Video games are still very fun and very profitable for the rest of us. Wish I could mute HN accounts like I mute ppl on twitter, not enough to signal an explicit exclusion but enough for me to ignore whatever they have to say in the future because of misalignment of values in the present.
Video games being stagnant isn't exactly a new idea; we've more or less been stuck with the same interfaces with slight improvements for twenty years now.
The author just seems burnt out.
I started playing TTRPGs like D&D with some friends about a year and a half ago. They feel closer to the ideal of what my brain wants from at least some kinds of games.
Somewhere between TTRPGs, reading (esp. fiction), and embracing balance (why have I always been looking for "that one thing" that I can put all my time into, anyway?) I feel I get at least some of what I crave from games.
I play lighter and more narratively focused games where the focus is collaboratively creating worlds and stories.
Lasers and Feelings has been the biggest hit around my table but I also have a reoccuring game of Dungeon World every other week.
In just ten to fifteen minutes I can throw any random group of friends into a scenario that feels like a tv show.
Luckily for me, my favorite part of RPGs so far has been "meaningful stuff can happen anywhere and the gears of this world turn no matter where we put the camera (if a tree falls in the woods & no one is there to hear it, it still absolutely makes a sound)" which feels system agnostic.
But nowadays everyone just uses guides. I guess they didn't really enjoy that aspect. Now it's all about doing mechanics and advancement.
It's board-games, but in augmented reality and multi-player, to give it a "spin".
The material rendering and poly count keep getting better, and some of these games are really beautiful, but the fidelity of the simulation itself hasn't really changed since 1998.
I do still enjoy games that actually do something new. I liked Minecraft when it came out, and Sleep Is Death, and Yume Nikki... in fact, there's a whole genre of "weird games" that can still be a lot of fun, because you're never sure what will happen next. The sense of wonder returns. Haven't found any good ones lately, though.
Valheim [1] is a nice example. That is an indie game, made by a 5 guy team, primarily based on one guy's toy projects. Tools and resources for game development have increased so much that it's possible for very small teams to do some really incredible things.
There are still smaller games/movies that are interesting and ambitious, just harder to find.
> there's a whole genre of "weird games" that can still be a lot of fun, because you're never sure what will happen next. The sense of wonder returns. Haven't found any good ones lately, though.
I highly recommend Inscription
I want something like a MMORTS with automation and no hella long timers, on a multi faction map (4?) where you wage war and the game is intended to have an eventual total winner (maybe across 3 months?) Where wins create real consequences like buffs, resources, strategic locations etc. Then it can reset and we can play again.
I could see roles and interactions playing out a lot like EVE online where some mine, some build things, some just want to fly a puny ship and shoot stuff.
This could be fun but on a globe w/ contemporary warfare units.
In the past I've found hints of this flavor in games like Future Cop LAPD's "Precinct war mode"[2] (playstation), Dark Age of Camelot MMORPG, Earth 2025[1]
[1]: https://www.giantbomb.com/earth-2025/3030-36263/ [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Cop:_LAPD
Except in EvE online your units are drunk and don't know how to fight.
In Linux, you can download software, and learn to use it to solve a wide array of problems. You can edit files, one of life's simple pleasures. If you find yourself repeating a task, you can find ways to automate it. Doing an old task faster means you levelled up, which gets the blood flowing. You can explore vast worlds (ecosystems/code bases) and satisfy your intellectual/narrative curiosity. The game has multiplayer elements too.
All of this is lots of *fun* if you're not doing for $JOB. I'm personally addiccted to this video game, and play it hours daily.
The above is sort of a joke, but I really do feel this way. Linux+OSS is a video game.
It seems that if you become good enough at this game you can make a good career out of knowing the ins and outs of it from what I observe…
Some passages were downright unintelligible. The rest had such a wild, drunken stagger to them.
But worst of all is the point being made. Essentially: “I can’t move to an apartment on Jupiter, therefore space travel is boring”
Friendly competition with and against thousands of other people is like a higher purpose, but it's more pragmatic, easier to find, and probably more fulfilling than a game with a higher purpose but no community.
The massive battles are pretty much unlike anything else I've experienced in online games. The scale makes it different.
It's quite something to be a part of a 40-man platoon doing a Max-crash on a base to retake the points with just a few seconds to spare. Even better when this gives your team the overall victory on the continent.
My impression of Rust and Tarkov is that they manufacture meaningful competition well, but they don't create friendships as quickly, and they especially don't create friendly rivalries and working relationships between people on the same team.
From my experience it’s got a great community, thousands of players working toward the same goal, participating in little excursions, fighting the front lines, supporting the bases ect.
Escapism is definitely aiming at that future we just don't have the tech, but that doesn't mean they can't be enjoyed anyway. Personally I thought we would already have VR and so I keep playing to experience it as soon as possible.
> Think of any popular game (csgo, valorant, Fortnite, apex) ... Of course, they have differences like unique visuals, new items, and various ults/powers, but at the very core, it’s the same rotten stew.
I think this criticism is coming from an angle that would surely include chess... it's boring, has 8/9 pieces only, and it hasn't changed in decades or centuries. I think that is missing the point, especially with multiplayer games.
Another interesting model of game is one where the act of playing it leaves you with an interesting and personal artifact, like the bases you end up making in Minecraft, the factories and lines of automation you make in Factorio, the codebase you build in Screeps, etc. These games are great for pushing you to pick up skills in building kinds of things that you find interesting but wouldn't otherwise have a good excuse to work on.
Games that don't fall into the above two models seem to mostly be about exploring the same space that everyone else does, and that kind of thing has a tendency to run out after a while and can be limited in how often they give you unique experiences. (It could be a physical carefully-constructed space in the game you're exploring, or the space of possible ways a Counterstrike match can play out, etc.) I think it's important to recognize in a game when you've finished exploring the space of the game and now only re-treading familiar ground, and to decide if you're still getting something out of that. When thinking about designing games, I wonder a lot about how to make the experience space wide and avoiding having long-time players only be re-tread familiar experiences.
And that’s fine. Call it ”done” and move on to the next game. There’s more games than anyone could ever play in their lifetime; keep exploring.
It's the author, the latest game in that "look at my gamer creds" list is from 2015 and it's the fifth sequel.
With the exception of payday which is an incredibly shallow online thing, all of the games in the list are a sequel whose original title, and core gameplay is more than 20 years old at this point.
And sure if you are playing the same game as 20 years ago you might be bored at some point.
Side rant, the number of hours in the list don't successfully accredit Sandy as an avid gamer, at least to me. I am pretty sure I have more hours on Civ 5 alone as she does on all games combined, never mind the grand theft auto series. I think I might have less on GTA 5 but that's because GTA: San andreas is better.
That doesn't mean that games are boring though, especially when looking at the subset op mentioned. In most of those games the goal is to beat your opponent (with the exception of metal gear and payday) through dexterity or skill - it's high intensity and can get hollow when you stagnate in skill level.
Other goals might be engineering success (factorio, dyson sphere project, satisfactory), or unique experiences (stanley parable, superhot), or group fun (among us, gorilla tag), or just a great storyline (disco elysium, undertale, hades).
One goal might be played out for OP, but there are many other ways to enjoy games.
I hoped to put the focus more on the repetitiveness of innovation within many genres of games. That is somewhat of a product of my own subjective observation.
Let all people find what they truly enjoy!
Not to gatekeep but: trying to say you are an experienced gamer, and proving that with less than a thousand hours of the most popular and normal games of the last 20 years does not lend credence. And your 4th most played needing 14 hours? Please.
There other comment nailed it. This is like watching only marvel and complaining about movies. And not even a lot of marvel movies.
It is not worth my time to dig into the minutea of this, but let me just say: you do not have any idea what you are talking about. If you it don't like video games that is fine, but this article is just bad and ignorant. And written by someone who is not familiar with the medium.
The good stuff is out there, it's just not marketed as heavy as AAA games, instead it requires active discovery (and it's the same with "modern" blockbuster movies or music).
That's it, huh? Want me to pick up any other scientific advances for you while I'm out? A warp drive or time machine perhaps?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax7f3JZJHSw
I think games both appeal and do not appeal (to different people, or the same person at different times in life, respectively) because of the limitations of what the game allows you to do. It can be empowering to feel like you understand the world of the game you are playing, or disempowering to have to follow the arbitrary rules created by the developer.
I really enjoyed Red Dead Redemption 2, Outer Wilds, INSIDE, Disco Elysium, Twelve Minutes recently. Basically games that actually have a story or feel like art instead of a grindy competition.
Games before used to "feel" mysterious. I am looking at you Ultima, Everquest and perhaps Anarchy online. Initially there was no guides or answers, you had to really explore and this made the world(s) feel mysterious. Anything could happen. Nowadays the entire game is datamined, guides are written and everything is known even before released, very sad. Perhaps "streaming" games could solve this issue, where no assets are present on no client, just a real time stream ala stadia. But, I suppose latency, graphics quality, etc makes this hard.
We need to evolve and democratize game development tools for creating more fantastical content. Less polygons, more management of complex systemic interactions.
The (traditional) roguelike scene has been struggling with this since its inception. As codebases grow and things get added, managing the complexity becomes a massive headache-inducing mess. But it's precisely this complexity of interaction that makes a game deep and interesting. Every thing added requires an exponential increase in logic, as code is needed for interacting with every other thing from before.
NO TOOL EXISTS today that makes it easy to add things to a game and define how those things interact with other things, on the content creation process level. How crazy is that?
Right now, there's a translation layer in the way -- your controller, keyboard/mice, wands all get translated into in-game actions, and in different ways from game to game. You always have to spend time learning this translation. Ugh.
Come on, folks. Build me a haptic suit or something similar that I can use to control my avatar. It'd track my fingers, obviously. Of course, a good high-resolution VR faceplate with no cables dangling is a requirement.
Every game would have an obvious interface, and you'd get some exercise also!
Build this for me before my time passes!
(It's probably dangerous for me to say this, but I could fund this endeavor.)
However, and to avoid being completely negative, I think you'd get a surprisingly close experience if you took Resident Evil 4 on the Quest 2 to a sports hall, so you could take full advantage of the body tracking (so you walk in game by walking in real life, with a quick reorientation when you're near a wall). Most of the in game actions are very close to your physical actions, e.g. aiming a gun, pulling a trigger, swinging a knife, grabbing goodies. Maybe that will fill a gap? :)
Also each experience world be characterized by a different range of haptics, so you either have to make an impossibly complex glove for all situations, or a simpler glove that's compatible with only one game/tool. You actually see the latter in research and industry, they're just obviously expensive.
I'm just not interested in pouring vast amounts of time into building game skills that have zero applicability elsewhere. Life is too short. In this sense, video games in general are a unitasker[1].
Now, if there are games with some pedagogical value, e.g. puzzle games where we need to apply/develop knowledge of chemistry to solve problems, I could warm to the idea.
[1] https://lifehacker.com/watch-alton-brown-demonstrate-why-uni...
From my perspective you are doing something wrong. I need to make nlogpost about this or I already made one.
Part of the problem with games is modeling the "fog of war" realistically.
One quickly realizes that logistics, preparation and Destiny are where it's at; the actual fisticuffs start to seem inevitable.
Let's also not forget that boring TV programs and boring games serve a purpose; sometimes you want to do something mindless and boring. Both these roles have broad mainstream appeal, but note of course that there is (or seems to me to be) an overrepresented enthusiast audience that wants tough gameplay that require investment and perseverance to complete.
There are big social problems among Millennials and younger (at least in the West); many of them are desperate to participate in their societies meaningfully and be rewarded (individually or collectively) for doing so. The "I want a big picture, a grand goal that we strive towards. Something noble that we yearn for" quote from this article sums that up perfectly.
I, thankfully, have this kind of satisfaction in my life, and it doesn't come from gaming. But most of my friends do not have this, and they desperately look for it in video games. Perhaps even this is the ultimate goal of Meta. I wish my generation and younger the best in their struggles to find meaning in life, and let's hope it's not anything too damaging to themselves or others.
In fact this is not unique to millennials but is an age old struggle of humanity where religion is discovered, abandoned for one reason or another, then rediscovered again once secularism/nihilism doesn't provide the fulfilling sense of purpose everyone yearns for, ad infinitum
If you want something with stakes in, there are options in games (competitive players are like professional athletes this days for example), but the alternative that makes the most sense is just real life.
Edit: They=Millennials
Look at Elden Ring - who cares about "weapon arts" and sneaking? Upgrades and infusions.... what? In Demon's Souls remake you get a shield and a sword, and you have to be creative and make your own fun. And I like that, making your own adventure - being a player instead of a spectator.
It's a game after all.
I don't feel compelled to clear missions and help characters in game because its all fabricated without any consequences.
Also, I personally didn't enjoy don't starve as once you read through the wiki you understand that the reason you are dying so often is that the game is designed in a very illogical fashion with specific "puzzle" items that you simply die without. Your logical real world brain thinks you need clothes to not freeze to death in winter. Wrong. You need a hot stone. The hound attacks are a joke once you understand that you can build a bazillion tooth traps.
I haven't played one hour one life but it looks like it is actually closer to the original idea that dont starve embodies.
There's a limited amount of building that players can do, but some things like space stations and large ships can take dozens-hundreds of players to create and maintain, and battles over them can span days-weeks.
It comes with downsides. Even mid-range ships are expensive enough that their loss will sting low-key players, and nowhere is truly safe. It's also possible to trade game currency to offset the monthly subscription costs, so well-off players can offset their losses with cash.
If you don't branch out and expand beyond the bog-standard, yeah, eventually it'll all feel the same.
Edit: Some recommendations below. These aren't even wild experimental/arthouse games, just slightly more creative.
- Outer Wilds
- Disco Elysium
- Rhythm Doctor
- Return of the Obra Dinn
- Death's Door
- Hotline Miami
- The Talos Principle
- The Witness
- Into the Breach
- Invisible Inc.
- What the Golf?
- The Forgotten City
- Frostpunk
- Slay the Spire
- This War of Mine
- Hades
- Dead Cell
- Elsinore
- I Am Dead
- Subnautica
- Gunpoint
- Katana: Zero
- Hollow Knight
Games to me are like books. I play them once, and move on. Occasionally I find a great game, and after a few years I might pick it back up and re-play it.
I seem to be the exact opposite of you, in that I play a game for huge amounts of hours and just never try another unless I truly feel compelled to play it. I have multiple thousands of hours in 5-6 games over the last 4 years. Before Elden Ring in February the last game I bought was God of War in 2018.
I am truly amazed that people can exist on so wide a playing spectrum.
White toast? You sound like one of those guys who pays $15 for "avocado toast".
And just to make sure this post is not entirely a roasting session, I personally would put Ori ahead of hollow knight, but they are both great games.
You should share a list of your own recommendations!
What's the purpose of playing a video game, or slaying an enemy, or exploring a world if I don't have an intricate plot that supports my actions? As such, I see no fruition in most games. The only games I've enjoyed playing in the past four years is Persona 5 (and now Yakuza 0) since they are extremely plot-driven and my gameplay is a means to further a story. If there isn't a purpose to my playing, then I can't play.
Unlike the author, I dislike online games, I want a more controlled experience. Unlike you, I dislike plot-driven games. I can't imagine anything more boring than watching a cutscene or reading dialog. The exception is something like Portal where the story is told seamlessly in-game.
"Games I don't like are boring" is hardly a subject worth writing a blog post about.
I believe that expressing an opinion is a perfectly merit-worthy reason to write a blog post, unless I misunderstand something.
For a game to really grab me it has to be an exact match to the sort of game I really like.
I do wonder if it relates to imagination also seeming to fade with age.
I'm just alot less interested in games now than I was when younger.
I just want to kill people.
(And effective still-based matchmaking.)
Slashem, Gearhead (1 and 2), IF games, Battle for Wesnoth. Much better than most of games today.
* Valve going full cosmetics
* Half Life 3 never being released
* Biannual Call of Duty titles
* The end of community hosted servers & server browsers
* The rise of Early Access & DLCs
* John Carmack leaving id software
Person who burned out their dopamine receptors is surprised to suddenly become aware of the fact.
it makes you a casual gamer, specially since you listed online multiplayer games, that could explain the title
This is what you can call a proper gamer:
https://i.imgur.com/00hPR58.png
Also a proper title would have been:
"I'm no longer finding fun/excitement playing video games"
The issue with this piece isn't a lack of gaming experience from the author, but rather that they apply their personal feelings about a small selection of games they've played to the entire market in general, while dismissing the not-boring time they've had during those 2000 hours.
I say this as someone who has 200 hours in clicker heroes and I haven't played that game for 200 hours. I just left it open and checked every 20 minutes.
