What Im observing though is more and more indies filling the void with smaller and cheaper games due to easy access to digital distribution. Not exactly a new take as its been hapening for over 15 years now. Interestingly, Epic seems to not take the same stance as Steam does in this space. Where steam gives pretty much any shovelware the same chances, Epic wants to be super picky about these low budget titles. Where is Epic’s Balatro?
This reminds me a lot of the days of the original PlayStation (PS). Nintendo was the large, dominant company. But, they were also really, really picky with the games they let on their platform (still are). Along comes Sony with a better physical format and a willingness to let just about anything on their system. And there were a lot of terrible titles on the PS; but, there were also some real gems from smaller devs and lots more choice for people to find what they wanted to play. That openness and plethora of options drew people to the system. Sure, Nintendo is still around and still a juggernaut, but they gave up a lot of market space to Sony.
Sweeney and many of the big studios seem dead set on trying to replicate lightning. They keep churning out Fortnight clones, live service games and lootbox infested grind fests. None of this is because they want to make a game for players, it’s all a bald-faced money grab. And it comes across so clearly in their games. Yes, big budget games cost a lot of money and I don’t begrudge studios trying to make money. I’m more than happy to throw money at devs who make a great game (I just pledged ~$250 at the Valheim Board Game project, based mostly on the fact that I fucking love Valheim). I’ve also bought into way too many Early Access games, because they looked like they had the bones of good games. But, the big budget games seem to get lost trying to pump every last dollar out of your wallet and just quickly become a turn off.
I remember one particular instance in Dragon Age, where an NPC had a “Quest Available” marker floating above his head. When you talked to him, you quickly discovered that you could buy his quest and the game was happy to kick you over to the EA store so that you could buy his quest right there. Fuck that noise. I’m not against DLC, but that sort of “in your face” advertising pisses me right off. Hell, I’m one of those weirdos who likes the Far Cry series. I put tons of hours into Far Cry 5 (seriously, the wing suit was just good fun). Far Cry 6 was ok and I did finish it, though the micro-transaction spam grated on me hard. After that experience, I’m not sure I want a Far Cry 7.
And I think that points to the elephant in the room. Big publishers, like EA are so focused on making profits, they have lost sight of making a good game. Give me a solid, complete experience. Give me good controls, enough story to hold the action together and just a general sense of fun. Once that is in place, then maybe throw hats for sale on top of that. But, when lootboxes and micro-transactions are core to the gameplay and the game is balanced to force you in the direction of buying that crap, fuck your game. If the core gameplay is designed to suck so much that I want to buy cheats to bypass that core gameplay, I’ll save myself a bunch of money and just skip the game entirely. There are way too many options available out there, which don’t suck, for me to waste my time and money shoveling your shit.
