A friend, whenever he plays a game, read a book or watch a movie/serie happily comes to me eager to share his experience. Sadly, it is always the same : "It's the best thing I ever X/Y/Z" (1). Does that for food, music, friend, girlfriends, jobs...

So he is either a baby experiencing everything for the first time or a really optimistic buddy. At least he's positive, which is refreshing.

(1), It's really not up to debate, too.

He is 30. Yeah, I'm in the same boat as you are :p

He's a nice guy and since I'm already looking too hard at flaws inside art, it's nice to have someone that can sincerely ignore them and always sees the good stuff. The only problem is the delusion and the fact he's not up to debate means I'm always wrong.

"I see no evil but in you."

Both spectrum exist but a balanced approach is preferable.

Weird, i didn't get a notification for some reason...

Honestly, i think even with NPCs it would've sucked, just not as bad. At the end of the day, the joy come from the lore and NPCs. Without them, there is nothing. Try going through new vegas or 3 without talking to anyone, just wandering around and doing stuff. Really boring, right? You need an NPC to really talk up the location a haunted or something, just to give it meaning. An empty town is just that: a wasteland. It's really boring really fast, and a bunch of douchebags acting like idiots doesn't really solve that, especially if there aren't many of them around you. They don't provide lore to the locations like NPCs do, nor do they have the needs that NPCs do, to go out and find someone's glasses or something. At the end of the day, i hear people describing it as a "PUBG wannabe." Not necessarily. People are more into the writing itself as a whole. When people talk about skyrim, for example, A Night to Remember comes up alot. Then there's that quest to rescue a child so she can go around giving adults advice on what to do when alone in bed, 'cause that's a thing. There's that slut-shaming quest in Riften. And if you fully explore the final dungeon of A Night to Remember, there's quite some interesting lore hiding in there. And let's not forget, everyone has had Serana as a companion at one point, even people who don't normally carry companions. J'zargo, Kharjo, and Ri'saad are semi-frequent topics as well. I've occasionally heard people talk about epic fights, but i usually hear people talking about how a particular quest has meaning that's deeper than what's on the surface. Some of those quests and how you handle them can really make you question what kind of person you are (which is a really fun way to play these games, honestly, to ask yourself what you're morally OK with). I've noticed that co-op games tend to fair better with multiplayer, 'cause skillgap issues are a thing in every game. I'm not sure what exactly you're disagreeing with, here. I don't follow Ubisoft so much, but i do agree Bethesda is getting worse and worse with every game. As far as i can tell, bugs have always been a thing with them, so i don't really see that getting worse. The level of content and gameplay, though, does certainly seem to be getting worse. I also noticed that they focus more on balancing and fixing exploits, while, overall, they seem to be relying on unofficial patches to fix the bugs, which is really sad. It's cool that they give us the modding tools and all, but I really wish i didn't have to get 3rd party mods just to get the game to work as intended. I'd rather mods be mods, not bugfixes. I noticed people generally don't take non-PC versions of these games seriously because of the bugs. What concerns me is that how everyone knows this and sees this coming, we still get people buying the console versions. That alduin semi-final battle bug, though. You're likely to die, and there's a good chance that if you do, your autosave will end up corrupted to the point that alduin becomes invinceable. Yeah, i got the thing for PS3 'cause my computer is crap, but that's when i regretted it. Welcome to the industry: Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain was like that, too. So many complaints about the unfinishedness of the game, but always focused on cosmetic armors and such. I did hear alot of complaints about 4, but i just couldn't comment without some kind of knowledge. But, from what you're telling me, they were experimenting to see if they could get away with what they tried with 76: less content. My boxing instructor was talking to me about that tonight. Something about multiplayer saving, as well, requiring a microsoft account or something. He wasn't speaking very clearly on the subject (he's very much a layman when it comes to tech), but what I could gather was that character management is a royal pain, at least for him. He wanted to know if i had an xbox 1 or xbox 360 to see if i could help him solve teh problem. Unfortunately for him, I don't. Sounds like bethesda is going to end up feeling tis one later, since they probably aren't right now. Yeah, i have no problem with achievements per se, but this rewards system has created some unnatural incentives. I even see cheat pages dedicated to generating save files to help cheat your way into achievements, so that you don't have to play the game, but download a save, talk to someone in particular, and you end up running through a ton of achievements in no time flat. Sometimes I just want past some silly part of a game that is ridiculously difficult or I beat the game normally on another system and just want to jump back to the post game on the current system, so i do some googling, only to see people who have cheats and saves dedicated to achievements as opposed to problem sections of a game. I'm just over here sitting saying "eh, i really don't care. I just want to get back to having fun with the game, and here you guys are trying to milk the achievement system."

But, no, people can use a good "gamer score" to make money promoting a game or something. it's really sad.
Yeah, debate and discussion are highly discouraged, anymore, and this is very obvious with politics. You can't talk about anything without being called a name. Ultimately, i think it comes down to child abuse or something, 'cause people have trouble dealing with worldviews that conflict with theirs, and citing evidence of some sort of objective standard ends up with people putting their fingers in their ears and shouting ethical absolutes while being unable to defend the ethics or avoid hypocrisy. As you say, your friend calls you "evil." Frankly, i don't know how people can stand the world to be so boring. But, i can understand that people have trouble dealing with conflict, anymore, especially when everyone else they know is playing the same games. With politics, the more people insult my intelligence, strawman, etc, the more difficult it becomes for me to resist the same tactics, especially since they work, even though they're dishonest and unethical. Not really sure what the solution is, but it is nice to meet people who don't play the silly games, but it's rare.

Yeah, I think I worded that badly. I was agreeing with you. We all know the reputation of FNV being so "vastly superior" to F3, but really, I think that if I put nostalgia aside, I stopped caring after Morrowind.

Surely you've heard of the "Ubisoft tower" or the "Checklist openworld". While it's true Ubisoft does not take much risks with their games, at least they work. I tend to think Ubisoft is trying, has the budget but lack the skills of a real one-person artist with a vision to lead project. They have lots of cool ideas really badly implemented. Watch_dogs is a nice concept but it could have been so much more. Same goes for Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Ghost Recon or The Crew, they have very good basis but they lack in details an exploiting what they try to do.

Watch_Dogs 2 lets you resolve almost all puzzles/situation by differents means, even allowing you to bypass the use of what look like skill tree requirement if you think outside the box. However, the AI is so bad that all those elements you gain are useless if you use brute force. Most Ubisoft games gives you tools but nothing to exploit them on, so it seems like the same game all over again, because nothing prevent you to play the new one like you did the one before.

And that's the worst part about 76. That game has the same bugs Fallout 4 did without the possibility to mod them yet. So Bethesda knew those bugs since F4 but still did not care and I'm sure they hope that one day the community would do it for them. At this rate, Bethesda will drag their sister company in the mud. Saying Id Software and Arkane studio helped them create Fallout 76 put a bad light on all of them when ID and Arkane at least managed to create interesting and good games on their own.

Bethesda know their fans are going to find enjoyement even when they do the minimum. What you tell me about the fans liking the writing and lore is a proof that even a low technical and badly released game (because, well, unmoded skyrim really does not shine imo) there's fun to be had. Fallout 76 was their attempt to cash in on those fans. Maybe Todd does not know anything about videogames and no one has the courage to tell him, or he knows full well that he can go way beyond before repercussions.

With what happened with Warner Bros (Batman Arkham Knight/Shadow of War), I'd be surprised if Fallout 76 does not make it into History Book for being one of the worst AAA launch of the decade.

Disclaimer : I swear I do not work for Ubisoft :p

I think Ubi nailed this whole achievement incentive. The Ubi Club, which you can access through all their games, lets you earn XP (increase you profile level, for bragging rights I guess) and Ubi Points through achievements OR tasks you do in games.

What those Ubi Points are for is cool, I feel. You can trade them for skins, items, wallpapers or items relevant for any games associated with the Ubi Club.

The new Assassin's Creed came out ? Cash in your point to buy the skins of previous characters from the serie, buy a unique skin for weapons or use it for "Time saver" instead of paying it with real money. I know it's not much, but if go as far as to buy the game, you'll get those point just by playing. They could easily have relied on nostalgia from older games and made those skins paid DLC. They already have shitton of microtransaction and DLC in these games. But skins that fans loves ? They can get for free, just for playing their new games.

I'm not sure, but you might as well get some of their "Pre Order" missions code through those points, for some games. Again, it's not much, but it's better than pay real money. And talking about money, you can use those point to get -20% off when purchasing on their overpriced online store.

In Fallout 76 ? Well, hope you'll be happy to rack 18€ just to paint your Power Armor in blue like you did in Fallout 4.

The year is 20XX, people still give a shit about public opinion for some reason.

You have earned the title of Cynical Gamer #3528, please move to your designated area and deposit your library of modern games in the trash when prompted by the stewardess.

I think many gamers actually honor this. Look at all the reviews of the Indie games here on GOG. Most read like "nice idea, but with obvious flaws", "really good, but rather short" or "clumsy controls but otherwise fine" or in other words: they are quite balanced. There are a lot of 4 star rated games on GOG which are kind of "just good".

What survived of the classics from the 90s and early 2000s is of course far above average and still interesting now, but what really set them apart from A to AA games nowadays is not the budget but that there was a bit more creativity inside then. That's what I'm mostly missing.

Many non-AAA games today feel like industrial mass productions, the same engine, the same design, everything only slightly adapted to some kind of theme. That's why modern good is rather quite bad. It feels like just more of the same not very good content. But maybe that's just me and I'm also exaggerating somewhat.

I'm not the one only buying and playing high budget AAA games. I love small budget, solid products, but I still search for the gems among them. I'm not satisfied with so-so but want above the average quality for a reasonable price. If this is the case and if the games have a certain charm, I will overlook many other shortcomings. For example: I don't need full audio in 10 languages for an RPG spoken by famous artists, as long as the story is good, if this doubles the price.

You really get fun out of collecting any kind of points? To each his own, I always say, but to me this would seem like wasting of precious gaming time. I always thought that beating the game is the most fun aspect of gaming, not collecting some kind of points in order to get other things a bit cheaper.

Well I guess it is a good thing that people have some way to get those free of charge, but the underlying problem is the existence of DLC altogether. If there are versions of the game that are incomplete to begin with, then that already makes it a "not that good" game in my eyes.

I suppose the old fashion mission disk approach is understandable, as they first created the game, and then if it gained popularity, they created new content for players who wanted them.
But to actually pay for something like wallpapers, which are completely unrelated to the game experience itself, that's just wrong, and makes me want to buy older titles instead of new titles.

Much of it is subjective, but I do think there are some goal posts along the way that didn't get the ball put through them. There's certainly some fundamentals of game development that are frankly being ignored nowadays in exchange for 'new innovative ideas' that are generally just pure PR and marketing schlock.

Games-as-service is a big one. How can you even make a 'good' game when the idea of a game itself becomes just a series of development cycles intended to loop back onto what a company hopes is a repeating revenue program?

DLCs and loot boxes play into that as well. Games have become a combination of political tool and revenue engine for endless streams of quick returns, rather than a dedicated team developing and programming a really good game, one that might even become its own franchise. And speaking of franchises, have you noticed that few new ones are being created, and the ones that are come from much older 'nostalgia' icons such as Batman, Fallout, or Star Wars? Easily identifiable marketing, cheap and easy returns. Franchise enrichment and quality control be damned.

Sadly, we've gone from an era of games where people had to literally build an entire new economy based on what was seen as a niche hobby for basement dwelling D&D nerds into a billion dollar entertainment industry that has consoles and PCs in just about every living room or bedroom in the civilized world. That can't help but create a fork in the road. And unfortunately, we've gone down the fork that is littered with dumpster bins, cheap motels, and even cheaper hookers.

And then you have social media and its effects on gaming, which I'd rather not even talk about. If I did it would become a voluminous tome of rants and lots of cap lock words.

That's a good point actually. The number of reviews with strong opinions either way might be over-represented, but the buying behavior of games of medium quality should still show a different picture. People still buy and play "just good" games.

I mean customers could concentrate on buying just a jew AAA titles but they don't. Otherwise publishers wouldn't produce all those games with quality and budgets in between.
I just recently read an article claiming that the Youtube recommendation system recommends you even more and more extreme (political content), once you start watching something either way. This may be more of an algorithmic thing, but it might also be a reflection of that cultural thing (being fascinated by extremes) going on.

It is a sad time when a game coming out without DLC/Season Pass uses it as a bullet point and gets a round of applause. I do not know what I dislike more : day one DLC or right after release that dev try to sells as being made after the developpement or mandatory day one patches.

Even on Wii U (with its absurd HDD) you had games with Day One patches, as for all digital content, what's going to happen to that nice and reputable game fifteen years from now without all thoses updates when all servers are down ? It's even more absurd for games that have more than 200€/$ worth of DLCs, in single player games. In some Dynasty Warriors, for example, some DLCs are mainly for background music, or wallpapers...And then you have GOTY versions, such as Batman:Arkham Knight. Open the box and surprise : codes. Defeats the purpose, imo.

As for wallpapers on Ubi club, everything is either free or obtained through achievement points. But seeing Wallpapers and icons as a reward free or not, be it from Ubi, Sony, Microsoft or anyone else gives me flashbacks of those ads for old phones' ringtones and wallpapers. Shivers.

I don't have any evidence of it, but I've been in contact (through phone mostly) with some french developpers this years that gave me some hindsight about how my country treat videogames. According to them, the more political the game, the more founding. Now, I welcome the idea of messages through media, but clearly, if true, this won't be use correctly. I heard the same kind of stories for other art forms, and it's not pretty :p It might be something known but I must admit that it did took me by surprise.

What was the last big AAA and sucessfull new IP in the last five years ?

I stopped looking at scores or ratings for AAA or AA games (= games with huge or mid-sized budget) a long time ago. AAA games will get something between 80 (lame) and 95 (great) out of 100. If an AAA game gets anything below 80 it's a complete failure (lame game that doesn't even show its high budget). AA games will get something between 70 and 85 because you can't tell EA, Ubisoft and the other big players that (for example) Elex is a better game than the 152nd Assassin's Creed (that is the exact same as the 151 Assassin's Creeds before). So 70 basically says "It doesn't look like an AAA game and isn't that good either (ps. please don't be angry, 70 isn't THAT bad - you should still buy an ad for your game in our magazine)" and 85 means "it doesn't look like an AAA game but is much better than any of them".

The ratings still work for indie games though. Crappy games will get something in the 20s, average games something between 50 and 70, good games 70+ and if there's a real gem it'll get an 85+ You can be honest with indies because they can't afford an ad in your magazine anyway and big publishers don't give a shit if an indie gets a better score than their multi million dollar game. It's just a shitty looking indie and won't interest their main market of "BEST EVAH!!!!" gamers.

What still does work for me is to actually read the whole review. I do know the personal tastes and writing styles of the journalists from the magazines I'm following. I do remember their reviews of similar games. So I have some context when I read what they wrote. Helps a lot to find out if a game is boring or good.

Yeah, i've felt the checklist, but never heard of it. I touched a few of their games, but because of their proverbial checklist, they don't stand out enough to me to really note or follow. Ubisoft just feels too generic. Sargon of Akkad did a decent video on how they could fix 76, but we know it won't happen. Bethesda's basically getting grilled hardcore, but their affluenza prevents them from seeing how much of a tremendous blunder they made, which seems to be the thing with AAAs and most indies. Well, the thing is, it's not just "putting up" with the bad things, but rather not caring. Ever hear of Gunz? An online third person shooter that had glitches out the ass. What happened, though? Well, the focus of the game was people played it 'cause you could do cool things like out of a movie like the matrix. So some glitches allowed people to climb up walls infinitely, jump back and forth between buildings using wall jumps to fire rockets on people below who basically couldn't touch them, etc (some people even found a way to use the glitches to enable slowfall using the mouse wheel). In the end, the community actually preferred the glitches so that they ended up becoming a core game mechanic and an officially acknowledged staple of the game.

People play GTA with the acknowledgement that it's totally broken and unrealistic, which is actually a feature of the game, too. You don't play GTA for the stable environment, but instead you play it for how ridiculous it is. As long as the bugs don't ruin your experience, you don't care. So, other than quest breaking bugs and things where NPCs would randomly fall to their deaths the moment you enter a town, no one really cared about the bugs. Did it matter that an object rolling down a mountain ended up flying like a UFO after a while? Nope, that's why everyone other than just bethesda still uses the havoc engine. It's buggy, broken, etc, but it doesn't really ruin the experience. The same thing can be said about clipping issues with weapons and armors in the games: how often do you find anyone who honestly cares?

i don't think they really did, honestly. They still provided a real incentive for what is merely an official recognition for an age old e-penis contest. All achievements ever really were was doing obscure challenges like no-death runs, etc. They existed long, long before achievement programs in games. I remember someone telling me they believed in no-death zelda runs, where you had to delete your save the moment link fell off a cliff, into the water, etc. I thought thy were nuts, but it's a thing. Magikarp starter runs, too, in pokemon yellow. It's just a badge of honor, really, and that's how it should've stayed, 'cause now we have people complaining about getting an achievement simply for starting the game, which is ridiculous.

I dont think anything has changed other than hype process, games are being released nonstop that are just 'good', does the job of providing some hours of entertainment. whats different is the expectation, in order to gain sales and financing the marketing dept has to create a buzz, societies attention span is that of gnats nowadays and if you cant garner insta buzz then your game is buried under the avalanche of releases and forgotten.

we the customers are to blame in the end. well, by we I mean those damn kids with their interwebs.................

*shakes cane angrily