[Brainspackle]

Couldn't tell ya. I'm still playing games from 2019. With so many game releases nowadays, I have the patience to wait for a good sale to pick up anything new. The only game I've bought on release in the past few years is Baldurs Gate III

[cjbgkagh]

Apart from factorio the games I play are 20 years old and older. I was looking forward to Homeworld 3 but they hashed that up so bad that it’s far less fun than the original.

The point being that new stuff isn’t just competing with new stuff but also old stuff.

[tokinonagare]

Well with Factorio Space Age I'm hooked for a long time. New DLCs coming for AoE II too, one dropped recently for Wargame Red Dragon, they're really nice to keep "old" game even more relevant than they were. Also remasters when they are well made like the Red Alert one.

[thepuppet33r]

Already spent way too many hours in Space Age. About to start on Red Circuits and realized I need to completely reconfigure my main bus.

On a more serious note, I'm really feeling like it's safer to buy dlc and updates for old games than new ones. I was one of the people who freaking preordered Kerbal Space Program 2, thinking it would be amazing and so excited for a new KSP. And then it was such a dumpster fire, I haven't played it more than a dozen hours. From a pure ROI in playtime vs cost, I've gotten literally nine times the value from Factorio then I have from KSP 2, and twenty times the value for KSP 1 (my most played game). And I still play both of them regularly.

Why risk wasting $60 when I know these old games are still good?

[chainingsolid]

I did the same with ksp2... Part that really hurt there was finding out it was a production disaster the entire time.. One or 2 of the correct people in the right place could have saved it!

Busy waiting on bots to build out 16 lanes of copper smelting in my space age base right now, funney enough. Though I'm fixing LDS shortages.

On the topic of old games, many times the Minecraft Modding scene can solve the all the new games suck problem on its own!

[copx]

>The point being that new stuff isn’t just competing with new stuff but also old stuff.

I think that this will become a bigger and bigger problem for the games industry.

While movies, TV shows, literature, and music are always expressions of a particular time/culture/generation, games are usually much more universal.

E.g. young people today find Friends more problematic than funny, but have no problem enjoying Mario Kart.

[johnnyanmac]

It depends on the game and especially studio. AAA western studios definitely sanitized themselves, but Japanese games feel pretty ageless (or dated, if you're cynical) in terms of its writing and characters.

Big difference is definitely that separation of realism. Literature is from a specific experience, TV shows try to reflect experiences. Games about a fat italian plumber throwing mushooms at go-karts doesn't really reflect any society in the last century.

[pharrington]

> Games about a fat italian plumber throwing mushooms at go-karts doesn't really reflect any society in the last century.

very tru. Much unlike Rock n' Roll racing, which reflected the very real American experience of trying to get ahead in life by angrily launching missiles directly into the car in front of you, all while rocking out to Black Sabbath.

[bigstrat2003]

I wouldn't say that at all. People are thin-skinned about plenty of games too.

[Mistletoe]

Why is Friends problematic?

[johnnyanmac]

Humor that didn't age well but was funny for its time. the gay/crossdressing/fat jokes that were normal 20 years ago that wouldn't pass today are a starting point.

[bjelkeman-again]

Are we turning into old farts with our old games? I play a 25 year old game on a cloned server (EverQuest clone, 1999 MMO). And a newer first person shooter, but free to play.

I was looking forward to a new Homeworld. Shame.

[thepuppet33r]

I think we just probably have less time to play. In college I could blow an entire weekend on a subpar game and be fine with it, because I didn't really have competing priorities.

Now, if I waste $60 and four hours on an abysmal game, it's $60 that I could have used to take my kids to the movies, get takeout for my wife and I, or any number of other things. Same with the time. Five hours is time I could have spent cleaning the house, working on my side projects, etc.

I love gaming, and I destress by playing games, but it's not worth the now much higher opportunity cost to play the newer (usually worse) stuff.

That said, not all new games are terrible. Dredge is a game made last year that was absolutely phenomenal in my mind, and well worth the cost and time. Spent way too many late nights fishing in that game.

[amerkhalid]

Same. And another issue with games is that every game is so long. Games like Tomb Raider used to be 10 hours. Now such games are more than 20 hours. It is a bigger commitment even if you like the game.

That’s why I prefer to buy older games that have received enough reviews from regular people.

[thepuppet33r]

Yes! I tried to play the new Spiderman game, and just the sheer amount of stuff to do was overwhelming. Especially because I like to do all the side missions.

I know I sound like the oldest gamer here, but I miss the ratchet and clank style games. Long enough to be engaging, very replayable, but not a full-time job.

[Laforet]

> I love gaming, and I destress by playing games, but it's not worth the now much higher opportunity cost to play the newer (usually worse) stuff.

This appears to be the reason with all the recent remakes of “not so old” games. People like us are much more likely to pay to relive our past joys in 4K resolution.

However a part of me often wonders if video games have got to the point where every viable idea has been attempted and it’s only downhill from here. When I was a teen, I definitely did NOT envision myself still playing Age of Empires 2 PvP with strangers online but scene is still here.

[BLKNSLVR]

I viscerally feel like I'm wasting time when i play computer games, such that it ruins the enjoyment.

I'm making a list of all the games I want to play in retirement...

[thepuppet33r]

I usually listen to an audiobook or a podcast while I play Factorio or another story-light game, so as to offset that feeling.

[litenboll]

I use the two hour return policy on Steam to make sure I avoid paying for bad games (and get out before I spend too much time on it as well)

[cjbgkagh]

I think part of it is because gaming used to be avant garde and now it's being made for the general masses - especially the more expensive games. This is probably why I like Factorio - it knows what it is and really leans into it.

[HideousKojima]

Sins of a Solar Empire 2, on the other hand, lives up to how good the original was

[tombert]

I would say that about 90% of my gaming in the last few months has been on the MiSTer. I am not sure that there exists any games released in the last 15 years that work on there.

That’s probably not true, but I can’t think of any.

[glimshe]

People still make new games for old consoles, even full commercial releases. These are done by enthusiasts, of course, but I think some people are possibly making enough money to pay their water bill this way :)

[Cthulhu_]

McDonalds of all parties had a new Gameboy game commissioned last year: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/06/for-reasons-no-one-ca...

[tombert]

Oh yeah! You know, I actually played that game on the MiSTer and it still didn’t register to me that it was a game released in the last 15 years.

[johnnyanmac]

It's a bizarre game in many regards, so it makes sense. I don't think McDonald's has even referenced its old mascots in the last 15 years before this Grimace Birthday thing.

But 20 years+ ago? This would have been a dime a dozen licensed game.

[yreg]

You might also be getting older and more nostalgic…

[johnnyanmac]

That is a big factor. I believe over half of the top 10 most played games on steam at any given time are 5+ years old. GTA V was played across 3 generations and its still in the top 20 most played games.

Market's being captured, and there's less to appeal to when people are stuck in a service bubble instead of moving on. That's a big part of why consoles are stagnating in Gen 9; economy and a lot of people are fine with PS4's, which still is getting new games.

[autoexec]

Part of the problem is that new games are too often filled with bugs, ads, microtransactions, pointless timegates, etc. You can't trust reviews, so there's no telling what you're going to get. Game companies have burned players so many times that buying a game at launch, even if you like the franchise, just isn't wise.

That said, while I'm normally the type to play 10-15 years behind, I did pick up a copy of stellar blade on launch day just on a whim and it was amazing. No ads, no parts of the story paywalled off, nothing but fun and they've put out a lot of updates since making improvements, and dropping new outfits and gameplay modes. I kind of felt like I hit the lottery buying a game I knew basically nothing about on day one and not feeling like I was ripped off later, but that should be the norm. I'm tempted to get Astro Bot although it seems pricey.

[johnnyanmac]

I'm long used to it: But as a JRPG fan, it's always intriguing going to general gaming discourse and seeing complaints of stuff like ads/lootboxes/mtx in single player games. Just really shows how stark the western gaming sphere shifted.

Japanese games feel just like the 2010's but slightly better graphics. They leave all that stuff to the mobile scene, but console games have about the same expectations when you hear "single player game". Unless you are addicted to buying skin DLC, there's not much add-ons to buy once a game is out. If these current western sentiments are a detractor, I'd start looking more into where a game is made in addition to all other research.

Korea (which is where Stellar Blade was made) and China (Black Myth Wukong) are entirely different stories, but similar outcomes. Let's just say they are rediscovering console/PC gaming and they are starting off from the 2000's model, not the 2020's western model.

[PeterCorless]

I played Baldur's Gate for a while, but then I went back to Crusader Kings 3 (2020), Europa Universalis IV (2013), and Sims 4 (2014).