Its not just me, games used to be better

[trinibwoy]

I don't think that's so absolute. People can engage in things that make them unhappy, but they still do it, like relationships and doom-scrolling, and people can and do buy things they regret.

I didn't think we were discussing regret here as that's obviously based on engaging with a product without knowledge of the experience that will be had. I thought we were discussing the case where someone enjoys a product while simultaneously thinking that product is bad. That's the scenario that doesn't vibe for me.

"Life of Black Tiger is an appallingly executed game devoid of technical merit, but entertaining to a niche audience that enjoyed its halo of social interactions and humour."

Yeah and I would argue only one of those things matter in the purchasing transaction. The people who were entertained despite the appalling execution got value for their money. On the flip side you can play an "excellent" game and be bored to death in which case that game was no good for you despite what others may think. This is an entirely personal and subjective experience.

 

[Davros]

This is why 'good' is a dumb word, and in school I'd press students to use a more descriptive word.

Was the reply "Who are you and why are you in the girls changing rooms ?"

 

[Albuquerque]

This is why 'good' is a dumb word, and in school I'd press students to use a more descriptive word. We can ditch it entirely and replace it with "well crafted" and "entertaining" etc., communicating the base measure.

I really like this point and fully agree this is the way forward for this discussion. I think @Daozang did an awesome job elucidating this point further.

"Life of Black Tiger is an appallingly executed game devoid of technical merit, but entertaining to a niche audience that enjoyed its halo of social interactions and humour."

Not, "Life of Black Tiger is a bad game, but people bought it so it's a good game."

I wasn't trying to insinuate the latter, rather the former. However, we must consider the potential counterpoint you've raised in your last sentence: if people keep buying it, more will be made in its image. I will go out on a limb and assume we both hope people are smart enough to guard their wallet for a likely second go-round... Yet, if the second instance of the "bad" game continues to sell well? We need to face the strong possibility that our chosen definition of bad may not be a shared experience.

Let's create an example: I trust your insight enough to presume "Life of Black Tiger" is as you say, lacking in quality to a point of perhaps ridiculousness. The crux then becomes, does Life of Black Tiger 2 come into existence? And if it does, are the sales sufficient to drive the creators / publisher to create a 3rd installment? Sales of the first game may not necessarily be an indicator of "good" vs "bad", but if the progeny of the damned things keep selling enough to further spawn even more progeny, at some point we are faced with the strong possibility our opinion of the material somehow isn't fully reflecting reality.

And yeah, it saddens me how much this forces us to reflect on the current political landscape. I digress....

 

[Cyan]

I find games less fun now because I’m old and harder to surprise/impress. When you’re young everything is new and exciting and you’re less crotchety about small stuff. Then add a heaping serving of nostalgia on top of that.

Can buy your point about getting your older but being harder to impress is common for young people too. Graphics have become really good since 2010 or even before.

The last game that truly impressed me was RE2 Remake, and it’s from 2019. Casual people described it as “movie like”.

 

[Nesh]

If we accept that human irrationality is a constant then it should have no unique bearing on modern day games right? Purchases and enjoyment of older games were subject to the same irrationality. So now you’re back to the same problem of having to objectively prove that modern games are somehow more dependent on irrationality to be enjoyed.

As Shifty said we would need some sort of rubric for evaluating games to have any chance of an objective debate. Then we would need to go back and evaluate old games without the rose tinted warmth of nostalgia. It’s an impossible task since everyone is going to care about different things and rate those things differently. The closest proxy is “professional” reviews and clearly there are still games being made that get top marks. So there’s no empirical data to support the idea that games are getting worse over time.

You guys are driving me nuts. I didn't mention specifically of any other game in particular other than Tekken, even though you spoke of some other examples like Diablo, CoD or WoW. Why? I cannot have an opinion about games I have zero clue about. I didn't imply anywhere that most games today are worse. At most I pinpointed some trends without making a specific reference to a particular title.

Yet here we are, you guys arguing about a game with me, in particular Tekken 8, where most of not all here barely spent any time with it, barely are familiar with the feedback it's fanbase give to Namco, barely have any idea how the game functions, and it's state after Season 2 patch. Funny thing is, the game had so many OBJECTIVELY game breaking issues with Patch 2, that thanks to those "complainers" for the "sake of complaining" or "for the sake of nostalgia" (btw that's sarcasm) as you imply, the game received an emergency patch just a few days ago with a note that the rest of the issues are currently worked on to fix with the next patch. We are the ones that if listened to games improve. If not, the franchise either dies, or continues to exist either because there is nobody else to compete, therefore you get the disadvantages of monopoly or oligopoly or it manages to get people attached due to other reasons (social, emotional or enormous monetary investment etc). The issues were legitimate and objective. Not some "nostalgia" thing.

Now do you want to continue arguing? Be my guest. You guys spoke about people condesenting and labeling with negative connotations those that like particular/modern games but it's actually the reverse

 

[Feral]

I just hope RE9 will resume that "Blue Umbrella" crap that RE7 sparked off. Or are they gonna pad it out for the next 20 years?

Yeah. Probably.

 

[tuna]

Yet here we are, you guys arguing about a game with me, in particular Tekken 8, where most of not all here barely spent any time with it, barely are familiar with the feedback it's fanbase give to Namco, barely have any idea how the game functions, and it's state after Season 2 patch.

Nobody here has claimed that Season 2 of Tekken 8 is better than Tekken Season 1 for a player like you. What we are arguing about is what can be done about it.

I think your breakdown of Tekken mechanics was super interesting, so thanks for that!

 

[Nesh]

Nobody here has claimed that Season 2 of Tekken 8 is better than Tekken Season 1 for a player like you. What we are arguing about is what can be done about it.

I think your breakdown of Tekken mechanics was super interesting, so thanks for that!

You mean the condescending tone of me supposedly being too nostalgic to accept change and if I dont like what I get I should go back to playing Tekken 3 or play Boomerang Fu?
You aren't listening nor making a good discussion like this