Your thoughts on the current state of the video game industry? (As of March 5th, 2023)

Dear gamers in the Giant Bomb forums

The Nintendo Switch turned 6 years old on March 3rd, 2023, while the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are both turning 3 years old on November 10th and 12th 2023 respectively.

In the coming up E3 2023, I've heard Nintendo, Sony Interactive Entertainment and Microsoft/Xbox Game Studios are not attending, so I guess all of their respective subsidiaries are too busy working on their respective projects so they won't able to showcase them on time and they may end up showing on their own online presentation later this year instead, I hope the 3rd party companies will show up interesting games (regardless of the gaming platforms) on E3 2023.

Ok, this inspired me to make this thread as I would like to share your thoughts on this.

So here are my personal thoughts:

What I like:

• Assetto Corsa 2 is in development, but none of any trailers and screenshots has shown yet.
• RENNSPORT is in development and has so much potential to be so good in terms of driving model!
• GTR Revival is still under development and I'm hoping it's going to be so good just like it's predecessor GTR 2.
• iRacing gets more new content and updates, the gameplay is so realistic & addictive plus the players are even more polite than the ones in all Simcades including Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport series.
• Automobilista 2 gets improved in terms of car handling/driving physics, making it more accurate to the real world, and having heaps of DLCs.
• RaceRoom gets more new content and updates.
• VRC Pro gets new content.
• Assetto Corsa Competizione is currently the most realistic driving game available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, in terms of car handling accuracy compared to its real-world counterpart.
• American Truck Simulator getting more new updates and DLCS.
• Euro Truck Simulator 2 getting more new updates and DLCS.
• Newer installments of Car Mechanic Simulator get improvements in terms of gameplay and features plus DLCs.
• Forza Horizon series appears to have more creative content while Playground Games wanted to remain it to be an arcade-style open-world racing game series in order to keep its fun factor.
• Halo Infinite still getting updates.
• There are a lot of indie games for players to purchase digitally.
• More and more powerful PC parts are in development.
• Improved gaming peripheral designs.
• RGB colors are still totally awesome for PCs.

What I don't like:

• PC parts, gaming consoles, games and some peripherals like Sim Racing equipment are getting more expensive.
• Motorsport Games (The developer of NASCAR 21: Ignition) is a very rough game studio as they treat their staff terribly while their games may have problems, especially how Max Verstappen (Formula 1 racer) rage quitted in the rFactor 2's virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans 2023 eSports event, and one day, they may go bankrupt, plus they obtained the Indy Car licensing exclusivity, resulting iRacing cannot sell and run that content for online racing.
• Electronic Arts have manipulated Slightly Mad Studios to cancel the development of Project Cars 4 and they may potentially shut down Codemasters.
• Gran Turismo & Forza Motorsport series are both chosen to remain as Simcades by their respective developers (Polyphony Digital & Turn 10), making their handling model feel less realistic than iRacing, Automobilista 2, Assetto Corsa Competizione & rFactor 2, because to optimize the controller pad plus mainly focusing on eye candy graphics than everything else.
• Gran Turismo 7 has an online DRM, so much free-2-Play elements including MTX, resulting in many users protesting that while in online racing matches, there are still a lot of toxic players loving to antagonize other players by ramming them off.
• Forza Motorsport Reboot's developer (Turn 10) only brings up the graphics at the moment while never mentioning how much improvement in car handling/driving model compared to its predecessors.
• Sony Interactive Entertainment is still really arrogant for several reasons plus still has bad customer service (Based on what other Giant Bomb users have mentioned about that).
• Criterion Games' Need For Speed Unbound feels underwhelming for the arcade-style open-world racing standards.
• Microsoft has laid off a total of over 10,000 employees including its subsidiaries.
• Konami still doesn't even care about PC and console gaming, so they only care about pachinko slots and arcade gaming.
• Nintendo doesn't seem to do anything with the F-Zero franchise aside from rereleasing F-Zero (1990 SNES Game) and F-Zero X (1998 N64 Game) onto Nintendo Switch Online and referenced/cross-over appearances in their other published games.

Sidenotes:

• When we enjoy playing games, we don't have to care if they're exclusive to only one platform or not, because most gamers in the world, prefer to choose based on what sort of genre, sub-genre and many other things to describe to suit their personal preferences.
• I have a feeling that in these days of the Gran Turismo & Forza Motorsport series, their existing car models (Starting from the PS4 and Xbox One era) will get reused and upgraded by their respective artists to add more polygons and higher texture resolutions rather than remaking from scratch.
• To me, playing Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport installments are more fun with the Sim Racing peripherals.
• To play iRacing, Automobilista 2, Assetto Corsa Competizione, rFactor 2, Assetto Corsa, and DiRT Rally 1 & 2.0, it's 100% recommended to play with Sim Racing peripherals, not controller pads.
• There is nothing bad about games being delayed because creating video games in general is a very hard job to do.
• I hope Traxion.GG won't shut down when the Motorsport Games company closes down.

I think this generation has become the one that turns me into a "gaming geezer" for lack of a better term. Between having no interest in paying $70 for a video game and a waning interest in the AAA game space, I've found myself playing less new games every year. I found more fun dipping into my backlog of games, I bought a Genesis to try and recreate the library I had as a kid, and I've started looking into different types of emulator devices to make playing older games more convenient.

For me the best thing about current gaming generation are the subscription services that are out now. Because of them, I'm able to play a lot of games I otherwise couldn't afford with the price hike. I'm just now getting into cloud streaming with Xbox console games on PC and the process so far is really good. Sometimes the gameplay is so smooth and sharp, it looks like the actual installed game and not a stream. I wish PS Plus streaming was this good. As far as E3, its clear that show's time has passed. While I think having one a year is important as an annual gaming event, like how CES is one for televisions, and CAN festival is one for audio. But it seems like the major developers prefer to use their own events, mainly because they can control the messaging better.

Sony and Microsoft are going to continue to spar back and forth from this point onward. And if Nintendo is smart, they need to make sure their next console is powerful enough to hang with the others in the future. No more cutting corners. They have to compete, otherwise they will get left behind. Nintendo makes great first party games, but that won't be good enough if the games under perform like the Switch does now. Fans won't accept that again overall.

Stop trying to number generations of consoles.

My bad, I just changed the title:

From "Your thoughts on the 9th gen gaming era's current state?" to "Your thoughts on the current state of the video game industry? (As of March 5th, 2023)"

@gtxforza: I don't think they're that serious, it's just a weird hangup some people have.

As for me, I love gaming on all my various devices. I do think that the exciting games only possible with current have yet to materialize though. On top of the crossgen games which are now going away to an extent, we have really been inundated with remakes and rehashes of older titles. I enjoy many of these, but it does kind of feel like the industry is in a midlife crisis and wants to relive the glory days.

I never learned the generations' numbers and I don't know how/when everyone else did. I think they must have all looked up a list and memorized it, because it doesn't seem like an intuitive system to just learn from context.

I am not going to make an entire new topic about this but I have to get it out.

I find the 180 games press from the 90s have done on Japanese games hilarious. if you look at the reckoning Adam Sessler is facing now (March 2023) that attitude is reflective of so many western games journalists and how they treated foreign games and the people who created them in those years. Sessler now is known as a strong progressive simply because he has the most Americanized view on race and culture. When confronted with blatant racism he became as reactionary as the people he criticizes constantly. Only reason I am posting this here is because when Naoki Yoshida (producer of FF XVI) in an interview said he saw the term "JRPG" as derogatory. Grubb (who I love and am sure has no hate in his heart) got defensive and posted a graph defending the use of the term.

Go back and look at basically any talk from game journalists from 2000 to 2015 and you will see if not blatant racism but complete disregard to any game that was from Japan. Talk of racism today seems to come from a completely Americanized view, when the entire industry especially journalists acted so dismissive of other cultures and the games they created.

@grayfox666,:

basically any talk from game journalists from 2000 to 2015 and you will see if not blatant racism but complete disregard to any game that was from Japan.

What?

I can name dozens of games that came out during that period that received immense praise. You're talking about a time period that included the likes of Street Fighter IV, Resident Evil IV, Devil May Cry, Okami, Metal Gear Solid 3, enormous numbers of classic Nintendo games including Super Mario Galaxy, Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, Dark Souls, and the list goes on and on.

Yes there was some discussion of design trends in Japanese games that many Western critics did not like during that period, but that was just cultural difference, not racism. In Japan there are many popular Western IPs and even genres that are not in favor to this day. Also during the first part of that period many Japanese games were poorly localized for the West, often with cut content or bad translations. But the idea that there was total disregard for Japanese games during that period just doesn't hold any water.

I saw the Banten Kaitos Origins review from X-Play, and while I do believe Adam Sessler has become a bitter douche bag, because clearly his life hasn't turned out how he wanted it for some reason with his career choice in gaming, I don't think he was purposely being racist with that review. People forget that X-Play was a comedy based review video game show that poked fun at everything in video games and society in general. That's one of the things that made the show so popular. Sadly, we now live in an era, where a lot of people can't take jokes anymore, because people are so sensitive in these troubled times. A lot of shows, movies, and even comedians wouldn't be allowed to make the parodies, spoofs, or jokes today that they made back then without fear of someone being triggered, and trying to get those works cancelled. Which is the big difference between then and now, people got offended, but they understood the comedy wasn't for them and kept it moving most of the time.

And Sessler does have a point. The main people making this an issue, are the ones who hate his far-left outspoken views he relentlessly spews on his twitter account.

Regarding the “JRPG” discussion, I found it odd that critique was being labeled racism. Humor in general (those XPlay bits) can be a tough pill to swallow. Personally, the humor I saw was very juvenile and of the times, nothing remotely crazy, but the critique aspect was the thing that stood out to me. Many, pointing to BioWare Co-founder Greg Zeschuk comments on how “JRPGs” were stagnant as being somehow racist. Personally, I take objection to that. I also don’t think people straight calling “JRPGs” trash as anything weird either. The period in question 2000-2015 saw the rise of the western rpg on console. In other words, peoples taste simply differed. Many preferred (and still do), in the west, games like Mass Effect and Fallout 3 to Persona 4 for example (all three coming out in a span of a year 07-08).

As bigsocrates pointed out, the Japanese output of games were very much praised as a whole. So I don’t believe Japanese games were being left behind (considering RE4 was many peoples game of the decade (my personal choice), I think Japan did just fine). Which brings me to the “JRPGs” of the day and compare them to the current crop of “JRPGs.” I find that Zeschuk’s comments echoing with truth as the current “JRPG” was heavily influenced by western ideals in terms of design and action imo (Skyrim/Bethesda being a major source of influence with their open worlds and real time combat). In other words, the “JRPG” modernized with the times. Long gone are the days of Final Fantasy 13 and Lost Odyssey (classics, but games that were criticized (by JRPG fans I should add) for being ‘old fashioned’ in a lot of ways).

Ultimately, I don’t see the term “JRPG” as anything less, rather a sub genre to RPGs. Final Fantasy can be called an RPG and it would make sense. It can also be called JRPG and make as much sense (and then some) I think. Similarly, Skyrim can be called a Western RPG and I think people would get it. It would make sense. At the end both games are RPGs, but it’s simply a way to get to the thick of things.

@linkarterius: The original difference was between JRPGs and CRPGs (computer RPGs, which later became Western RPGs as they started appearing on consoles)

The major differences were that JRPGs focused on telling a story with a specific pre-written character while CRPGs focused on letting you build your own character and explore a world that often had a de-emphasized main story. JRPGs were about character and story while CRPGs were about exploration and party build.

Of course this over-simplifies, there has always been some crossover, and there were other stylistic differences (like JRPGs were usually third person while most CRPGs were first person) but that was the most basic distinction.

Over time the genres have intermixed so that the differences are less clear (for example in The Witcher 3 you have a pre-defined character and story, though a lot of emphasis on world exploration and side content too) but that core distinction remains somewhat relevant to this day.

Western developers can and have make/made games in the JRPG style and Japanese developers have made their own CRPG style games.

None of this has to do with racism. It mostly has to do with different influences and the more popular hardware (gaming in the West was more computer focused after the console crash while consoles used to be more popular in Japan; now handhelds and mobile are.)

Now as for the Xplay segment...it was pretty bad and I can see why some see it as racist and offensive. I don't think it could be made today and I think that's good. I do not, however, think that it was intentionally racist when it was made.

@bigsocrates: most definitely influence runs on both ends. From Ultima to Dragon Quest and so on. Still, I think there’s always a pendulum swing. I’d wager the period of the 90s both WRPGs and JRPGs were making significant games, yet the JRPG was at the forefront of games. 03-15 it’s the WRPG. Currently I would argue that the JRPG is more robust and is selling at an all time high (Pokémon & Elden Ring are selling like gangbusters). I do feel the JRPG crowed simply got pushed around when the JRPG wasn’t as hip. The issue I had was how the discussion was centered on how JRPG (the term) and critiques were somehow racist.

Personally, I disagree with such an argument (from what I saw).

From what I gathered on Twitter, I felt it was mostly centered on the idea that the JRPG had become uncool. The examples shown of the media laughing or calling them “dated” is very much gaming media/audience. Even today they meme the shit out of games. Just look at how Horizon and Ubisoft games have sort of become a laughing stock in terms of their design philosophy (even though they sell a ton). Again, I think whatever is “hip” swings every couple of years.

I know we’ll see this discussion of RPGs when Final Fantasy 16 and Starfield come out. In other words, I feel the “racism” angle regarding the term JRPG is overblown and simply about “I like JRPGs more than WRPGs”.

I was so disappointed that last year was just open world rpgs and the kind of games that anime pervs play that I only played pokemon go all year.

My point of view - my first game memory was playing Pong in 1978 as a 5 year old. I've been playing games for a LONG time.

The happy bit is that there are a bazillion games out there. While the big companies are still trapped in the world where "this has to sell millions of copies or we're not going to recoup our costs", indies to medium publishers are pushing all sorts of weird and wacky and interesting games. And that's not counting expanded international distribution, the retro/emulator scene, subscription services for a more curated approach, and all the other way people distribute games. No matter your interests, you can find something that will keep you entertained -- not to mention the sheer creativity some game developers/designers are showing. And the computing power available is just crazy. I remember when seeing PONG was a revelation -- now you can have real-time photo realistic image generation at resolutions unimaginable to a kid born in the early 70s.

The sad bit is that there are a bazillion games out there. Game journalism, RIP -- there are still a few bastions holding on, but, there's so much out there, there's no way to survey the industry anymore -- and that's assuming you can find a business model where you could even try. You either specialize in your gaming niche OR you just go full content creator and you're selling your personality and your likes/dislikes as opposed to trying to provide any sort of contextual coverage of the industry. Getting into the industry has never been easier, but making a living off of it has never been harder. And if you want to take full advantage of the power now available, the price of developing AAA games keeps going up. And while it's never been easier to find something to play, the amount of games being thrown at you can be overwhelming, especially if you're going outside your normal comfort zone.

So, if you're somebody who just wants to consume games, it's probably the best time ever, even with the challenges of sorting the wheat from the chaff. However, if you're somebody who wants to make a living creating games -- that's probably never been harder, especially if you want to go the indie/small developer route.

I've been in the same boat. It's hard to exactly point at why, but I have increasingly checked out of caring about new big games barring a few very specific ones like the new Zelda. This year I've played more games released 10+ years ago than games released in the last few years. The only exceptions have been small indie games.

As it turns out, a person can only play so many open world games with either a Destiny/Diablo-like gear systems or RPG levelling mechanics with skill trees before it all starts to blur together and they burn out. If you don't like most big open world games, shooters, or remakes of old games that you already own, you aren't really left with a lot of options these days when it comes to games from the big publishers.

I was considering getting a PS5 since I can actually find them now, but honestly at this point buying a Steam Deck for emulating old games is a lot more appealing to me.

It really depends on what side of the industry you're asking about.

Overall, console makers are feeling pretty good right now. They only wish they could have kept up with hardware demand during the pandemic. Software continues to sell and the services side is providing a nice cash cushion without having to spend a lot of that cash to maintain it.

Except for Microsoft, that is. Game Pass seems to be the way they want things to go, but they need to continue to grow those numbers faster than what they currently are if they hope to eventually make a profit. They need software to hit big this year and not just in sales numbers. They have to garner a kind of desire for their exclusive games to inspire a console purchase that their offerings so far haven't been able to do. Why play Halo when all your friends are playing CoD or Fortnite for free? Starfield needs to have a big splash because I don't know what else they could hang their hat on to entice more people to take the plunge for an Xbox because Game Pass itself apparently isn't enough.

Sony is back to their arrogant selves and for good reason. They're still selling more hardware and software and at higher prices. Bolstered by solid 3rd party support, I think Sony is poised to win this generation yet again...if only they could get out of their own way. Since they came out at the reveal of the PS4 to say that used games were still an option, they haven't made a single consumer-friendly move. Their cross-generation games are still a mess, the PS5 UI is wildly unintuitive and their newer PS+ offerings are incomprehensible to a casual observer. If they could somehow engineer a backwards compatible offering of PS1, PS2 and PS3 software, they would garner a lot of goodwill across the board...but it won't happen.

Nintendo seems content with the pace at which their company is churning, but to the dismay of pixel hungry gamers. But they are still selling this 6-year old portable system that happens to also be a console at a profit along with software that rarely drops in price. I would love to see a Super Switch with backwards compatible software at its core, but Nintendo moves slow and isn't reactionary. They have a good thing going and they don't want a repeat of the Wii U: a backwards compatible system that didn't know what it was.

As far as my general feelings are concerned, gaming is in a good place. We have an embarrassment of variety right now. Between all of the remakes being released on modern systems and Nintendo's classic game catalog offerings, my 38-year-old nostalgia-addled brain is content not to always have to keep up with whatever is new and popular. As I've written before, I just don't spend a lot of money on gaming anymore. Game Pass keeps me busy and my backlog of cheap and free PS+ games I've acquired over the years will keep me busy for years to come.

Nintendo:

I would like for them to announce a new console soon. Steam Deck is eating Nintendo's lunch right because it directly competes with the Switch. 3rd party games on the Steam Deck can be bought at huge discounts compared to the same games on the Switch.

And before you say... but Nintendo still has 1st party titles, there are Switch emulators you can install on the Steam Deck (although performance varies depending on the game).

Sony:

In a good spot right now. Reviews for PSVR2 sound extremely positive. Console is in high demand and even though PS5 has a lower TFLOP count than Series X, recent games like Wild Hearts indicate that games are better optimized to run on Sony's machine. Not sure how well their new PS Plus is working out as a competitor to Game Pass though.

The whole tactic of getting various governments to block the Microsoft Activision deal is kind of silly given how often Sony secures exclusive DLC content or deals with 3rd party studios like Square Enix.

Microsoft:

Gamepass still going strong, about to ramp up again soon once Starfield releases. Nothing to comment on their consoles.

Predict that they will merge with Activision by the end of this year and hopefully kick Bobby Kotick out. Dude doesn't give a shit on making good video games and only cares about milking a franchise until it dies.

The appeal of Microsoft will be less about their consoles, but more about their games.

PC:

Video cards are still prohibitively expensive for general gaming. It sounds crazy now, but only a few years ago the mid-tier RTX 3060 Ti retailed for $399, while the top-tier RTX 3080 retailed for $699. One plus is that video cards can now be purchased for close to their retail prices or lower except for the top tier cards.

Outside of Portal RTX and Minecraft RTX, I still feel that Ray Tracing is a gimmick that not many players will actually notice while playing.

The introduction of DLSS 3 is also a bit strange, given that it only works well if the FPS is already high. I am excited that AMD owners finally have a decent upscaling solution in FSR2.

The biggest tech problem I see is shader compilation stutter that affects all Unreal Engine games, this stutter is an engine/development issue and can't be "fixed" even with the most powerful CPU and GPU out there.

The Good: For me, the diversity of games has never been better. This might be a laughable argument if we’re talking only AAAs (more on that in a minute), but the indies and mid-level games are more numerous and higher quality in the aggregate than they were a decade ago. I stopped checking out “upcoming” lists because there’s always something I had never heard of that nests in my top 2 games of the year. Beyond that, Game Pass has been an enormous value add for me and my wife. If we take Josh Sawyer’s words at face value, it’s also the reason Pentiment exists. It’s helped the Yakuza series extend its reach to the point where the next major entry feels like it’ll be a big mainstream event. Lastly, weirder stuff seems to be getting more of a spotlight, as evidenced by Elden Ring selling over 20 million copies. If you had asked me whether that game would sell that well in 2021, I would have laughed in your face.

The Bad: Admittedly this is closer to concern-trolling than I would like, but I have to be a little worried about an increase in remakes and licensed properties. Companies are chasing surer profits in a tumultuous global market and a recession they seem hellbent on causing. To me, safe games are boring games. While I like the look of it, I just don’t think we needed a Dead Space remake. As mentioned in posts by others, the loot number-ification of AAA games is massively unappealing. Companies like Activision and Ubisoft have backed themselves into content corners where they can sell a jillion copies and still fail to be profitable. Finally, the live service game die-off of 2023 has been disheartening. Not because I felt like playing any of them, but because it reeks of profit-chasing and a waste of years of labor for something that can just… stop existing. Never a good sign when hard work just goes into a virtual landfill.

The Ugly: It increasingly feels like game companies just want the people that cover them to bend the knee. Being selective about who gets advance copies is nothing new, but it feels like only people who are uncritical will get an increased share of them. Worse yet, it feels like the gaming community is demanding less criticism, which is severely unhealthy for any media industry in my opinion. For all the tedious arguing about whether games are art or not that we’ve had to endure over the years, treating games as a technical product review is the surest way to say games are a lesser form of entertainment. And arguably the biggest gaming coverage outlet in IGN said that was their responsibility a mere month ago. I’m not asking for everything to be spawning a thousand thinkpieces, but the diversity of discourse for games seems to be spiralling downward. Maybe that speaks more to me being in a bubble or something, but it’s my personal choice for the worst thing about the industry in 2023.

hmm- i fear my comments will be simplistic relative to some of the other folks in here, but honestly i'm having a pretty good time at present.

my PC is more or less a decade old, but it still runs 'indies' well enough and i'm still able to take advantage of the ever-present steam sales.

PS5 has become my primary platform- and as a consumer of almost exclusively single player, narrative forward games- i'm having a pretty great time! i'm not eager to buy any new hardware at launch, so by the time i made it my business to get a PS5 (to play Horizon Forbidden West)- i succeeded on my first attempt (via Sony direct purchase/lottery). also, for all the naysaying you hear of $70 games and $500 being steep for a console- it still represents tremendous value relative to what i'd need to spend on a new PC build, so i'm alright with it. i've also had a great run of games with PS+ extra (FF7 Remake, Deathloop, Returnal, Ghost of Tsushima, Miles Morales, Death Stranding, Guardians of the Galaxy, Chicory, Demon's Souls Remake).

hell- i'm even alright with my switch. i've always treated it as a Nintendo games machine- and fortunately most of the stuff i've played has run well-enough. then again, i'm not super sensitive to framerates, so i'm probably easy to please.

@yyninja: That's pretty interesting about your thoughts, yeah when the infamous COVID-19 impacted the world, this made the economy so low plus the Russian army invaded Ukraine, which wasted the resources as well.

Here is my reply to your post for each section:

Nintendo:
I guess the Nintendo Switch's successor will get announced by Q4 2023.

Sony Interactive Entertainment:
For PS Plus Extra/Deluxe I personally don't really care about this along with Xbox Game Pass, because I'm not into video game subscription services in general as I prefer to buy games without worrying about when is the time to pay. I still rather have the multiplayer subscriptions instead.

Microsoft/Xbox Game Studios:
I like to admit Xbox Game Pass is a good subscription service and is doing pretty well.
It's a good idea to get Bobby Kotick fired from Activision for manipulating this video game publishing company releasing Call of Duty annually.

I want Starfield to be good as I can tell Bethesda Game Studios has a good reputation in terms of developing video games.

PC:
Indeed, it's really crazy when the price for computer components hikes up and I hope newer ray tracing GPUs will improve a lot.