy should no longer be considered theft then.
@@rsh650 Only if they're making a profit out of it. If I download a game for free, it's like borrowing it from a friend, so it shouldn't be considered illegal. Not everything the laws say is correct.
I think the fact that it's now an exception not a rule that you actually get a complete product when you buy a game is perhaps the most damaging thing to the user experience. There's always gonna be whales, there's always gonna be shifts in the market, there's always gonna be studios chasing "the next big thing" while copying what others did better, but if we're being sold 60-80% of a game because they wanna push it out faster or sell the patches or content as DLC, then who the hell is going to want to buy new games? I remember lining up outside the same stores for a new release. Even though it's online, that has become something you actively want to avoid, since we just expect the first few days to be an absolute mess now the majority of the time.
DEFINITELY OFF of buying new games. I waited for Cyberpunk, waited for Battlefield 2042, waited for the next Fallout….. Not buying brand new games anymore….. Done for life 💀
DO NOT cut early access games slack. It’s criminal how long many games on Steam have been listed in early access and after over half a decade are still unfinished.
And yet there are plenty of games (like BG3) that use Early Access correctly. And the fact of the matter is, you go into buying an early access game knowing what it is. If not, you're either blind or stupid, period.
I'm fine as long as they are constant updates and communication. But I think if a game goes a certain length of time without one of those, Steam should revoke the tag.
I worked for Tuxedo Labs on teardown, and a little while after my contract ended, Tuxedo was sold to Embracer. I've been told I'm lucky I left when I did.
@@djrosette I don’t have all the details, all I know is it’s some business conglomerate that tried to buy up hundreds of game studios, and there was something about some Saudi deal that was going to make them rich, but it all failed and now they have all these game studios they don’t know how to run, and can’t afford - so, yeah, it’s chaos.
@@larrywalsh9939ah d'accord. Merci beaucoup. So Embracer is just a greedy company who has tried and failed a bunch of "get rich quick" schemes PS this is my opinion but Embracer should quit while their not ahead then give the game studios to real game developers that both knows what they are doing and can afford to run the studios
Pretty much my biggest issue is too many things now being live service/having battle passes. It was heavy hitting for it to be #10 when I thought it would've been like top 4. The gaming job layoffs and studio closings have definitely been depressing and kinda like Falcon was saying, it's been contradictory seeing companies boist about making so much at year's end and milestones yet same day letting plenty of game devs know via twitter/online they don't have a job anymore. It doesn't seem quite inspiring for dev interns/college students looking to get into the field
Battleborn is a sad story. Even the story mode, that could be played as a single player, was server based so when they shut down the servers, the entire game became unplayable. Gearbox also did absolutely nothing to promote the game. I only knew about it because I had been invited to beta test it. The people who worked on the game worked really hard and put so much love into it and you can tell. But how things went down makes me think Prick-ford (yes I know thats not his name, I am calling him a name) never liked the game and thats why the company did absolutely NOTHING to encourage people to play.
To this day I still think about that game. It could have been an Overwatch killer, or at least the direct competitor, but they also messed up with their in game economy. Beat the story 6-8 times just to have enough currency to unlock 1 new character. They tried charging full price AND using the F2P model. If they chose one it would've been amazing. But yea, severe lack of marketing, and greed and stinginess in-game contributed to it's unnecessary downfall.
Heavy hitting just for it to be #10. I kinda wanted battle passes to had been explicitly mentioned but I do think that covers it at least. Too crazy to think about what's happened and going to happen with WB, Rocksteady, Hogwarts outselling CoD (and that's another thing, mentioned in the vid as well, half the major triple A devs/companies have just been giving us remasters, recycling old classics)
Its not nearly that simple no matter how much you want it to be. The reality is that game development has gotten so ridiculously expensive its really hard to justify making one that doesn't have potential to generate alot of money in return. Its not "greed" as much as its what you have to do to stay in business these days. Unless something drasticly changes, its all very unsustainable and we are likely heading for a crash or an environment where everything is consolidated under 1 or 2 companies who can actually afford to make games.
@@AD-df5tm I see your point but it doesn't help when companies know what the fans want but ignore it and do what the company wants which is to make games that milk gamers. They have to realize overtime that will tarnish their image. But playing devils advocate I think new age gamers don't care about being exploited because it's the culture now so companies are gonna appeal to them.
@@MicroWave233even the fans dont know what they want lol. Ask 5 gamers about a game and you get 5 different opinions. This weird idea that gamers are just one large uniform block is silly. You really think game companies are intentionally not making games they know people want instead of making them and getting hundreds of millions in sales? Come on, man.
It is extremely rare I buy a game on launch. TotK was the only one in years that I knew I was going to play and was excited for. But with exclusivity deals, I couldn't even buy most games new if I wanted to. It's probably going to be two years before I can play FF7: Rebirth.
10. Electronic Arts 9. Bobby KoDICK 8. Idiots in power 7. Greed. 6. Ignorance 5. Unchecked virtual gambling 4. Riot Games 3. Inability for ppl to say hell no to their bosses on a industry scale 2. Human rights violations 1. Lack of a union
Back in 2005 or 2006, I wrote a letter to the then-Playstation magazine complaining about a lot of the trends that began during that time. Even then, I didn't realize HOW BAD it would get. Pretty much, to summarize your list, big companies get bigger, greedier, treats customers, developers and workers in very shoddy ways, tries to make big money fast while eroding the gaming experience and overall industry.
10: Live service trend. 9: De-listing games. 8: Releasing broken/unfinished games without disclosure. 7: Cheating in multiplayer. 6: DRM. 5: Budget and development time inflation. 4: Encouraging players to not own games and subscribe to subscription services. 3: Gatcha, Loot boxes, microtransactions etc. 2: Studio closures and layoffs. 1: Consolidation of IPs by large companies.
This list breaks down the majority of the issues that are affecting the gaming industry and if they do not reverse course, it can only become disastrous!
Amidst all of this, I'm still glad that the best games still get the love they deserve. There are still great games that raise the bar and are instant classics! The quality of our best games keeps rising, but it's true that we need to be wary of all the shit... It's honestly a big reason why I'm subbed to gameranx. To keep me posted, informed and up to date as a consumer. Silly narations often help though... Looking at you, Falcon!
@@Syrin23If you only play AAA, that's true. Indie usually doesn't have overhead like that to worry about. Larian is pretty much an indie studio and their passion project became one of the greatest made games in our lifetime
@@Syrin23 if the NBA has double dribble issues, which it does, and people say there's an issue in basketball, no one points to the WNBA and says it's not an issue. Stop it.
I remember when Moral Kombat Arcade Kollection (1, 2 and 3) for XBOX 360 lost its license on the platform as a whole. Even though I bought the game, it was removed from my library and could never play it again. Out of money and out of luck due to a licensing change.
@@lovegodessmls28hardly matters when physical just means all you have is the base layer and you need an 80gb download to have the final version of the game 😂🤬
@@jasonrafael5945that is a problem. Physical often seems just a key for a download. Like latest COD games. I don’t want the multiplayer. I wait a while and buy a used copy for the single player. But single player isn’t on the disc!
Moral Kombat 😄 Sorry but that was funny typo. But anyway. Doing that kind of shitty move because of licencing is very bad. That should only be applied to new stuff and not to stuff which has already being done. Some common sense would be needed in those cases.
That's actually the real reason for "inflation". There's not any reason other than greed for price gouging. No oil shortage or short supply. No boats stuck in the Panama Canal. OPEC sets gas prices not the US president. Booming economy but wages stagnant and homelessness increasing. It's so gross. 🤢🤮
Greed isn’t exclusive to the super wealthy. People demanding that the super wealthy give them their wealth because “income inequality” are more greedy than the super wealthy.
I remember going through game pro magazine looking for the new game. Every new Grand theft Auto, every new resident evil, every metal gear, always seeing something new going "what is this, this looks cool" Nowadays I can see a game trailer and I'm completely shut off from being excited because of how bad games are when they come out. You buy a game, and all the cool stuffs locked behind transactions, that or the games unplayable. It even seems like some games they care more for the graphics than the gameplay and you feel like the older games had more to do than the newer games. The open worlds seems like there's nothing going on
While I understand the owning a license and not the game, if the market is going to end up all digital and able to be removed whenever, the companies need to adjust pricing downward, which they aren’t going to do either. 🤬
They're not going to do that because people aren't going to stop buying games. If people would back off and actually draw a red line, companies would have to adjust because there is a shitload of money still to make in the game industry... they are just trying to make more more more more because they have basically already had it proven to them that there are people out there that will top hundreds if not thousands of dollars into a game they already bought, will pay for a live service, will give the company an interest-free loan just so they can have the game the second that it launches and so on and so forth. Blame the dumdum consumer. Their idiotic Behavior has convinced investors that there may be a way to change the gaming industry more and more and more into this type of thing. And you know what? They are probably spot on.
@@jamesmiller5331 I used to buy games at launch all the time. Now I buy *maybe* one or two a year, if even that. It's just generally not worth buying games on release to me anymore. You've got buggy releases, shoving in cash shops a few months after release to avoid reviewers being able to comment on them, live services that are DOA, etc. I buy games during sales, 6 months to a year after launch and all that stuff is out in the open and the game's cheaper. Only game I bought full price last year was D4, and that was because they caught me with the Beta making it seem like the game was gonna be good. Lesson learned and taken to heart on that one.
@@coRliX4k people that know how to and are able will for sure. People with money to blow and or Grandma or Daddy's credit card will continue to do what they're doing as well.
I didn't really think I needed to watch this video (while cooking) but was very eye-opening and enlightening to the ongoing problems I've noticed in the gaming industry. Puts every aspect of the industry into perspective as to why everything has gone into its downfall. A shame :/
The big issue that basically all of this falls under is corportization. When an emerging industry gets huge, and suddenly the richest people in the world start taking it seriously, and so they gobble up the industry to try to take all that profit for themselves. But in the process, they usually destroy said industry, because these mega corps don't know anything about the product being sold. Video games are on the tail end of that process right now. It's only a matter of time before it gets so bad that the AAA games industry completely collapses.
Can we just bring back games that let you unlock things as you play and make you wanna go through the levels again with these newly unlocked items? Brotato does an amazing job with this
I don't play shooters anymore but I always look back on something like halo reach. You see someone in cool armor with nice armor effect and think wow that guy played alot to unlock the armor and have enough entirely in game credits to put that look together. Now you see a cool gun camo and just think wow I wonder how much money that cost. You used to be able to determine a good bit about a player by what cosmetics they had on, now you can just determine that they were willing to pay real money.
I'm working on it! Just give me 4 to 5 years! I miss the old days too. I think only indie devs will go for this though cos everyone else has to answer to someone else (shareholders and publishers etc).
Vimms layer 🙌 all his preserved games are checked and verified so no risk of viruses (I mean someone could hack his site but he does good job at keeping all downloads clean)
The layoffs are the worst in my opinion. "CEO: Well, we made 5b with this game and it only took us 1.5b to make, so instead of paying you for your hard work, I'm gonna fire the lot of you and wipe my ass with the extra revenue. We love wiping our asses with money on the corporate suite". The thing that come to my mind was "Well, the surgery was a success, we removed the entire tumor without any complications whatsoever, so you should be getting discharged in 2 or 3 days. Now I'm gonna pack my stuff because I'm getting fired for doing my job the way I'm supposed to".
I love watching your videos for the last several years, but I have 1 request: please add the names of the games that you show. I play a lot of video games, and sometimes you show games that I would love to try, but I have no idea what they are called. Keep up the good work
You can turn ON subtitles in english ,so when falcon pronounces the games name in his monologue it will be spelled at the bottom of the screen in English!
I have this gripe about video game youtubers in general. But I've had good luck asking "what is the game at 03:23" or whatever. Sucks that it's an extra step. But I get it. The editor added some stuff that was not related to the script, and probably at the last minute, and it just didn't get referenced anywhere.
Under Australian law if I buy a game, I own the game and can make copies for my personal use as well as alter the game in any way I want, I can also sell the game to anyone I chose but I must either destroy or hand over any copies I made. The Australian law overrides any agreements made with the game developers.
There is no way thats accurate lol. You are basically saying the Australian govt made bootlegging and IP theft legal 😂 Im sure there is alot of nuance there that you are missing.
Everyone should watch, listen and take notes on Number 10! I am sick of good games being ruined by live service, always online, micro transaction crapola
It’s the same old story of messing with the formula. People who don’t know anything about creating products injecting unnecessary changes and ideas that ends up destroying the thing that makes the organization relevant and profitable, in this case our games.
Always appreciate Falcon's takes on the gaming industry. I would love to hear ideas and brainstorming around solutions that everyday ordinary gamers can do to influence the industry for the better. It sometimes leaves you feeling empty when you listen and agree with a list of grievances and don't really get the catharsis of, but hey, these guys are trying this to combat anti-consumer practicies. Really interested to hear the teams thoughts down that rabbit hole.
As a competitive fighting game player, microtransactions are sadly going nowhere. Pretty much every tournament worth its salt is expected to have EVERY piece of costume, character, and stage DLC, so you just multiply those costs by just about every single tourney from the majors on down to your tiny local and yeah
The dlc model still pisses me off, cutting pieces of a completed game only to sell it on later is simply a huge con that for some reason we tend to put up with. Games are extremely expensive as it is often around £60 but to play the game in its entirety its knocking up the price closer to £100 which is ridiculous, no wonder the gaming industry is screwed.
Are they intentionally cutting out story? Used to be DLC always came out later because they waited to see if the game was profitable. If it was, then they'd invest more to extend upon favorite characters and the such. Maybe it's done differently now.
@ShrockWPS would you put it past big corporations cutting pieces of a game and sell it on after release to increase profits from their investment? It used to be that you pay around $30 for a game and for that you got the full game as the studio's completed topic now it's around $60 for approx 80% (as an estimate) of the final product and now make that $60 price tag up to around $80/$90.
@@nemo9540 I wouldn't put it past some companies, but I wouldn't say that is everyone. The game prices are more than just what devs and publishers do. When large titles were only $30 gas was also a dollar or less a gallon. Can't blame game companies for inflation. Not only that but so much more work goes into games now then 30 years ago. Just look at Daggerfall compared to Skyrim. There is no comparison between the 2.
As some one who still works in the games industry for a certain winter storm themed company the layoffs have been sad and kind of scary. It is a very volatile time in the games industry and I am glad to still have my job.
im happy ive held on to all my old consoles. if i ever lose internet or the newer games i have stop working, i have those old games to fall back on and play. even if you buy a hard copy of a game today, you will still need to download part of the game and download the current update. there isnt really a good reason to buy a hard copy today, and that makes me sad.
Same here, even though I own and play on a PS5 I still have a bunch of old games in my library that are offline single player that I can load up anytime I want in case the Internet goes kaput.
Same, still have all the PlayStations, and games. What kind of gets me not honestly is that emulation is now possible on phones, so I usually download a ROM and play it there before plugging everything in and grabbing the disk. At least my PS3 gets used, can't do that on a phone yet really
To Falcon's last point: one thing I think we REALLY need as consumers is an easier way to digest those "Les Misérables"-length user agreements that we all tend to scroll through and just hit "Agree." I mean if we're being totally honest, a good chunk of the woes we experience as gaming consumers we bring upon ourselves by not reading those things. (Not saying we're being lazy or we deserve what we get...those things are written unreasonably long and complex on purpose) But if we had a way to better understand what is in one of those things, I think it would help a lot.
Don't engage. Only buy games that don't have a contract attached to them. It limits the games you can buy, but at least you don't have to worry about some ceo taking away your access to the product you paid for!
I thought a few years back, a law was passed where the "terms & agreements" are supposed to now be more organized/comprehensible and idk if it's the original or only for updates to it, but they headline the changes and/or significant terms that change or have...idk, and yeah foolish for me to think/hope so, but humanitarian/safety highlights right at the start so you don't have to go to page 5 paragraph 8 to "protect us"?
or in other words corporate greed, at some point the line simply cant keep going up man its going to cause problems. Doing stuff for your shareholders instead of your customers is a big problem
The whole state of gaming right now pisses me off. If ever there was an argument to why i hate when things get popular its that. These corporate shills arent worried about anything but the bottom line. They don't even care about ruining the name of the company they're working for as long as it makes them money now. When gaming was still fairly niche companies seemed to care more. I would love to get a ps5 but idk if im going to or not. I dont like the fact that when i purchase a game i only own it as long as i have it downloaded and the servers are still up. (for required online games) I haven't looked into the whole people's ps5 games disappearing from their account but if its like it sounds then companies could literally do that to anyone at anytime and all the money wasted on that game is gone with no hope of recovering anything later on by reselling it or playing it again. I really am completely done with the gaming industry and i hate it cause I've loved it since i owned an ataris. Back when it wasn't cool to be a gamer.
A point following Number 8. Coral Island, a Stardew-like farming sim, "released" in a state where dozens of features in the roadmap weren't done yet, including things like Marriage to certain romanceable character, seasonal events (still have blank areas reserved for mini-games), and you cannot achieve the highest town-ranking yet..
I dont understand how broken games on launch can't be classified as false advertisements. In any industry, if you promised a service and / or failed to meet expectations, you would face legal ramifications... its frustrating and makes no sense. The fact that we have large license agreements and invasive privacy policies that we MUST accept to PLAY THE GAME is insane...
Working on a Disney game in an independent, licensed studio got me my first IMDb credit, which was great...but I _tooootally_ get the whole not-giving-a-shit thing, cuz that game was _crap._ Don't blame me; I just scripted cut-scenes. Hell, don't blame the studio; working for Disney just plain sucks balls.
Avengers was not a failure because the devs were out of their comfort zone. It failed because they put no resources into it. In fact, this is far more the problem than devs being "out of their comfort zone", and a lot of these games just fail because companies don't care about them, or they think they only take the amount of resources as a single player game. It's funny too, because most of the same people were calling for Insomniac to do these type of games, and they don't even have the engine to make one.
I think one (possible) good thing with closing all of those studios is that even though they lose their jobs (which does suck, don't get me wrong) they might be able to make their own indie games that would be fantastic. Most people that makes games love to play them. If they do not have corporate breath on their necks they can take their time, (to the best of their abilities given their personal financial circumstances) and develop a really fun and engaging gaming experience.
That’s gonna be the light at the end of the tunnel for Ubisoft firing Hideo Kojima. While it sucks that we aren’t gonna be getting a proper Metal Gear Solid game made by him with the help of Ubisoft, he’s now free to do whatever he wants and not be bound to anyone or anything except his passion for making games. He’s currently working on a new, original IP called Physint and it’s the first game I’ve been genuinely excited about in years. Hopefully he bucks all these garbage trends, takes his time and makes a game that he’s proud of, that’s stable upon launch and not a blatant cash grab
I feel that he genuinely cares about the video game medium in general, he knows the story telling aspect and is not afraid to take advantage of it! Good comment, I appreciate your response!@@butcheredalive
@@comfychairgaming that’s his best quality, and he shouldn’t be held back from making great games with awesome storylines. I love how he went half independent. He’s getting help from Sony but the dev studio is mostly his. And thank you :)
I concur! half-indie is still fully awesome, especially if the budget is decent. personally I am looking forward to more indie games in the future! especially because it is games being made by gamers still@@butcheredalive
Why L3 to sprint? That seems fairly logical, if the Left analog makes you move, then pressing it harder makes you move faster. It’s a lot better than the dopey “keep tapping x” rockstar uses, that shit sucks ass
one thing that Helldivers 2 did right when it came to the GaaS model was how it doesn't require you to buy anything after buying the game to get the stuff. You can grind the game and unlock EVERYTHING without paying an additional fee. It's also not like insanely hard to do. I got both the premium warbands through grinding with about 75 hours in the game. Plus there are things to unlock anyways so the grind doesn't feel as bad.
Don't forget the fact it's based price is $40 while it could had easily been charged $70. I've had actually been considering into buying Helldivers 2 due to it
@@unclemogiI would it's a fun game with some buddies or randoms and for $40 the value is unreal compared to what they try to give us for $70+ I got grand blue and he'll divers 2 the sake time so far I've got 100 hours in hell divers and about 160 in grand blue 🤣 been bouncing between the two but reccomend helldivers my friend we could always use more divers spreading democracy 😎😎
It is still GARBAGE. Crossplay between friends is not functioning, at all. You can send/receive friend requests via the unique code but it will literally not allow you to accept it. The only way to play with crossplay friends is to select the same mission/world at the same exact time and hope to join together. It’s been a known issue for over a week and there has been no word as to when a patch will be released. It was false advertising.
@A_J100 thank you for speaking up. Helldivers 2 IS NOT the poster child people make it out to be. Game has critical bugs and the current state of crossplay deserves criticism.
@@theMobileJourno I think you guys believe that we believe it's a perfect game. No, it's not, but it's fun as hell to play and doesn't actively try to sell you things. They started making it on an engine that was discontinued midway through their development likely causing unwanted bugs. They also did not have the server capacity they anticipated for the game (being an indie/AA). But the game is fun, some creases to work out but the game is fun. It's been out for 40 ish days and they have been non stop updating the game with fixes.
Hey Gameranx fam! Hope all is well with you and yours. After beating Dragon's Dogma 2, I've moved on to Fallout 76 for the first time. I figured now was as good a time as any to try it out, especially with the show dropping recently. IMO, the Fallout show season 1 was both enjoyable and entertaining. I'm the sort of person who falls in the group of: If it takes place in the Fallout universe, I'm probably going to like it, group. It definitely draws on current lore to a degree, but it also feels like they're going to do their own thing while keeping the games fresh in their minds. For me personally, I'm okay with that so long as they continue to add MANY more enemy types and characters we know and love. I'm excited for the next season. Huge Gameranx fan here, I've been here for years. Thanks for all the great and informative videos!
I think the Embracer thing was someone thinking they could make a hedge fund out of video games. Look at Black Rock and housing. Look at hedge funds buying the rights to music. Video games were a $242B industry in 2023 and anticipated to reach over $500B by 2030. Someone thought they could go in, buy up all the IPs and studios and create a huge fund that would make money from it. The money isn't coming from the development of the IP, it's coming from leasing it out and taking a cut of the sales. Which is why all the studios were shuttered, but the IP rights still remain. At least, that's my take on what happened.
Great list Falcon! The first item should be sent to all publishers as the analysis was spot on and so true! The UbiSoft clown that stated gamers get used to not owning games should be fired. I play Helldivers 2 with a group of friends. It's fun and we have a blast. The day I feel micro-transactions are the only way to level up my character is the day I put that game down.
One of many good things about indie games (apart from them being unique, fun, and giving solo developers a chance to make their dream games), is that it can be a proof of concept for interesting ideas and new mechanics. Big developers are often scared to risk hundreds of millions on new ideas, but if they realise people like something, we might also see it incorporated into the bigger games as well.
Alot of my ideas have been made but I'm still sitting on several original IPs. They will probably never materialize but they are mine and have yet to be done.
@@G1ingy the thing is though, if the game works the way it should and I am fully enjoying my time spent I will gladly give more to play more. It’s normally easy for me to tell pretty quick if I’m going to enjoy a game and want more of it. But that’s just me
I think that we've come to the age of the indie games. Triple A games don't have better quality anymore. Game engines like Unreal allow even small or unipersonal teams to develop full games with good graphics. While some of this games end up not being finished, there are also quite a few gems out there, things like Manor Lords, or Rimworld, among other things.
the 2 difference between Mobile/Console Live Service titles are that 1st on Mobile X game ain't costing 70$ and 2nd it has microtransactions but not going crazy unlike lets say AC Games or Avangers
Number 8 is why I wait to buy games; and since I'm waiting, I may as well wait until they're 60% off or more. If I'm even interested in the game by that point anymore. I did love Ubisoft's guy saying we should get comfortable not owning games; because my only response to that is he has to get comfortable with not getting my money, then. 😛
Thats just word play to justify illegal actions. You purchase a disc and you own the disc but not the content on the disc. It is illegal to take the content off the disc, modify the contents and share it with others. If piracy is legal, games wont be bought, companies dont make money and no games are made because the industry died.
How the hell are these massive billion dollar game companies going to develop games if I’ve got no developers just a bunch of rich people in suits whingeing about how much money they’re not making?
They rehire people. If someone needs a job, they are going to take it regardless of the fact that company just laid off a bunch of people. The reality is this is the gaming industry. They know what they are getting in to when they enter it. It's always been like this. And most of these publishers own multiple dev studios. They could make record profits while also having a dev studio spend tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to make a game and it flop. That dev lost them money while another one made enough money to cover what they spent and what the dev who made a shit game spent. They can't just say well you did terrible, but luckily one of our devs made a ton of money, so go ahead and make another terrible game that makes no money. Not to mention, a lot of these devs hire a bunch of extra people to help get a game to the finish line. Once it's done and out the doors, they don't need that many people so they figure why pay them to sit around and do nothing. It's kind of like doing turnarounds for a plant. You might have a job for a month or 2 but then be out of work for a couple weeks and then find another one. For the games industry, once they ramp up production, they will hire a bunch of people.
The issue is that the people in these gaming companies that get promoted to positions of power aren't usually devs, but rather the ones in marketing and finance... So you end up with people with close to 0 knowledge about actual games in charge of leading game development. It's always the fucking marketing and finance people that ruin the world, because all they see is money money money money
"The problem is the people who know how to run a profitable business are the ones who get promoted" 😂😂 Tell me you have zero understanding of business lol.
Well I guess so. I work in this sort of industry and in a position of decision making based on pricing and strategy (business development analyst). The thing is we work by sales data, and the data - contrary to the majority of the comments here - tells us that people are very willing to spend a lot on subscribtions, skins, microtransactions, DLCs, merch, anything apart from the game itself. The pipeline and margins are just too good to not profit from. I'm a cheap gamer too, but I just want to share what it's like from the inside.
I miss having Unreal Tournament LAN parties. No lag team deathmatch... sigh. Also... I watched the segment on DRMs twice, and still couldn’t tell you what they were or what they did by your “explanation”. I had to Google it.
Microtransactions are the worst thing in gaming. They used to be only in F2P games, now we have full priced games that will arm twist you into buying a $40 mtx. eg. Diablo 4
yes, we need that but do you actually it while change anything ? People have been protesting, loudly, about way more important things like environmental issues and no one moves. Calling out is not the way to fight corporate greed.
On the last subject of publishers closing developer studios. It wouldn't be a problem if the developers didn't selling out the moment someone writes them a check. Stand by your team and make a contract to ensure your team has a job for a while and that your development is active.
I live in a country where internet is very unstable. And being forced to restart the game every 30 minutes, most of the time having lost my progression is not exactly enjoyable. I'm not buying always online games anymore because of that. And that feels unfair.
Back in my Xbox days, I played the hell out of Project Gotham Racing 2 and that was the first game I played that had paid DLC. It was $5 for a car pack and I remember thinking to myself "This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen and there's no way this kind of thing will take off". Boy was I wrong. In fact it was so early in the DLC days, that you could actually get all the car packs for free using Action Replay
I LOVE my ol falcon man. Telling it how it is. These are real rants. About real BS in this industry. About the way sht ain’t right. You a real one as always Falc mate 👊
I still don't understand why developers/publishers have fomo battle passes. It just seems like easy money having ALL of their previous battle passes up for sale and allowing people to complete them at their leisure. The last thing I bought for Overwatch 2 was one of the battle passes and I didn't finish it. Every time I think about playing it again I remember that scar on my account that I can't fix and get disgusted with myself for even purchasing. Needless to say, I haven't touched the game since they cancelled the PvE.
That's how fomo works. It's not just games, and it's not a recent thing either. People have been doing it for centuries! It's like limited edition stuff in general. They could manufacture a thousand, and sell at a reasonable price, risk having a load of stock left over OR manufacture a hundred, sell them all at an extortionate price, and sell out quickly.
@@turbo8628 Thank for illustrating why fomo battle passes don't make any sense. This would make more sense for individual, limited edition cosmetics NOT battle passes. They aren't at a risk of being left with an inventory they can't move and they are somewhat reasonably priced. They could easily sell their past battle passes for as long as the game is sustainable. Hell, they could probably upcharge them when they go out of season. I really want to know the math behind it and how they figured up the battle pass profits in the short term (say over 2-3 months) compared to the long term and what the percentage of players that buy the battle passes, percentage of players that complete the battle passes, and the percentage of people that purchase a battle pass after not completing a previously purchased battle pass are. It seems to me they would make more offering past battle passes then gating them into a fixed time frame. There is a small caveat in that if they look at the total number of players over a given season and want to keep them up for a better player experience but I highly doubt "player experience" is at the top of their priorities. There are a few games such as the Halo MCC, Halo Infinite, and Helldivers 2 (I think. Not 100% on their battle pass structure) that have battle passes where you can switch to previous ones and still earn the rewards after purchasing it even when the season is over. I'm willing to bet that not being able to complete battle passes in the time frame of a season is a big hurdle for a lot people like myself where I can't guarantee that I will be able to finish it and look at them as a waste of money. Limited cosmetics and such are fine, even if they are a pain in the ass. Overwatch is probably making a killing on the Cowboy Bebop crossover even though they are charging $25 per skin. People are going to being those because Blizzard will probably never offer them again like the breast cancer awareness Mercy skin.
@@GGPoohBah was implied but not stated... Fomo works for battle passes because they have a limited time for use. If they were permanent then they would probably sell less because there is no rush for them. That is why they do these battle passes and season passes. They don't have inventory left over, but they get more sales because of the fomo people have. If they had no limit, they would keep the service open and probably end up with less sales overall, not just in the short-mid term. Supply and demand for digital entertainment does not exist unless they make it exist, and if something is scarce, it will be more appealing to people. That is why i compared it to limited edition merchandise. "Whales" exist for mobile games, but plenty of gamers are mini-whales, whether they realise it or not. They enable this sort of practice because they have no self-control. Ruins a lot of things for the rest of us who have the sense not to buy into it.
@@GGPoohBah limited cosmetics are far from fine, they are worse than battle passes. A battle pass is paying for the servers to connect your game, a cosmetic skin that is limited is predatory behavior.
@@turbo8628 It's all predatory behavior to some extend. The problem with battle passes compared to limited skins is that you could end up NOT completing a battle and not even having access to the cosmetic you bought the pass for to begin with.
Man, being a loner really pays off as a gamer. Because I only play single player games all that "always online" or micro transactions bullshit miss me bad and there's no cheaters to be worried about lol
I wish we could get a new simpsons game or at least a remake of the simpsons game, hit and run, or road rage, but it's doubtful seeing Disney's history with games and EA owning the rights to simpsons for gaming it seems likely we won't get any new game or remake anytime soon.
I’m a hardcore gamer and I swore off day 1 purchases (with exception gta 6) not only am I fed up with the AAA market but I’m tired of spending 100+ dollars for a video game
RD2 was the last game I preordered. And even that way an exception at the time. I wait for everything to be on sale now. I’m not desperate enough to feel required to play most games ASAP. I’ll just replay something else.
I have never bought a game day one, nor pre ordered. Gta6 is no exception. I didn't buy gta5 until it was over five years old, and still haven't played it much. It cost me 5$ and a few dozen hours of driving around got me my money's worth.
One that needs to be said is clones of game mechanics. Too many games that have a unique story but then you play it and it’s a dark soul’s clone. But it’s not just limited to that. Every FPS feels the same. Most multiplayer games are battle royal. I just want a unique game that hasn’t been done before. Or a mix of two styles that has never been done.
I only buy physical games now, unless it’s an online only/ live service that I know I will like and spend hours in. It’s the closest i can get to owning my games.
@@spankyjeffro5320 I mean if it’s a single player offline only game, then the only way I lose access to the game is breaking the disc, so pretty much I do.
Your game will more or less still be a paperweight these days. Most games arent fully on the disc and many SP games are online only despite being SP. Cyberpunk for instance becomes unplayable if the patches are no longer available to download. Physical games dont really help you anymore. Not since last gen
My number one would've been "Cramming your personal politics into a game in such a way that the entire game revolves around it then whining that the players who don't like your hamfisted politics and won't buy your game are bigots". Then there's the whole "siccing the government on gamers because they won't buy your terrible games" nonsense that's currently accompanying it. I'm not making up or exaggerating that last bit.
A single player, solitary, totally immersive, uninterrupted experience is where I started my escapism gaming journey and that is where I’m happy to stay. I don’t require anything else but that nor will I ever.
A required internet connection for single player games is one that really pisses me off
EDIT: What I mean is when someone plays a single player game that requires internet and their internet goes out for a minute and the game forces them to stop playing because of that
I don't buy single player games that require an internet connection. I've skipped many games I wanted to play due to that.
Same here, even gran turismo 7, never used online features but still have to adhere to them. Utter bullshit won’t catch me paying for similar games again
@@artstudent1237 same, if it requires internet, it's a hard pass.
I have the internet, but I cannot support that. Principles.
Whhhhhaaaaa lol.
@@TheFi1thyCasual Everybody gangster til the internet is out.
people that dont play games making all the decisions
I can’t stand it man it’s bullshit
People that don’t make games are making alot of the decisions too it’s bullshit
This 10000%. They don't have a pulse on the customer at all cause they aren't one
@@connerSphotography That's literally how capitalism works. A CEO only has ONE job - to make a return on the investment(s) of the shareholders. I'm an accountant and that's one of the first things you learn - A CEO only has a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders. Not the customer - who buys the product or service, not the employees - who make the product or provide the service - ONLY to the shareholders. I'm old enough (50+) to remember when America was known for quality products that would last. Now it's just hurry up, make it fast and make it break just as fast so they have to buy a new one. Capitalism ruins everything for the average person. Everything from healthcare (when healthcare is for profit there is no incentive to heal) to utilities are for profit when they shouldn't be - nothing required to survive should be for profit. Capitalism is great for those who have the capital to be capitalists but that is NOT the working class!!!
they play games, but not videogames. making money and living their lives are games.
Most if not all of these are just symptoms of the real issue: corporate greed
Don't forget WEF dictatorship...
Corporations have always been greedy. Nothing new there. Customers are the ones who forget the power they have.
I don't blame the company for predatory practice. I blame the naive weirdo that keeps buying the same game🤦♂️ the unsocialized shut-in's armed with their Grandma's credit card, the young or naive that jump on a pre-sale because they are just *that* giddy about a video game.
In fact I wish I could come up with a way to transfer their money to my account as well. Theres a sucker born every second of the day just waiting and ready to be preyed upon.
word
@@jamesmiller5331shut-in's arent automatically idiots unlike people that tar it with the same brush.
I smell a class action lawsuit around the "you don't own your games" philosophy. When i buy the game, the market place doesn't sell me a rental. There aren't any other commodities that I buy that can be stolen back because the company feels like it.
There absolutely are, every other digital media. Movies you buy on Amazon or whatever, e-books, anime on Funimation just got taken back. Class action lawsuit never gonna happen tbh because it’s right in the TOS of all these services
SOFTware is not a physical thing. You dont own shit. Ever. You only buy a license to use this Software. You are not allowed to change, copy or sell that Software. Only the Media which the software is stored on. Why do you idiots never understand that easy concept?
No lawsuit can happen because people's concept of ownership is flawed. People make assumptions about what they own and rarely look further than surface level. Games purchases have never granted ownership.
Companies can absolutely revoke "ownership" if they feel the need or want to. I had a Galaxy Note 7 and planned to keep it because I wasn't concerned about them blowing up, but Samsung basically bricked it, and I had to get a new phone.
@@ThisPandaWasHere "Property tax" tells you who owns your property.
Read the TOS like you're told to when you sign up to Steam and other game services.
You don't "own" the game because you are agreeing to a limited service whereby
Steam does all the downloading, patching, collating and storage for you, along with
social features. You agreed to wave any "ownership" in order to use this service.
If you don't like this, stop using Steam. Very simple concept.
The closest you will come to "owning" a game is GOG or an old console. Even then,
you're forced to make many concessions in order to use them and even then you
still do not "own" the games.
Again. Read. The. TOS.
A lot of these boil down to "People in authoritative positions making decisions while neither knowing or caring about video games or their players"
This is a problem anywhere it goes. The person making the decision needs to know and care about the problem, otherwise it just makes it worse always.
Just as much if not more blame should be stacked on the players for buying into it. Gacha wouldn't be widespread if gamers didn't get suckered in so easily. Games wouldn't be so buggy and broken on release if gamer idiots didn't buy games Day 1.
@@-T--T- 🤡
The majority of high budget media is committee designed unfortunately. In gaming, developers and artist are the last considered while a bunch of suits make decisions with focus groups and metrics. Imagine going through school to learn coding and you have some jerk in a suit that doesn't even play videogames telling you to shove microtransactions in a project.
@@-T--T- I love how in an industry full of predatory shit for profit maximization and mass consumption, people like you think what's ruining games is "I saw a brown person in too many games."
DRM makes the game worse for people that actually paid for the game, rather than really slowing down any form of piracy. It's madness.
DRM has never really hindered piracy, it just punishes people that buy the game legitimately.
it makes it MORE worthwhile to just pirate the game.
@@McSomething15that's not true, DRM usually gives games a window from 1 dayuntil cracked 😂😂
@@blasiankxngIn that case, it would de no problem if they'd patch out the DRM after a week or so...
DRM is basically spyware
The mentality of everyone trying to be the "next big streamer" honestly ruins most multiplayer games for me
"If I put TTV in my clan tag people will definitely start watching me on Twitch, it's guaranteed!"
How?
? What, lol?? Just don't watch them, then? I'm not really seeing how this is at all relevant. Just sounds like you have a personal vendetta against streamers.
No, it just turns most people into super sweaty players. When some people want to just enjoy the game after actually having a life and not make the game their entire life.@@Adelaide_Cuthbert
This reminds me of an issue I had with a small-time streamer several years ago on Gran Turismo sport. I smoked him with a 45 second lead in his own race. When I turned the console on the next day I had 10 or so hate messages from him/her that popped up.
Yeah... I've stopped playing competitive online games entirely. Co-op is fine. But any form of battle royale, global leaderboard or clan v clan game is officially off my list. Too many cheaters, too much toxicity, and too many titles of the sort.
Also, disc format needs to make a comeback.
I wholeheartedly agree.
My main gaming buddy and I talk about this all the time. We are playing Outward together, we both still play Skyrim. I just redownloaded The Outer Worlds to 100% it.
We both have given up on Rocket League after putting many hours into it.
We have fun playing the older games, these new games just suck.
I miss when games were made for the players and not the companies.
Corporations and greed will destroy everything.
Not indie games
Shit is so sad bro
They were never made for players lol. Games have always been about making money because its a business. Are you people really this naive?
@@keynanmartinezYeah except indie games don’t have the capabilities to have the same potential scope and vastness in experience. I am not interested in the millionth souls-like, 2D side scroller, retro graphics, or rogue-like. Indie cannot give me another Skyrim or Metal Gear. The extremely rare exceptions have been CD Projekt Red and Larian who are arguably AA studios by this point do their massive size for an indie studio and don’t represent the indie scene.
Fun fact - everytthing on this list has only one reason behind it. Corporate executives. One of the worst things imo is that if the game fails, executives (and sadly sometimes even devs nowadays) invent dumbshait explanation for it like "gamers are not interested in this genre" or lately very frequent "gamers just dont understand our game and/or are bigots". Instead of looking into their mistake, they blame us for their failures.
And then an indie out sells them and they're like "whaaaat... let's do that" and fail again
You're not wrong but its more execs are beholden to shareholders to maximize profits. It is about $ not art that creates an experience.
Like most things, corporations screw it all up but maaaan I love seeing my 401k climb!... It's us, we're the problem 😂
So the issue isn't execs, it's execs not int touch with fans
@@krenshaw82 You are right, when it comes to execs, it is about money and nothing else. When it comes to devs tho, I assume it is ego? Because we see it more and more lately when AAA game fails, some devs start flaming fans and gamers on twitter and whatever. Unable to accept they did something we do not like, they start looking for excuses such as "bigotry" or low IQ and what not.
@@Syrin23Nah, execs are cancer. I work in medical and the CEO makes over half the money all the clinics makes and he doesn't even have a nursing degree. Your healthcare isn't expensive because your doctor drives a BMW.
Same with gaming. You think Bobby Kotick knows how to code?
People making games who dont play or even like video games is one major issue.
Not like they have input on their job, just doing what they are told to create
@@Texassouth Maybe they should try to get in touch with the gaming community and try to understand what players actually want?
I don't blame the company for predatory practice. I blame the naive weirdo that keeps buying the same game🤦♂️ the unsocialized shut-in's armed with their Grandma's credit card, the young or naive that jump on a pre-sale because they are just *that* giddy about a video game.
In fact I wish I could come up with a way to transfer their money to my account as well. Theres a sucker born every second of the day just waiting and ready to be preyed upon.
@@Dwaxxx The gaming community is bullshit. Ppl online with their "gamers opinion" barely make 10% of actual sales. Year after year the internet would convince you that the next cod won't sell a single copy yet it make billions. There is a silent majority which don't voice their opinions.
Better yet writing a story thats “not for the fans” or to intentionally anger the fans. SBI looking at you.
All I could think was, Microsoft! Stop buying game studios! You're ruining the industry!
What is sad, it’s the same thing in other industries. My wife works in the Aerospace industry and the company had record profits for the companies history. They had enormous layoffs following because of unrealistic expectations in profits.
I know countless people have already said this in the comment section, and that you basically implied it by mentioning this case. But yeah, we can determine that "most" of the problems any video game industry has is directly related to the executives. Hell, any industry whatsoever.
You only have to look at since the start of the Ukraine war, everyone said they had to raise their prices and every company made record profits doing it, if they’re making record profits then they’re probably putting prices up by so much that they’re just exploiting consumers, the oil companies especially, they can set whatever price they want and people literally have to pay it, I bet half these scummy fuckers already have more money than they know what to do with and they’re always wanting more.
Welcome to capitalism - Profits over People!
The Expendables.
@@3nertiano. *corporatiam* well regulated capitalism works fine. But its been poorly regulated for so long its turned into corporatism.
If paying full price for a game doesn't equate ownership, then piracy doesn't equate to theft.
It never did, and I mean both statements.
This is the dumbest argument ever.
Obviously IP theft is still a thing.
@@rsh650it’s true though. Paying for a game no longer gets your ownership of that game. They will take it or shut it down whenever they want. I agree Piracy should no longer be considered theft then.
@@idontlikeyouyo But you not stealing the IP. I recommend watching the video called "Video Game Piracy Is Good, Actually".
@@rsh650 Only if they're making a profit out of it. If I download a game for free, it's like borrowing it from a friend, so it shouldn't be considered illegal. Not everything the laws say is correct.
I think the fact that it's now an exception not a rule that you actually get a complete product when you buy a game is perhaps the most damaging thing to the user experience. There's always gonna be whales, there's always gonna be shifts in the market, there's always gonna be studios chasing "the next big thing" while copying what others did better, but if we're being sold 60-80% of a game because they wanna push it out faster or sell the patches or content as DLC, then who the hell is going to want to buy new games? I remember lining up outside the same stores for a new release. Even though it's online, that has become something you actively want to avoid, since we just expect the first few days to be an absolute mess now the majority of the time.
DEFINITELY OFF of buying new games. I waited for Cyberpunk, waited for Battlefield 2042, waited for the next Fallout….. Not buying brand new games anymore….. Done for life 💀
DO NOT cut early access games slack. It’s criminal how long many games on Steam have been listed in early access and after over half a decade are still unfinished.
truuuu
And yet there are plenty of games (like BG3) that use Early Access correctly. And the fact of the matter is, you go into buying an early access game knowing what it is. If not, you're either blind or stupid, period.
Yea its ridiculous
I'm fine as long as they are constant updates and communication. But I think if a game goes a certain length of time without one of those, Steam should revoke the tag.
Agreed. Steam should make a time limit for how long games can stay in early access.
I worked for Tuxedo Labs on teardown, and a little while after my contract ended, Tuxedo was sold to Embracer.
I've been told I'm lucky I left when I did.
Embracer has really screwed over every company they acquired
@@mayteexxis yeah, I heard a lot of people are now miserable because of Embracer
What's "Embracer"? Like what have they made 🤔
@@djrosette I don’t have all the details, all I know is it’s some business conglomerate that tried to buy up hundreds of game studios, and there was something about some Saudi deal that was going to make them rich, but it all failed and now they have all these game studios they don’t know how to run, and can’t afford - so, yeah, it’s chaos.
@@larrywalsh9939ah d'accord. Merci beaucoup. So Embracer is just a greedy company who has tried and failed a bunch of "get rich quick" schemes
PS this is my opinion but Embracer should quit while their not ahead then give the game studios to real game developers that both knows what they are doing and can afford to run the studios
This is by far the most depressing "10 things" I've seen 😢. But thank you for giving the hard truths. I appreciate all the Game Ranxs crew!❤
Is not that deep little bro
Pretty much my biggest issue is too many things now being live service/having battle passes. It was heavy hitting for it to be #10 when I thought it would've been like top 4.
The gaming job layoffs and studio closings have definitely been depressing and kinda like Falcon was saying, it's been contradictory seeing companies boist about making so much at year's end and milestones yet same day letting plenty of game devs know via twitter/online they don't have a job anymore. It doesn't seem quite inspiring for dev interns/college students looking to get into the field
Battleborn is a sad story. Even the story mode, that could be played as a single player, was server based so when they shut down the servers, the entire game became unplayable. Gearbox also did absolutely nothing to promote the game. I only knew about it because I had been invited to beta test it. The people who worked on the game worked really hard and put so much love into it and you can tell. But how things went down makes me think Prick-ford (yes I know thats not his name, I am calling him a name) never liked the game and thats why the company did absolutely NOTHING to encourage people to play.
To this day I still think about that game. It could have been an Overwatch killer, or at least the direct competitor, but they also messed up with their in game economy. Beat the story 6-8 times just to have enough currency to unlock 1 new character. They tried charging full price AND using the F2P model. If they chose one it would've been amazing. But yea, severe lack of marketing, and greed and stinginess in-game contributed to it's unnecessary downfall.
I felt like Falcon had really pent up emotions about the live service mudhole......my man let it all out for all of us 😅 Thank u
Heavy hitting just for it to be #10. I kinda wanted battle passes to had been explicitly mentioned but I do think that covers it at least. Too crazy to think about what's happened and going to happen with WB, Rocksteady, Hogwarts outselling CoD (and that's another thing, mentioned in the vid as well, half the major triple A devs/companies have just been giving us remasters, recycling old classics)
I almost got whiplash nodding in agreement. That came from the heart
One word can sum up what is ruining video games - greed.
Merica
Yah pretty much and it doesn't just apply to games. Any consumer product's quality is ruined by greed.
Its not nearly that simple no matter how much you want it to be. The reality is that game development has gotten so ridiculously expensive its really hard to justify making one that doesn't have potential to generate alot of money in return. Its not "greed" as much as its what you have to do to stay in business these days.
Unless something drasticly changes, its all very unsustainable and we are likely heading for a crash or an environment where everything is consolidated under 1 or 2 companies who can actually afford to make games.
@@AD-df5tm I see your point but it doesn't help when companies know what the fans want but ignore it and do what the company wants which is to make games that milk gamers. They have to realize overtime that will tarnish their image. But playing devils advocate I think new age gamers don't care about being exploited because it's the culture now so companies are gonna appeal to them.
@@MicroWave233even the fans dont know what they want lol. Ask 5 gamers about a game and you get 5 different opinions. This weird idea that gamers are just one large uniform block is silly. You really think game companies are intentionally not making games they know people want instead of making them and getting hundreds of millions in sales? Come on, man.
I literally don't buy new games anymore, I wait till I hear things or give them a couple months for a sale
good idea. lower price and the game will run better
Same here. Why spend 70+bucks for the crappiest version of a game when you can get a goty edition a year later for half the price?
There are other ways to get games too you know. For free even.
Crazy how we've come to this point, eh?
It is extremely rare I buy a game on launch. TotK was the only one in years that I knew I was going to play and was excited for. But with exclusivity deals, I couldn't even buy most games new if I wanted to. It's probably going to be two years before I can play FF7: Rebirth.
10. Electronic Arts
9. Bobby KoDICK
8. Idiots in power
7. Greed.
6. Ignorance
5. Unchecked virtual gambling
4. Riot Games
3. Inability for ppl to say hell no to their bosses on a industry scale
2. Human rights violations
1. Lack of a union
Back in 2005 or 2006, I wrote a letter to the then-Playstation magazine complaining about a lot of the trends that began during that time. Even then, I didn't realize HOW BAD it would get.
Pretty much, to summarize your list, big companies get bigger, greedier, treats customers, developers and workers in very shoddy ways, tries to make big money fast while eroding the gaming experience and overall industry.
Capitalism in a nutshell
@st.haborym Yeah. It's why when there's talk of privatizing currently public institutions (such as libraries) I'm so against it.
@@GoddessPallasAthena Yeah no screw that. They'd charge you an hourly fee just to sit there and read the books.
@@st.haborym Private libraries could also make age restrictions on books and content
@@MPHswayze Yeah no I hate censorship too.
Warner Bros be like: Note these things for our next game it should include all the points people hate.
10: Live service trend.
9: De-listing games.
8: Releasing broken/unfinished games without disclosure.
7: Cheating in multiplayer.
6: DRM.
5: Budget and development time inflation.
4: Encouraging players to not own games and subscribe to subscription services.
3: Gatcha, Loot boxes, microtransactions etc.
2: Studio closures and layoffs.
1: Consolidation of IPs by large companies.
This list breaks down the majority of the issues that are affecting the gaming industry and if they do not reverse course, it can only become disastrous!
Your comment isn't necessary when there's already chapters for the video.
@@kingzingo1784 I was trying to save you time if you've heard it all before, the chapters dont have titles that tell you what problem is discussed
NEITHER IS YOURS!!!!!!!!!!@@kingzingo1784
@@wigi426have TH-cam shorts and the like lowered your attention span that badly?
Amidst all of this, I'm still glad that the best games still get the love they deserve. There are still great games that raise the bar and are instant classics! The quality of our best games keeps rising, but it's true that we need to be wary of all the shit...
It's honestly a big reason why I'm subbed to gameranx. To keep me posted, informed and up to date as a consumer.
Silly narations often help though... Looking at you, Falcon!
The one thing ruining video games - video game company executives, management, and "key" stakeholders.
Every game you like probably has these things so that isn't the issue.
@@Syrin23If you only play AAA, that's true. Indie usually doesn't have overhead like that to worry about. Larian is pretty much an indie studio and their passion project became one of the greatest made games in our lifetime
@@Syrin23 if the NBA has double dribble issues, which it does, and people say there's an issue in basketball, no one points to the WNBA and says it's not an issue. Stop it.
@@solblackguy Fair point
@@tullock13 This analogy is so bad that I am embarrassed for you. Truly.
I remember when Moral Kombat Arcade Kollection (1, 2 and 3) for XBOX 360 lost its license on the platform as a whole. Even though I bought the game, it was removed from my library and could never play it again. Out of money and out of luck due to a licensing change.
That's why i buy physical... if it aint physical i dont want it, unless it's free
@@lovegodessmls28hardly matters when physical just means all you have is the base layer and you need an 80gb download to have the final version of the game 😂🤬
@@jasonrafael5945that is a problem. Physical often seems just a key for a download. Like latest COD games. I don’t want the multiplayer. I wait a while and buy a used copy for the single player. But single player isn’t on the disc!
Moral Kombat 😄 Sorry but that was funny typo.
But anyway. Doing that kind of shitty move because of licencing is very bad.
That should only be applied to new stuff and not to stuff which has already being done.
Some common sense would be needed in those cases.
That's why I pirate all my games. I buy less than 1 game per year
Using "chasing the dragon" in reference to live services is pretty apt. Given that phrase is about opium addiction.
It just reminds me of South Park.
'Based' used to mean "addicted to cocaine", so I get many chuckles these days.
Jesus, this thread makes me feel old 😂
It really is a shame that the Arkham franchise was killed by the Fortnite model. The franchise had so much potential.
Greed is the problem with the world.
Bears we got bear problems they eat people
capitalism
That's actually the real reason for "inflation". There's not any reason other than greed for price gouging. No oil shortage or short supply. No boats stuck in the Panama Canal. OPEC sets gas prices not the US president. Booming economy but wages stagnant and homelessness increasing. It's so gross. 🤢🤮
Greed isn’t exclusive to the super wealthy. People demanding that the super wealthy give them their wealth because “income inequality” are more greedy than the super wealthy.
And Incompetence.
I remember going through game pro magazine looking for the new game. Every new Grand theft Auto, every new resident evil, every metal gear, always seeing something new going "what is this, this looks cool"
Nowadays I can see a game trailer and I'm completely shut off from being excited because of how bad games are when they come out. You buy a game, and all the cool stuffs locked behind transactions, that or the games unplayable. It even seems like some games they care more for the graphics than the gameplay and you feel like the older games had more to do than the newer games. The open worlds seems like there's nothing going on
Watch Dogs and Anthem broke the camel's back for me. Such a shame
While I understand the owning a license and not the game, if the market is going to end up all digital and able to be removed whenever, the companies need to adjust pricing downward, which they aren’t going to do either. 🤬
They're not going to do that because people aren't going to stop buying games.
If people would back off and actually draw a red line, companies would have to adjust because there is a shitload of money still to make in the game industry... they are just trying to make more more more more because they have basically already had it proven to them that there are people out there that will top hundreds if not thousands of dollars into a game they already bought, will pay for a live service, will give the company an interest-free loan just so they can have the game the second that it launches and so on and so forth.
Blame the dumdum consumer. Their idiotic Behavior has convinced investors that there may be a way to change the gaming industry more and more and more into this type of thing.
And you know what? They are probably spot on.
@@jamesmiller5331 I used to buy games at launch all the time. Now I buy *maybe* one or two a year, if even that. It's just generally not worth buying games on release to me anymore. You've got buggy releases, shoving in cash shops a few months after release to avoid reviewers being able to comment on them, live services that are DOA, etc. I buy games during sales, 6 months to a year after launch and all that stuff is out in the open and the game's cheaper. Only game I bought full price last year was D4, and that was because they caught me with the Beta making it seem like the game was gonna be good. Lesson learned and taken to heart on that one.
@@jamesmiller5331 and then there was a piracy spike... imagine how many more ppl are gonna feel the call to Crack these
@@coRliX4k people that know how to and are able will for sure.
People with money to blow and or Grandma or Daddy's credit card will continue to do what they're doing as well.
Digital receipts for digital products that have monetary value... videogames = NFTs!?!?
I didn't really think I needed to watch this video (while cooking) but was very eye-opening and enlightening to the ongoing problems I've noticed in the gaming industry. Puts every aspect of the industry into perspective as to why everything has gone into its downfall. A shame :/
The big issue that basically all of this falls under is corportization.
When an emerging industry gets huge, and suddenly the richest people in the world start taking it seriously, and so they gobble up the industry to try to take all that profit for themselves. But in the process, they usually destroy said industry, because these mega corps don't know anything about the product being sold.
Video games are on the tail end of that process right now. It's only a matter of time before it gets so bad that the AAA games industry completely collapses.
it allready has in the 1980s once before by the way so its going to happen agen and nientdo won't be saveing us from this one by the way.
Can we just bring back games that let you unlock things as you play and make you wanna go through the levels again with these newly unlocked items? Brotato does an amazing job with this
This ^ games that reward effort, not fools who spend money on paywalls in full price games
I don't play shooters anymore but I always look back on something like halo reach. You see someone in cool armor with nice armor effect and think wow that guy played alot to unlock the armor and have enough entirely in game credits to put that look together. Now you see a cool gun camo and just think wow I wonder how much money that cost.
You used to be able to determine a good bit about a player by what cosmetics they had on, now you can just determine that they were willing to pay real money.
Can't wait for Hades 2
I'm working on it! Just give me 4 to 5 years!
I miss the old days too. I think only indie devs will go for this though cos everyone else has to answer to someone else (shareholders and publishers etc).
@@imALazyPanda it's gone from recognizing skill and having respect to recognizing douchebags with zero self-respect
We all know pirates are the ones preserving games 😉
Vimms layer 🙌 all his preserved games are checked and verified so no risk of viruses (I mean someone could hack his site but he does good job at keeping all downloads clean)
@@connerSphotography, I used to download PS2 games from there. A very good website indeed…
Nintendo Exec: Sorry honey, sorry kids. Can't afford food tonight. Someone pirated a game we made in 1997
Luffy?
@solblackguy "Oh, he posted a fan made mod on his TH-cam channel and didn't publicly release it"
"Sue him immediately"
The layoffs are the worst in my opinion. "CEO: Well, we made 5b with this game and it only took us 1.5b to make, so instead of paying you for your hard work, I'm gonna fire the lot of you and wipe my ass with the extra revenue. We love wiping our asses with money on the corporate suite". The thing that come to my mind was "Well, the surgery was a success, we removed the entire tumor without any complications whatsoever, so you should be getting discharged in 2 or 3 days. Now I'm gonna pack my stuff because I'm getting fired for doing my job the way I'm supposed to".
I love watching your videos for the last several years, but I have 1 request: please add the names of the games that you show. I play a lot of video games, and sometimes you show games that I would love to try, but I have no idea what they are called.
Keep up the good work
You can turn ON subtitles in english ,so when falcon pronounces the games name in his monologue it will be spelled at the bottom of the screen in English!
i think he meant the background gameplay@@nestibeats4221
You can always ask what one is. Especially with a timestamp. Someone who reads the comments will generally help.
I have this gripe about video game youtubers in general. But I've had good luck asking "what is the game at 03:23" or whatever. Sucks that it's an extra step. But I get it. The editor added some stuff that was not related to the script, and probably at the last minute, and it just didn't get referenced anywhere.
Under Australian law if I buy a game, I own the game and can make copies for my personal use as well as alter the game in any way I want, I can also sell the game to anyone I chose but I must either destroy or hand over any copies I made. The Australian law overrides any agreements made with the game developers.
There is no way thats accurate lol. You are basically saying the Australian govt made bootlegging and IP theft legal 😂
Im sure there is alot of nuance there that you are missing.
Everyone should watch, listen and take notes on Number 10! I am sick of good games being ruined by live service, always online, micro transaction crapola
It’s the same old story of messing with the formula. People who don’t know anything about creating products injecting unnecessary changes and ideas that ends up destroying the thing that makes the organization relevant and profitable, in this case our games.
Always appreciate Falcon's takes on the gaming industry. I would love to hear ideas and brainstorming around solutions that everyday ordinary gamers can do to influence the industry for the better. It sometimes leaves you feeling empty when you listen and agree with a list of grievances and don't really get the catharsis of, but hey, these guys are trying this to combat anti-consumer practicies. Really interested to hear the teams thoughts down that rabbit hole.
The only thing that works is not buying them and teaching your kids not to like them.
As a competitive fighting game player, microtransactions are sadly going nowhere. Pretty much every tournament worth its salt is expected to have EVERY piece of costume, character, and stage DLC, so you just multiply those costs by just about every single tourney from the majors on down to your tiny local and yeah
The dlc model still pisses me off, cutting pieces of a completed game only to sell it on later is simply a huge con that for some reason we tend to put up with. Games are extremely expensive as it is often around £60 but to play the game in its entirety its knocking up the price closer to £100 which is ridiculous, no wonder the gaming industry is screwed.
Are they intentionally cutting out story?
Used to be DLC always came out later because they waited to see if the game was profitable. If it was, then they'd invest more to extend upon favorite characters and the such.
Maybe it's done differently now.
@ShrockWPS would you put it past big corporations cutting pieces of a game and sell it on after release to increase profits from their investment? It used to be that you pay around $30 for a game and for that you got the full game as the studio's completed topic now it's around $60 for approx 80% (as an estimate) of the final product and now make that $60 price tag up to around $80/$90.
@@nemo9540
I wouldn't put it past some companies, but I wouldn't say that is everyone.
The game prices are more than just what devs and publishers do. When large titles were only $30 gas was also a dollar or less a gallon. Can't blame game companies for inflation. Not only that but so much more work goes into games now then 30 years ago. Just look at Daggerfall compared to Skyrim. There is no comparison between the 2.
As some one who still works in the games industry for a certain winter storm themed company the layoffs have been sad and kind of scary. It is a very volatile time in the games industry and I am glad to still have my job.
Hope the layoff hammer doesn’t drop on you! Stay good bro
Sounds like blizzard
oh man good luck, that company seems like its always in hot shit
@@basicwm9🍪
im happy ive held on to all my old consoles. if i ever lose internet or the newer games i have stop working, i have those old games to fall back on and play. even if you buy a hard copy of a game today, you will still need to download part of the game and download the current update. there isnt really a good reason to buy a hard copy today, and that makes me sad.
Same here, even though I own and play on a PS5 I still have a bunch of old games in my library that are offline single player that I can load up anytime I want in case the Internet goes kaput.
Not necessarily, there are plenty of ps4/ps5 games that don’t require downloads.
Same, still have all the PlayStations, and games. What kind of gets me not honestly is that emulation is now possible on phones, so I usually download a ROM and play it there before plugging everything in and grabbing the disk. At least my PS3 gets used, can't do that on a phone yet really
I have burnt so many PS1 games and got my Ps1 chipped back in the early 2000s. Best 75$ ever.
The high seas offer solutions to such problems.
I kinda expected Warner Bros is ruining MK1
Honestly tho at a gameplay level they nailed it. Its just the additional content thats lack luster.
@@Caedes-rex wat?
I’ve been saying it for a long time. The reason the vast majority of video games nowadays suck ass is just simply because of 1 word: greed
To Falcon's last point: one thing I think we REALLY need as consumers is an easier way to digest those "Les Misérables"-length user agreements that we all tend to scroll through and just hit "Agree." I mean if we're being totally honest, a good chunk of the woes we experience as gaming consumers we bring upon ourselves by not reading those things. (Not saying we're being lazy or we deserve what we get...those things are written unreasonably long and complex on purpose) But if we had a way to better understand what is in one of those things, I think it would help a lot.
Don't engage. Only buy games that don't have a contract attached to them.
It limits the games you can buy, but at least you don't have to worry about some ceo taking away your access to the product you paid for!
I thought a few years back, a law was passed where the "terms & agreements" are supposed to now be more organized/comprehensible and idk if it's the original or only for updates to it, but they headline the changes and/or significant terms that change or have...idk, and yeah foolish for me to think/hope so, but humanitarian/safety highlights right at the start so you don't have to go to page 5 paragraph 8 to "protect us"?
@turbo8628 which means... all of them?
It sucks because even if you don't agree to their terms, they lock you out of the game until you change your mind.
@@TheHudsonPhoenix This is also why these ToS things are not enforceable. They are what is known as shrink-wrapped contracts.
The title of this should really be "The 1 thing that is ruining games- Publishers!"
like an explainer (my FAVORITE type of falcon vid) "Why are publishers miserable scumbags for consumers of video games?"
or in other words corporate greed, at some point the line simply cant keep going up man its going to cause problems. Doing stuff for your shareholders instead of your customers is a big problem
The whole state of gaming right now pisses me off. If ever there was an argument to why i hate when things get popular its that. These corporate shills arent worried about anything but the bottom line. They don't even care about ruining the name of the company they're working for as long as it makes them money now. When gaming was still fairly niche companies seemed to care more. I would love to get a ps5 but idk if im going to or not. I dont like the fact that when i purchase a game i only own it as long as i have it downloaded and the servers are still up. (for required online games) I haven't looked into the whole people's ps5 games disappearing from their account but if its like it sounds then companies could literally do that to anyone at anytime and all the money wasted on that game is gone with no hope of recovering anything later on by reselling it or playing it again. I really am completely done with the gaming industry and i hate it cause I've loved it since i owned an ataris. Back when it wasn't cool to be a gamer.
Ya I agree I feel like anime will be next to get the gaming treatment 😭
I’d like my niche to stay a niche
Getting popular is a bane
Greedy companies are ruining video games
A point following Number 8. Coral Island, a Stardew-like farming sim, "released" in a state where dozens of features in the roadmap weren't done yet, including things like Marriage to certain romanceable character, seasonal events (still have blank areas reserved for mini-games), and you cannot achieve the highest town-ranking yet..
I dont understand how broken games on launch can't be classified as false advertisements. In any industry, if you promised a service and / or failed to meet expectations, you would face legal ramifications... its frustrating and makes no sense. The fact that we have large license agreements and invasive privacy policies that we MUST accept to PLAY THE GAME is insane...
Working on a Disney game in an independent, licensed studio got me my first IMDb credit, which was great...but I _tooootally_ get the whole not-giving-a-shit thing, cuz that game was _crap._
Don't blame me; I just scripted cut-scenes. Hell, don't blame the studio; working for Disney just plain sucks balls.
Avengers was not a failure because the devs were out of their comfort zone. It failed because they put no resources into it. In fact, this is far more the problem than devs being "out of their comfort zone", and a lot of these games just fail because companies don't care about them, or they think they only take the amount of resources as a single player game.
It's funny too, because most of the same people were calling for Insomniac to do these type of games, and they don't even have the engine to make one.
I think one (possible) good thing with closing all of those studios is that even though they lose their jobs (which does suck, don't get me wrong) they might be able to make their own indie games that would be fantastic. Most people that makes games love to play them. If they do not have corporate breath on their necks they can take their time, (to the best of their abilities given their personal financial circumstances) and develop a really fun and engaging gaming experience.
That’s gonna be the light at the end of the tunnel for Ubisoft firing Hideo Kojima. While it sucks that we aren’t gonna be getting a proper Metal Gear Solid game made by him with the help of Ubisoft, he’s now free to do whatever he wants and not be bound to anyone or anything except his passion for making games. He’s currently working on a new, original IP called Physint and it’s the first game I’ve been genuinely excited about in years. Hopefully he bucks all these garbage trends, takes his time and makes a game that he’s proud of, that’s stable upon launch and not a blatant cash grab
I feel that he genuinely cares about the video game medium in general, he knows the story telling aspect and is not afraid to take advantage of it!
Good comment, I appreciate your response!@@butcheredalive
@@comfychairgaming that’s his best quality, and he shouldn’t be held back from making great games with awesome storylines. I love how he went half independent. He’s getting help from Sony but the dev studio is mostly his. And thank you :)
I concur! half-indie is still fully awesome, especially if the budget is decent.
personally I am looking forward to more indie games in the future! especially because it is games being made by gamers still@@butcheredalive
1) Multiplayer online trophies
2) L3 = sprint
Are the two things that is ruining gaming for me!LOL
Why L3 to sprint? That seems fairly logical, if the Left analog makes you move, then pressing it harder makes you move faster.
It’s a lot better than the dopey “keep tapping x” rockstar uses, that shit sucks ass
This is a very optimistically ignorant comment. I respect it.
one thing that Helldivers 2 did right when it came to the GaaS model was how it doesn't require you to buy anything after buying the game to get the stuff. You can grind the game and unlock EVERYTHING without paying an additional fee. It's also not like insanely hard to do. I got both the premium warbands through grinding with about 75 hours in the game. Plus there are things to unlock anyways so the grind doesn't feel as bad.
Don't forget the fact it's based price is $40 while it could had easily been charged $70. I've had actually been considering into buying Helldivers 2 due to it
@@unclemogiI would it's a fun game with some buddies or randoms and for $40 the value is unreal compared to what they try to give us for $70+ I got grand blue and he'll divers 2 the sake time so far I've got 100 hours in hell divers and about 160 in grand blue 🤣 been bouncing between the two but reccomend helldivers my friend we could always use more divers spreading democracy 😎😎
It is still GARBAGE. Crossplay between friends is not functioning, at all. You can send/receive friend requests via the unique code but it will literally not allow you to accept it. The only way to play with crossplay friends is to select the same mission/world at the same exact time and hope to join together. It’s been a known issue for over a week and there has been no word as to when a patch will be released. It was false advertising.
@A_J100 thank you for speaking up. Helldivers 2 IS NOT the poster child people make it out to be. Game has critical bugs and the current state of crossplay deserves criticism.
@@theMobileJourno I think you guys believe that we believe it's a perfect game. No, it's not, but it's fun as hell to play and doesn't actively try to sell you things. They started making it on an engine that was discontinued midway through their development likely causing unwanted bugs. They also did not have the server capacity they anticipated for the game (being an indie/AA). But the game is fun, some creases to work out but the game is fun. It's been out for 40 ish days and they have been non stop updating the game with fixes.
Hey Gameranx fam! Hope all is well with you and yours.
After beating Dragon's Dogma 2, I've moved on to Fallout 76 for the first time. I figured now was as good a time as any to try it out, especially with the show dropping recently.
IMO, the Fallout show season 1 was both enjoyable and entertaining. I'm the sort of person who falls in the group of: If it takes place in the Fallout universe, I'm probably going to like it, group. It definitely draws on current lore to a degree, but it also feels like they're going to do their own thing while keeping the games fresh in their minds. For me personally, I'm okay with that so long as they continue to add MANY more enemy types and characters we know and love. I'm excited for the next season.
Huge Gameranx fan here, I've been here for years. Thanks for all the great and informative videos!
I think the Embracer thing was someone thinking they could make a hedge fund out of video games. Look at Black Rock and housing. Look at hedge funds buying the rights to music. Video games were a $242B industry in 2023 and anticipated to reach over $500B by 2030. Someone thought they could go in, buy up all the IPs and studios and create a huge fund that would make money from it. The money isn't coming from the development of the IP, it's coming from leasing it out and taking a cut of the sales. Which is why all the studios were shuttered, but the IP rights still remain.
At least, that's my take on what happened.
Great list Falcon! The first item should be sent to all publishers as the analysis was spot on and so true! The UbiSoft clown that stated gamers get used to not owning games should be fired.
I play Helldivers 2 with a group of friends. It's fun and we have a blast. The day I feel micro-transactions are the only way to level up my character is the day I put that game down.
I just want a sequel to the Guardians of the Galaxy game. 😢
Sameee 😭😭😭
That was actually a pretty fun game, enjoyed the platinum grind on that one.
Good game
Yeah that one had an excellent story and characters. It is still the closest thing we have to Mass Effect.
Absolutely.. Had alot of fun with it..
One of many good things about indie games (apart from them being unique, fun, and giving solo developers a chance to make their dream games), is that it can be a proof of concept for interesting ideas and new mechanics. Big developers are often scared to risk hundreds of millions on new ideas, but if they realise people like something, we might also see it incorporated into the bigger games as well.
Corporations, shareholders, mass influx of devs and designers, etc., the fact that it's getting harder and harder to be original
Alot of my ideas have been made but I'm still sitting on several original IPs.
They will probably never materialize but they are mine and have yet to be done.
Biggest problem is day 1 dlc and season passes before the games themselves even running smoothly
That’s almost always a big Red Flag that you should AVOID that specific game.
These things only exist because gamers buy into this stuff. Just don't buy them and devs will learn sooner or later.
@@G1ingy the thing is though, if the game works the way it should and I am fully enjoying my time spent I will gladly give more to play more. It’s normally easy for me to tell pretty quick if I’m going to enjoy a game and want more of it. But that’s just me
@@G1ingy but I 100% see where your coming from
1.) Live Service
I think that we've come to the age of the indie games. Triple A games don't have better quality anymore. Game engines like Unreal allow even small or unipersonal teams to develop full games with good graphics.
While some of this games end up not being finished, there are also quite a few gems out there, things like Manor Lords, or Rimworld, among other things.
Greed is always #1 for ruining games.
the 2 difference between Mobile/Console Live Service titles are that 1st on Mobile X game ain't costing 70$ and 2nd it has microtransactions but not going crazy unlike lets say AC Games or Avangers
Number 8 is why I wait to buy games; and since I'm waiting, I may as well wait until they're 60% off or more. If I'm even interested in the game by that point anymore.
I did love Ubisoft's guy saying we should get comfortable not owning games; because my only response to that is he has to get comfortable with not getting my money, then. 😛
if purchase doesn't equal ownership, then piracy isn't theft
Thats just word play to justify illegal actions. You purchase a disc and you own the disc but not the content on the disc. It is illegal to take the content off the disc, modify the contents and share it with others. If piracy is legal, games wont be bought, companies dont make money and no games are made because the industry died.
How the hell are these massive billion dollar game companies going to develop games if I’ve got no developers just a bunch of rich people in suits whingeing about how much money they’re not making?
The AAA bubble is bursting
AI
AI
AI
These video game companies are making record profits, yet they lay a bunch of people off. Just as AI is starting to mature.
🤔
@@tonecapone8021 Then those corpo bigwigs find themselves replaced by AI who turn out to be much, much better higher-ups than the dopes themselves.
They rehire people. If someone needs a job, they are going to take it regardless of the fact that company just laid off a bunch of people. The reality is this is the gaming industry. They know what they are getting in to when they enter it. It's always been like this. And most of these publishers own multiple dev studios. They could make record profits while also having a dev studio spend tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to make a game and it flop. That dev lost them money while another one made enough money to cover what they spent and what the dev who made a shit game spent. They can't just say well you did terrible, but luckily one of our devs made a ton of money, so go ahead and make another terrible game that makes no money. Not to mention, a lot of these devs hire a bunch of extra people to help get a game to the finish line. Once it's done and out the doors, they don't need that many people so they figure why pay them to sit around and do nothing. It's kind of like doing turnarounds for a plant. You might have a job for a month or 2 but then be out of work for a couple weeks and then find another one. For the games industry, once they ramp up production, they will hire a bunch of people.
Only 10? There are more of them in my opinion.
It doesn't say "the only 10"
@@nathanphillips2493I know. I just mean that they should put more of them in that video.
They need the rest for more videos
Part 2 coming within a month lol
@@Pass1ngStrangerHehheh. Well said 👍
The issue is that the people in these gaming companies that get promoted to positions of power aren't usually devs, but rather the ones in marketing and finance... So you end up with people with close to 0 knowledge about actual games in charge of leading game development.
It's always the fucking marketing and finance people that ruin the world, because all they see is money money money money
That's their job. They need to also appoint people in touch with the fan base and game development
They know more about how to do a line of coke than a line of code
"The problem is the people who know how to run a profitable business are the ones who get promoted" 😂😂
Tell me you have zero understanding of business lol.
Well I guess so. I work in this sort of industry and in a position of decision making based on pricing and strategy (business development analyst).
The thing is we work by sales data, and the data - contrary to the majority of the comments here - tells us that people are very willing to spend a lot on subscribtions, skins, microtransactions, DLCs, merch, anything apart from the game itself. The pipeline and margins are just too good to not profit from. I'm a cheap gamer too, but I just want to share what it's like from the inside.
A lot of these are the fault of leadership in the industry. They need to be held accountable, and their power and control needs to be adjusted.
I miss having Unreal Tournament LAN parties. No lag team deathmatch... sigh.
Also... I watched the segment on DRMs twice, and still couldn’t tell you what they were or what they did by your “explanation”. I had to Google it.
Microtransactions are the worst thing in gaming. They used to be only in F2P games, now we have full priced games that will arm twist you into buying a $40 mtx. eg. Diablo 4
The longer I live, the more interested I get in indie and retro games lol
Falcon = the best Gameranx videos. Enough said.
We need more people calling out the industry for all of these things - thanks for the amazing video!! :)
yes, we need that but do you actually it while change anything ?
People have been protesting, loudly, about way more important things like environmental issues and no one moves. Calling out is not the way to fight corporate greed.
On the last subject of publishers closing developer studios. It wouldn't be a problem if the developers didn't selling out the moment someone writes them a check. Stand by your team and make a contract to ensure your team has a job for a while and that your development is active.
You really think its that simple? Either you are loke 14 years old or have never had a real job before.
I hate that on some games that are single player you are required to be online.. Just have internet access
I live in a country where internet is very unstable. And being forced to restart the game every 30 minutes, most of the time having lost my progression is not exactly enjoyable. I'm not buying always online games anymore because of that. And that feels unfair.
@@aliceandthechipmunksit IS unfair!
Back in my Xbox days, I played the hell out of Project Gotham Racing 2 and that was the first game I played that had paid DLC. It was $5 for a car pack and I remember thinking to myself "This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen and there's no way this kind of thing will take off". Boy was I wrong. In fact it was so early in the DLC days, that you could actually get all the car packs for free using Action Replay
I counted and you said DRM 13 times without once explaining it to those of us who don't know what it is. Well done :/
If you judge it by context, it's presumably some sort of Anti-Cheat measure. Just look it up
@SammaclauseGamgee If the viewer has to do research just to understand an otherwise simple video then you have failed at being a creator.
I LOVE my ol falcon man. Telling it how it is. These are real rants. About real BS in this industry. About the way sht ain’t right. You a real one as always Falc mate 👊
The George Carlin of gaming tube
I still don't understand why developers/publishers have fomo battle passes. It just seems like easy money having ALL of their previous battle passes up for sale and allowing people to complete them at their leisure. The last thing I bought for Overwatch 2 was one of the battle passes and I didn't finish it. Every time I think about playing it again I remember that scar on my account that I can't fix and get disgusted with myself for even purchasing. Needless to say, I haven't touched the game since they cancelled the PvE.
That's how fomo works.
It's not just games, and it's not a recent thing either. People have been doing it for centuries!
It's like limited edition stuff in general. They could manufacture a thousand, and sell at a reasonable price, risk having a load of stock left over OR manufacture a hundred, sell them all at an extortionate price, and sell out quickly.
@@turbo8628 Thank for illustrating why fomo battle passes don't make any sense. This would make more sense for individual, limited edition cosmetics NOT battle passes. They aren't at a risk of being left with an inventory they can't move and they are somewhat reasonably priced. They could easily sell their past battle passes for as long as the game is sustainable. Hell, they could probably upcharge them when they go out of season.
I really want to know the math behind it and how they figured up the battle pass profits in the short term (say over 2-3 months) compared to the long term and what the percentage of players that buy the battle passes, percentage of players that complete the battle passes, and the percentage of people that purchase a battle pass after not completing a previously purchased battle pass are. It seems to me they would make more offering past battle passes then gating them into a fixed time frame. There is a small caveat in that if they look at the total number of players over a given season and want to keep them up for a better player experience but I highly doubt "player experience" is at the top of their priorities.
There are a few games such as the Halo MCC, Halo Infinite, and Helldivers 2 (I think. Not 100% on their battle pass structure) that have battle passes where you can switch to previous ones and still earn the rewards after purchasing it even when the season is over. I'm willing to bet that not being able to complete battle passes in the time frame of a season is a big hurdle for a lot people like myself where I can't guarantee that I will be able to finish it and look at them as a waste of money.
Limited cosmetics and such are fine, even if they are a pain in the ass. Overwatch is probably making a killing on the Cowboy Bebop crossover even though they are charging $25 per skin. People are going to being those because Blizzard will probably never offer them again like the breast cancer awareness Mercy skin.
@@GGPoohBah was implied but not stated...
Fomo works for battle passes because they have a limited time for use. If they were permanent then they would probably sell less because there is no rush for them.
That is why they do these battle passes and season passes. They don't have inventory left over, but they get more sales because of the fomo people have. If they had no limit, they would keep the service open and probably end up with less sales overall, not just in the short-mid term.
Supply and demand for digital entertainment does not exist unless they make it exist, and if something is scarce, it will be more appealing to people. That is why i compared it to limited edition merchandise.
"Whales" exist for mobile games, but plenty of gamers are mini-whales, whether they realise it or not. They enable this sort of practice because they have no self-control. Ruins a lot of things for the rest of us who have the sense not to buy into it.
@@GGPoohBah limited cosmetics are far from fine, they are worse than battle passes.
A battle pass is paying for the servers to connect your game, a cosmetic skin that is limited is predatory behavior.
@@turbo8628 It's all predatory behavior to some extend. The problem with battle passes compared to limited skins is that you could end up NOT completing a battle and not even having access to the cosmetic you bought the pass for to begin with.
2:29 was timed to perfection. Whale done! Lmao
Pokemon go loves its large water types
Man, being a loner really pays off as a gamer. Because I only play single player games all that "always online" or micro transactions bullshit miss me bad and there's no cheaters to be worried about lol
So to summarize the entire video: $GREED$
I wish we could get a new simpsons game or at least a remake of the simpsons game, hit and run, or road rage, but it's doubtful seeing Disney's history with games and EA owning the rights to simpsons for gaming it seems likely we won't get any new game or remake anytime soon.
I’m a hardcore gamer and I swore off day 1 purchases (with exception gta 6) not only am I fed up with the AAA market but I’m tired of spending 100+ dollars for a video game
RD2 was the last game I preordered. And even that way an exception at the time. I wait for everything to be on sale now.
I’m not desperate enough to feel required to play most games ASAP. I’ll just replay something else.
I have never bought a game day one, nor pre ordered. Gta6 is no exception. I didn't buy gta5 until it was over five years old, and still haven't played it much. It cost me 5$ and a few dozen hours of driving around got me my money's worth.
One that needs to be said is clones of game mechanics. Too many games that have a unique story but then you play it and it’s a dark soul’s clone. But it’s not just limited to that. Every FPS feels the same. Most multiplayer games are battle royal. I just want a unique game that hasn’t been done before. Or a mix of two styles that has never been done.
All of culture is collapsing. Games are just a piece.
This guy gets it.. sports. Movies , sports, games, music ..people are weirder, Love not the world my friend...
Exactly. It’s disgusting.
Art(which videogames are) is the canary in the coal mine.
How so?
I only buy physical games now, unless it’s an online only/ live service that I know I will like and spend hours in. It’s the closest i can get to owning my games.
And yet you still don't "own" them.
@@spankyjeffro5320 I mean if it’s a single player offline only game, then the only way I lose access to the game is breaking the disc, so pretty much I do.
Your game will more or less still be a paperweight these days. Most games arent fully on the disc and many SP games are online only despite being SP. Cyberpunk for instance becomes unplayable if the patches are no longer available to download. Physical games dont really help you anymore. Not since last gen
My number one would've been "Cramming your personal politics into a game in such a way that the entire game revolves around it then whining that the players who don't like your hamfisted politics and won't buy your game are bigots".
Then there's the whole "siccing the government on gamers because they won't buy your terrible games" nonsense that's currently accompanying it.
I'm not making up or exaggerating that last bit.
👏👏👏
The fact he didn't mention it tells us a lot about him...
Where is this happening?
@@Tyekiller115 Go and look yourself sweet baby Tyekiller :)
A single player, solitary, totally immersive, uninterrupted experience is where I started my escapism gaming journey and that is where I’m happy to stay. I don’t require anything else but that nor will I ever.