Lots of good indie stuff, not much from AAA. My recommendation: try new single player or co op stuff. Stop recycling content.
this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2024
180 points (92.1% liked)
Technology
60186 readers
1693 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Ball says that the blame for all of this can’t be pinned to a single thing, like capitalism, mismanagement, Covid-19, or even interest rates. It also involves development costs, how studios are staffed, consumers’ spending habits, and game pricing. “This storm is so brutal,” he says, “because it is all of these things at once, and none have really alleviated since the layoffs began.”
Huh. Baldur's Gate 3 blew the doors off. They had the same Capitalism, Covid-19 and interest rates. They had the same development costs, consumer spending habits and reasonable game pricing. They had good management and no layoffs. All this success selling to a gaming segment that makes up a tiny sliver of the overall market. Maybe some of those game developer leaders should ask Sven how he did it. Or, you know, listen to him because he already told everyone how they did it. Or not.
The article (as far as I read) fails to mention the that layoffs have hit then entire tech sector. Not just games.
I lost my job (iOS dev and actually a games dev job) twice in ‘24. I don’t think it is necessarily a reflection of the games industry.
There are some really nice games this year, if you know where to look. I’m playing Uncle Chop’s Rocket Repair and it’s awesome. So fun, so inventive, great visuals, mechanics and soundtrack.
Deadlock has also gotten a fair chunk of my time. I scratches the same itch as DOTA and a little bit of CS too.
Creeper World got a new instalment, too. Different from the 4 mainline games, it’s new and fresh and fun.
I am in IT, also lost two jobs this year, and getting a new one took like 3 weeks and some trying, which is unusually long
it's good to hear things like this because my friends are taking 6 months to a year to find a new job and they're all smarter than me
load more comments
(2 replies)
Jesus man that is brutal sorry to hear you’re going through that.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Maybe gamers are getting older in general and realizing they don't have the time to dedicate to intensive games that are like taking on a 2nd job and studying for college.
I prefer games now where I can do the grindy stuff mainly AFK and do the challenging stuff solo in short bursts. No more 2-3 hr clan raids and shit like that anymore. Hell, sometimes I just start up MAME and set some classic arcade scroller to god mode because I just want to blow stuff up for a few minutes.
While some gamers are getting older the number of players does keep increasing with newer generations like alpha picking up controllers. Many millenials and older zoomers may have more disposable income but also much less time to play, backlogs of hundreds if not thousands of games and bunch of good old games they just keep coming back to.
However gaming doesnt exist in a bubble. Social media platforms, streaming services are also competing for our attention. The whole entertainment market is so saturated that only ways to increase profits is to enshittify or win marketshare from competition.
Same. I’ve found my spark again in VR gaming and generally go to the arcade style more! Ain’t nobody got time for a 10 tier skill tree
load more comments
(8 replies)
And just a few posts up from this:
But how many of those where asset flips or AI made?
We had !balatro@lemm.ee, !stardewvalley@lemm.ee 1.6 update, !factorio@lemmy.world DLC, !satisfactory@lemmy.world and Half Life 2 update in this year. Hey, I don't make rules.
... and most importantly: Helldivers 2
o7
For Democracy
Another article i scrolled past before seeing this was stating Steam broke their record releasing over 18,000 games in 2024.
How can anyone have enough time to even try them all?
Lots of AI-generated/asset-flipped trash that can be safely skipped.
I dunno about you but I don’t play every genre of game. So like 70-80% of those are off the table immediately. I’d also be curious how many of those are the drop in the bucket nsfw games that get released every few days. Really need to toggle the ‘adult’ setting on my Steam account. Although sometimes the title alone is gold like ‘Hitler: BDSM Bunker’…
most of those are anime role-playing, porn games with tits
What, again?
I was pretty surprised by the barrenness of my wishlist. There's been shockingly few titles I've been that excited about. Almost nothing in the AAA realm. And the few things that I am waiting to come out have been on that list for several years already...
Investor money dried up
It's just all tied up in AI and crypto right now. Because everyone wants to get in on the next get-rich-quick scheme. Coked-up investors don't have the patience to stick it out and wait for a return, they've moved on to shiny new toys (that have very little chance of real growth or market viability) and are gutting and cutting the games industry to pay for it.
It’s really hard to imagine something dumber than “Gamergate 2.0.” I sincerely hope it’s all 12 year-old trolls and there’s no grown adults with jobs and responsibilities getting all in a tizzy over the race or gender of a fucking video game character.
Or journalists desperate for material trying to stir something up. "I saw a comment about a game. There's an article!!"
load more comments
(1 replies)
view more: next ›