Are Older Games BETTER or Is It NOSTALGIA?

[@JakubWielkiMistrz]

Older games were made by nerds with passion for nerds with passion

[@irgendwie0342]

thats exactly the point missing today

[@MrDaddyBuff]

Big facts. Nerds making cool shit for other nerds who like cool shit and get inspired to make more cool shit.

[@lucaschudleigh7193]

Gaming died when normies entered the fan base. It’s corpse got raped when “activists” hopped on the band wagon.

[@mrtrollya247]

Facts bring back the nerds

[@mattmartin6493]

Been saying this for years, watch the making of docs for Halo 2 and 3, and New Vegas, or the original Mass Effect trilogy you can tell a huge difference between then and now.

[@0oDanngaro0]

The Failguard got Dan to rethink his whole gaming existance. That's tough

[@douglasabp]

the game gave him such an experience that our favorite Devil's Advocate got tired or confused of swiming against the river and is now thinking on the riverbed

[@salamantics]

I relate to that. This felt...significant. to say the least.

[@om58499]

Well he was waiting for this game for years and this was the result

[@0oDanngaro0]

@@om58499 I get that, it's a disgrace. I fret to think how they'll butcher Mass Effect😭

[@DAN007thefoxx1]

@@0oDanngaro0 Yeah. Me too. Even Mass Effect 3 let you make some pretty evil choices throughout the story. (Not counting the original ending).

[@zalla00]

The older games DEFINITELY had better writing

[@jimmymurphy898]

@zalla00 rdr2 is the best written game I've played tho...

[@danbauer3669]

​@@jimmymurphy898 extreme examples make for weak arguments. Yes, you are correct, but I counter with this.... so, what?

[@__-gf3zn]

​@danbauer3669 "Anyways, let me shove some examples of old titles down your throat! Rules for thee but not for meeee!" Plz god, don't use halo or Gears of War as examples, I can't take so much at once! Regardless... rdr2 isn't an extreme example... There is a number of better written games such as pathologic 2 or disco elysium. Stop

[@danbauer3669]

@@__-gf3zn gameplay is king. I don't care how good your story is, if the game isn't fun then I am not going to see that story through. We all love video games. Not really worth having a fight over.

[@samuelsmith9582]

Alpha centauri is calling me back

[@Androrac]

Fallout new vegas is now considered an old game. I feel like I'm turning into dust here

[@danbauer3669]

Old yes, but still part of the era of modern gaming. I think it's more the industry than the games that drive me to conclude modern gaming is trash. But, Skyrim, Fallout, Borderlands are some of my favorite games that I've put the most time into.

[@123chargeit]

Its almost old enough to drive at this point.

[@quademasters249]

I'd love to see it remade with modern graphics. Even fallout 4 style graphics. I'd pay for it again. It would be better than anything beth has shat out recently.

[@halolasomaster3900]

I started on the NES and Genesis how do you think I feel

[@majorgear1021]

I’m over here playing Heroes of Might and Magic 2. I make dust look young.

[@MarcusTheJR]

Corporate America took the game industry. Most game developers don't run these companies. Usually, the suits are completely out of touch with the customers, its nothing new just being noticed

[@guilhermecorreia3303]

!!!

[@SubSonicBulge]

they all have shareholders now....they want funding? gotta listen to the shareholders

[@raskolnikov6443]

Thats not the main issue. The biggest is ideology and radicalization. It’s why Art in the west has gotten so bad. They can’t not include their own politics and their politics and world view suck.

[@robertlustmord1636]

@@raskolnikov6443 It's a little bit of both really. Besides universities, megacorps like BlackRock are the ones advocating for this propaganda.

[@cybercop3108]

​@@raskolnikov6443huh? Games like Gta series, metal gear series, cod series, elder scrolls series, fallout series, etc. were extremely political

[@WolfheartFPS]

Jesus Christ be praised Dan. You been working 23 hours day!?

[@BigDanGaming]

Can't knock the hustle lmao

[@amarmehic5953]

Play divinity original sin 2.Its real fun game like baldurs gate 3.

[@octaviocuesta1155]

​@@BigDanGaming Will you be playing Stalker 2 tomorrow?

[@magx01]

Playing games and yapping?

[@WolfheartFPS]

@@magx01 I can smell your insecurities / jealousy from a mile a way

[@Gamer1990100]

Older games have less or even no microtransactions DRM etc

[@raydygonzalez5714]

I don't even care about this as long as the game is good and the DLC isn't predatory.

[@SpecShadow]

>DRM you might be shocked, but old games had nasty DRMs too, like Starforce that would affect legit customers because it didn't like your PC, or your CD/DVD drive, or whatever... Also - the whole theme of "modern gaming is dying" is always funny when people have literal backlogs to deal with. There is so many new releases without microtransactions, battle passes or whatever "problems" are people complaining about - why stop complainig and get good games instead?

[@HedonisticPickle]

Veilguard has no microtransaction or DRM either and I bet you wouldnt like it anyway?

[@1vaultdweller]

Oblivion Horse Armor DLC was from 2006

[@robertlustmord1636]

@@HedonisticPickle Yeah cause Veilguard sucked, DRM or not.

[@Chris.EP.95]

20% Nostalgia. 60% Old developers knew how to do good games. And good DAMN they were good. Some of them. 20% Moderate greed.

[@douglasabp]

some of those devs started some small indie companies making good small indie games

[@lilshawty2605]

@@douglasabpdeserved more

[@nikobellic8002]

@@douglasabp And then they go big and it's the same story again

[@gazzhammer5924]

Older games are better story wise. Newer games are just mostly politicised crap.

[@MaryHarper-x6r]

True

[@georgehouliaras7239]

Yes they are and no we aren't. Even Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed were good before they were turned into yearly "Coca Cola" brands.

[@acuyra]

I don't play COD, but I'd actually somewhat disagree with Assassin's Creed. The first one wasn't really all that good - a bit clunky, kind of a boring story. It's gameplay was sort of unique at the time, which did it a lot of favors, but looking back it's not the most fun. My favorite entry is Black Flag, when it was pretty well into being a 'yearly' brand. I also really liked Odyssey, though I feel like they would've been better off just making that a separate IP and not tying it down with AC stuff.

[@Hunter-zf7rt]

Say that now to cod players they will say new cod is better.Yeah microtransactions make everything better.I miss the 2000s

[@attilamarics3374]

@@acuyra Odyssey was awful. The entire game plays like ubisoft wanted you to buy microtransacitons. I remember playing it and thinking how could they make something so awful.

[@salamantics]

It isn't just nostalgia in COD's case. World at War is one of the best games ever made, and the campaign meant something to me. As someone who only heard about ww2 in a historical sense it was difficult to imagine what the battlefield looked like on those historic days. Seeing Japanese soldiers, on fire but still charging you, and popping up everywhere was absolutely horrifying to me. It gave me a new perspective, one that I could experience first hand in a pretty respectful way to the soldiers who died in that time. It gave me a perspective on nationalism, putting me in the red army's boots as we took back our homes and then destroyed the homes of the Reich. I felt pride for the Soviet Union as I cleared veteran difficulty, I could see exactly why someone might follow what is clearly a dictator, especially in a time of war. I think it changed the way I look at the world as it happened during important years of my childhood. ^ this is sort of a personal account but I genuinely believe if not for the sweat and tears of the developers the game would not have had remotely the same weight. the games quickly devolved over time but it wasn't until Ghosts or Black ops II that the games became complete slop.

[@acuyra]

@@attilamarics3374 I didn’t buy any of that, so that was a non issue for me. I enjoyed the combat and the story, along with the sense of scale and the massive environments. It also felt like the first AC in a while that actually tried to do something fresh with the series.

[@joshuajefferson3504]

It's not just nostalgia , games back then were actually good for example if soul calibur 3 was remade today i guarantee you alot of the unlockables would be paid dlc or sold as microtransactions.

[@majorgear1021]

Soul Calibur 1 - 3 were great!

[@MillerTheOriginal]

I disagree man I think today's games are just as good if not better. Stalker 2 for example. Most enjoyable game I've maybe ever played. Not the best example but it proves my point of that games nowadays CAN do more. I think most of our expectation/views have changed though.

[@lilbabypimp3232]

I think the biggest issue with a lot of modern games has been the push to appeal to a wider audience. Games like Elden Ring and Baldur’s Gate 3 were super successful for being great games within their genres. The thing both of these games have in common is that they don’t cater to a casual audience. No casual gamer was playing soulslikes and turn based RPGs before these games came out. Recent games like Dragon Age The Veilguard and Star Wars Outlaws try too hard to appeal to a casual audience that they no longer appeal to the average and hardcore gamer audience. A game for everyone is a game for no one.

[@fabiourbano6404]

On the other side of the coin Elden ring started as the flop Demon souls and Baldurs gate 1 wasn't for everybody.

[@Walamonga1313]

​@@fabiourbano6404Flop lmao. The game had no support from Sony and it was still successful despite that

[@fabiourbano6404]

@@Walamonga1313 it is a cult classic NOW but not when it came out.

[@OneRandomVictory]

Ehhh, making Elden Ring open world and making Baldur's Gate the highest production value crpg are both things that appeal to casuals.

[@dwight3555]

It's not a "wider audience", it's ESG money stolen from your taxes. Nobody plays their games, don't repeat their gaslighting lies. They are trying to get grants from (((Larry Fink))) and your governments, not sell products to normal individuals. They get their money before their game even comes out.

[@10thModderz]

Baldur's Gate 3 should be the standard nowadays. Unfortunately, developers have got lazy.

[@shawngillogly6873]

I prefer Wrath of the Righteous. But those should definitely be the games people aim to in quality and writing.

[@TheHiddenOne690]

Baldur's Gate 3 only came out last year. I feel like we'll see games that level in 4/5 years time. Hopefully studios open up and realise how innovative and unique BG3 was

[@enman009]

Divinity OS2 is arguably better when it comes to combat and the quality of the later half, and that came before BG3, from the same devs may I add. Isometric RPGs have been consistently great, period.

[@PureColumbianCocainum1949]

Even Baldurs Gate 3 crumbled under the pressure of 400lb blue haired women leaning on their shoulders watching their every move though. The only reason people look past it is because the game has a good story, decent combat and lowered standards.

[@Kakashi20xd6]

Amazing what can be done when a project effectively doesn't have a deadline. It’s not laziness; it’s a matter of resources, be it time or money. Also, needing to appease stockholders in most cases. Don’t forget that Dragon Age: Origins came at the cost of putting Bioware in a desperate enough situation to accept an EA buyout because of how long it was in development.

[@sladelius6174]

Considering that nothing has surpassed Mass Effect, The Witcher, and Yakuza lately.. I would say you're correct.

[@cheerful_crop_circle]

I think gaming studios should start making more first person AAA/blockbuster games that arent shooters. It would be cool.

[@cheerful_crop_circle]

I cant think of many AAA first person games that arent shooters.

[@CantankerousCannon]

BG3? Elden Ring? No? And that's coming from someone who adores the witcher and Mass effect. And if you look outside the AAA space, there is an absolute bounty of amazing games.

[@majorgear1021]

@@CantankerousCannonI’m sorry to tell you, but nope.

[@CantankerousCannon]

@@majorgear1021 Well, then I'm the one who is sorry. Because there are some truly amazing games out there, and if you aren't enjoying them, it's a you problem, not a problem for everyone else. Maybe if you watch some of the more positive content, stuff were people are seeking out hidden gems rather than trashing on the big games, you might find some stuff you really enjoy.

[@jenniferhanses]

I think older games were better because they were less corporate. Corporations take things and flatten them out, trying to make them appeal to the broadest possible audience, when it's by appealing to niche audiences and being special that long-term legacy title thrive. Corpos don't know how to do art, and games are art. In regards to politics, "make Athens great again" is actually realistic depending on time period. The Greek states went through periods of greatness and decline, so that would be normal, and a good way of pointing out how politics don't change. Athens was also one of the more desperate places trying to cling to past greatness. Calling him the orange man, though, is a bit on the nose.

[@ChefJerky]

No older games are better, they may not be as pretty but they were often made with love and designed to be fun.

[@cheerful_crop_circle]

Depends on the game and franchise.

[@nikobellic8002]

Some of them are pretty actually.

[@KulturKampf777]

Yes, yes they are.

[@Crocogator]

Been going through Mass Effect Legendary Edition with a friend who's never played it, and they're making all the choices. With the mod that lets you recruit everyone in any order for ME2, it's re-cemented itself as one of my favourite games of all time. It isn't nostalgia, because I'm getting entirely new and unheard dialogue that was in the game but I never encountered. As a 'fresh' experience for both of us, can confirm. ME2 still good.

[@FoxyFoxlyn]

I must get this on PC now. There is a mod to recruit everyone straight away?!

[@Crocogator]

@@FoxyFoxlyn There is! It puts Legion on the Normandy crash site. Bringing him along for missions normally you couldn't has some pretty amazing dialogue

[@gagewesterhouse9558]

Nostalgia is part of it, but I've played games that were roughly a decade old. I didn't play the Mass Effect trilogy until like like 5 years ago. Never played Assassins Creed Rogue until 2021. They are WAY better than ME Andromeda or AC Valhalla.

[@squirrel4824]

As someone playing older games for the first time, they just have something special

[@kyokusagani8869]

I'd say its a mixture of both. Some games I grew up with were clearly cash ins when I was younger and stupider, HOWEVER, you get a game like Half Life 2 that holds up PERFECTLY, even better than some modern games do! A really good game will never age regardless of circumstnace. It still feels just as groundbreaking today as it did when it was revealed.

[@ryhi5]

When you prioritize passion over profit and politics, you get Baldurs Gate 3 When you prioritize profit and politics but have no passion, you get Dragon Age: Veilguard

[@milangrujicic4679]

Modern games are like modern democracy - an appearance of choice.

[@MightyMaglubiyet]

They were better. Nostalgia helps but before there was a defined formula for a popular game, companies used to innovate and take chances. We got a lot of crap but when they hit, they hit hard. Also used to be less corporate influence, which does nothing good for our hobby.

[@jimmymurphy898]

Rdr2 hit really hard for me. Arthur Morgan is a legend. I honestly didn't think we'd ever get a videogame character as good as him.

[@salamantics]

@@jimmymurphy898 I couldn't really get into it because I hated the controls but I'm glad there's some redeemable modern titles

[@jimmymurphy898]

@salamantics I love everything about it. It definitely controls differently than a lot of other games but it really appeals to me. I feel like Arthur controls like a real human being. It's hard to explain but I love it. I know it didn't work for everyone though.

[@luvstagrind]

It just feels like there was actual passion in more games back then. Now it's all live service here or propaganda there. Also doesn't help that these games release with so many bugs it puts beehives to shame. Games back then just felt finished compared to now and all a game needed to be in those times was fun and engaging. Ever since more corpos got involved, gaming has become about the money instead of the passion

[@Gamepadder]

It's all the Unreal Engine 5 games that devs can quickly poop out, max speed. Then fire all the employees, hire ones out of college, do it again. The games all look and play the same. Wouldn't doubt that most of the studios these days are writing with AI.

[@gruntaxeman3740]

There was buggy game in past too. But also there was flawless experiences.

[@acuyra]

I think it's a similar case with movies. A lot of people get this impression that movies have gotten worse over time. There's no real objective way to measure that, but it's not like bad movies weren't a thing in older times - for every Jaws, there's a dozen bad Jaws clones. For every Batman, there's a Phantom. The thing is, bad movies have a way of fading into history and being forgotten, while good movies stay in the public consciousness. It's the same with videogames. People remember Super Mario Bros. but nobody remembers the literal TON of crappy Super Mario Bros. clones. People remember Street Fighter, but nobody remembers the glut of sub-par 2D fighters that also came out around that time. Microtransactions and such are a problem, though it's not like videogame companies haven't been looking for ways to squeeze money out of their consumers from the start. The methods have changed, but the mode hasn't. If they could've used microtransactions and DLCs and whatnot back then, they would've.

[@attilamarics3374]

Well jaws clones werent in theaters,

[@salamantics]

I don't think there's a single movie that compares to The Thing. I've yet to see one that I admire as much, though I was a big fan of a somewhat modern movie called As Above, So Below. But that was the closest an experimental movie got to capturing the panache.

[@temparalflux914]

I think part of the issue4 is how many are instantly available to us nowadays as opposed to only owning a relatively small collection you either played or watched over and over again.

[@purefoldnz3070]

Hey! I enjoyed the Phantom.

[@purefoldnz3070]

even terrible older games like Phantom Menace on PS1 the devs knowing how bad the game was let you kill everyone you could see including npcs

[@Gramsciwastoo]

The question is a bit loaded. I prefer RPGs with epic stories, detailed character creation, consequential choices, and I'm less concerned about combat. I really enjoyed CP 2077, but still have yet to experience something like ME trilogy.

[@Gramsciwastoo]

​@Seifer8 I hear you, but should probably add that I'm 62 years old and been gaming since Pong in 1972 😊.

[@archdornan3694]

if you like epic stories and consequential decisions but don’t care about combat then why do you like cyberpunk? that’s all it’s got going for it

[@enman009]

​@@GramsciwastooIf you ever have some free time, I highly recommend that trilogy, specially ME2. It feels as if they took some of the best ideas of Star Trek, Star Wars and other Sci-Fi stories and made something genuinely unique.

[@Gramsciwastoo]

@enman009 I wasn't clear in my post. I have played ME trilogy, many playthroughs. I meant to say I haven't found anything that compares favorably besides Dragon Age os.

[@Dankus_Memeus_II]

I thought it was nostalgia until I replayed war and fall of cybertron and then all of the sudden I was having a blast like I was a kid again. You can tell those games were crafted by fans who truly understood and loved transformers it was beautiful I forgot how great gaming was

[@Just_a_Jape]

The argument that it’s nostalgia kinda falls flat on its face when I can find and play a game like jade empire for the first time a decade and a half after it came out, and enjoy it infinitely more than the slop they’ve been churning out in recent years.

[@DrakonPhD]

That doesn't support it at all. You don't go back to play Big Rigs Over the Road Racing or Ride to Hell Retribution for the first time. Like he said, its survivorship bias.

[@Just_a_Jape]

@@DrakonPhD Playing old games for the first time and having more fun than playing any new games proves that nostalgia has absolutely nothing to do with it. You can’t have nostalgia for a game you’re playing for the first time. And it’s not like I’m using some legendary title to prove a point, jade empire isn’t even on the same level as some of the greats talked about in this video. It’s a niche game that most have not even heard of. It’s just a really good game from a time when video games weren’t dogshit.

[@danbauer3669]

​@@DrakonPhD and we're not really making strong arguments by pointing to extremes like Big Riggs Racing. Jade Empire was always a mid tier game and if the OP said they enjoyed it, who are you to argue?

[@CptJack-ws8nz]

@@Just_a_Jape Can confirm your statement as i had a lot of fun when i played the Original Resident Evil 4 for the first time back in 2019 - 2020 and it was my first time playing a game like that

[@ZrodyApo]

I think it's a mixture of a lot of things, from the publishers to the devs to the audience itself. For example, a game like Fallout New Vegas if it came to be released today in the same state as it released back in day, I bet it would have been trashed and dunked upon the same way it was for Cyberpunk 2077 at release. And as Big Dan pointed out at the start of the video, there were always bad games but they were forgotten and we only remember (and play) those that remained good and aged well. But there's certainly a creative & executive problem within the modern games and AAA industry as a whole. As for the politics, plenty of old games were political and I dare say progressive & inclusive (FNV DA:O are prime examples), but since the writing was phenomenal and well crafted, it didn't bother as much as it does nowadays.

[@NormalPersonCommenting]

It's actually that older games were made by people who wanted to make fun games. This is the driving force in every "good game." The people making games now do not care if the game is fun, so long as the game has the right message.

[@douglasabp]

a lot of Indie companies still make games to be fun

[@NormalPersonCommenting]

@@douglasabp That's why they're kicking serious ass right now

[@allaboutthegrindEli]

New Vegas is not based off Nostalgia, i played it as a kid and barely remember it. didnt even know what i was doing or have the attention or ability to take in the story/quests. Playing it as an adult a couple months ago for the "first time" with barebones memory of the game, it literally became one of my favorite games of all time. The game made me feel like doing the quests had an impact on the world, so i took my time to get the outcome i wanted with each one. Modern day games sidequests (aside from good rpgs) just seem like a checklist of content

[@Capitano1stMcDonaldsHarbinger]

Naughty Bear is not a bad game what are you talking about?

[@lilshawty2605]

Everything had to be avant garde for some people

[@PsychoSavage88]

They were better, devs had more freedom and were ran by more of a younger group of talented people who were passionate about their projects. Now shareholders and people who dont even play videogames are to focus on following trends and trying to make the most money the wrong way instead of focusing on just making a good game.

[@pointybits6496]

I'm in the odd group who never had most of these older games growing up. So I have been working my way backwards. Older games fundamentally care about the gameplay. There isn't a massive span of tutorials to hold your hand. There isn't cutscene after cutscene. And there isn't the constant need for shader chaching or updates. You boot it up, you get the game, and it's completed within a reasonable amount of time. So far my favorites have to be system shock 2, new vegas, stalker, daggerfall, uber soilder, and soul reaver.

[@donaldfrederick501]

A lot of it is nostalgia. Been gaming since Pitfall on Atari in 82' and reality is gaming has gotten better through each gen/year (with some better than others but overall better).

[@eisensturm2199]

A very good take and good points. There where and will be sub-par games. I am not sure when exactly the wheels started to come off, for me it was circa 2018, but I feel the top line quality is not measuring up. I would like to give an honorable mention to the first two Gothic games. Those were superb games of the mid 2000s.

[@janeshepard9549]

Older games had heart, most modern games don't have a soul

[@acuyra]

Also also - and I apologize for continually posting, but this is a subject I often think about it - I think the internet has done a lot to make gaming seem worse as a whole than it really is. When I was a kid, there were a lot of bad games, but you didn't really know about them until you played them. We had videogame magazines that did reviews, but they only ever covered so many games, and if they didn't, you just had to take a gamble that the game looks as cool as it does on the box. So a lot of bad games just slipped under the radar. Hell, we used to have systems with gaming libraries that were almost nothing BUT bad games. Remember the Jaguar? These days, if there's a bad game, EVERYONE knows about it. There will be videos complaining about it. You can see people playing it live. People who don't even like the game will buy it and play it just so they can rage about it in front of their audience. Again, I go back to the movie example - back in the 80s and 90s, whenever there was a bad movie in theatres, it just flopped and people forgot about it. These days, when there's a bad movie, people talk about it for months, even years. People make thirty minute essays about it. They post tiktoks parodying it. They make memes. Bad media has a way of just sticking around like a smelly fart. It's a totally different ecosystem. I often wonder how things would be if the internet and KZbin had moved, say, ten years earlier on the timeline.

[@thisismyyoutubecommentacco6302]

I would agree except for one major issue, the continual ruining of established franchises for "modern audiences". Alan Wake, Assassin's Creed, and now Dragon Age are just some of the examples over the last 5-10 years. I don't mind companies coming out with new games and them flopping, hey that's going to happen, what I do mind, is drastically altering established successful franchises, butchering the gameplay, narrative direction, and characters. And then blaming ME when the game flops because most of the actual playerbase who loved the game can't stand it now. THAT is a new phenomenon, and it's due to a game developer sphere increasingly beholden or infected with activists masquerading as creatives. When their own projects bomb, they glom onto established IP's and proceed to ruin them as well. Other examples in Television might include the major drop off and annoying preaching of Castlevania: Nocturne compared to the original Netflix series that many were hailing as an actual GOOD video game television series for once. Movies have been doing this nonsense ever since Ghostbusters 2016, whether it was the garbage Star Wars sequel trilogy or pretty much any Marvel movie past Endgame. I don't care if people want to make games, television, and movies for "modern audiences". But for the love of god, stop ruining shit that we already liked just the fucking way it was.

[@acuyra]

@ Media always changes to fit the times. Any long-running series is going to experience that. Batman is a good example. The character has changed a lot over the years as different trends grew more popular and certain events changed the world. Fans grow, move out, new audiences come, old audiences go. Companies are just interested in doing what they perceive as profitable and making money. It’s not some grand activist conspiracy or whatever the ragebait crowd is harping on these days

[@thisismyyoutubecommentacco6302]

@@acuyra thanks for literally proving my point. When they bring back Batman, they don’t suddenly make him black, or make the Joker gay, or make Harley Quinn trans, they bring the characters back as they are. The times they have tried to mess with the formula was Batwoman, which lasted three seasons on CW (which is crazy short for that network) and a batgirl film so bad Warner bros took a 90 million dollar loss rather than release it since according to them it was unwatchable. If you don’t mess with the established IP you can bring it back often for easy paydays, but screwing with characters for “modern audiences” means commercial failure.

[@anthonyschlott916]

@@thisismyyoutubecommentacco6302 Pretty sure they just skewered you. If you think they can just 'bring it back' with no changes repeatedly and it's an easy payday, you don't understand business. You can point to any change for a franchise that flopped, but there are franchises and media that have successfully reinvented themselves and left their roots behind.

[@thisismyyoutubecommentacco6302]

@@anthonyschlott916 Pretty sure just saying someone skewered you isn't' an argument, it's you making a statement and pretending it's fact, learn to argue and debate like an adult. Name a franchise that has completely changed from it's roots and continued to have the same level of success, I'll wait. Oh forgot to bring another example for our Batman line. You make "Joker" and keep true to the source material of the background of the character, going with a variation on "The killing joke" origin, with some added elements, and you get a box office smash. You create Joker 2, a musical (wtf?) where you decide the character is going to renounce his persona at the end and gets killed off, with some person we're just introduced to suddenly acquiring the "persona" as if the joker is just an idea, in addition to a ton of other retcons and nonsense, box office bomb. Successful franchises screw with their formula and they tank, when they stick to the formula and add a couple tweaks they continue to profit.

[@AmericanGadfly]

1:54 ok but I unironically loved naughty bear. That game was freakimg awesome

[@foxxoboxxo1611]

It really got underappreciated: Sure it had problems but it was atleast a unique game somewhat.

[@calebpace8788]

I wish I could find my copy of it. That game is a blast!

[@GusMixGaming]

5:47 tbh even in Cyberpunk I started to feel a little bit of the modern corpo sanitization. I mean it is a good game by now but the NPCs are really "soft" for a Cyberpunk theme. It should be much more dark a gritty.

[@MuffHam]

I was dispointed about Cyberpunk. It was no where near as dark as i wanted it to be. I want something so dark so gritty that you get sick at some of the shit going on. Where you are like wtf just happened moments. Stuff like wtf is going on moments or like dose shit like this really happen or could this sht really happen like dyspone 1984 level sht.

[@SirTropical]

@@MuffHamI get where you're coming from though I feel the opposite way - I felt like Cyberpunk actually hit those dark notes where it mattered, but definitely needed some more work done in certain areas (Pacifica being a HUGE letdown for me because what could've been never really occurred). I felt like it did a great job in showcasing that beneath the bright lights, shiny exteriors, decadent buildings, there was something far murkier and darker if you just took the time to look. There are alot of cool dark easter eggs laid around the world of CP2077 though some definitely do require a little bit of time and an eye for detail.

[@ParatrooperNinja]

Yes older games were better… games without season passes, macro transactions, inclusiveness tick boxes being valued over good stories, or ‘unfinished on release’ games were better.

[@cheerful_crop_circle]

Depends on the game and franchise.

[@quademasters249]

I'm not sure any of those things explains why games are so bad these days. I'd argue the primary problem is bad writing. It doesn't help that most games seem to release broken too. SW outlaws could have been a decent game, even with the ugly chick if the writing was good and it wasn't a buggy mess. They want you to be a rogue but they don't allow you to do anything that's that bad. You can't be an evil character. Maybe that should be what's wrong after writing? The disney-fication of games. They don't allow adult themes anymore. It's like games are written for 13 year olds.

[@cheerful_crop_circle]

@@quademasters249 Wdym bad writing? There are a lot of games that dont even have a story/plot. Perhaps you meant to say bad design?

[@quademasters249]

@@cheerful_crop_circle Plenty of games and all AAA games have writing. Even "Eldon Ring" has a complete back story and well written characters. Unless you're playing an arcade game or an online shooter, the game has writing. Every word spoken by a character or NPC is writing. One of the biggest dings against "Veilguard" is the terrible writing. One of the characters goes on and on about being "non-binary". It was cringe writing at its worst. I can't really think of a game I've played recently that didn't have a plot, back story and writing for the characters.

[@cheerful_crop_circle]

@@quademasters249 I think the gaming industry should focus on first person video games more. First person video games are very underrated outside shooters , and in my opinion first person just makes the game feel more personal while third person, side-scrolling, isometric, top-down , bird's eye view and other perspectives just feel over-the-top and brainrot-inducing to me. First person has its limitations though, such as no peripheral vision, and not being able to move your eyes and head , only your whole body, but it is still pretty close to a real-life perspective nonetheless. I think first person can also make the story , plot and atmosphere of a game feel more immersive.

[@WhoIsJohnGaltt]

I think a big thing to realize is how games have become more “real” while games of the past because of their art were “surreal”. This is a fundamental shift in our conscious experience of a game. From half baked poly textures to fully rendered lighting and such. When you make the game 1 to 1 real something is taken out. Almost the “romanticizism” that came with the art before it. Which I think is a major factor to why we feel different about games today in this “real” age versus the imagined artful days before

[@wissendev5490]

-Opens the video -S.T.A.L.K.E.R pops up -Immediately likes the video

[@Hunter-zf7rt]

Welcome to the zone, stalker

[@FordHoard]

I just tried it for the first time yesterday.

[@Hunter-zf7rt]

@@FordHoard welcome to the zone, comrade.Join duty

[@FordHoard]

@@Hunter-zf7rt It plays pretty well for a 2007 game. I loved the Metro games, and I know 4A games were started by some former Stalker devs.

[@Xifihas]

Sturgeon’s law still applies. “90% of everything is trash”. The difference is it used to be the worst came from no-name developers and sold at budget prices. Now it’s the biggest names putting out absolute garbage at inflated prices while much of the gold is now coming from small developers and sold at low prices.

[@MN-vz8qm]

Nostalgia. We compare failed current games to the very bests of their decades, but if we make an equivalent comparison, games keep getting better.

[@GEEZA.]

This. 100% I’ve played games for over 22 years now and never stopped, I have played way to many to even remember them all and my top 5 this year alone put the 2000-2013 games to shame only thing that isn’t nostalgia is call of duty but let’s be honest ofc that’s gonna be soulless heheh

[@Akac3sh]

False. Games look better but are not fun. Corporate greed has ruined another thing we love.

[@GEEZA.]

@@Akac3sh if you play corp slop yes, maybe don't play the same franchises from a decade ago?

[@Kawasaki10rr]

Wrong, most games today are dumbed down slop with pretty graphics and riddled with microtransactions, games of the past were made by nerds for nerds (most of them) and now all the dev studios are just ideology filled corporate suck holes that design horrible games that are meant to just take your money

[@gamer-px5cu]

Yeah we all know Far Cry 6 is a superior game than Far Cry 3

[@toeray5864]

I've learned that when something is labeled "problematic" it means that HR doesn't approve.

[@clarencewalters338]

Not as a whole, but there are plenty of titles that outright smoke the shlock we've been fed by triple A devs for the longest. DA;VG feels like it was written by people who never had a face to face interaction with another human before

[@fightingfortruth9806]

The great thing about older games is that it was a time before conventional concepts got set in stone. So you have old games that have very unique concepts.

[@daltonmcclintock2953]

I feel like people focus to much on graphics and if it runs smooth today instead of is the story good, is the game play and mechanics fun and functional. Just my opinion.

[@cmike123]

Your conclusion is contradicted by your first argument. The few games that are considered the best old games can be argued that they are better, but anything less than great is just forgotten. That means that implies that the majority if old games were just as bad or worse than the modern gaming scene.

[@the_lara_and_Matthew_show]

Older games are better. I don't think the nostalgia argument works for me because most of my favourite old games have been played by me over the last 5 years. Kotor is my 4th favourite game ever and I literally played it this year. I played Fallout: New Vegas first like 4 years ago and it is my favourite game ever. I played Dragon age: Origins first also like 3-4 years ago and it is my 2nd favourite game. Out of the new games that have been coming out Cyberpunk 2077 is the best most recent game. The DLC also might be the best dlc I have ever played. With Dragon age: Awakening probably coming in 2nd. Baldur's gate 3 is also okay but I didn't really like it as much as kotor and the other games I mentioned.

[@MrFaorry]

It always gives me a laugh when people try to bring up the "it's just your nostalgia talking, take off the rose tinted glasses" arguments. I didn't play Fallout New Vegas or Morrowind until 2016, Fallout 1 until 2018, Kotor until 2019, and DAO or DA2 until 2023. Divinity Original Sin 1&2 are the only ones of my top 8 games that I actually played within a year or two of their release, that's only 2/8 games. But sure it's _definitely_ nostalgia that was the only reason that made me like these games, and I'm _sure_ it'll be nostalgia that primarily makes me like BG1-3 whenever I get around to finally playing them.

[@lilshawty2605]

@@MrFaorryI think the younger generation doesn’t wanna feel like they missed out, hence “it’s only got better from here, just nostalgia guyz”

[@MrFaorry]

​@@lilshawty2605 They haven't missed out on anything, those games didn't vanish they can still go play them any time they want.

[@SpecShadow]

Old games can be very different compared to new ones. It depends... safe answer, I know. There can be examples of some thing better made by old and new titles. But when it comes to games as a package, whole products - for me old games dominate, even though some new stuff can belong there. I was talking about "whole package" because a lot of times recent releases have some good parts that (may, in various degree) justify money and time spend with them. Not just "janky" games, but AAA games too - despite big budgets (and prices) you have to look for something of quality in them. Or you can be "gaming" "journalist" and use "I had good time with the game, deal with it" argument with 7-9/10 roll. Kinda disagree with "survivor ship bias" argument - people played less known or even subpar games back then and they do now. For some people "comfort food" have varied shapes and forms. Also - old games can be criticized freely while new, big released have some kind of "defensive auras" caused by hype making any discussion (outside of high praise) branded as "trolling" and hate. I still have bad memories from TLoU 2 release... there were some good argument just shoo-shoo-ned down because they weren't praising it on 10/10 roll power level. Like old gaming discussion wasn't high level exchange, but these days it's even worse. Nostalgia makes you blind? Like new releases hype ain't better...

[@AB-uq8yh]

I think it’s fair to say both are true. Older games are better in some ways. But I think there is a lot of nostalgia involved. Morrowind - Great game, great mechanics like magic. But damn, it was hard to play then and it is now. Not to mention mods muddying the proverbial waters with people’s memories. Total War Medieval 2 - Amazing game, great systems and decent tactics. But it’s a broken game and the combat is horrid with bad UI. We need best of both worlds. Imagine Skyrim with Morrowinds systems. For most, a match made in heaven.

[@Itama22]

We used to have a few RL references in games, that didn't change, but nowadays those references are also being judged within the game and doesn't leave room for interpretation to the player itself. That's the biggest issue imo

[@lilshawty2605]

This is what I’ve been trying to vocalize! In deus ex, you got to see both sides of very radical viewpoints and actually interact with the people who believed these things. And decide for yourself why they were flawed or not. I remember the era of relatable/likeable/understandable villains as another example. Nowadays games are made with their answers already made up, and the thought of giving a difficult opinion a face to wear is terrifying to the modern developer. Something something sales flash mob wide audience. Whatever.

[@saren7283]

Oh my god Dan Nnnooooooo 😭 Naughty Bear wasn't slop!! People had this whole complex about it that it was just an edgy teddy bear killer sim and then mentally wrote it off without getting into it's gameplay loop, platinum'ing all the missions.

[@J_Da_Don]

As soon as you said "Oblivion used to be my favorite game of all time. Whenever I dive back in today I can't help but notice it's many flaws" REAL AF

[@dthicks13]

Where’s the jade empire love when talking about bioware 😂

[@btiermutineer]

I think the survivorship bias is exactly the reason why people have this perspective about games in the past being good. There were SO many trash games, some of them borderline unplayable even though you could buy them in stores back in the 90s and 2000s. So the good games that we have from that era are really the diamonds in the rough. And I think this is generally the case with any large creative industry. Most published books have always been mediocre at best - and especially in the early days of printing it was down to who had the most money and connections to get published. Most movies and shows are average or above average. So to me it makes perfect sense that the same things happens for video games as well. Doesn't mean I enjoy the fact that beloved franchises such as Dragon Age and Mass Effect are getting ruined by the other major factor that makes so many pieces of media mediocre: chasing trends and data points. When you start making media for numbers on a graph and push the people who would have otherwise made something out of passion to just clock in and out and get burned out on creating what is ultimately just a product to sell... that's when things get worse. But just because this happens with AAA companies especially doesn't mean we don't still get amazing games. Just have to wade through the data-driven trash to find something special, still made out of love for the medium.

[@londonisforeverblue1022]

its not nostalgia, we love older games more because the games we get nowadays are creatively brankrupt, i mean look at the recent goty nominations only black myth is the only with which has some sort of creativity. not only that but games where also released day 1 with minimal bugs you couldn't just release and fix it later. devs were also passionate with their projects unlike now devs only care about implementing their agendas instead of focusing on the quality of games

[@chief664]

Yes they are. I just started playing Assassin's Creed 2 for the first time in ages and I left the game at the start menu. It went into Demo mode and started playing the cinematic trailer. I realized they dont do that anymore because start menu's today have adds. Back in the day they were more concerned about entertaining you than getting more money out of you.

[@ETEcco]

You looked primarily at AAA game studios past and present which isn't wrong hut what made them rise had to be great and they now are complacent. This doesn't mean new games are bad though, many other studios can produce a good game but because they aren't as large, dont get koticed. VR is a great example of games overlooked by most people. The action games section has large, mainstream appeal, so you'll get slop.

[@Daniel-cz9gt]

There are a couple of factors that play into this besides nostalgia, one is that when people think of "older" they usually have a range that is wider than the "modern" counter part so if modern is the last 5-10 years, older is the 20 to 30 years before that. The other thing is that no one remembers the flops so when they are reminiscing of the better days they only picture the best.

[@Daniel-cz9gt]

Also Ubisoft for example has been releasing buggy unfinished games since at least the 3rd Prince of Persia.

[@pedjanedeljkovic7021]

It's not nostalgia, it's just quality.

[@TheSoulGage]

Honestly the major difference is how much bigger the gaming landscape has gotten. We have similar to the same problems but coated in a different skin. Even with politics, it's either going to be looked back on in a funny way like the AC Odyssey one is going to be, or looked back on fondly depending on how moments like these are handled. It's going to be the same going forward in the next decade. In my opinion, there's so many games that have come out before that I feel like everyone should experience of whether they like or it not. It's the same today but much bigger like let's say, Indie Games. So many write those off, yet forget that some of these games become more memorable or even enjoyable than some AAA releases. Thus with the divide this year for GOTY. There's so many great games that came out in various different genres just THIS YEAR and honestly, that's the best thing we could ask for. Last year as well.

[@acuyra]

Also, to the people complaining about political correctness and 'wokeness', I do have a question - how do you square the success of Baldur's Gate 3 and CP 2077? Because they both have a lot of the things that people who complain about such things in gaming complain about. LGBTQ representation, and in Cyberpunk is practically overflowing with politics. It actually might be one of the most overtly political games I've ever played.

[@MsIvalane]

I wish the anti-woke crowd would learn to recognize the difference between inclusivity and tokenism, which IMO is the big problem with DATV. .

[@Suhov]

​@@MsIvalaneit's not even tokenism. Just untalented hacks pivoting into activism. And using ideology as a shield.

[@PureColumbianCocainum1949]

@MsIvalane we do know the difference stop with the dishonesty. Mass Effect 2 wasn't woke but games like BO6 that have more pride flags than country flags and censor shit because they think gamers need to be treated like babies even though the games are rated M. I hate the fact that people like you are so okay with the pussyfication of videogames because you think being "accepting" of mentally ill people makes you a better person. This is why we can't have good things in life. Eventually things become popular, passion disappears and it becomes all about making sure that they don't offend anyone which is more harmful than good because they end up offending most people instead of a small percentage because it's condescending when they treat everyone like a baby that can't handle anything more offensive than a spongebob episode.

[@MrFaorry]

As that one 4chan post put it. "Using political themes to tell a story is not the same fucking thing as shoehorning in contemporary politics to push an agenda." Games like BG3 and so forth did the former and were really well received because they made you think and different people would come to different conclusions and the game would treat them all as equally valid. The games people complain about like DAV do the latter where the writers just use the game as a soapbox to preach their shitty politics using paper thin allegories and beat the player over the head with "this is what you should believe or you're a terrible person" often not even giving you the choices to disagree and do something else in game. Nobody cared about Judy or Kerry being gay or bi because they were interesting characters who's sexualities were the least remarkable things about them and were just treated as normal and never made a big deal of, compared to Traash where her character revolved around being non-binary and it's constantly shoved in your face as "hey look at me". Judy and Kerry were characters first everything else second and as a result they're likeable and nobody has a problem with them, and this runs true for older games gay characters like DAO's Leliana and Zevran, Kotor's Juhani, or New Vegas's Veronica and Arcade. They feel like actual people as a result and thus people don't hate them. Meanwhile characters like Traash are non-binary first with being a character seemingly being an afterthought, they feel less like a person and more like a vehicle made to push a particular idea which makes people recoil away from them and dislike them.

[@acuyra]

@@MrFaorry On one hand, had I see your point, and I’m not going to defend a poorly written character. On the other hand, though, there are definitely certain groups who lose their mind any time an LGBT character shows up, regardless of how well they’re written, and you don’t have to look terribly hard to find them. KZbin is positively brimming with guys who pump out dozens of ragebait videos the moment any non-binary character appears in their media. A good example is the non-binary character in the recent Fallout show. They’re a pretty minor character, and you wouldn’t even know they were that way if you weren’t paying attention (I actually missed it myself the first time they showed up) but the usual suspects lost their minds over, all for a character who has about five minutes of screentime, total. Those are the sort of guys I’m talking about. The guys who think games shouldn’t have any politcal message whatsoever, who go into rants when a game even has options that let you play a non-binary character. The sort of guys who threatened to boycott Mass Effect Legendary Edition because they slightly altered a scene with Miranda’s buttcheeks.

[@PeninsulaCity2024]

Nostalgia is one factor, and we can argue all day about any direct comparisons. But when a younger generation of gamers play some of those older titles for the first time and found it to be a better experience than any recent release, I think that says a lot.

[@ETEcco]

I can answer without watching: people are huffin nostalgia like its their job.

[@quor2243]

Another bonus to playing older games is they're finished. With everything being online now and constant patches often for years, older games are just more reliable. It's nice to play something were all the bugs and balancing has been fine tuned and finished, well most of the time.

[@TheFDream]

Old games don't have woke garbage

[@cheerful_crop_circle]

Woke garbage????

[@TheFDream]

@@cheerful_crop_circle The Failguard

[@gamelue9773]

Without having seen the video, my personal opinion as someone who hasnt experienced many of the old games at release due to my age. I can say that i enjoyed many old games and modern games as well its just that today more games are produced. so there are just more Games in general and many are very good and some are bad or even very bad. When i look into my steam and look what games were released in the last 2 years there are games i just love as much as some of my favourite old games. older games are not better by default, its just that back then stuidos and develpores couldnt really afford to release bad games and now they can, together with the fact that more games then ever are produced it comes down to this. That we just have more bad games, the good games that are released today can still hold up with the quality of the old ones just a few comparisons Baldurs gate 1&2/Baldurs gate 3/Pathfinder wrath of the righteous/40k Rouge Trader, Total war Mediveal II/ Total war Warhammer III, God of war 3/God of war Ragnarok, Space marine 2 ,Black myth wukong, Armored core VI. There are just so many bad games nowadays that it seems like old games were better in general but the reality is that you have the same quality of Games as back then just now there are coverd under a big pile of mud. Edit: Darksiders got mentioned wish i could like the vid again :)

[@intelinside212]

I think most people complaining about how games have become woke are ultimately complaining about how it’s breaking the immersion, they just didn’t know how best to describe it. In the end it kept getting boiled down to misogyny, racism, and homophobia when in reality it was a dislike for the characters or material being presented in such a way that it broke the immersion of the game.

[@danbauer3669]

Trans people are less than one half of one percent of the population. I accept that they exist. I do not have to celebrate them. People want relatable characters, not the minority of minorities among the minorest minorities. Go ahead and make games with these type of characters, I'm sure there is an audience, but don't get butt hurt at me when they fail to sell a million copies. Most people don't want such deviance shoved down their throats.

[@danbauer3669]

I tried to reply but the KZbin censorship algorithm won't even allow us to have a discussion about this topic. Hooray for free speech.

[@PureColumbianCocainum1949]

Nah we know what woke is, dont try this dishonest libtard shit right now. Calling people homophobic and racist isn't helping you anymore, people have finally developed brains and aren't afraid to call out bullshite like this. Nobody wants a trans main character in any games except for 0.01% of "gamers" (more like tourists in reality) and any time a game is censored or woke it sells worse. It gets proven over and over again but y'all keep coping. Just because you act like it's not a problem and that you are super "loving" and "sympathetic" doesn't mean it justifies the bad shit you've done in your life. BG3 probably would have peaked at over 1 million if they didn't ruin peoples immersion and shove politics in peoples faces in an industry where politics has no place. If a game came out with radical right wing views all of sudden you lefties would have meltdowns. If right wing propaganda starts getting spread in videogames ill call that shit out even if i agree with it because as i said: it has no place in the gaming industry.

[@PureColumbianCocainum1949]

Yeah yt censored me too. Communist platform, can't wait for Elon to fix it one day like he did with twitter.

[@fare-5174]

If anything, the opposite is true - there's plenty of older games that didn't much care about being politically correct, so they could show misogyny, racism, homophobia, and other controversial topics in those games without breaking immersion - if anything, it made the player more involved and have strong feelings on the topic which is probably the definition of immersion. But most recent releases now have the spectre of DEI hovering over their shoulder, so it's precisely why more recent games are now bland, unimaginative slop that does not sell. Would going to the "old ways" help fix the problem? Probably not. But one of the causes for the fall of the golden age of gaming is indeed the forced "woke" mentality.

[@Gliiitchy]

The problem with the nostalgia argument is that it applies to games you've played. You're nostalgic for that movie from your childhood because you remember watching it with your parents or friends and the good times you had and the magic it gave you. You're not nostalgic for movies from that time period you've never watched, you're nostalgic for THAT movie. When I can go back and play games from 10, 20, even 30 years ago that I never touched before and think they're more fun and better than most games made today. It's not because of nostalgia. I'm not saying Zelda Ocarina of Time is better than Dragon Age Veilguard because I have such fond memories of playing it with my brother and being swept away to this magical world. What I am saying is I played Darksiders for the first time last month, a game that was made over 10 years ago now, going onto 15 years, and it was vastly more fun than most modern RPGs I've played to date, and makes Dragon Age Veilguard look like an armature project someone made as their project in a game dev course in college. And there is no reason why a team that has vastly more money, more manpower, and arguably more experience put out a game worse than something that came out 15 years ago. Zero. Games are getting worse every year, and I am playing more and more older games because they are simply better. Nostalgia has nothing to do with it.

[@tacos4419]

It doesn't matter if you're nostalgic for a game or not. You can clearly see how video games have downgraded when you compare them. For example, I played Killzone 2 when it came out in 2009 and have fond memories of it. Recently, someone made a side-by-side comparison of Killzone 2 and Concord, and it's clear from the video that Killzone 2 is better than the modern game in every way. If you want to see for yourself, the video is called "Concord vs a 15-Year-Old PS3 Game." So yeah, for everyone with working eyes, the "nostalgia" argument is moronic.

[@franciscor390]

In the olden days we had bad games, lots of them, but rarely did it feel like it was assembled by consulting firms, marketing teams and board of directors.

[@arkgaharandan5881]

The fact you forgot that cyberpunk 2077 was bad proves your point.

[@samuelsmith9582]

Cyberpunk was great for me on launch. 😅

[@BaranZenon]

Recenlty I noticed that on Google Play Store there are free apps with engines for older games, like Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and Diablo 1. All I need to play it is an actuall game on PC to get files from. And the showed me that modern games are so shit. Especially mobile once, which compared of playing these PC games that are far cheaper (games on GOG are really cheap), are overpriced like hell. I had more fun playing through Diablo 1 on my phone that way than playing that Diablo Immortal thing. And I never played Diablo 1 before that, so no nostalgic bias from me there.

[@Zanzibawrr]

To this day Planescape Torment is my favorite game of all time. After more than 20 years it remains the peak of videogame writing and storytelling

[@lilshawty2605]

Good proofs there. I will not be surprised if it isn’t another 1 years before we get one of those again.

[@MiukuMac]

You know what I love? Having a bunch of games from GoG and even better, having a _ton_ of DVDs from ye days of old and a few drives. Take my licenses away? Don't care - I can always play my old games offline and they're way better than most of the modern garbage ones.

[@Varrakk]

Before we had studios that made games because they had a story to tell, or they wanted to explore something new. Now, big publishers own nearly all the studios. And they assign games for studios to create. For example, Massive being handed to assignment to create a Starwars Game. We all know how that one turned out. It is difficult to find inspiration when you are told to create something and when designed by committee.

[@awesomehpt8938]

Yes

[@lutherh6090]

Older games are often remembered as being more fun because the visuals usually weren’t anything special so the developers actually had to try to stand out. New games focus far too heavily on the fanciest visuals or some forced political message rather than the gameplay itself. Remasters and remakes are so popular because you essentially get the best of both worlds. I would also argue that video game music has severely downgraded into generic background noise where in the past we would get a large number of catchy melodies stuck in our heads.

[@Urapuppy]

Genuine question: What are some other examples of politics getting shoehorned poorly in today games? Because politics has been in games for decades, and its mentions in the video veer close to the “I miss when games weren’t political, like Metal Gear Solid” meme.

[@NormalPersonCommenting]

The term "political" is misunderstood in the context of that meme. People don't mind the existence of fantasy politics, it's specifically about directly referencing current issues with zero subtlety, the opposite of subtext, and a lack of respect for the viewer/player. This is a fairly recent phenomenon, and DAV is certainly the foremost example of it happening explicitly. The earliest similar controversy I can remember off the top of my head is the Battlefield 5 thing, where they made a big deal about how they were being super historically accurate with the game, but then featured a woman with a steampunk (ish?) prosthesis fighting in WW2. When players called them out on this, the response was "fun over authenticity"; something you can see mirrored in the AC Shadows discourse.

[@attilamarics3374]

@@NormalPersonCommenting I remember when Ubisoft made some game mode in AC Origins and claimed its to teach history. And it was total bunk nonsense. They removed mentions of slavery and stuff.

[@danbauer3669]

It's bad politics being shoved into your face through the medium of games when it is completely unnecessary. While at the same time, the same bad politics are being pushed on us in seemingly every other medium. Please, allow me to think for myself, World. No one is complaining about the story in Metal Gear Solid.

[@PureColumbianCocainum1949]

You lefties love acting like war politics and identity politics are the same thing 😂😭

[@diomedes7971]

What people mean is full blown propaganda that is pushed in the person's face. Compare Veilguard to Baldurs Gate 3. Both deal with some similar themed about certain social politics. The difference? In Baldurs Gate 3 you can directly disagree to down right be the big baddie in destroying everyone. Veilguard you can't even disagree or be mean to the person. You don't have clashes of wildly different view points, you have a black and white view point with no ability to choose or even find Grey. MGS politics are self contained and are more generalized in having people decide for themselves. Rarely claiming there is a ultimate evil and most definitely never targeting a specific identity. Go look at the vast majority of villains in Veilguard, they all have a certain thing they all share. Make matters even clearer, Kojima doesn't go on social media ranting about politics and demonzing people. These devs do, so there is no discussion on the meaning of things, because the devs have blatantly gone out of their way in pushing their divisive message, while attacking anyone who disagrees. We saw this go back during the early to mid 2010's with Marvel comics. Finally, these specific politics are pushed in to the detriment of the product. Veilguard flat out retconned or ignored the established lore, to push their message. They are doing this all over the place.

[@yohanes2034]

Nostalgia and we thought that when we played that game that it’s groundbreaking and new. But when I revisited some of the old games I like, I noticed lot of the shortcomings. Mostly from the gameplay (janky design, repetitive and old mechanics) and graphics. There are many new things that we have experienced over the years that we consider as standard. Like DAO, even if I love the story and choices I can make, the janky gameplay, old mechanics, and crashes are the things that prevent me to play it often.

[@antman1672]

I think you are wrong. There is some survivorship bias when it comes to remembering how good games used to be, but gaming also used to be better. You can pick any random year between 1996 and 2014 and compare only the the top 20 games to the top 20 that came out this year or last year. It's not even close. Gaming in the past had banger after banger, now you're lucky to even get 5 great games a year.

[@JabamiLain]

Considering most of the current games I love are from the indie genre, I can safely assure you mainstream games are simply worse than the old ones.

[@vintage9240]

I would argue that even the bad older games are far better than the newer bad games because they didn’t have any identity politics and other kinds of radical leftist propaganda in them.

[@dylangirard4670]

And they at least tried to be fun. I have played a lot of older games this year. Including some bad ones and even the bad ones I had some fun with. Because back then they were much simpler and just focused on being enjoyed rather than watching a movie or having political garbage shoved In your face.

[@GabidenZhazylbekov]

I would say 50/50 we had a lot of bad games back in the days too. Most of them are forgotten that's why people tend to remember only diamonds in pile of trash. Now, we have some good games like Spacemarine or Helldivers, Wukong etc. But people focus mostly on bad games because of media drastically milk failures.

[@tremolo6437]

We got old enough so we can say , in my times games were better ,no sensitive bs , just fun and good stories 🚬

[@Hunter-zf7rt]

Sadly so and it's funny how some will laugh at that and now call us old and games are now better.

[@DrakonPhD]

I'm old enough to remember people saying the exact same thing back in that era too. Funny how the "good years" just shifted about 5 years forward.

[@PureColumbianCocainum1949]

@Hunter-zf7rt i'm 20 years old and i recently tried half life 2 for the first time in my life and i gotta say its not your nostalgia talking, games were actually better in the past. Immersive atmosphere, peak storytelling, good gameplay for 2004, amazing sound design etc. Anyone that tells you games weren't better or were worse back then is mentally unfortunate and not worth arguing with.

[@Hunter-zf7rt]

@PureColumbianCocainum1949 I'm also in my 20s and hearing that I'm a boomer because of what I said really confused me.

[@Hunter-zf7rt]

@@PureColumbianCocainum1949 I'm currently going through the Witcher 2 for the first time.I will admit games back in the 2000s were a bit clunky but they did such a good job on what they wanted to do and found interesting ways to stand out from each other.

[@hbadger2796]

The gaming industry now a days minus a few games is a prime example of “money is the root of all evil”.

[@thesurvivorssanctuary6561]

1:47 Poisonong the well phallcy You already conceded old games are better. Saying: "yes well, what about all the crap released around it?" is detracting from the point. Games used to be released on a much higher frequency by mainstream developers, so there's more crap in the old catalog; but also more gems. We embrace the gems, and discard the trash. The is why the adage: "old games are better" will *ALWAYS* ting true as a tautology of gaming. *Protect the old libraries!*

[@TheSolarium18]

the main problem is writing and that modern politics despise a lot of heroic tropes and characteristics and complicated grounded topics and realism which makes good writing nearly impossible in the first place and that strange people self-insert themselves and their problems which are often not sympathetic and irrelevant to most people doesn’t help

[@Murrythesane]

Older games were a lot easier to make, and could be made in a much shorter amount of time. Because of that they could be far more creative

[@acuyra]

They could be...but they often weren't. In fact, it was often the opposite. Game companies would churn out a lot of cheap games by the dozens and still make a profit. The NES library is chock full of forgotten trash.

[@Murrythesane]

@acuyra Very true, but the ones that were creative were amazing. There's a reason why we still play a lot of games from the 360 era. Think Skyrim, GTA 5, Fallout new Vegas, Dragon Age origins, Dragon's Dogma

[@DrakonPhD]

@@Murrythesane I remember people saying the exact same thing in the 360 era, that games were so much more creative in the n64 era and before and that modern games lost their creativity.

[@Murrythesane]

@@DrakonPhD It's totally true. And the SNES was even more creative, which is why we see so many remakes of SNES games right now. 360 era is just peak because it has the best mix of creativity and modern interface/controls/graphics

[@MortalReaver]

@@Murrythesane More like. Think Planescape Torment, Persona 2, VtM Bloodlines, Arcanum, Fallout 2, SMT III: Nocturne, Ys I+II, Morrowind, Baldur's Gate 1+2, Icewind Dale 1+2.

[@TheDude50447]

I havent gotten into new video games for almost 15 years. But right now there is a huge comeback. Some new games tweaking older formulars like broken arrow or just a second part like Sins of a solar empire 2 which improved upon the first parts strengths while just removing features which didnt really work. What Im trying to say is that we can get great new games if theyre more or less like old ones.

[@williamdougleshire]

Even Cyberpunk is great example of how older games were made with more consistent quality than newer games. Cyberpunk was a buggy broken mess at launch and became a more quality game with years of patches

[@keulron2290]

Some older games did that too though, like New Vegas.

[@williamdougleshire]

@keulron2290 New vegas had some game bugs patched, sure, but Cyberpunk has completely changed and overhauled entire systems in its gameplay since launch (crafting, skill menu, etc.)

[@keulron2290]

@@williamdougleshire That I was not aware of. Had only heard of the bugs.

[@EldritchAugur]

It depends. Red Dead Redemption 2 and Elden RIng are both some of my favorite games ever made and they are relatively new. But it definitely seems like good releases are more spread out than they used to be. Bioware is a great example. From 2000 to 2010 Bioware made Baldur's Gate 2, Jade Empire, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, Dragon Age Origins, and Mass Effect 2. That is arguably the greatest 10 year stretch of any developer ever. From 2010 to present every game they made was a disappointment. The games industry used to average like 3 or 4 reliably great games a year. Nowadays if we get 1 we consider ourselves lucky.

[@fleacythesheepgirl]

No we’re just getting older and with age comes nostalgia goggles. We remember the best parts of good games and it’s easier to forget the mediocre to bad games or flaws in good games.

[@AshParth560]

Yup. Even I remember playing bad games in the past, too.

[@Mr33500]

There are problems with modern gaming, but so many are talking like old men going about the "good old days" that either ignore or forget every bad thing about those old days. Companies stagnate and become mainly focused on money and the bottom line, but new ones will replace them

[@jimmymurphy898]

I don't know about that. My favorite game of all time is Rdr2 and that isn't old. I was blown away by the realism in the gameplay and by the storyline. Arthur Morgan is easily my favorite videogame character ever.

[@lilshawty2605]

@@alekseigreenherbin 3 years they’ll be at least 10

[@DrakonPhD]

They aren't better, and my main argument is that people made the exact same complaints in the 360 era. Its just that nostalgia is incredibly strong, and just like what you mentioned, survivorship bias is real.

[@rafaelp.martins9090]

Not exactly. The complaints were mostly about the dominance of shooters and multiplayer games in the industry.

[@studio96films65]

I think it’s mostly fatigue of the bad games coming out we can’t help but to go back and just play these older games. Some were good but there was so much bad this year.

[@sandmaker47]

I'd say they were written better. We're more creative