1) most of us are adults, we don’t have time. Unless you really capture my imagination or have an addicting loop, I can’t be bothered. A large portion of the core gaming community has aged into the point where we have more money than time. 2) this weird bloat, where size and quantity are valued over quality. Then they complain about how much more expensive games are to make. Simple mix, cut that shit in half and tighten it up. I know I’m not alone in the fact when a developer say “this one is 50% bigger than the last one!” as a selling point, in most cases I’m like “no thank you”
more money than time… you got me. this is one of the most elaborate comment i read this month. can we follow you? it feels like you know a thing or two more
As a former game dev, even having worked on a live service, free-to-play mobile hell, your sentiment about microtransactions going to developers sounds nice, but that's not how it works at all. Publishers (and studio management) do not reinvest profits in thanks to developers, they use it to line their own pockets, their investors and end of financial year bonuses. It's rare enough for developers to be rewarded based on how well a game performs, such as New Vegas, let alone the idea of giving extra revenue back to overworked, underpaid devs. Every dollar you spend on a skin or hat isn't going to some guy in QA who's struggling to pay his rent on time, it's going to people like Bobby Kotick, Andrew Wilson and all the other corporate parasites. At most, profit margins are used to justify whether it's worth taking another financial risk of funding development on the next game, update, etc. MTX doesn't help the consumer, and it certainly doesn't the developers. Do not support it under any circumstances.
For me it’s just even if they make more money in general I’m fine with that it’s more a principle thing I guess. Like on principle I’m fine with a single player game charging extra after a full price purchase as long as it doesn’t affect the game negatively. Whether that goes to the higher ups or QA either is fine whatever, obviously I would prefer the entire team and creatives as well but end of the day it’s peoples decision to spend more on things like say cosmetics that don’t affect the game, i would prefer studios have a ton of passion and great people working that care about the product, and ruthless business trying to get as much money as possible to maintain functions. I guess in other words I just don’t feel sorry for consumers, like me, who spend on mtx, it’s a personal problem. I do care if the mtx affect the game in a negative way like pay to win etc
Because to add on to this too, the reason I’m fine with them making all this money is if they really want the best business possible, they will pay their people well or big bonuses for high earnings, like Larian did. If they don’t that’s their own problem going to bleed talent over time not my problem. I’m fine with them charging consumers either way though as long as the games good
Yeah the only exception to this are those small self-publishing outfits that sees success every now & again - and even then, there's no guarantee that it's going to see reinvestment in the studio & the developers & not just go directly to the founder's retirement plan while seeking a purchaser of the company & IP or something. The only post-launch monetisation I would support unambiguously are expansions, whole new parts to the game - literally buying more game. Don't have a single problem with that.
Which is what most people who can actually read between the lines already knew. Which is why I despise MTX, and wish we would move away from it, and stop excusing it. I am the customer, not the company's friend. I care about the value I can get for my dollar. Not whether the developer is "supported" or not. Which you graciously explained, isn't even the case. But just like charity, most people will likely continue to believe the system works exactly as advertised, while ignoring the increasingly wealthy CEOs at the top.
Something to consider in a large open world game: How often do you just walk and take in your environment? Or is it a world where you sprint or take the fastest vehicle or travel without much consideration?
@@FranklyGaming The game that really did that for me was Ghost of Tsushima, which is another really awesome game that will soon come to PC. Also keep in mind how long that behavior persists. How late in the game do you find yourself stopping or slowing down? There is one counterpoint though. When a game has really good gameplay that you enjoy just playing the game without a story motivation and willingly do content to test new ideas in combat and experiment with the mechanics, I think that justifies having side content that serves no story purpose beyond just being a combat encounter.
Well said! Last time i played The Witcher 3, it was in VR and i fast traveled only a handful of times in my 120hr playthrough - it was just so immersive to feel the world around me, the trees swaying in the wind, the scale of the streets of Novigrad and Oxenfurt, the light of the sunset... Same with Cyberpunk 2077, for a different reason - driving my motorbike through the world felt amazing, even though i played it on a flat screen. :)
The last open world game that made me want to run through it instead of fast travel was Mirror’s Edge Catalyst. Traversal in most games is just walking or running in a straight line, and it gets boring. Catalyst is a parkour game where you need to time jumps and slides correctly to get places, and it’s super fun. Also helps that the game looks amazing.
@@Blxzyeah. I like this guy’s videos but I feel like I never finish them because he repeats himself over and over. He talks about wanting games to cut the fluff and focus on quality. He could stand to do the same.
He makes great points but that's true, he repeats himself several times and should cut out a lot of the filler. I'm not sure if it's because it's tough to edit out content, or if it's to get more ad revenue and make more money... ironic indeed.
Matthew 7:7 “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:” Revelation 3:20 “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” John 3:16 King James Version 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Matthew 11:29 “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”
The only part I really disagree with is your stance on microtransactions. While I agree it's up to you whether you buy them or not, provided you're an adult. But we are also talking about targeting children in this. It's about deliberately trying to cultivate and then ingrain those habits in very small future consumers. The way this video addressed the situation is a gross oversimplification lacking most (if not all) nuance.
yeah completely agree. "its a personal problem" is kind of a dick thing to say. its like saying "lol you have a gambling addiction" or fuck you for being neurodiverse. I'm fine with microtransactions in a live service multiplayer game. its what keeps it going and as long as its not pay to win, I'm glad I can keep coming back to a favorite coop game of mine with my friends because its not stale, but in a single player game shit like dragons dogma 2 is shameful.
Who pays for the children to buy microtransactions and who let them access garbage? Your kids work, gain money and waste every buck putting their credit card in a website with 2 or 3 verifications steps to buy mtx on their games? This is a problem of adults being dumb and irresponsable, not children.
Let me guess, he also fails to acknowledge that games are warped around the mtx, making them WORSE BY DESIGN so players are more likely to spend money. To be honest I can't finish the video, the tone is too whiney to even listen to.
This video deals with the most important aspect that no one talks about: time. Like all hobies, gaming also costs money buy also requires time. As for myself, I find myself playing games instead of watching TV because I find it a more interesting medium. Being active while also enjoying a wonderful story feels much more fulfiling to me than just seeting on a couch and maybe even scrolling through tiktok or instagram during the show or movie. Like my favorite shows and movies, I tend to revisit games I loved. Even if I know the larger events that are happening in the game, the smaller details are what makes it interesting and being active changes things instead of just watching the same episode. I do believe that everyone views things differently about gaming but thats what makes it fun, the variety. Keep having fun people!
@@martyfromnebraska1045 It's not a trick you are doing somehting more. It's been proven that brain activity is stimulated by playing games. More then just watching tv. 🤷♂
Pacing is everything, not just in games, but art, music, story in general - I think these AAA companies know it well, and if they want, they can create the best pacing and experience, but the fact is, big games are mostly products, and they are there to milk your money first, and being something fun the second, fun/pacing sometimes don't convert into sales, that's the sad facts. Also we hardcore gamers want in a lot of cases don't align with regular consumers, so we generally feel modern gaming sucks. Just my personal take on this matter.
Tell it to EA, who from FIFA ultimate team alone EACH YEAR earn more money than Elden ring from its sales. People have mental health crisis and companies use it. If there was not demand, there would not be offer.
Nope, corporate greed is not the problem, if so fortnite, overwatch, cod etc won't be big.. Let's be honest, stop blaming everything on just these corporates when our demands for games has a growing pressure to impress. Graphics, sounds, cinematic structure, need money and funding..our superficial demand is high within the gaming community. So let's be honest here we are also to blame for the failure.
@@isimioyekunlemarktaiwo3643 Agree. There are many great indie games, who have great game mechanics, but not graphical polish of AAA. Also people wish too much be a part of the conversation about newest games, that buy games just because of it. That is why I respect Franky for his decision to review only games he likes (I remember 1 time he reviewed what he hated and that review was terrible).
@@isimioyekunlemarktaiwo3643 the creator of Baldurs gate 3 will completely disagree with you, he recently gave a speech saying that the problem with the industry is greed. Stop defending companies like a little consumer, yes the problem is greed. Just because some games manage to succeed doesn't mean there is no problem. These companies are making millions and then they fire the people who made the games, only to hire more and repeat the same over again, you don't know s💩 dude. Is it the only problem? No, ideology is also destroying the industry, so it's more than one thing, but greed is a huge part of it.
@@johnnyjohnson2826 True . Some people think Art , or something they can do (Or even steal) should be Free . Not paying may be the Opinion of Another Programmer. But speaking as a Artist If you Admire the work of Another Artist u Buy.
@@billy6427 Only if you buy overpriced physical collector items. Most retro games are available digitally on GOG or some other online store for significantly less than $80, and if they aren't currently officially available, it's better to just get them from an abandonware or ROM site than to buy overpriced used physical copies that the developer won't get any money for anyway. Only reason to ever buy those overpriced physical copies is if you are actually a collector.
I love the video, and I agree completely, except that it has to be the worst take on microtransactions I've ever heard. In my opinion it's hardly a personal issue. These companies employ psychologists with the sole purpose of figuring out how to trick you to spend money. You will always lose this battle. This is why gambling is so heavily regulated. It's not an individual's problem, it's a systemic problem that needs to be addressed. And, drawing a parallel, just as we don't need to have 100000h games wasting our time, we don't really need giant corporations to spend millions of dollars on more and more expensive games that use cheaper and cheaper tricks to get you to spend money tu justify their bloated budgets. We could actually use more medium budget titles, with smaller teams, that use the money to develop tighter experiences with less emphasis on production values. Which is why I'm so happy that so many indie studios exist to provide me with all the solar ashes and edith finches I can eat.
While I agree, it's not the case for everyone. I've never bought from in-game stores or taken part in lootbox mechanics in games I play that have them. Some of us can just completely ignore them. Iny case in-game store for example are so fiddly to setup I simply gave up on them the first time I looked into them. Most of these things have also just put me off buying some games so they are easy to avoid when it looks like they ruin the game or don't add anything. Lastly given how often I just drop a game, how temporary games can be for me I don't see the point in paying more money for optional stuff that loses it's value or will do when servers shut. So yeah big issues but some of us just sidestep them completely and are unaffected.
mtxs aren't there to help the devs, it's for the shareholders. who have every vested in interest in wasting your time for engagement if you aren't gonna pay
In the comments of a totk video, I mentioned being thankful that the game respected my time by never forcing me into protracted sessions, giving me natural stopping points, and also making sure I never considered my actions to be a chore. I was not recieved well. I was accused of being "bitter that my life was taken up by work" (its not lol), accused of being easily distracted, etc Its sad because there are so many games i want to experience, but the amount of time they demand from you is unhealthy. If I wanted to spend 500 hours in an rpg I'd play an mmo.
Been saying it for years. I believe the right size for open world map was achieve in Vice City. It was big enough to enjoy riding around, while memorizing it and use your recall to plan during missions or adjust on the fly. This lead to amazing and thrilling playthrough memories.
i think one of the most constantly overlooked features is traversal, and finding ways to make it fun and engaging. spiderman nails it, and assassins creed has come close a few times.
personally I think the worst offenders are games like destiny where you fight the same thing over and over for a small percentage chance to get something worth anything. and anything where you have to grind resources endlessly to make one thing that your going to need to keep making so that you can make something else to make something else is awful. Tarkov is another example of a terrible game where you have to grind to get gear so that you can grind to get better gear. I hate grinding
If it's 15 minutes of feeling like a God, blasting every boss each with different intentions, and giving redemption arcs to your "if evil, why hot" characters? I might just buy it
There's a lot of stuff in life that people pay $100 for to enjoy for 15 minutes to an hour. Expensive food, for example. There are plenty of people who pay twice this just to pay an electrician to change out an outlet cover. People pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars for brand new, brand name shoes and bags to put them in the closet and wear once a year. Plenty of dummies mess around with drugs and alcohol that cost that much just because.
@@addonexus2656 red herring. you even insinuate this with the intro about 'expensive' food. it would be more like saying paying 100 dollars for burger king. the main point is that people want equivalent value exchanged. the consensus is that modern games charge too much and give too little back.
@jeremiahjohnson2784 It's not Burger King, if the burger is made with kobe beef.... and as addonexus stated, people will pay outrageous prices for an experience that lasts mere moments or hours. He used food as his main example, but I'd like to expand on that to show that you will find it just about everywhere... First example- Tickets to this year's Superbowl averaged $8600! That average includes cheap nosebleed seats for about $2000 all the way up to catered suites going for upwards of $20,000... and this is for an experience that lasts maybe 8 hours at the most? That breaks down to $250/hr for nosebleeds, $1075/hr average, and $2500/hr for a suite. And ask anyone that dropped the money for whatever level ticket they bought, and a vast majority would probably say it was worth the cost. (Unless you are a 49er fan 😢) Second example- A round of 18 holes of golf at a high end course can range from $485-$1000. 18 holes takes about 2.5 to 4 hours to play, depending on if you are walking the course or renting a cart. That breaks down to an average of $241/hr. Not to mention, you gotta schedule your tee time at least 30 days in advance, or good luck getting one, so clearly there are a large number of people perfectly ok with the cost. Third (and final) example- Dirt track racing cost about $400 each weekend of race season, and that doesn't take into account the $10,000-$30,000 start-up cost of buying all the things needed to begin with, and that $400 gets you about 20 mins of on track full throttle time. Maybe 40 min, if you qualify high enough to get into the A-main. That breaks down to $1200/hr for non A-main qualifiers, and $600/hr for those that do qualify. Not to mention all the time and work that goes into maintaining your ride throughout the week... but the pits are always full every weekend during race season, so the cost is clearly justified. My point is that paying $100 for a gaming experience that is only 15 min could easily be justified if the gaming content provided for the cost was absolutely fun, entertaining, and thrilling, and gaming is one of your hobbies. It comes down to your subjective view of "affordable." You wouldn't find somebody that has never watched a football game in their life dropping double digit dollar amounts on football tickets, let alone 4 or 5 figure amounts... but to the person that can remember owning a jersey of their teams current quarterback as well as every one of the past 6 quarterbacks dating back 30 years, they might throw down stacks of cash without hesitation. It all comes down to how much you weight the entertainment value of the experience you are buying into. And for top quality, no bs, 100% bursting with passion obvious labor of love gameplay, I imagine $100 for 15 min might even seem cheap to some people. Hell, you might find me at the midnight release begging the cashier to, "take my money!" So I can get home and play the hell out of the following 15 min of pure gaming bliss. Then, once the credits roll 15 min later, I might just launch straight into ng+ for another 15 minutes of utter elation... 😂
@@addonexus2656 The only thing I would disagree with is the electrician part. Sure you can probably find a guide online or a manual on how to fix something, but wouldn't you rather save that time and effort and possibly stress if something goes badly and just let a professional handle it? Of course, there's things like an outlet cover which you can do yourself, but what I meant is to not be stingy with that kind of stuff in general, because sure you maybe are able to fix a part of a broken machine, but in the process you've possibly voided your warranty, you've exposed yourself to possible risk with these kinds of machines and you risk breaking it further if you're not careful. Stuff like PCs? Sure you can do those yourself and their parts are designed so almost anyone with a little bit of guidance can build and monitor their own computer, but stuff like microwaves are not to be touched by yourself if you aren't an expert under no circumstances.
Pretty much every open world sandbox game from the start. Mind numbing basic activities which is fine if that's what you specifically want, but then so is minesweeper and solitaire. Any game that intentionally wastes time with grind should be docked points for quality.
30:45 most of that money don't go to the devs. The CEO of Activision (before he was kicked out) literally gave himself a pay raise and the developers didn't get a pay raise when COD didn't meet it's profit margin goal in 2022 I think it was? (idr the year)
I was so happy to hear Hellblade 2 is going to be a similar 8-ish-hour length as the first game, just with higher production, more characters & improved combat, for $50. Another studio would've made it an Iceland exploration simulator with map markers, collectibles & side quests.
I played Alone in The Dark these days and I enjoyed the game, it has flaws like any game (combat is a bit slow), but overall it was a lot of fun for me. I finished Emily's campaign in 4 hours and a lot of reviews said that the game was short and lacked content. Our mind is already corroded by the idea that games have to be more than 50 hours long to be good, in the same way that there are people who cannot focus on long videos due to their addiction to Shorts/Tiktok
Do you think it was worth the 60 bucks though? Just wondering, I am thinking about getting it next. I don't want to pay that for a game I will likely play through once and that's it. I just got Rise of Ronin and also have my eye on Dragon's Dogma. It came out between two other big releases so picking it over those, I would need a reason. I would love another Survival horror franchise besides Resident Evil to be successful. While those games can be beat quick the replays add a lot of fun to it. I didn't see incentive to do that with Alone but I'm happy to be proven wrong.
Look, I recommend waiting for a promotion, I bought it because I REALLY miss horror games and I believe that the fact that it satisfied that lack makes me like it a lot. And this month there were a lot of releases, so just focus on one or the other and wait for some promotions (I'm also keeping an eye on DD2)
@@rclima2328 Thanks for the input. I was thinking I'd wait on that one. While it isn't scary, if you're a Playstation plus member Amnesia: The Bunker is 12 bucks right now. It's more tense then scary but when you figure stuff out, it gets rewarding.
17:00 As a writer I can attest to this. If something doesn't fit into the narrative anymore, even if it's a good idea that I spent a lot of time writing, it gets cut to make the story flow better and make sense.
@@Ez-Boi23 A lot of them refuse to believe they're addicted to psychological hooks, just like gambling addicts. They keep getting shafted, keeping seeing their franchises get gutted, yet they keep preordering and making excuses instead of voting with their dollars.
my biggest reason for supporting cheats in modern SINGLEPLAYER games is to skip the built in grind and make your game fun again. Like assassin's creed's new games, some of the WORST offenders, and become so much more playable when you remove the level gating.
"open world" should be a compromise for when linearity cannot achieve a desired design goal, not the goal itself. same with things like "flashiness" or "mechanical depth". too much of that without other aspects to tie it together with the rest of the game and you get a flash-in-the-pan or a mechanical mess type of game. spice is nice, but nobody wants to upturn a salt shaker into their mouth why climb a mountain of trash when you could sit on a throne of gold?
You don't have to finish games in one sitting. It's always what you make of it. Assassin's Creed Odyssey for example: the game is obviously made with selling time savers in mind. But with a trainer to bypass the resources grind, playing every quest when I felt about it. Not rushing to the end. 250 hours for everything and it was fun. I stopped playing for a week when it wasn't. But this is always for open world games. Different games, different way of playing.
250 hours for everything with trainer to bypass the resources grind? wtf were you doing 250 hours,my dude i finished everything in that game every side quest and dlc in 130 hours and you almost did double with a trainer wtf :D P.S no i didn't bought any time savers from ubisoft,i just played the game.
@@EyefyourGf I did everything. Every quest, every dlc. And no fast travel. The sea shanties where too good. I enjoyed the setting what can I say. It's the only open world ubigarbage game I had this with.
There's a lot of middle ground between one sitting & 250 hours. I think more than 30 hours for a main campaign without sidequests or challenges is where a game seriously starts to outstay its welcome IMO.
You can have 100 pairs of shitty shoes that hurt to walk in or 1 finely crafted pair that looks and feels good. It doesn't matter if the peanut gallery likes mind numbing bad quality stuff. Some people like eating poop. Objectively one is better than the other.
Length and repetitive content is not the issue. Boring gameplay design is the issue. If you have a great combat sandbox, then almost nothing feels repetitive.
I recently finished my second playthrough of cyberpunk along with the phantom liberty DLC, and that's when i realized how unique open worlds like cyberpunk, witcher 3 and RDR2 are. Every mission you do in these games has a purpose, even if what you're doing may be repetitive. In cyberpunk, there are dozens of gigs, and though they may be only a few types of gigs(thievery, gun for hire etc.), every gig has a story to it. Similarly, the witcher contracts in witcher 3 all involve the same thing, killing monsters - but all contracts have a story attached to them. What i mean to say is, games like these make you feel immersed with the side content, they truly make you feel like a merc or a witcher or a cowboy in those worlds, even if the stuff you're actually doing may be repetitive. These games however are sadly few and far between. For every one of these games, you have 20 open world games with bullshit video gamey stuff to pad out the length of the game like ubisoft towers and ubisoft enemy outposts. Ubisoft has done massive damage to the video game industry. Even if their almost all of their games now are soulless corporate products made for mindless consumption, they still sell incredibly well, so their open world formula has been adopted by many other studios. I have no idea where i was going with all this, and i have no idea how to finish it, but I have to say man, i love your channel and your videos, you put your heart and soul into these videos. I feel the same way about video games, but I may never be able to put those emotions into words like you do. I came across your channel roughly a year ago, and i absolutely love listening to your videos. Keep up the good work mate :)
Frankly gaming encapsulated everything wrong with modern gaming minus games being broken on release. I tried finishing days gone but the filler, boring world, and boring characters made me quit. Give me dragons age origins, mass effect, last of us 1, and Bioshock any day. Games with narrative as the focus, little to no filler, and imo, great pacing. A++ vid
One of the big reasons games have evolved this way is because of the fact that a huge part of the target demographic are people without jobs or other responsibilities who are looking for ways to "waste" their time away. This is seen in the constant battle between younger "hardcore" gamers in high school or college, and older gamers who want to play a few hours after the kids go to sleep.
for the record the "people without jobs or other responsibilities who are looking for ways to "waste" their time away" typically plays MMO's and the only reason other companies started the more mundane boring crap was in hope of bringing those players to their game and completely disregarding the core fundamentals of what makes open world game good so the likelihood of those player even wasting their time with crap like that when they got MMO is very unlikely and now companies like Ubisoft is stuck with this idea because parents who don't keep up with gaming news and how bad those games have gotten, buys the game and is just gonna blame the void that still plays MMO's instead of blaming the company who made this choice in the first place also don't blame the young for having free time because last i check when i was kid in the 90s my parents struggle too to maintain their hobbies too because they had kids but was also able to pick them up again ones we had a families of our own so making that statement seems more ungraceful for the free time you use to have and will get again than something worth justifying companies needing to cater to you only having 5 hours a week to play or so i used to play GTA, wow, Skyrim, monster hunter, and other games like that but now days I'm perfectly fine if i can just play some random indie game witch i also can play the the kids but hey... if you can't let go of the trending AAA titles then that's on you and only you because your kids don't deserve to get the blame for you having them
@@konohake I really don't get where you're getting this "BLAME THE KIDS!" thing from OP's comment. I think the point they were making was only that a lot of these games are looking to market to those with a lot of free time, and traditionally, younger people who don't have 9-5 jobs and families tend to have more free time than anyone else. They're not saying it's young people's FAULT that this is happening, just that the game-makers are trying to aim for an audience that has a lot of time to spend on their game.
@@RHBR01 if a game ain't fitting ones daily schedule then find one that does. like a said before i myself used to play games that required alot of time but now i don't or at least i find other ways to still keep the hobby going via the family i have but do you see me thinking "oh i should still be the targeted audience despite my choices in life...? no.. you don't... because i can come to terms with it and now, I'm able to try new games i never touched before thanks to that choice and just allowing the kids to have fun exploring the world of games to the fullest and for the record... when it come to AAA. The catering they tend to do for parents/adults in general is just asking to pay up with microtransaction to speed up the time or basically pay to win mechanic ALL WHILE HAVING A 3 - teen RATING BY THE WAY I'm not interested in keeping that marketing alive just so i as an adult can still play the popular games while my kids could have increased chances of potentially end up with a gambling addictions or the FOMO effect i find that indie games are now more worth spending money on anyway and that's all thanks to letting go of the AAA's might wanna give that a try before thinking there are no games for you anymore because for every AAA there's at least a few 100s of indies that hit the same category and also have more creative gameplay due to not having an endless pit of money to sleep in because the shareholders of their companies gives more money than all of their fans combine but yeah... let's just keep playing the game of "blame those with more time on their hands" juuuuust because we decided to kids witch should have more value than a trash AAA title if you ask me
This is so true, and it's something that I've felt for a long time. The common complaint of "they want $20 for that 4 hour long game? that's way too much!" just boggles my mind. The people who want at least an hour of "gameplay" for every dollar that they spend make me think of a person who is not only happy eating stale discounted bread for every meal of every day, but who actively pursues that over all other forms of sustenance. The idea that quality does not equate quantity is lost on them and they scoff at paying $20 for a quality meal because that same $20 could buy them ten loaves of expired bread. I whole-heartedly agree that long games are generally a waste of time filled with repetitive gameplay that long overstays it's welcome most of the time. With rare exceptions, I would much rather play 20 games that are between 1-4 hours long than play 1-2 games that take 40-80 hours to complete.
Ubisoft and Bethesda are the EPITOME of this wasting of time... and I don't even mention some chinese games. TO ME, however, there are nuances that you have not taken into account, since you cannot help but see the situation from within the target range to which you belong (see the microtransactions part). Pacing in videogames can usually be controlled by players and very few people can "create" their own rhythm or missions to fill empty moments (expecially in open worlds)... this is the problem! Furthermore, the pace sensitivity and suspension of disbelief change with mood (as you said) but also with age, and since when you create a game you have to consider ALL the kind of players, especially the demographics that would make you earn more money ('cause in the end this is the point), the problems increase! For each type of game there's a different "safe strategy" that is balanced between different tastes in terms of rhythm, mechanics and sometime even aesthetics! Maybe, just maybe, the ones you mention as shining examples of good mechanics and pace are actually just the ones made for your demographic and nothing more! I don't know. I think there's a much broader and more complex discussion to do here, even if I generally agree with you, expecially about fillers...
I liked Elden Ring being long, I loved exploring the world, I liked jumping around with my mount and I didn't want it to end, it's an immersive and beautiful experience, it's not just about fighting bosses.
I refer to something the CGI team (weta) on my favorite movie once said regarding the maturity and awareness it took to make. "At the end of the day we're not here to show off our amazing skills in a showreel or quantitatively justify our worth, we're here to support the product in entertaining and telling the story." Game studios need to take note, that just because it takes a long time to do something doesn't mean we then break the pacing to linger on it.
Technology advancements have a lot to do with wasted time, 25 years ago I could buy a Sega Genesis game for £30 that was over within two hours of starting it. Back then my passion for games was greater and the experiences were way shorter and got completed. Sadly the newer games I'm buying aren't getting finished. I have over 250 Steam games now and play about 5 of them a week.
Gamers waste their own time by putting hundreds of hours into games that they don't like. If you don't like it stop playing ffs. I would argue that gamers love these games but feel guilty about the way they are spending their time. Putting 100 hours into a game that doesn't need 100 hours is your own damn fault lmao.
Witcher 3 is an example of a game that does a fantastic job of weaving together the side content with the general theme of the game's world and overarching story. Many of the side quests felt like handcrafted material carefully written with intrigue and passion that served the purpose of further fleshing out the world, bringing to life the experience of living in it, and cementing the role of Geralt as a witcher.
You have wishes. I know the NES era of gaming. Most games didn't last longer than barely an hour. And we paid full price on a regular basis that was between $60 and $100. For a NES game. And now games cost what again? Even with inflation going on? This means games have gotten cheaper in that aspect. And you think you have to demand how long games should last? Does replay value mean nothing to you people anymore? Oh wait, no it does not. You confuse replay value with false ingame goal that come along as tedious trophies. Gosh. We didn't have trophies or people padding our shoulders for beating games like Wizards & Warriors. We played on our own terms without gifts and trophies. We knew the value of games. But times have changed I guess.
@@niemand7811 I started gaming in the mid eighties. I know that era. But that doesn’t mean that modern games should be short still. Back then, games were still good even if they were short. PS1 and PS2 era games got longer. Now they are back to being short. That’s stupid.
Elden Ring wastes your time in more ways than just the size of the world and the copied enemies. It's tiny things adding up, from the jank camera responsible for most of your mishaps to the needlessly archaic inventory and menu management.
It's a much maligned game but I feel Dragon Age 2 has decent pacing. It literally has 3 Acts and most (not all) of the side quests are interesting and some even affect things in later acts. Decent companions help as well. Sure BioWare used the same assets over again and sometimes the long walks without fast travel can be a slog but in regard to story and narrative, the pacing is excellent. DA2 still has filler content though but most of it is organic, kind of. Meaning that a larger side quest pops up in the same area as a fetch quest, so it's less annoying.
Elden ring is so much better for being such a massive game and I totally disagree with your notion that it is too long. My favorite game from my childhood, like you, is Skyrim. Skyrims world had so much charm and character and so many meaningful things to do in it that I couldn’t stop exploring. For a full decade, nothing came anywhere near close to it. Until Elden ring. Elden ring transported me back into my childhood, and gave me every single tool needed to just explore.
@@Me_Myself_Maly if we talkin bang for buck then it was worth its price value wich is in the realm of conversation. Games today aren’t worth the cost. Yes it wasn’t 70 but it still wasn’t a free to play. It had a 5 hour ish campaign and it was worth it. But yea the multiplayer is amazing too
Only in the ending part of the video I noticed that the "The Witcher 3" gameplay is in portuguese lol. Btw, nice video and I totally agree with you (except the microtransaction part). I never notice the pacing problem.
"Don't waste our time" Makes 36 minute video that could and should have been 10... and then has the worst take on microtransactions and lootbox garbage.
You had a point RIGHT until mentioning Skyrim as a positive. Skyrim is filled with fetch-quests, radiant monster-slaughtering quests and in most cases DOESN'T offer you any choice on how to do something. Skyrim made the exact same errors as Starfield did, only less often. But that formula of filling the world with easily generated content with minimal depth was something pleaguing Bethesda games for a loooong time. The problem was them repeatedly choosing to just go for the easier approach. We could implement a meaningful skill system with important choices...or we could go the easier path of making almost all those choices insignificant. We could try carefully placing enemies of differing levels to give the player a feeling of actually making progress when they level up... or we could go the easier path of making everything scaled to player level. We could try creating powerful artifacts that give the player some sense of accomplishment... or we could hand them out like candy, but make them also level-scaled so they stop being of use 3-4 hours later. We could try to actually implement the civil war with interesting systems and ongoing, changing effects, even while the player doesn't actively participate to make the gameworld feel alive in some way... or we could make it a gloryfied sidequest. While i do aggree with your general point of hating games making increasingly large parts of their content just a mind-numbing chore, your positive example is terrible.
Premise: Games are wasting our time. Evidence: Game completion stats are very low. Conclusion: You need me to tell you you're wasting your time playing the games you're not completing, and games should be bad less. This video was a waste of time, and I know this for a fact because I gave it every opportunity to change my mind.
Open world is good, the problem is it's seldom done right. They make an immersive open world with pretty scenery. And absolutely nothing to do therein. Skyrim for all its flaws is one of the few good ones with things STILL being discovered 13 years later.
At this point I'm focusing on my backlog when I have time or in older games I didn't play at the time or just games that actually keep me engaged, no more modern games for me lol unless they're masterpieces like Baldur's Gate 3 or indie gems. AAA games really suck these days with so much padding.
Excellent video. It’s become a chore to play some of these new AAA titles due to how much time is spent essentially doing nothing in them. I’m much more selective about what I play these days
I needed this video. I must value my time and drop games if I am not enjoying it. I dragged myself to end Greedfall last time, It's good game but it overstates its welcome
@@FranklyGaming Yeah, I already feel a sense of relief after deleting my backlog list. I would continue to play some games from there but without any obligation. Thank you very much, and I wish you all the best!
Here's a cheap truth... Nowadays reviewers are lazy which drives sales of overinflated games. Games throw at you their best mechanics, scenes, visuals, most playable moments in the first 10% of progression because next to 0 reviewers will go further. Then they stretch the rest to make gameplay long enough to justify the ridiculous price with promised number of hours of so called "fun". Then 99% of customers buy after watching a review alone. I remember the times when it was mandatory to finish a game before reviewing it (or you would get fired from a magazine) because otherwise it's impossible to tell the reader if the whole experience is worth investing time, how it makes you feel or if it's fun at all. Key phrase being "a whole experience". The reviews of the past: "I had great time playing this game from start to finish and this is why!". Reviews of today: "The beginning of this game looks nice so go buy it with my $0.10 affiliate discount coupon!".
I could never play a game like elden ring if its anything like souls games, I don’t enjoy challenges and difficulty as life is already difficult enough
Don't worry dude, lots of people don't like soulslike either... It just the fanbase and the trend that keeping it afloat, reviewers 'must' like the game in order to not get cancelled. I enjoy hard games like Hollow Knight because I can move with precisions, meanwhile I must spam roll in elden ring while following some guides in order to not waste my time dying (and the game can't pause, like seriously?)
I play a lot of souls games, my favorite genre, and for me Elden Ring is way more difficult than Dark Souls games or Bloodborne, and the open world is really confusing. Souls games are not difficult just for the sake of it, is not the same as playing other games in hardcore more; the game is fair and gives many tools for you to be strong.
@@nickochioneantony9288 Not liking soulslikes is completely okay but your take on reviewers is pretty wild. Nobody would cancel them if they make a negative review about a game that is actually bad. Many people criticised DS2 and both Lords of The Fallen games because they really are flawed in more ways than one. Also what do you mean "just the fanbase and trend keeping it afloat"?? Isn't it like that with pretty much all games? If soulslikes weren't actually good the fanbase wouldn't grow like this. Demon's Souls sold less than 1M in it's first year, DS1 sold several million after a few years, DS3 sold over 10M in 4 years and Elden Ring got to 20 million in just one year.
@@valentinvas6454 ahh this is exactly what I meant, a souls fan defending the genre with all its passive-aggresive tone. People don't like crpg like Baldur's Gate, it's fine, don't like shooters, it's fine, etc... But don't like souls game, well it's time to tell them to git gud. Yes, Elden Ring sold a lot, it wins goty... But the case here is the player who didn't know any good of what the game expect them to do. Many first-timer bought the game because of popular reviewers recommended it. But in the end, only some of the hardcore could finish the game (16% finished it, as I recall). I for one didn't expect that I must roll myself a hundred times before I beat a boss in an awkward angle (absolutely break the immersion). Nobody told us that the game is so painfully punishing that it would take so much time just to get my exp back because the game cannot be paused. That is a simple complaint, but it kills the fun factor. Many casuals are all in for hard games, we can beat Celeste challenges, Hollow Knight bosses, Hades in 30+ heat... It can be so much fun, but nothing can kill my excitement faster than dying in a Souls game, especially when the fanbase use cult-like justification.
@@nickochioneantony9288 I wasn't even defending the games I was merely stating that souls games are just as open to criticism as others if it's valid. Oh my God the "git gud" things is so misunderstood nowadays. It's being said as a joke most of the time and other times it's said by the toxic minority. None of the decent souls fans would call out anyone for not liking the games. The vocal minority is always the worse and those people would bash even me for using certain weapons. The 16% data must be old or misleading because I just checked and 40% of Steam users and 55 of PS users defeated Hoarah Loux who is the penultimate boss. I think ER has different achievements for certain endings. It's interesting to hear that you found ER more punishing than something like Hollow Knight. For me it's roughly similar. In fact I had more trouble with POP Lost Crown on normal difficulty. ER can be made pretty easy if you know where to go for weapon and flask upgrades on top of good weapons, spells, summons etc. My friend would enter boss rooms, summon 5 headless knights and remain in the back and shoot magic spells. Most bosses could be destroyed this way in less than half a minute.
The problem with game industry today is gaming is corrupted. Some studio do put in love and times into games. Zelda tears of kingdom is perfect example of devs putting time and love into game. It’s what BOTW should have been imo. Balder gate 3 is another example of good game that has passion dev team who care and devs that actually played the game make sure it’s good. So many studios don’t play there games fully or even bother to fully beta check that game is good or balanced or quality check. Days of tomorrow = perfect example of pure greed and corruption. We’re head devs ever charged or arrested for anything? Nope. They got off free, they closed shop and then opened up under new name and continued with same old scam but with different name. While many ex devs staff fired without warning and no pay. Wildcard/snail game= corrupt game studio that continues lie toe community and been selling snail oil to gamers. Is anything done to stop them from selling snake oil. Nope Blizzard a once loved studio, now cancer thanks to Bobby K. Was he ever charged/arrests or some kind of fine? Nope. Got off free, without even slap on wrist. Ms buying Activision isn’t going save them. Ms is just as corrupt as EA is. You only need look ms history to see this. Windows = bloatware Cus ms has bullied all other OS competition out of business. So ms rules PC market with a strangle hold on pc gaming market. With the, buying Activision they doing same old thing now to consoles. Own as much as you can so can control it. Ms hasn’t made good 1st party game since Xbox 360 days. Sea of thieves/halo/minecraft/gears of war, fable= all slowly dying. Scalebound = shutdown before even given a chance. Gaming industry is corrupt with very few laws to protect consumers/gamers. Devs and studios can do games as cheep or as quick as they want and slap $100 price tag on quality that has not been proper checked. The problem is with game industry does not have any Quality assurance on any game. Before any games is sold. It should be checked by 3rd neutral party that check it for quality and quantity. Devs and studio can sell you snake oil/scam and get away with it. Gaming has gotten to big. Imo indie studios often make better games then AAA do.
I guess that thing is, Players like us who don't want structured gameplay ar very less than we think, and majority of the audience out there is only casual who do not care about story. But Elden Ring is one example which every studio should take inspiration from.
This channel is so based for saying what it did about Elden Ring. Few channels would even attempt to criticize something that is so universally loved. I appreciate the honestly. Tbh I had the same problem with Elden Ring, but my main problem with it was its story or lack thereof. And no, don't come at me with "oh it has just has a different way of storytelling", no. Lore drops isn't storytelling and it has existed in many other games before that also has an actual main story.
Bro what are you on about, the whole game is about the main story and lore, every character, every conversation, your whole mission? Its not just vaguely mentioning it like you insinuate??
@@DemokerR101 Lore is different from story. This is basically your entire playthrough. The world is huge but the only meaningful "secrets" you really discover while exploring are new enemies to fight. Then, you reach a main area where a boss resides and you fight your way through that area to reach and beat the boss. My issue is that for world this size there aren't any stories or side quests that add anything particularly unique or different other than just more fighting. I really expected a great story especially with GRRM involved and a huge open world game which has lots of content. But the last third of the game was a massive slog to get through and by the time I was at the end I really had no sense of why I was even there, fighting a final boss I'm seeing for the very first time who did nothing to antagonize me for the entire journey leading up to that moment. I felt no sense of accomplishment finishing the game other than the fact that I beat a very difficult boss.
Agree. I only finished Elden Ring for commitment, but I was really burned out about 50-75% of the game. To me, DkS 1 from beginning to Ornstein and Smough is a great example of good pacing
100% agree with you. Unfortunately, nothing's going to change as long as the cash flows in... Companies are using more and more psychological bias to keep us engaged and get us to pay for something that we don't need AND waste our precious time. We've got to get smarter as consumers. Not only for video games, but in general.
Go play Portal 2 with a buddy. Best 8 hours you'll ever spend. Now go play Skull & Bones with them for 80 hours. Point proven. Also, damn you for beating me to making this video Frankly, you sexy sexy man.
To be fair. If you spend 4 hours watching movies. 4 hours on TV shows, 4 hours on a hike, 4 hours of basketball, 4 hours doom scrolling TikTok or Instagram, extra 4 hours of sleep, 4 hours doing a puzzle, 4 hours reading a book, extra 4 hours driving, 4 hours at a bar or club, then you spent 4 hours. How you choose to spend it is up to you. There is no right nor wrong answer here, each person is not the same as another. But what I think what we need to keep in mind is balance, and efficiency. Drive when there is no traffic, live close to work. Make multiple meals at once, grocery 12 times a year. Car pool so you can be on your phone 3 times for your commute. Work out at work, shop, game, pay bills, Netflix etc. when you walk be on your phone. Have friends over to game and TV and dinner. Like think how to reduce the chores and maximize the entertainment and get your money working for you. If you live where you work, your commute is 2 minutes one way. Dam son. As for me I work out, bills, study, podcast, game, Netflix at work. I buy games when they are off 80%. And I just save. When I'm home I rubberband the controller and turn on the TV show, while dummy work on my DS. I'm 3x my life sometimes
Same thing with Final Fantasy 7 remake, disregarding the story changes. The first one was padded with almost 70% filler, on top of the same dungeon being needed to be completed twice (sewers). Although JRPG's have never been good with side quests, they didn't take up such a huge chunk of gameplay time like FF7 remake. And the side quests themselves felt like the standard MMO filler from point a to point b, or kill x amount here with forgettable NPC stories to go with it. And of course anyone who dares to criticizes the game for it gets thrown into the nostalgia crowd. The minute I saw information about the sequel being "open world" I knew that there was no way that I would touch it with a 10ft pole. A vast landscape and great graphics ain't going to save a game packed with more filler than actual main storyline content. I also worked on my own story mod for an RPG, where I added in these short repeatable missions of the same quality as these filler type quests, funny part is it took me less than an hour to do each of them. And if I really wanted to, I could have slapped one together in close to 20 minutes (story/dialogue and scripting wise). My first real realization of how mundane and repetitive open world could be was in Metal Gear. I originally thought to myself how great a concept it would be, and Metal Gear was the perfect candidate with being given the option to tackle things the way I wanted to, and honestly the variety of choices were there. But as the hours began drag on and on, I defaulted to a strategy that will get me through the mission as fast as possible, and then it started to feel like a chore.
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I can clearly think on a example: Resident Evil 5. Super short, but engaging from begin to end. It actually makes you want to replay it.
If 67% of players don't finish Doom 2016 it's not Doom's fault, it's the player's fault. This is a linear game with minimal side content and mainly linear, action-packed levels. It definitely respects players' time. We can extrapolate that any game with a 30-40% completion ratio is being very successful at retaining players. Less than 6% for GTA V is hilarious.
i did everything in Elden Ring and TotK and would happily do it all again. but there are other games i wish they would remove the bloat so the game is shorter and out sooner. but there are many games i wish they wouldnt bother with collectibles and side quests so i dont feel that im missing out on something
Yes! I felt this way about final fantasy 7 rebirth. The amount of time spent doesn’t feel rewarding. I was bored 10 hours in, I didn’t feel motivated to play it for the story if the meat of the game is just like every other open world game I’ve played. I loved the original, I even liked the remake but rebirth is just another open world of 100 hour of gameplay that doesn’t make me feel like I’ve accomplished anything.
I would pay full price for any game if it gave me the feeling I had when playing Klonoa 2, Megaman X or Zero or any of the games that blew me away as a kid.
Because instead of paying $70 for a game that's sublime, we're paying $30 for games that only linger in our heads for mere moments. Or worse, we're paying $70 for trash regardless.
If you feel you should do something because it's there and you need to cross it of your list... then the thing (game in this case) is not the problem. From experience, look into that, into you not others or what's around you
I’m just saying that in those cases even the waste of time to make content not fully engaging takes away form content that could have been, it’s just always a bet negarive as I see it
Bars I like older games, better than newer games even though the graphics suck older games give you just enough to want more but not enough to get bored and want to quit
Gamers are at fault on that one. You basically answered why companies do what they do that you described in your thesis. >Games need to stop wasting our time, why do they drag the playtime with filler? >Gamers feel like they spent their money well if game provides X amount of content for Y money. >So devs add cheap easy filler content just to make players feel content with their purchase. Just as you described with cs go skins stuff
I definitely don't agree on the micro transactions part. Maybe the idea behind them to help support a game after it's launched is nice. However it's all the shady stuff they do and the psychological aspect of them is terrible. Finding ways to get you addicted to them and stuff like fomo. Greed kills.
There's some poetry in a video about how modern games are wasting our time taking 36 minutes to develop points that could've been delivered in 10 or less. Even on 1.75x the speed of speech is still slow, as if you're purposely talking slower in order to pad the video length. Do better than the games you're criticising here.
Ahha ya I for sure have long videos I just talk like that though 😂, I like the longer ones honestly cause I get the point across in 5 minutes like this one and 30 more if you want it
the witcher 3 is really a game using a mediocre formula to host superb writing and cinematic, yet every other company sees it and takes the opportunity to gaslight players to think the length and scale of it made the witcher 3 good. it's both infuriating and pathetic.
Between years 2008-2016 I can count many many games I have had good time with, good memories and mostly I came back to them. Since 2016 till this day I could go with probably 8-10 games, maybe ? Most of them are boring, forced politics, annoying or boring characters or more movies than games.
These days everyone is roping in everything into politics. Games have had a hint of politics in them for a long time. Usually politics are important issues in society. All forms of media will use characters or story to express their opinions on that. Its likely that you played old games that express important opinions on issues and you didn't mind playing them because either they were subtle that you didn't notice or they aligned with your view. Through the last couple of years people mention politics when and where its unnecessary. But not being able to express how you feel in important issues at all in your work or art etc is called oppression and that is something our country has always been against. Other countries you will find cannot speak up on issues without being arrested.
I think you're overstating the case a bit. Theres been a huge amount of great games made in the last 10 years, heck just last year alone we had dozens of fantastic games that were great successes and fun to play. Yes there are bad games too, but that has always been the case.
Aside from maybe like 5 major releases in the last few years I don't think "woke" games are actually enough of a phenomenon to where only playing 10 games in the last 8 years sounds reasonable. Short arcadey games with basically no cutscenes are insanely common in the indie scene.
@@CosplayZine I feel like how politics has manifested in games and just media in general has changed though. Whereas historically this has been mostly a case of the writers' bias seeping into the world they are creating, or the fictional world being somewhat of a reflection of the writers' world; it now feels like an attack from one side of the political spectrum against the other, and rather than being influenced by the world around them they now seek to influence the world around them. To look at an example with regards to gender, as both genders become more equal in the real world you would expect to see more fictional worlds where men and women are both of equal status with their only real difference being that they are differently gendered. Instead it seems that in a lot of works that women are elevated above men with all the women becoming girl bosses and badasses and the men being devolved into caricatures of masculinity. The issue here isn't women being portrayed as capable as this accurately reflects the world and where most stand politically. It's the juxtaposition between these beyond capable women and caricatures of masculinity as it depicts a matriarchal world which is not a reflection of reality and instead comes across as trying to attack and influence the real world. I do think it is disingenuous to act like this occurs everywhere as there are plenty of games and movies etc. where this doesn't happen. It is a growing trend though, and it has been making its way into franchises that weren't like this to begin with.
I’ve gotta disagree with the “no exceptions” clause. There’s a balance to be struck. Skyrim is only so replayable because of its bloat, for example, and I really value that.
This is such a first world problem, to have access to so many amazing games that now we have just lost the patience to actually finish them Games being too big and long is an amazing problem to have
A fundamental issue this video doesn't discuss, related to far more than just video games, is the concept of "too much of a good thing is bad for you." Many times he suggests a video game be captivating from beginning to end, but this is just fundamentally unrealistic. Not because games are made to purposely be boring, but because you will _never_ catch every moment of potential boredom in development of a game. There will always be downtime, moments of quiet, seemingly bull crap bosses/enemies who act as walls to your progress. Excitement from beginning to end is as impossible as making the perfect game, or a game for everyone. But even if it _could_ be done such consistent dopamine overload would almost certainly be more detrimental than not. And no, it really isn't an amazing problem to have. Long games aren't necessarily bad by default, but there's a certain point where a game just overstays it's welcome, no matter how good it is. Its a problem typically present in MMOs and Gachas, which typically just go on until the game stops making enough money to justify it's own existence. Running its skeletal-level of game content into the ground long before its own expiry date, and only hanging on through forming addictions in the playerbase.
New gamers mentality is so bad a week ago i told my friend ghat i read about a leak that said that the elden ring dlc will be 16 hours and he told me its too short and he isn’t excited for it does he realize wtf be is saying 😂😂 there are full games that are 16 hours and he isnt happy with a dlc being that long i doubt they will be able to make it 16 hours its a dlc if they can make it 6 hours it would be more than great
its been a long time since I agreed and disagreed with a take on this subject, especially the last bits of the video, MTX part dude. The more money they make the lazier they become.
Fromsoft was a household name well before Elden Ring, idk what the hell you're going on about. Maybe you were just in a secluded echochamber, but we all knew who Fromsoft was and that Elden Ring would fuck hard.
I only wish i could give you two likes. Never seen another youtuber tackle this topic and i fully agree with you, especially about the elden ring example, a great game ruined by a time wasting open world. Good stuff dude.
I don't agree with all your points, because IMO a bit of tedium is actually beneficial to the dopamine release after, and personally i want both quality stories AND long games (this results in a natural selection of only the best of the best that deserves my time - most of the time i spend replaying my favorites of the past 25 years anyway. :) But i love your content and wish more gaming related youtubers where at your level. Kudos.
this guy fucks
Thanks me
you again ? go away hes better than you
Is that what the kids say now 😂,kewl
👉👈
Oh it's me again😁
1) most of us are adults, we don’t have time. Unless you really capture my imagination or have an addicting loop, I can’t be bothered. A large portion of the core gaming community has aged into the point where we have more money than time.
2) this weird bloat, where size and quantity are valued over quality. Then they complain about how much more expensive games are to make. Simple mix, cut that shit in half and tighten it up. I know I’m not alone in the fact when a developer say “this one is 50% bigger than the last one!” as a selling point, in most cases I’m like “no thank you”
Couldn’t agree more
Superb comment
more money than time… you got me. this is one of the most elaborate comment i read this month. can we follow you? it feels like you know a thing or two more
As a former game dev, even having worked on a live service, free-to-play mobile hell, your sentiment about microtransactions going to developers sounds nice, but that's not how it works at all. Publishers (and studio management) do not reinvest profits in thanks to developers, they use it to line their own pockets, their investors and end of financial year bonuses.
It's rare enough for developers to be rewarded based on how well a game performs, such as New Vegas, let alone the idea of giving extra revenue back to overworked, underpaid devs. Every dollar you spend on a skin or hat isn't going to some guy in QA who's struggling to pay his rent on time, it's going to people like Bobby Kotick, Andrew Wilson and all the other corporate parasites. At most, profit margins are used to justify whether it's worth taking another financial risk of funding development on the next game, update, etc.
MTX doesn't help the consumer, and it certainly doesn't the developers. Do not support it under any circumstances.
For me it’s just even if they make more money in general I’m fine with that it’s more a principle thing I guess.
Like on principle I’m fine with a single player game charging extra after a full price purchase as long as it doesn’t affect the game negatively.
Whether that goes to the higher ups or QA either is fine whatever, obviously I would prefer the entire team and creatives as well but end of the day it’s peoples decision to spend more on things like say cosmetics that don’t affect the game, i would prefer studios have a ton of passion and great people working that care about the product, and ruthless business trying to get as much money as possible to maintain functions.
I guess in other words I just don’t feel sorry for consumers, like me, who spend on mtx, it’s a personal problem. I do care if the mtx affect the game in a negative way like pay to win etc
Because to add on to this too, the reason I’m fine with them making all this money is if they really want the best business possible, they will pay their people well or big bonuses for high earnings, like Larian did.
If they don’t that’s their own problem going to bleed talent over time not my problem.
I’m fine with them charging consumers either way though as long as the games good
Yeah the only exception to this are those small self-publishing outfits that sees success every now & again - and even then, there's no guarantee that it's going to see reinvestment in the studio & the developers & not just go directly to the founder's retirement plan while seeking a purchaser of the company & IP or something.
The only post-launch monetisation I would support unambiguously are expansions, whole new parts to the game - literally buying more game. Don't have a single problem with that.
There are a lot of Bobby Koticks in media, finance, and politics. Sure sucks.
Which is what most people who can actually read between the lines already knew. Which is why I despise MTX, and wish we would move away from it, and stop excusing it. I am the customer, not the company's friend. I care about the value I can get for my dollar. Not whether the developer is "supported" or not. Which you graciously explained, isn't even the case. But just like charity, most people will likely continue to believe the system works exactly as advertised, while ignoring the increasingly wealthy CEOs at the top.
Something to consider in a large open world game:
How often do you just walk and take in your environment?
Or is it a world where you sprint or take the fastest vehicle or travel without much consideration?
Really good point this is actually what makes Skyrim so much better than say far cry to me
@@FranklyGaming The game that really did that for me was Ghost of Tsushima, which is another really awesome game that will soon come to PC.
Also keep in mind how long that behavior persists. How late in the game do you find yourself stopping or slowing down?
There is one counterpoint though.
When a game has really good gameplay that you enjoy just playing the game without a story motivation and willingly do content to test new ideas in combat and experiment with the mechanics, I think that justifies having side content that serves no story purpose beyond just being a combat encounter.
@@NuclearMolotov yep gameplay can trump it all, I would classify that as justifying the length though in those cases
Well said! Last time i played The Witcher 3, it was in VR and i fast traveled only a handful of times in my 120hr playthrough - it was just so immersive to feel the world around me, the trees swaying in the wind, the scale of the streets of Novigrad and Oxenfurt, the light of the sunset... Same with Cyberpunk 2077, for a different reason - driving my motorbike through the world felt amazing, even though i played it on a flat screen. :)
The last open world game that made me want to run through it instead of fast travel was Mirror’s Edge Catalyst.
Traversal in most games is just walking or running in a straight line, and it gets boring. Catalyst is a parkour game where you need to time jumps and slides correctly to get places, and it’s super fun. Also helps that the game looks amazing.
I did not finish the video, I got the feeling it started wasting my time, true pottery
How it should be haha
Yeah, 12 minutes in and he felt like he'd been repeating himself for 6 of those minutes.
@@Blxzyeah. I like this guy’s videos but I feel like I never finish them because he repeats himself over and over. He talks about wanting games to cut the fluff and focus on quality. He could stand to do the same.
@@ncshuriken lolz
@@Blxz
This is actually partially why I can't recommend this video, too
ironically this video is like 20 minutes too long
bla,bla,bla
hahaha
😂😂
💯💯💯
I bullshit you not... I took a quick nap halfway through the video and came here to comment the same thing 😂😂😂
He makes great points but that's true, he repeats himself several times and should cut out a lot of the filler. I'm not sure if it's because it's tough to edit out content, or if it's to get more ad revenue and make more money... ironic indeed.
In before: TH-cam videos are wasting our time
All of this based on the idea that I respect myself in the first place.
Hahaha shit dude
you'd be surprised how many people don't understand what you just said, sadly but very well put...👌👌
Matthew 7:7
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:”
Revelation 3:20
“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”
John 3:16
King James Version
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Matthew 11:29
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”
This is a great way of looking at things. I respect myself too much to play fodder games.
The only part I really disagree with is your stance on microtransactions. While I agree it's up to you whether you buy them or not, provided you're an adult. But we are also talking about targeting children in this. It's about deliberately trying to cultivate and then ingrain those habits in very small future consumers. The way this video addressed the situation is a gross oversimplification lacking most (if not all) nuance.
yeah completely agree. "its a personal problem" is kind of a dick thing to say. its like saying "lol you have a gambling addiction" or fuck you for being neurodiverse.
I'm fine with microtransactions in a live service multiplayer game. its what keeps it going and as long as its not pay to win, I'm glad I can keep coming back to a favorite coop game of mine with my friends because its not stale, but in a single player game shit like dragons dogma 2 is shameful.
microtransactions are a travesy on gaming industry and should have no place in it
Stop using children to make up your point. This is lame and a coward move.
Who pays for the children to buy microtransactions and who let them access garbage?
Your kids work, gain money and waste every buck putting their credit card in a website with 2 or 3 verifications steps to buy mtx on their games?
This is a problem of adults being dumb and irresponsable, not children.
Let me guess, he also fails to acknowledge that games are warped around the mtx, making them WORSE BY DESIGN so players are more likely to spend money. To be honest I can't finish the video, the tone is too whiney to even listen to.
This video deals with the most important aspect that no one talks about: time. Like all hobies, gaming also costs money buy also requires time. As for myself, I find myself playing games instead of watching TV because I find it a more interesting medium. Being active while also enjoying a wonderful story feels much more fulfiling to me than just seeting on a couch and maybe even scrolling through tiktok or instagram during the show or movie. Like my favorite shows and movies, I tend to revisit games I loved. Even if I know the larger events that are happening in the game, the smaller details are what makes it interesting and being active changes things instead of just watching the same episode. I do believe that everyone views things differently about gaming but thats what makes it fun, the variety. Keep having fun people!
You're still just sitting on the couch. That's the trick games play to make you think you're doing something more, when you're really not.
@@martyfromnebraska1045 It's not a trick you are doing somehting more. It's been proven that brain activity is stimulated by playing games. More then just watching tv. 🤷♂
@@martyfromnebraska1045You burn way more calories playing, you are more active and you need to think a lot more. You also train your reflexes
A lot of games are still based off child and teenage you, not late teen/adult you and how much time you have.
Pacing is everything, not just in games, but art, music, story in general - I think these AAA companies know it well, and if they want, they can create the best pacing and experience, but the fact is, big games are mostly products, and they are there to milk your money first, and being something fun the second, fun/pacing sometimes don't convert into sales, that's the sad facts. Also we hardcore gamers want in a lot of cases don't align with regular consumers, so we generally feel modern gaming sucks. Just my personal take on this matter.
true indeed
That's why I play older generation games because I'm getting my times worth and spiritual worth
@@ncshuriken good for you
Good for you.
@@ncshuriken to be honest I do not know if your exited or angry but I admire your enthusiasm
they're more wholesome and to the point
@@kenshijin-d3y what may be the reason if I may ask
Most games that fail nowadays are due to corporate greed. Shareholder interest ≠ Consumer enjoyment
Tell it to EA, who from FIFA ultimate team alone EACH YEAR earn more money than Elden ring from its sales. People have mental health crisis and companies use it. If there was not demand, there would not be offer.
Nope, corporate greed is not the problem, if so fortnite, overwatch, cod etc won't be big..
Let's be honest, stop blaming everything on just these corporates when our demands for games has a growing pressure to impress. Graphics, sounds, cinematic structure, need money and funding..our superficial demand is high within the gaming community. So let's be honest here we are also to blame for the failure.
@@isimioyekunlemarktaiwo3643 Agree. There are many great indie games, who have great game mechanics, but not graphical polish of AAA. Also people wish too much be a part of the conversation about newest games, that buy games just because of it. That is why I respect Franky for his decision to review only games he likes (I remember 1 time he reviewed what he hated and that review was terrible).
@@isimioyekunlemarktaiwo3643 the creator of Baldurs gate 3 will completely disagree with you, he recently gave a speech saying that the problem with the industry is greed.
Stop defending companies like a little consumer, yes the problem is greed. Just because some games manage to succeed doesn't mean there is no problem. These companies are making millions and then they fire the people who made the games, only to hire more and repeat the same over again, you don't know s💩 dude.
Is it the only problem? No, ideology is also destroying the industry, so it's more than one thing, but greed is a huge part of it.
Gaymers still buy it
It’s ok to buy a game for 70$ or 80$?? Are you nuts?
Seriously
Definitely Yes !
If a Video Game can be Treated as a Interactive Work of Art ,esp with lots of Replay Value, Yes.
Some Retro VGs go beyond $80 btw.
Yes? If it’s a great game then why would you not pay full price for it?
@@johnnyjohnson2826
True .
Some people think Art , or something they can do (Or even steal) should be Free .
Not paying may be the Opinion of Another Programmer. But speaking as a Artist If you Admire the work of Another Artist u Buy.
@@billy6427 Only if you buy overpriced physical collector items. Most retro games are available digitally on GOG or some other online store for significantly less than $80, and if they aren't currently officially available, it's better to just get them from an abandonware or ROM site than to buy overpriced used physical copies that the developer won't get any money for anyway.
Only reason to ever buy those overpriced physical copies is if you are actually a collector.
I love the video, and I agree completely, except that it has to be the worst take on microtransactions I've ever heard. In my opinion it's hardly a personal issue. These companies employ psychologists with the sole purpose of figuring out how to trick you to spend money. You will always lose this battle. This is why gambling is so heavily regulated. It's not an individual's problem, it's a systemic problem that needs to be addressed. And, drawing a parallel, just as we don't need to have 100000h games wasting our time, we don't really need giant corporations to spend millions of dollars on more and more expensive games that use cheaper and cheaper tricks to get you to spend money tu justify their bloated budgets. We could actually use more medium budget titles, with smaller teams, that use the money to develop tighter experiences with less emphasis on production values. Which is why I'm so happy that so many indie studios exist to provide me with all the solar ashes and edith finches I can eat.
While I agree, it's not the case for everyone. I've never bought from in-game stores or taken part in lootbox mechanics in games I play that have them. Some of us can just completely ignore them. Iny case in-game store for example are so fiddly to setup I simply gave up on them the first time I looked into them. Most of these things have also just put me off buying some games so they are easy to avoid when it looks like they ruin the game or don't add anything. Lastly given how often I just drop a game, how temporary games can be for me I don't see the point in paying more money for optional stuff that loses it's value or will do when servers shut. So yeah big issues but some of us just sidestep them completely and are unaffected.
It's both. It's a systemic and an individual problem. I've never even considered buying mtx. Take some responsibility
mtxs aren't there to help the devs, it's for the shareholders. who have every vested in interest in wasting your time for engagement if you aren't gonna pay
In the comments of a totk video, I mentioned being thankful that the game respected my time by never forcing me into protracted sessions, giving me natural stopping points, and also making sure I never considered my actions to be a chore.
I was not recieved well. I was accused of being "bitter that my life was taken up by work" (its not lol), accused of being easily distracted, etc
Its sad because there are so many games i want to experience, but the amount of time they demand from you is unhealthy. If I wanted to spend 500 hours in an rpg I'd play an mmo.
Been saying it for years. I believe the right size for open world map was achieve in Vice City. It was big enough to enjoy riding around, while memorizing it and use your recall to plan during missions or adjust on the fly. This lead to amazing and thrilling playthrough memories.
i think one of the most constantly overlooked features is traversal, and finding ways to make it fun and engaging. spiderman nails it, and assassins creed has come close a few times.
personally I think the worst offenders are games like destiny where you fight the same thing over and over for a small percentage chance to get something worth anything. and anything where you have to grind resources endlessly to make one thing that your going to need to keep making so that you can make something else to make something else is awful. Tarkov is another example of a terrible game where you have to grind to get gear so that you can grind to get better gear.
I hate grinding
"gamers should expect less" Now write that down and twist it into $100 game for 15 min gameplay.
If it's 15 minutes of feeling like a God, blasting every boss each with different intentions, and giving redemption arcs to your "if evil, why hot" characters?
I might just buy it
There's a lot of stuff in life that people pay $100 for to enjoy for 15 minutes to an hour. Expensive food, for example.
There are plenty of people who pay twice this just to pay an electrician to change out an outlet cover.
People pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars for brand new, brand name shoes and bags to put them in the closet and wear once a year.
Plenty of dummies mess around with drugs and alcohol that cost that much just because.
@@addonexus2656 red herring. you even insinuate this with the intro about 'expensive' food. it would be more like saying paying 100 dollars for burger king.
the main point is that people want equivalent value exchanged. the consensus is that modern games charge too much and give too little back.
@jeremiahjohnson2784 It's not Burger King, if the burger is made with kobe beef.... and as addonexus stated, people will pay outrageous prices for an experience that lasts mere moments or hours. He used food as his main example, but I'd like to expand on that to show that you will find it just about everywhere...
First example- Tickets to this year's Superbowl averaged $8600! That average includes cheap nosebleed seats for about $2000 all the way up to catered suites going for upwards of $20,000... and this is for an experience that lasts maybe 8 hours at the most? That breaks down to $250/hr for nosebleeds, $1075/hr average, and $2500/hr for a suite. And ask anyone that dropped the money for whatever level ticket they bought, and a vast majority would probably say it was worth the cost. (Unless you are a 49er fan 😢)
Second example- A round of 18 holes of golf at a high end course can range from $485-$1000. 18 holes takes about 2.5 to 4 hours to play, depending on if you are walking the course or renting a cart. That breaks down to an average of $241/hr. Not to mention, you gotta schedule your tee time at least 30 days in advance, or good luck getting one, so clearly there are a large number of people perfectly ok with the cost.
Third (and final) example- Dirt track racing cost about $400 each weekend of race season, and that doesn't take into account the $10,000-$30,000 start-up cost of buying all the things needed to begin with, and that $400 gets you about 20 mins of on track full throttle time. Maybe 40 min, if you qualify high enough to get into the A-main. That breaks down to $1200/hr for non A-main qualifiers, and $600/hr for those that do qualify. Not to mention all the time and work that goes into maintaining your ride throughout the week... but the pits are always full every weekend during race season, so the cost is clearly justified.
My point is that paying $100 for a gaming experience that is only 15 min could easily be justified if the gaming content provided for the cost was absolutely fun, entertaining, and thrilling, and gaming is one of your hobbies. It comes down to your subjective view of "affordable." You wouldn't find somebody that has never watched a football game in their life dropping double digit dollar amounts on football tickets, let alone 4 or 5 figure amounts... but to the person that can remember owning a jersey of their teams current quarterback as well as every one of the past 6 quarterbacks dating back 30 years, they might throw down stacks of cash without hesitation. It all comes down to how much you weight the entertainment value of the experience you are buying into. And for top quality, no bs, 100% bursting with passion obvious labor of love gameplay, I imagine $100 for 15 min might even seem cheap to some people. Hell, you might find me at the midnight release begging the cashier to, "take my money!" So I can get home and play the hell out of the following 15 min of pure gaming bliss. Then, once the credits roll 15 min later, I might just launch straight into ng+ for another 15 minutes of utter elation... 😂
@@addonexus2656 The only thing I would disagree with is the electrician part.
Sure you can probably find a guide online or a manual on how to fix something, but wouldn't you rather save that time and effort and possibly stress if something goes badly and just let a professional handle it?
Of course, there's things like an outlet cover which you can do yourself, but what I meant is to not be stingy with that kind of stuff in general, because sure you maybe are able to fix a part of a broken machine, but in the process you've possibly voided your warranty, you've exposed yourself to possible risk with these kinds of machines and you risk breaking it further if you're not careful.
Stuff like PCs? Sure you can do those yourself and their parts are designed so almost anyone with a little bit of guidance can build and monitor their own computer, but stuff like microwaves are not to be touched by yourself if you aren't an expert under no circumstances.
Biggest offender: Starfield
No sir, they are a Cosmic Offender of our time!
Pretty much every open world sandbox game from the start. Mind numbing basic activities which is fine if that's what you specifically want, but then so is minesweeper and solitaire. Any game that intentionally wastes time with grind should be docked points for quality.
30:45 most of that money don't go to the devs. The CEO of Activision (before he was kicked out) literally gave himself a pay raise and the developers didn't get a pay raise when COD didn't meet it's profit margin goal in 2022 I think it was? (idr the year)
I was so happy to hear Hellblade 2 is going to be a similar 8-ish-hour length as the first game, just with higher production, more characters & improved combat, for $50. Another studio would've made it an Iceland exploration simulator with map markers, collectibles & side quests.
I played Alone in The Dark these days and I enjoyed the game, it has flaws like any game (combat is a bit slow), but overall it was a lot of fun for me. I finished Emily's campaign in 4 hours and a lot of reviews said that the game was short and lacked content. Our mind is already corroded by the idea that games have to be more than 50 hours long to be good, in the same way that there are people who cannot focus on long videos due to their addiction to Shorts/Tiktok
I'm loving AITD. Such a good game.
Do you think it was worth the 60 bucks though? Just wondering, I am thinking about getting it next. I don't want to pay that for a game I will likely play through once and that's it. I just got Rise of Ronin and also have my eye on Dragon's Dogma. It came out between two other big releases so picking it over those, I would need a reason. I would love another Survival horror franchise besides Resident Evil to be successful. While those games can be beat quick the replays add a lot of fun to it. I didn't see incentive to do that with Alone but I'm happy to be proven wrong.
Look, I recommend waiting for a promotion, I bought it because I REALLY miss horror games and I believe that the fact that it satisfied that lack makes me like it a lot. And this month there were a lot of releases, so just focus on one or the other and wait for some promotions (I'm also keeping an eye on DD2)
@@rclima2328 Thanks for the input. I was thinking I'd wait on that one. While it isn't scary, if you're a Playstation plus member Amnesia: The Bunker is 12 bucks right now. It's more tense then scary but when you figure stuff out, it gets rewarding.
agree with you. also enjoying aitd. and I prefer it being on the shorter side
First video of yours I’ve watched, just subscribed. Keep up the good work.
Thank you very much for the $5 and sub I appreciate it a lot!
17:00 As a writer I can attest to this. If something doesn't fit into the narrative anymore, even if it's a good idea that I spent a lot of time writing, it gets cut to make the story flow better and make sense.
Nowadays publishers are just banks, creating wealth for shareholders. Games are just cash grabs.
That has a lot of truth to it. We, as gamers, have a responsibility to stop falling for it.
Same as everything else.
@@Ez-Boi23 A lot of them refuse to believe they're addicted to psychological hooks, just like gambling addicts. They keep getting shafted, keeping seeing their franchises get gutted, yet they keep preordering and making excuses instead of voting with their dollars.
my biggest reason for supporting cheats in modern SINGLEPLAYER games is to skip the built in grind and make your game fun again. Like assassin's creed's new games, some of the WORST offenders, and become so much more playable when you remove the level gating.
This is for me what NG+ is really about. Replaying the game with full level full gear badassery
I've been doing it more and more and using the accessibility options when games provide it like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. I'm over busy work.
Preach! I was working hard at my job i don't need to work more on my leisure time
@@kayc7442 NG+ in modern AC games? Double the time waste, jeez
I've been using exp multipliers on JRPG for years now 😂
"open world" should be a compromise for when linearity cannot achieve a desired design goal, not the goal itself. same with things like "flashiness" or "mechanical depth". too much of that without other aspects to tie it together with the rest of the game and you get a flash-in-the-pan or a mechanical mess type of game.
spice is nice, but nobody wants to upturn a salt shaker into their mouth
why climb a mountain of trash when you could sit on a throne of gold?
You don't have to finish games in one sitting. It's always what you make of it. Assassin's Creed Odyssey for example: the game is obviously made with selling time savers in mind. But with a trainer to bypass the resources grind, playing every quest when I felt about it. Not rushing to the end. 250 hours for everything and it was fun. I stopped playing for a week when it wasn't.
But this is always for open world games. Different games, different way of playing.
250 hours for everything with trainer to bypass the resources grind? wtf were you doing 250 hours,my dude i finished everything in that game every side quest and dlc in 130 hours and you almost did double with a trainer wtf :D
P.S no i didn't bought any time savers from ubisoft,i just played the game.
@@EyefyourGf I did everything. Every quest, every dlc. And no fast travel. The sea shanties where too good. I enjoyed the setting what can I say. It's the only open world ubigarbage game I had this with.
There's a lot of middle ground between one sitting & 250 hours. I think more than 30 hours for a main campaign without sidequests or challenges is where a game seriously starts to outstay its welcome IMO.
You can have 100 pairs of shitty shoes that hurt to walk in or 1 finely crafted pair that looks and feels good. It doesn't matter if the peanut gallery likes mind numbing bad quality stuff. Some people like eating poop. Objectively one is better than the other.
Length and repetitive content is not the issue. Boring gameplay design is the issue. If you have a great combat sandbox, then almost nothing feels repetitive.
This explains my 800 plus hours in Darktide.
I recently finished my second playthrough of cyberpunk along with the phantom liberty DLC, and that's when i realized how unique open worlds like cyberpunk, witcher 3 and RDR2 are. Every mission you do in these games has a purpose, even if what you're doing may be repetitive. In cyberpunk, there are dozens of gigs, and though they may be only a few types of gigs(thievery, gun for hire etc.), every gig has a story to it. Similarly, the witcher contracts in witcher 3 all involve the same thing, killing monsters - but all contracts have a story attached to them. What i mean to say is, games like these make you feel immersed with the side content, they truly make you feel like a merc or a witcher or a cowboy in those worlds, even if the stuff you're actually doing may be repetitive. These games however are sadly few and far between. For every one of these games, you have 20 open world games with bullshit video gamey stuff to pad out the length of the game like ubisoft towers and ubisoft enemy outposts. Ubisoft has done massive damage to the video game industry. Even if their almost all of their games now are soulless corporate products made for mindless consumption, they still sell incredibly well, so their open world formula has been adopted by many other studios.
I have no idea where i was going with all this, and i have no idea how to finish it, but I have to say man, i love your channel and your videos, you put your heart and soul into these videos. I feel the same way about video games, but I may never be able to put those emotions into words like you do. I came across your channel roughly a year ago, and i absolutely love listening to your videos. Keep up the good work mate :)
Really appreciate the kind words of support! And totally agree on the cyberpunk missions they are all very deliberate
A wise man once Said "if a game isnt fun, Why bother?"
Neil Druckmann's older wiser brother?
Frankly gaming encapsulated everything wrong with modern gaming minus games being broken on release. I tried finishing days gone but the filler, boring world, and boring characters made me quit. Give me dragons age origins, mass effect, last of us 1, and Bioshock any day. Games with narrative as the focus, little to no filler, and imo, great pacing. A++ vid
Pacing is what it is all about, and thanks for supporting my channel!
That's interesting because I didn't like any of those games.
@@lexiconprime7211what games do you like?
One of the big reasons games have evolved this way is because of the fact that a huge part of the target demographic are people without jobs or other responsibilities who are looking for ways to "waste" their time away. This is seen in the constant battle between younger "hardcore" gamers in high school or college, and older gamers who want to play a few hours after the kids go to sleep.
for the record the "people without jobs or other responsibilities who are looking for ways to "waste" their time away" typically plays MMO's and the only reason other companies started the more mundane boring crap was in hope of bringing those players to their game and completely disregarding the core fundamentals of what makes open world game good so the likelihood of those player even wasting their time with crap like that when they got MMO is very unlikely and now companies like Ubisoft is stuck with this idea because parents who don't keep up with gaming news and how bad those games have gotten, buys the game and is just gonna blame the void that still plays MMO's instead of blaming the company who made this choice in the first place
also don't blame the young for having free time because last i check when i was kid in the 90s my parents struggle too to maintain their hobbies too because they had kids but was also able to pick them up again ones we had a families of our own so making that statement seems more ungraceful for the free time you use to have and will get again than something worth justifying companies needing to cater to you only having 5 hours a week to play or so
i used to play GTA, wow, Skyrim, monster hunter, and other games like that but now days I'm perfectly fine if i can just play some random indie game witch i also can play the the kids
but hey... if you can't let go of the trending AAA titles then that's on you and only you because your kids don't deserve to get the blame for you having them
@@konohake true
@@konohake I really don't get where you're getting this "BLAME THE KIDS!" thing from OP's comment. I think the point they were making was only that a lot of these games are looking to market to those with a lot of free time, and traditionally, younger people who don't have 9-5 jobs and families tend to have more free time than anyone else. They're not saying it's young people's FAULT that this is happening, just that the game-makers are trying to aim for an audience that has a lot of time to spend on their game.
@@RHBR01 if a game ain't fitting ones daily schedule then find one that does.
like a said before i myself used to play games that required alot of time but now i don't or at least i find other ways to still keep the hobby going via the family i have
but do you see me thinking "oh i should still be the targeted audience despite my choices in life...?
no.. you don't... because i can come to terms with it and now, I'm able to try new games i never touched before thanks to that choice and just allowing the kids to have fun exploring the world of games to the fullest
and for the record... when it come to AAA. The catering they tend to do for parents/adults in general is just asking to pay up with microtransaction to speed up the time or basically pay to win mechanic ALL WHILE HAVING A 3 - teen RATING BY THE WAY
I'm not interested in keeping that marketing alive just so i as an adult can still play the popular games while my kids could have increased chances of potentially end up with a gambling addictions or the FOMO effect
i find that indie games are now more worth spending money on anyway and that's all thanks to letting go of the AAA's
might wanna give that a try before thinking there are no games for you anymore because for every AAA there's at least a few 100s of indies that hit the same category and also have more creative gameplay due to not having an endless pit of money to sleep in because the shareholders of their companies gives more money than all of their fans combine
but yeah... let's just keep playing the game of "blame those with more time on their hands" juuuuust because we decided to kids witch should have more value than a trash AAA title if you ask me
This is so true, and it's something that I've felt for a long time. The common complaint of "they want $20 for that 4 hour long game? that's way too much!" just boggles my mind.
The people who want at least an hour of "gameplay" for every dollar that they spend make me think of a person who is not only happy eating stale discounted bread for every meal of every day, but who actively pursues that over all other forms of sustenance. The idea that quality does not equate quantity is lost on them and they scoff at paying $20 for a quality meal because that same $20 could buy them ten loaves of expired bread.
I whole-heartedly agree that long games are generally a waste of time filled with repetitive gameplay that long overstays it's welcome most of the time. With rare exceptions, I would much rather play 20 games that are between 1-4 hours long than play 1-2 games that take 40-80 hours to complete.
Ubisoft and Bethesda are the EPITOME of this wasting of time... and I don't even mention some chinese games. TO ME, however, there are nuances that you have not taken into account, since you cannot help but see the situation from within the target range to which you belong (see the microtransactions part).
Pacing in videogames can usually be controlled by players and very few people can "create" their own rhythm or missions to fill empty moments (expecially in open worlds)... this is the problem! Furthermore, the pace sensitivity and suspension of disbelief change with mood (as you said) but also with age, and since when you create a game you have to consider ALL the kind of players, especially the demographics that would make you earn more money ('cause in the end this is the point), the problems increase! For each type of game there's a different "safe strategy" that is balanced between different tastes in terms of rhythm, mechanics and sometime even aesthetics!
Maybe, just maybe, the ones you mention as shining examples of good mechanics and pace are actually just the ones made for your demographic and nothing more!
I don't know. I think there's a much broader and more complex discussion to do here, even if I generally agree with you, expecially about fillers...
Would Chess be better as an open world with fetch quests, better graphics, and skill stats?
yes. absolutely.
I liked Elden Ring being long, I loved exploring the world, I liked jumping around with my mount and I didn't want it to end, it's an immersive and beautiful experience, it's not just about fighting bosses.
I refer to something the CGI team (weta) on my favorite movie once said regarding the maturity and awareness it took to make. "At the end of the day we're not here to show off our amazing skills in a showreel or quantitatively justify our worth, we're here to support the product in entertaining and telling the story." Game studios need to take note, that just because it takes a long time to do something doesn't mean we then break the pacing to linger on it.
Technology advancements have a lot to do with wasted time, 25 years ago I could buy a Sega Genesis game for £30 that was over within two hours of starting it. Back then my passion for games was greater and the experiences were way shorter and got completed. Sadly the newer games I'm buying aren't getting finished. I have over 250 Steam games now and play about 5 of them a week.
Gamers waste their own time by putting hundreds of hours into games that they don't like. If you don't like it stop playing ffs. I would argue that gamers love these games but feel guilty about the way they are spending their time. Putting 100 hours into a game that doesn't need 100 hours is your own damn fault lmao.
Where do I find the game you talk about around 18:41? I can't find anything under "Theory".
It’s called “furi” you should give it a shot!
Witcher 3 is an example of a game that does a fantastic job of weaving together the side content with the general theme of the game's world and overarching story. Many of the side quests felt like handcrafted material carefully written with intrigue and passion that served the purpose of further fleshing out the world, bringing to life the experience of living in it, and cementing the role of Geralt as a witcher.
5 hours is way too low. I think one player games should at least be 15-20 hours minimum.
You have wishes. I know the NES era of gaming. Most games didn't last longer than barely an hour. And we paid full price on a regular basis that was between $60 and $100. For a NES game. And now games cost what again? Even with inflation going on? This means games have gotten cheaper in that aspect. And you think you have to demand how long games should last? Does replay value mean nothing to you people anymore? Oh wait, no it does not. You confuse replay value with false ingame goal that come along as tedious trophies. Gosh. We didn't have trophies or people padding our shoulders for beating games like Wizards & Warriors. We played on our own terms without gifts and trophies. We knew the value of games. But times have changed I guess.
@@niemand7811 I started gaming in the mid eighties. I know that era. But that doesn’t mean that modern games should be short still. Back then, games were still good even if they were short. PS1 and PS2 era games got longer. Now they are back to being short. That’s stupid.
10,000 words is too short. I think a written story should be at least 50-80,000 words mininum.
Elden Ring wastes your time in more ways than just the size of the world and the copied enemies. It's tiny things adding up, from the jank camera responsible for most of your mishaps to the needlessly archaic inventory and menu management.
It's a much maligned game but I feel Dragon Age 2 has decent pacing. It literally has 3 Acts and most (not all) of the side quests are interesting and some even affect things in later acts. Decent companions help as well.
Sure BioWare used the same assets over again and sometimes the long walks without fast travel can be a slog but in regard to story and narrative, the pacing is excellent.
DA2 still has filler content though but most of it is organic, kind of. Meaning that a larger side quest pops up in the same area as a fetch quest, so it's less annoying.
mass effect 2 and the witcher 2 both feel the same
me2 is quite acclaimed between the trilogy though
Elden ring is so much better for being such a massive game and I totally disagree with your notion that it is too long. My favorite game from my childhood, like you, is Skyrim. Skyrims world had so much charm and character and so many meaningful things to do in it that I couldn’t stop exploring. For a full decade, nothing came anywhere near close to it. Until Elden ring. Elden ring transported me back into my childhood, and gave me every single tool needed to just explore.
$70 for a 5 hour game is never fine...
Titan fall 2 was worth it. That game is amazing
@@Snowfreak357Titan Fall wasn’t $70 and had a solid multiplayer that added replay value. Context matters.
@@Me_Myself_Maly if we talkin bang for buck then it was worth its price value wich is in the realm of conversation. Games today aren’t worth the cost. Yes it wasn’t 70 but it still wasn’t a free to play. It had a 5 hour ish campaign and it was worth it. But yea the multiplayer is amazing too
i think the 5 hours is the campaign time. multiplayer and replay are generally not counted
Case in point for why mainstream games will continue to be quantity over quality.
Only in the ending part of the video I noticed that the "The Witcher 3" gameplay is in portuguese lol. Btw, nice video and I totally agree with you (except the microtransaction part). I never notice the pacing problem.
"Don't waste our time"
Makes 36 minute video that could and should have been 10... and then has the worst take on microtransactions and lootbox garbage.
It's called feature fatigue. Cyberpunk is a great example. Too much.
You had a point RIGHT until mentioning Skyrim as a positive.
Skyrim is filled with fetch-quests, radiant monster-slaughtering quests and in most cases DOESN'T offer you any choice on how to do something. Skyrim made the exact same errors as Starfield did, only less often. But that formula of filling the world with easily generated content with minimal depth was something pleaguing Bethesda games for a loooong time. The problem was them repeatedly choosing to just go for the easier approach. We could implement a meaningful skill system with important choices...or we could go the easier path of making almost all those choices insignificant.
We could try carefully placing enemies of differing levels to give the player a feeling of actually making progress when they level up... or we could go the easier path of making everything scaled to player level.
We could try creating powerful artifacts that give the player some sense of accomplishment... or we could hand them out like candy, but make them also level-scaled so they stop being of use 3-4 hours later.
We could try to actually implement the civil war with interesting systems and ongoing, changing effects, even while the player doesn't actively participate to make the gameworld feel alive in some way... or we could make it a gloryfied sidequest.
While i do aggree with your general point of hating games making increasingly large parts of their content just a mind-numbing chore, your positive example is terrible.
Premise: Games are wasting our time.
Evidence: Game completion stats are very low.
Conclusion: You need me to tell you you're wasting your time playing the games you're not completing, and games should be bad less.
This video was a waste of time, and I know this for a fact because I gave it every opportunity to change my mind.
This open world rpg era is so annoying
I hope Resident Evil is going that way....
It's annoying because there haven't been too many games that have been as good or immersive as them so far. The genre has been real dominant right now
Open world is good, the problem is it's seldom done right.
They make an immersive open world with pretty scenery.
And absolutely nothing to do therein.
Skyrim for all its flaws is one of the few good ones with things STILL being discovered 13 years later.
I would love a cowboy game, too bad the only two cowboy games of recent memory are fucking open world rpgs.
It happened to Sonic, it happened to Halo, and it’s even happening to Call of Duty.
The open world plague will consume all.
At this point I'm focusing on my backlog when I have time or in older games I didn't play at the time or just games that actually keep me engaged, no more modern games for me lol unless they're masterpieces like Baldur's Gate 3 or indie gems. AAA games really suck these days with so much padding.
Excellent video. It’s become a chore to play some of these new AAA titles due to how much time is spent essentially doing nothing in them. I’m much more selective about what I play these days
Elden ring isnt too long.
You couldnt be more wrong.
I needed this video. I must value my time and drop games if I am not enjoying it. I dragged myself to end Greedfall last time, It's good game but it overstates its welcome
Thanks for giving it a watch and happy to see it resonated!
@@FranklyGaming Yeah, I already feel a sense of relief after deleting my backlog list. I would continue to play some games from there but without any obligation. Thank you very much, and I wish you all the best!
That’s why I keep going back to older titles
Brilliant write up, really hope we see more quality over quantity in this medium.
thank you for supporting my work!
Here's a cheap truth... Nowadays reviewers are lazy which drives sales of overinflated games. Games throw at you their best mechanics, scenes, visuals, most playable moments in the first 10% of progression because next to 0 reviewers will go further. Then they stretch the rest to make gameplay long enough to justify the ridiculous price with promised number of hours of so called "fun". Then 99% of customers buy after watching a review alone.
I remember the times when it was mandatory to finish a game before reviewing it (or you would get fired from a magazine) because otherwise it's impossible to tell the reader if the whole experience is worth investing time, how it makes you feel or if it's fun at all. Key phrase being "a whole experience". The reviews of the past: "I had great time playing this game from start to finish and this is why!". Reviews of today: "The beginning of this game looks nice so go buy it with my $0.10 affiliate discount coupon!".
I could never play a game like elden ring if its anything like souls games, I don’t enjoy challenges and difficulty as life is already difficult enough
Don't worry dude, lots of people don't like soulslike either... It just the fanbase and the trend that keeping it afloat, reviewers 'must' like the game in order to not get cancelled.
I enjoy hard games like Hollow Knight because I can move with precisions, meanwhile I must spam roll in elden ring while following some guides in order to not waste my time dying (and the game can't pause, like seriously?)
I play a lot of souls games, my favorite genre, and for me Elden Ring is way more difficult than Dark Souls games or Bloodborne, and the open world is really confusing. Souls games are not difficult just for the sake of it, is not the same as playing other games in hardcore more; the game is fair and gives many tools for you to be strong.
@@nickochioneantony9288 Not liking soulslikes is completely okay but your take on reviewers is pretty wild. Nobody would cancel them if they make a negative review about a game that is actually bad. Many people criticised DS2 and both Lords of The Fallen games because they really are flawed in more ways than one.
Also what do you mean "just the fanbase and trend keeping it afloat"?? Isn't it like that with pretty much all games?
If soulslikes weren't actually good the fanbase wouldn't grow like this. Demon's Souls sold less than 1M in it's first year, DS1 sold several million after a few years, DS3 sold over 10M in 4 years and Elden Ring got to 20 million in just one year.
@@valentinvas6454 ahh this is exactly what I meant, a souls fan defending the genre with all its passive-aggresive tone.
People don't like crpg like Baldur's Gate, it's fine, don't like shooters, it's fine, etc... But don't like souls game, well it's time to tell them to git gud.
Yes, Elden Ring sold a lot, it wins goty... But the case here is the player who didn't know any good of what the game expect them to do. Many first-timer bought the game because of popular reviewers recommended it. But in the end, only some of the hardcore could finish the game (16% finished it, as I recall).
I for one didn't expect that I must roll myself a hundred times before I beat a boss in an awkward angle (absolutely break the immersion). Nobody told us that the game is so painfully punishing that it would take so much time just to get my exp back because the game cannot be paused. That is a simple complaint, but it kills the fun factor.
Many casuals are all in for hard games, we can beat Celeste challenges, Hollow Knight bosses, Hades in 30+ heat... It can be so much fun, but nothing can kill my excitement faster than dying in a Souls game, especially when the fanbase use cult-like justification.
@@nickochioneantony9288 I wasn't even defending the games I was merely stating that souls games are just as open to criticism as others if it's valid.
Oh my God the "git gud" things is so misunderstood nowadays. It's being said as a joke most of the time and other times it's said by the toxic minority. None of the decent souls fans would call out anyone for not liking the games. The vocal minority is always the worse and those people would bash even me for using certain weapons.
The 16% data must be old or misleading because I just checked and 40% of Steam users and 55 of PS users defeated Hoarah Loux who is the penultimate boss. I think ER has different achievements for certain endings.
It's interesting to hear that you found ER more punishing than something like Hollow Knight. For me it's roughly similar. In fact I had more trouble with POP Lost Crown on normal difficulty. ER can be made pretty easy if you know where to go for weapon and flask upgrades on top of good weapons, spells, summons etc. My friend would enter boss rooms, summon 5 headless knights and remain in the back and shoot magic spells. Most bosses could be destroyed this way in less than half a minute.
The problem with game industry today is gaming is corrupted. Some studio do put in love and times into games. Zelda tears of kingdom is perfect example of devs putting time and love into game. It’s what BOTW should have been imo. Balder gate 3 is another example of good game that has passion dev team who care and devs that actually played the game make sure it’s good.
So many studios don’t play there games fully or even bother to fully beta check that game is good or balanced or quality check.
Days of tomorrow = perfect example of pure greed and corruption. We’re head devs ever charged or arrested for anything? Nope. They got off free, they closed shop and then opened up under new name and continued with same old scam but with different name. While many ex devs staff fired without warning and no pay.
Wildcard/snail game= corrupt game studio that continues lie toe community and been selling snail oil to gamers. Is anything done to stop them from selling snake oil. Nope
Blizzard a once loved studio, now cancer thanks to Bobby K. Was he ever charged/arrests or some kind of fine? Nope. Got off free, without even slap on wrist. Ms buying Activision isn’t going save them. Ms is just as corrupt as EA is. You only need look ms history to see this. Windows = bloatware Cus ms has bullied all other OS competition out of business. So ms rules PC market with a strangle hold on pc gaming market. With the, buying Activision they doing same old thing now to consoles. Own as much as you can so can control it.
Ms hasn’t made good 1st party game since Xbox 360 days. Sea of thieves/halo/minecraft/gears of war, fable= all slowly dying. Scalebound = shutdown before even given a chance.
Gaming industry is corrupt with very few laws to protect consumers/gamers. Devs and studios can do games as cheep or as quick as they want and slap $100 price tag on quality that has not been proper checked.
The problem is with game industry does not have any Quality assurance on any game. Before any games is sold. It should be checked by 3rd neutral party that check it for quality and quantity. Devs and studio can sell you snake oil/scam and get away with it. Gaming has gotten to big. Imo indie studios often make better games then AAA do.
I guess that thing is, Players like us who don't want structured gameplay ar very less than we think, and majority of the audience out there is only casual who do not care about story.
But Elden Ring is one example which every studio should take inspiration from.
Haha I did stop playing in the snowy mountains of Elden Ring after getting so tired of the repeat bosses. You nailed it.
This channel is so based for saying what it did about Elden Ring. Few channels would even attempt to criticize something that is so universally loved. I appreciate the honestly. Tbh I had the same problem with Elden Ring, but my main problem with it was its story or lack thereof. And no, don't come at me with "oh it has just has a different way of storytelling", no. Lore drops isn't storytelling and it has existed in many other games before that also has an actual main story.
Ya I knew I’d be taking a beating for the Elden Ring takes 😂
Bro what are you on about, the whole game is about the main story and lore, every character, every conversation, your whole mission? Its not just vaguely mentioning it like you insinuate??
@@DemokerR101 Lore is different from story.
This is basically your entire playthrough. The world is huge but the only meaningful "secrets" you really discover while exploring are new enemies to fight. Then, you reach a main area where a boss resides and you fight your way through that area to reach and beat the boss. My issue is that for world this size there aren't any stories or side quests that add anything particularly unique or different other than just more fighting.
I really expected a great story especially with GRRM involved and a huge open world game which has lots of content. But the last third of the game was a massive slog to get through and by the time I was at the end I really had no sense of why I was even there, fighting a final boss I'm seeing for the very first time who did nothing to antagonize me for the entire journey leading up to that moment. I felt no sense of accomplishment finishing the game other than the fact that I beat a very difficult boss.
Agree. I only finished Elden Ring for commitment, but I was really burned out about 50-75% of the game. To me, DkS 1 from beginning to Ornstein and Smough is a great example of good pacing
100% agree with you. Unfortunately, nothing's going to change as long as the cash flows in... Companies are using more and more psychological bias to keep us engaged and get us to pay for something that we don't need AND waste our precious time. We've got to get smarter as consumers. Not only for video games, but in general.
Go play Portal 2 with a buddy. Best 8 hours you'll ever spend. Now go play Skull & Bones with them for 80 hours. Point proven. Also, damn you for beating me to making this video Frankly, you sexy sexy man.
To be fair. If you spend 4 hours watching movies. 4 hours on TV shows, 4 hours on a hike, 4 hours of basketball, 4 hours doom scrolling TikTok or Instagram, extra 4 hours of sleep, 4 hours doing a puzzle, 4 hours reading a book, extra 4 hours driving, 4 hours at a bar or club, then you spent 4 hours. How you choose to spend it is up to you. There is no right nor wrong answer here, each person is not the same as another. But what I think what we need to keep in mind is balance, and efficiency. Drive when there is no traffic, live close to work. Make multiple meals at once, grocery 12 times a year. Car pool so you can be on your phone 3 times for your commute. Work out at work, shop, game, pay bills, Netflix etc. when you walk be on your phone. Have friends over to game and TV and dinner. Like think how to reduce the chores and maximize the entertainment and get your money working for you. If you live where you work, your commute is 2 minutes one way. Dam son.
As for me I work out, bills, study, podcast, game, Netflix at work. I buy games when they are off 80%. And I just save. When I'm home I rubberband the controller and turn on the TV show, while dummy work on my DS. I'm 3x my life sometimes
Same thing with Final Fantasy 7 remake, disregarding the story changes. The first one was padded with almost 70% filler, on top of the same dungeon being needed to be completed twice (sewers).
Although JRPG's have never been good with side quests, they didn't take up such a huge chunk of gameplay time like FF7 remake. And the side quests themselves felt like the standard MMO filler from point a to point b, or kill x amount here with forgettable NPC stories to go with it. And of course anyone who dares to criticizes the game for it gets thrown into the nostalgia crowd.
The minute I saw information about the sequel being "open world" I knew that there was no way that I would touch it with a 10ft pole. A vast landscape and great graphics ain't going to save a game packed with more filler than actual main storyline content.
I also worked on my own story mod for an RPG, where I added in these short repeatable missions of the same quality as these filler type quests, funny part is it took me less than an hour to do each of them. And if I really wanted to, I could have slapped one together in close to 20 minutes (story/dialogue and scripting wise).
My first real realization of how mundane and repetitive open world could be was in Metal Gear. I originally thought to myself how great a concept it would be, and Metal Gear was the perfect candidate with being given the option to tackle things the way I wanted to, and honestly the variety of choices were there. But as the hours began drag on and on, I defaulted to a strategy that will get me through the mission as fast as possible, and then it started to feel like a chore.
I can clearly think on a example: Resident Evil 5. Super short, but engaging from begin to end. It actually makes you want to replay it.
I am one of those that bailed on elden ring lol
If 67% of players don't finish Doom 2016 it's not Doom's fault, it's the player's fault. This is a linear game with minimal side content and mainly linear, action-packed levels. It definitely respects players' time. We can extrapolate that any game with a 30-40% completion ratio is being very successful at retaining players.
Less than 6% for GTA V is hilarious.
i did everything in Elden Ring and TotK and would happily do it all again. but there are other games i wish they would remove the bloat so the game is shorter and out sooner. but there are many games i wish they wouldnt bother with collectibles and side quests so i dont feel that im missing out on something
After Elden Ring dlc drops out, I'm not going to buy any game for a looong time. Because most of them are pure garbage.
the problem with society
1 short attention spans
2 we waste too much time
which is it?
Both
wasting time in something that gives dopamine builds up tolerance therefore gives us a shorter attention span craving dopamine hits faster
@@RonRyder #1 goes against the idea of spending 10s/100s of hours in a single game.
This video is 100% yapping.
Yes! I felt this way about final fantasy 7 rebirth. The amount of time spent doesn’t feel rewarding. I was bored 10 hours in, I didn’t feel motivated to play it for the story if the meat of the game is just like every other open world game I’ve played. I loved the original, I even liked the remake but rebirth is just another open world of 100 hour of gameplay that doesn’t make me feel like I’ve accomplished anything.
You unequivocally lost me at “70 for 5 hours of game play is perfectly fine if those 5 hours are sublime”
LOL same
I would pay full price for any game if it gave me the feeling I had when playing Klonoa 2, Megaman X or Zero or any of the games that blew me away as a kid.
Because instead of paying $70 for a game that's sublime, we're paying $30 for games that only linger in our heads for mere moments. Or worse, we're paying $70 for trash regardless.
If you feel you should do something because it's there and you need to cross it of your list... then the thing (game in this case) is not the problem. From experience, look into that, into you not others or what's around you
I’m just saying that in those cases even the waste of time to make content not fully engaging takes away form content that could have been, it’s just always a bet negarive as I see it
So are newer youtube videos that go on way longer than they need to.
Bars I like older games, better than newer games even though the graphics suck older games give you just enough to want more but not enough to get bored and want to quit
Indies>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>AAA
Gamers are at fault on that one.
You basically answered why companies do what they do that you described in your thesis.
>Games need to stop wasting our time, why do they drag the playtime with filler?
>Gamers feel like they spent their money well if game provides X amount of content for Y money.
>So devs add cheap easy filler content just to make players feel content with their purchase. Just as you described with cs go skins stuff
This is why I hate open world games lol
I definitely don't agree on the micro transactions part. Maybe the idea behind them to help support a game after it's launched is nice. However it's all the shady stuff they do and the psychological aspect of them is terrible. Finding ways to get you addicted to them and stuff like fomo. Greed kills.
There's some poetry in a video about how modern games are wasting our time taking 36 minutes to develop points that could've been delivered in 10 or less. Even on 1.75x the speed of speech is still slow, as if you're purposely talking slower in order to pad the video length. Do better than the games you're criticising here.
Ahha ya I for sure have long videos I just talk like that though 😂, I like the longer ones honestly cause I get the point across in 5 minutes like this one and 30 more if you want it
I usually prefer a good 4-10 hour game with lots of replayability. The resident evil remakes fit the bill almost perfectly for me.
the witcher 3 is really a game using a mediocre formula to host superb writing and cinematic, yet every other company sees it and takes the opportunity to gaslight players to think the length and scale of it made the witcher 3 good. it's both infuriating and pathetic.
you see boys, smaller can be better. Respect your time and respect your junk
Between years 2008-2016 I can count many many games I have had good time with, good memories and mostly I came back to them.
Since 2016 till this day I could go with probably 8-10 games, maybe ? Most of them are boring, forced politics, annoying or boring characters or more movies than games.
These days everyone is roping in everything into politics. Games have had a hint of politics in them for a long time. Usually politics are important issues in society. All forms of media will use characters or story to express their opinions on that. Its likely that you played old games that express important opinions on issues and you didn't mind playing them because either they were subtle that you didn't notice or they aligned with your view. Through the last couple of years people mention politics when and where its unnecessary. But not being able to express how you feel in important issues at all in your work or art etc is called oppression and that is something our country has always been against. Other countries you will find cannot speak up on issues without being arrested.
I think you're overstating the case a bit. Theres been a huge amount of great games made in the last 10 years, heck just last year alone we had dozens of fantastic games that were great successes and fun to play. Yes there are bad games too, but that has always been the case.
@@jimralston4789 yeah ofc there has been awesome games, but I boycott most WOKE games or I dont have fun with ''movie'' games
Aside from maybe like 5 major releases in the last few years I don't think "woke" games are actually enough of a phenomenon to where only playing 10 games in the last 8 years sounds reasonable. Short arcadey games with basically no cutscenes are insanely common in the indie scene.
@@CosplayZine I feel like how politics has manifested in games and just media in general has changed though. Whereas historically this has been mostly a case of the writers' bias seeping into the world they are creating, or the fictional world being somewhat of a reflection of the writers' world; it now feels like an attack from one side of the political spectrum against the other, and rather than being influenced by the world around them they now seek to influence the world around them.
To look at an example with regards to gender, as both genders become more equal in the real world you would expect to see more fictional worlds where men and women are both of equal status with their only real difference being that they are differently gendered. Instead it seems that in a lot of works that women are elevated above men with all the women becoming girl bosses and badasses and the men being devolved into caricatures of masculinity. The issue here isn't women being portrayed as capable as this accurately reflects the world and where most stand politically. It's the juxtaposition between these beyond capable women and caricatures of masculinity as it depicts a matriarchal world which is not a reflection of reality and instead comes across as trying to attack and influence the real world.
I do think it is disingenuous to act like this occurs everywhere as there are plenty of games and movies etc. where this doesn't happen. It is a growing trend though, and it has been making its way into franchises that weren't like this to begin with.
I’ve gotta disagree with the “no exceptions” clause. There’s a balance to be struck. Skyrim is only so replayable because of its bloat, for example, and I really value that.
This is such a first world problem, to have access to so many amazing games that now we have just lost the patience to actually finish them
Games being too big and long is an amazing problem to have
A fundamental issue this video doesn't discuss, related to far more than just video games, is the concept of "too much of a good thing is bad for you." Many times he suggests a video game be captivating from beginning to end, but this is just fundamentally unrealistic. Not because games are made to purposely be boring, but because you will _never_ catch every moment of potential boredom in development of a game. There will always be downtime, moments of quiet, seemingly bull crap bosses/enemies who act as walls to your progress. Excitement from beginning to end is as impossible as making the perfect game, or a game for everyone. But even if it _could_ be done such consistent dopamine overload would almost certainly be more detrimental than not.
And no, it really isn't an amazing problem to have. Long games aren't necessarily bad by default, but there's a certain point where a game just overstays it's welcome, no matter how good it is. Its a problem typically present in MMOs and Gachas, which typically just go on until the game stops making enough money to justify it's own existence. Running its skeletal-level of game content into the ground long before its own expiry date, and only hanging on through forming addictions in the playerbase.
damaging nonetheless
New gamers mentality is so bad a week ago i told my friend ghat i read about a leak that said that the elden ring dlc will be 16 hours and he told me its too short and he isn’t excited for it does he realize wtf be is saying 😂😂 there are full games that are 16 hours and he isnt happy with a dlc being that long i doubt they will be able to make it 16 hours its a dlc if they can make it 6 hours it would be more than great
its been a long time since I agreed and disagreed with a take on this subject, especially the last bits of the video, MTX part dude. The more money they make the lazier they become.
Fromsoft was a household name well before Elden Ring, idk what the hell you're going on about. Maybe you were just in a secluded echochamber, but we all knew who Fromsoft was and that Elden Ring would fuck hard.
I finished Sekiro a month ago, i haven’t had so much fun replaying it over and over and getting better at it. Definitely got my money’s worth.
good vid but you def started repeating yourself fairly quick.
I only wish i could give you two likes. Never seen another youtuber tackle this topic and i fully agree with you, especially about the elden ring example, a great game ruined by a time wasting open world. Good stuff dude.
Really appreciate it thanks for watching!
I don't agree with all your points, because IMO a bit of tedium is actually beneficial to the dopamine release after, and personally i want both quality stories AND long games (this results in a natural selection of only the best of the best that deserves my time - most of the time i spend replaying my favorites of the past 25 years anyway. :) But i love your content and wish more gaming related youtubers where at your level. Kudos.
Ya I actually agree with this 100% tedium with purpose is good I meant that but probably didn’t express it perfectly lol