the fall of aaa games?

maybe it is only because i have been paying more attention this year but i really does seem to me that the big game publishers and developers are struggling lately. their money hungry practices, lack of content and poor quality control is starting to hurt them a lot. loot boxes aka supply drops aka item crates are being made illegal around the world because they promote gambling amongst children.

developers/publishes pushing political agendas are pushing away their fans/consumers. this a definitely something that ea and dice have learned the hard way with battlefield v(agina). pushing the more inclusive agenda in a ww2 game was not well received due to various factors and not simply by "we dont want women in our video games" as the sjw's would have you believe. dice said if your don't like it, don't buy it. and the fans listened. the game's sales are much lower than expected and ea's stock has taken a big hit. a lot of content was also missing at launch with plenty of "coming soon" labels and players are still waiting to get everything they paid for already. pathetic really.

then we have activision blizzard with their extremely poorly timed announcement of diablo immortal. diablo fans are starving for a new diablo game, or even a remaster or new diablo 3 content. the anticipation was massive for this largely pc platform playerbase. then at blizzcon 2018 blizzard announced a new diablo game... on mobile... only. essentially a reskin of another chinese developed game and created purely to cash in on the lucrative asian mobile micro-transactions market. the fans were really not happy and outrage ensued. then blizzard made it worse by saying they are making mobile games for all their franchises and they have put a lot of their best developers onto those mobile games. again, the announcement had a negative effect on activision blizzard's stock prices and blizzard has been getting a lot of hate for being so out of touch with its fans. 

activision stock holders were also not happy with the sales/income from destiny 2 and blops iiii. and what did activision do to appease the investors? add more micro-transactions to these games of course. screwing the loyal fans over and slowly milking these franchises dry, just like they did with guitar hero.

the biggest of these disasters has to be bethesda's fallout 76. a multiplayer fallout game that does not feature any npcs, barely has a story, broken pvp system, tedious fetch quests and gameplay bugs... oh so many bugs. the game was panned by critics and users alike. but then things just kept on getting worse and worse for bethesda as time went by. first players discovered that the game shared a startling amount of code and assets with fallout 4, essentially making it a multiplayer mod for fallout 4 that they now charged full price for. it has many of the same bugs that fallout 4 had and were never fixed. 

server crashes were frequent. then customers who bought the collector's edition of the game were upset because it was supposed to come with a good quality canvas bag but instead they got a cheap nylon sack. bethesda made excuses like saying there was a canvas shortage and would have been too expensive to make etc. but after people started accusing them of false advertising they finally caved and started a program on their site where you could log a ticket supplying them with your info and proof of collector's edition purchase and they would process this and eventually send you a proper canvas bag. 

Buuuuuuut then the website had a security issue where all these tickets containing private information was leaked and bethesda did not even take it seriously or let the consumers know that their information had been compromised. if all this is not bad enough, a new update to the game suggests (looking a script changes) that bethesda will be pushing new micro-transaction systems into the game in the near future.

there were other disasters and controversies as well with ea's sports games and terrible micro-transactions, blizzard and rockstar employees reaching out talking about the terrible working conditions and/or pay. telltale games suddenly closed down due to poor management, leaving nearly all their employees without work or proper compensation. epic has started it's own games marketplace to rival valve's steam. the list goes on.

honestly i find it more funny than i do worrying. it might actually be good if these big publishers eventually go out of business and new ones rise up. a second video games market crash so to speak. sure i don't want people to be without jobs but i feel the industry at the top is just cancerous right now and we are not seeing the fresh, good and innovative games that we should be seeing. it's all just pump out another sequel that is the same as the previous one with more micro-transactions. games look prettier as time goes by but everything else is going backwards. 

even e-sports is tarnishing our games. a lot of new multiplayer focused games are developed specifically for e-sports and not for the general public that would be buying and playing it. cod is a good example of this. the game is tweaked and balanced for pro gamers and not for the much larger public playerbase.

all we can do is speak with our wallets and keep forcing change.

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are "bad" games really that bad?

i have a weird gaming habit. i frequently enjoy playing "bad" games. what i mean by "bad" games are games that get a lot of unfavorable reviews. the thing with a lot of these bad games are that you can get some good experiences by playing them. what do i mean? let me explain.

most bad games generally feature generic, bland or old type gameplay. to me this is usually not a problem and in a lot of these cases i actually enjoy it. take a game like 'hour of victory' for example. it is basically a generic world war 2 first person shooter. but it has decent fps gameplay, it's simple, straight forward and linear. it's a mindless ww2 experience where i get to shoot nazis and blow enemy vehicles. and i think that is why i enjoy it.

best comparison i can make is this. maybe you are a fan of classical or jazz music. it's serious, emotional, raw and intricate. you love it, but sometimes it's just nice to put on the radio and hear some catchy senseless pop song that puts you in a good mood. to me it is the same with games. i like my complicated rpg's, stealth shooters, puzzle and strategy games. but sometimes it's just nice to go and shoot some nazis and follow a linear story and be entertained without it being meaningful, frustrating, deep or complicated. i typically play these games on easy as well. experience and not frustration.

sometimes the gameplay mechanics are poor or limited but the story is interesting and entertaining, it can keep you going. other times the story is non existent but it is really fun to play. some games are actually really funny because it is bad and glitchy. these are particularly great when played with friends. a game like aliens cm comes to mind here.

very often a game gets a poor rating/reputation due to one or two big issues but the game added gameplay/presentation innovations that are unique, interesting and worth trying out. these are few and far between though.

what bad games would i "recommend"? well i would not really recommend buying these at full price but if you can rent them or get them for really cheap then sure. most of these are quite old so sorry for that.

troll & i; a more recent one. here is a pretty fun and engaging fantasy type game that even supports co-op. the issues? dated visuals, frequent crashes and poor voice acting.

call of juarez the cartel; where the previous coj games where pretty well received, this one was a generic modern day shooter with dumb stereotypes. i had some fun with it since it has decent gunplay, location variety, decent achievements and 3 playable characters.

aerea; this is pretty much a diablo clone with a more family friendly musical theme. no real loot to speak of and there are some funny bugs but still fun and interesting.

rogue warrior; not much good to say about this game but it does have some entertaining melee kill animations, fun gunplay, easy achievements and is short so it ends before you hate it lol. and the dialog is so bad it is funny.

jumper; pretty fun yet simple combat system and very generous with achievements. very poor visuals though and it is very glitchy and short.

legendary; crappy visuals, awful characters, generic fps game but damn it is fun chopping off werewolf heads with a fireman's axe.

binary domain; basically gears of war but with robots. really pretty decent game actually.

doritos crash course; a free game on xbox that is basically like the show wipeout. pretty fun little game but it is short and simple.

hour of victory; as mentioned before this is a generic ww2 fps but features 3 playable characters and abilities unique to them. well, abilities is a stretch. more like area access options :)

f1 race stars; not actually bad, just rather unknown. this is basically like mario kart but with a formula one theme. nice arcade racing fun.

there are lots more i've played over the years but the list is long enough i think. if you are going to try out some of these, i hope you get some fun out of them like i did :)

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