Out Of Touch Writing In Video Games - Luke Reacts

[@kpsk8031]

Good writers: "What would the character do in this situation?" Bad writers: "That's what I want the character to do in this situation!!!"

[@robsolf]

"The character MUST do this random stupid thing that makes no sense, or the movie can't happen." "Are you admitting that your movie premise makes no sense, then?"

[@kpsk8031]

@@robsolf aka "The Damon Lindelof school of scriptwriting"

[@SickMuffens]

Nailed it

[@lordrichardson4447]

Exactly. They are activists. They deny reality, objectivity causes them severe pain. They don’t portray the world as it is.. but how the wish it would be.

[@Marky-Mark1337]

​@robsolf ignore money and finds cat. Bag of money right in front of you... Forspoken.... Funny enough protagonist of that game was better before SBI "suggestions"

[@CrunchyBrownie5]

I don’t think we’ve gotten more flops, I think we’ve gotten more big budget flops. I don’t think we’ve seen games to this scale fail as hard as they did.

[@spaceman2517]

Good people finally found out that you can vote with your wallet 👍

[@Khasym]

Agreed. In the past, games like Forspoken would be axed when someone gave the story a good look. RPGs can't skimp on the story. But today, all execs can see and hear are MICROTRANSACTIONS, RECURRENT PLAYER SPENDING, and TENTPOLE FRANCHISE!!!!! Executives are so focused on the game making more money off its success, they don't care if the game ITSELF is actually successful

[@Synthes788]

The main problem with modern games is that they are not made for gamers but instead they are made to please investors. This generates big short term profit for the company as they get investments from companies like BlackRock but in long term they lose customers which leads to fewer sales which means the company cannot generate any profits that leads to downsizing of the company until its shutdown.

[@badpuppy3]

The main problem with modern games is a thing called Recency Bias.

[@JJJBunney001]

No that's not it at all. People dont realise even passion projects are made to make money. They have always used KPIs to make game design choices

[@sam805236]

@@JJJBunney001 They're not using KPI any longer, they're using DEI now. There's no way in hell you can look at a movie like The Marvels or any Disney movie in the past couple years and say "yeah, KPI".

[@bismarck5537]

So, let me ask you. Why do investment firms like BlackRock invest in such endeavors and then force the companies to do what they want them to do? What do they actually want? To change the world? As Social justice warriors? Do they consider themselves as Diversity Messiahs? I am really curious. That is because I have always been taught and learned that big cooperations are all about profit and nothing else. They invest in those outlets such as games and movies because they want them to grow, that is supposed to be an investor’s aim. If those grow and have a lot of revenue, the investor profits. What is this about ‘sending the message’ I hear so much about? Are they dumb or what? Seriously though, I also learned that BlackRock is Israeli company so why would they even care about diversity and such? Why would they want to do so unprofitable and stupid changes in growing industries? I am pretty sure they are not reaping the profits. Enlighten me. I am not from US so I am oblivious about things like that. However, the changes in US also affect entertainment industry around the world so I want to know why.

[@bismarck5537]

Explain to me why BlackRock is doing this? I know that are probably richer than the countries themselves but why would they care about diversity and social justice or smth?

[@Synthes788]

Back in the ps2, ps3 and xbox 360 era we did get a lot of bad games but they were usually smaller games not games from big publishers or first-party studios.

[@SamyT1994]

We're definitely getting a lot more triple A flops now.

[@aliquidgaming1068]

.....most shovel ware actually came from big publishers and devs. Hell EA, Square, Raven, and Ubi use to put out a lot of shovel ware.

[@1_underthesun]

@@aliquidgaming1068 But those typically had shovelware budgets to go along with them. Those kinds of games were typically used to try a new fangled mechanic or game idea, and depending on how that part of the game was received, it would then be implemented (or not) into a tent pole game. As garbage as those games usually were, they at least represented an attempt at innovation. Now AAA studios don't do these budget games, and thus have become risk averse and only chase trends.

[@Saltedroastedcaramel]

And they didn't preemptively antagonized the audience

[@dragonheart967]

​@@aliquidgaming1068as sun stated, and that you just said, it was clearly shovelware, in budget and scope, and quite frankly, incredibly diverse compared to the market today. It's not who made them, but the fact that they knew to keep experiments on a lower scale, then ramp it up to full budget when they know they had something.

[@julesds2516]

Old Writers: "My characters have a diverse pattern of emotions" Modern Writers: "every character is sarcastic and takes nothing seriously"

[@heroicgangster9981]

Nomura is an old writer that time travelled to this day to make his 20+ year video game franchise about anime characters having deep feelings and emotional dread about their own existence with disney characters in the background

[@bingusdingus39]

​@@heroicgangster9981If you're talking about kingdom hearts, then I'm sorry to tell you but that game franchise has terrible and corny writing

[@Tiven321]

@@bingusdingus39 I have not played any Kindom Hearts game yet but I would rather have corny and cheesy writing that comes off as sincere than the super cynical sarcastic shit we get.

[@chuc.dxq3809]

You can blame the MCU.

[@bingusdingus39]

@@Tiven321 I agree man, Kingdom hearts writing is entertaining, it's so bad it's good. It's got soul, which you can't say about a lot of modern writing

[@bigd8924]

The Saints Row reboot game was the 'hello fellow kids' meme in video game form...

[@marcusisahooper]

I think a big part of it is also a lack of disposable income for a lot of people. Not that people can’t afford a movie ticket or a $70 game, but those purchases take a bigger chunk out of their spending today so people are a lot more apprehensive to put money down for entertainment unless they’re VERY interested.

[@Alfredo.Rafael]

Blackrock writing*

[@idizzle5663]

Nailed it

[@THEONETRUEOVERLORD]

They aren’t the only ones

[@bubdubs5294]

@@THEONETRUEOVERLORDthey are tho. Blackrock has majority stake in Vanguard and has seats on the board. And vice versa. So it’s just one company calling the shots split into a few to avoid being targeted.

[@That_Puppet]

(((Blackrock)))

[@WizardosBoz]

@@THEONETRUEOVERLORD not the only one sure, but it's most definitely the largest by vast amounts

[@eduardblackbeard3913]

The entertainment industry has become about checking boxes, not about hiring people who love what they do and what they're working on.

[@WarriorVII]

Yep. Look at what Activision put out with their 3-year DEI plan.

[@keiichi8191]

The problems all started when companies began thinking that Twitter was indicative of the real world and what paying customers wanted. This goes beyond just the gaming industry and encompasses corporate culture as a whole. Everyone seems to be trying to please a tiny but extremely vocal minority on Twitter because they confuse being the loudest with being the majority.

[@tacobell393]

We had bad games in years past, but unlike back then there aren't new games coming out to take the heat off of them and occupy people's attention. That's why the microscope stays on these new flops. An analogy: In the past, 50% of the fish in a lake were healthy, the other 50% were sickly. Nowadays, the ratio is still the same but over half of the lake has dried up. All these companies consolidated and now aren't outputting enough games to take the heat off of the stinkers.

[@Shiirow]

There is no balance between bad and good games, for every bad game in the past there was a good one to offset it. now you just see a flood of bad games with little to no good games.

[@GangstarComputerGod]

People are also watching their bank accounts get smaller and smaller. My budget is more stretched than it’s ever been. I’m not struggling as much as many but enough that spending $70 at a movie or $90 on a game isn’t something I do on a whim.

[@vibesshothard7943]

every modern ubisoft game writers have a room temp iq combined

[@alesdrobek2512]

Agreed, only the "ubisoft" part is superfluous.

[@pimpmywiki]

Gonna install Watch_Dogs 1 again and mod it with Living_City which I hear is great.. who needs modern Ubisoft when we have modders doing the Lord's work?

[@Killswitch1411]

Goes with Ubisoft's Gameplay. Its copy paste in all their franchises.

[@jackphanenhour6785]

@@Killswitch1411 But it’s not even copy paste It gets worse with every new game they release

[@chefnerd]

Companies aren't just out of touch - they also just don't care. Because it's all about selling a brand and not about what's behind it.

[@NMChe56]

I agree. It seems like the industry is being run by professional managers trying to make arrow go up and not by people with a passion for making great games.

[@iamthejolson]

Not just out of touch with actual fans, but they employ a lot of people who have disdain for actual fans.

[@BlueBD]

Employ a ton of people who have no business being in the business. It's clear they Do not want to be there and see it as worthless. So the question is, why are they there if they hate it so much

[@Fishbones111]

this. actually crazy how it seems there's so many people within the industry that actively resent the audience they're marketing to. not even out of touch execs, but now some studio heads and devs.

[@2xRainb0w]

It’s super obvious but some people actually defend them it’s so weird

[@smokedbeefandcheese4144]

You sound like a sweet baby fan

[@smokedbeefandcheese4144]

@@BlueBD Rent that is why many people do you think they don’t like for rent.

[@CremeDeLaNut]

The flops back in the early to mid 2000s werent really weren't from big studios or they didnt have a huge marketing budget and just fell into obscurity. AAA use to make banger after banger with some pretty good low budget games thrown in. Now its a huge greedfest circle jerk on which studio can make the most money while throwing out all morals.

[@TihetrisWeathersby]

Forspoken more like Forclosure

[@TheCephalon]

😂😂

[@Gabekellen77-70]

Lmao 😭😭

[@MajerHawk]

How many times does this lesson need to be taught old man

[@Ryanlexz]

Savage 😂😂

[@TheForever206]

Also, whoever thought of adding an alternate Mrs. Freeze over the easy bake open lay-up option of "Killer Frost" needs to be studied.

[@cjdouglas3464]

Voting with your wallet has never meant more in gaming than today imo. These AAA titles have massively inflated budgets and distended, unorganized development cycles that shift on a dime trying to chase trends. Not buying into the slop is vital to show how you feel because the companies are losing out on much more. I hate that it usually ends up hurting the frontline devs most instead of upper management but high profile losses for these companies force them to pay attention. SSKTJL to me is a perfect example. This isn’t 2013 anymore, gamers know what live service, focus group slop looks like. We can see all the signs from a mile away. Not that live services are inherently bad, but their recent utilization has ranged from mostly good\inoffensive (HD2) to damn near criminal (OW, SSKTJL, Avengers). The cringy dialogue and writing is just the icing on the ‘out of touch’ cake.

[@AlwayzFresh]

Luke, the deluxe edition of Madden is $50 CHEAPER than Assassins Creeed. What are you talking about? This pricing model has never existed before this year. $140 for an all digital edition does not exist pre 2023 in gaming anywhere. Not a fan of a take that normalizes this.

[@royner1555]

ubisoft have the same model than years ago, the only the diference is the main price of the game, when a couple years a game used to be 60$, now days they are selling for 80$. But all the rest of the crap like season pass, gold edition etc... they haven't rise the price of that. The last game i buy from ubisoft was the AS Valhalla and that game was 60$ after that i buy the season pass 40$ more = 100$ (that would be like buying the gold edition of the game). Now days they are selling this AS for 70$ if you add to that the season pass would be exactly the 40$ that i expend a couple years ago when they release the AS valhala (is a crap i know but they are being on this shit for years). Back then the Deluxe edition was being sell for 120$.

[@Thatguy36297]

Madden itself is just a cash grab, it is NOT a different game whatsoever, it is a $70 micro-transaction. They should never make those games ever again

[@sagitarriulus9773]

Not to mention how UBI also has the stupid subscription model for all of the different versions lol. 9 a month to play base game 15 to play deluxe gold edition

[@grimly105]

But the reason they priced assassin's creed so high is because they are actually just trying to push people to subscribe to their ubisoft+ for $15 a month. It's a big ask.

[@trenaceandblackmetal5621]

Bad comparison

[@Mark-nh7zg]

It’s the eternal problem of game writers trying to follow Hollywood script writing trends. It’s why Blizzard game dialog is just an endless series of catchphrases post Warcraft 3 for example

[@xrosslegends1279]

They just don't want their current fans, they want new fans, fans that think like them...

[@ryguy1483]

Looks at AC games the last 10 years. Yup, sounds right 😢 Why do they hate us old fans

[@aleksejsmiscuks4138]

I like how this has been happening for years And only now they start to suspect something.

[@Doc-Glock]

As of late, a lot of people involved with entertainment industries (games, movies, TV, etc.) have been showing that the only thing they know how to write is a check. Bad writing can undercut a lot of good or otherwise passable aspects of a product, if not ruining it outright. It feels like all of the wrong people are involved with writing, to the point where even something with average dialogue can be seen as great.

[@SIPEROTH]

There are many issues. First of all no one writes anything this days. All writing is made by a group of writers along with consultant agencies etc. Imagine if Tolkien tries to write Lord of the Rings by gathering every person in town and all sitting together writing stuff and mixing it together. Stories are great because they include someone's vision. But now every game has 10-30 writers a few story consultants and after they write something the suits also intervene and ask that things are rewritten in certain way etc. It's a mess. How can you write anything with single vision and coherence? And then they cry that budgets are blowing up and they need to raise prices of games. well when you pay a whole room of stuff to write anything along with other companies when you used to have one or two guys write stories of course you budgets will go threw the roof.

[@duckieg420_4]

Wanna talk about bad writing? Have you heard the story of Past Lives?? And how it's considered Oscar worthy? I don't get how alot of people are given checks to make the horseshit they do. I mean, I do know, it's "diversity" and because it's a non-white person. (Not being hateful, but it feels fairly obvious why they do what they do)

[@aquapendulum]

I really don't want to blame Joss Whedon for this new style of writing but... Yeah I DEFINITELY blame Joss Whedon. He was the OG ironic Millennial writer.

[@bennyblunto973]

They are trying to force live service as a new standard

[@Cdogttv]

I don’t think the “crash” people are talking about is the gaming industry as a whole. I think it’s more isolated to individual companies. so if a game is bad there’s less leniency on it these days, and people will make content and farm its demise, if a studio has to shut down because of one bad game it’s probably good that they are going out of business 🤷🏻‍♂️.

[@Deniryer]

*AAA Game industry crash. I never played most of the indie tiles due to having more then enough of good AAA games being released each year until 2015. Now I play mostly indie tiles. Also 5-7 year dev cycle with 800+ teams (not dev teams mind you, HR, VP of useless dept etc as well...) it's not feasible. My favourite games were made when studio's have had no more than 100 people working on it and the funny part is some of the games (that were made in a fraction of a budget compare to over-bloated teams & marketing budgets etc) have had or still has better graphic & animation compare to games that has been released in recent years...

[@Shiirow]

I think its mostly the AAA sphere of gaming thats coming to collapse in on itself. there are plenty of small indie companies who will more than likely survive.

[@AJRobin-qi5vu]

As someone that plays dead by daylight now and again, I can see this happening in real time. sometimes they try to deliver something you enjoy and then even when you see something horrible about to happen they push out a change because they didn't have time to fix the issue only to fix it 6 months later and making people put up with a badly implimented change for 6 months because their priorities are elsewhere.

[@agent0fn0thing0]

7:24 also people are relatively worse off in general, people aren't spending money because they don't have it to spend. If you make a product for purchase by the masses and the masses haven't got the money then expect sales to decline.

[@Balkoth07]

They fail to predict what people want in a few years and than they react by overcorrecting. It takes a bit until they hit the right balance again and than we start the cycle over again. It happens in waves. I feel this is like every 10 years in the movie industry

[@Balkoth07]

and there is the other side of the coin, which is just reactionary. Suits up top who just say "this was successful, so make this" without a grasp on what makes it actually good. there will be so many bad Baldurs Gate clones in the future.

[@2xRainb0w]

Paul Tassi is a hater of his audience too

[@spaceman2517]

Hes a game "Journlist" they often despise their audience and they think they are better and know better then the audience and customers

[@sabatheus]

Your assessment of Saints Row was right on. That fuck-up should be required reading in MBA courses. Seriously, what percentage of their audience did they feel like they were appealing to? And what about me? The guy who bought every Saint’s Row game and all the expansion packs. It was clear the studio didn’t give one shit. They left my, and many other’s, money on the table.

[@SubZole]

I think the problem is that in the last few years almost every big studio that used to produce amazing games did everything they could to destroy their own reputation and erode all the goodwill that players had for them. Now people are much more inclined to speak out against them and to ridicule them when yet another bad game is released by a multi-billion dollar company. The same goes for movie studios too.

[@LuizBarrosPoa]

A good writer knows and admire other people and put them in the work. A bad writer put himself because he thinks he's the hero of every story.

[@chrismhollingsworth]

As one of the ancients who grew up in the 80's, I can tell you with certainty that this is not the same as the game drought of the 80's. The number of shitty games that have come out from big companies is high, but what happened in the 80's was that eventually by E.T. all the games were bad...so bad everyone that I knew that loved games like me just...stopped playing games. And I am not exaggerating, As a kid I didn't care about games again till one of my more well off friends showed off the Nintendo to my family, and that was a year or two after its realease. I honestly don't think we will ever see that again, there are too many games out there and consumers and kids keep buying these games like Madden etc that are just little gambling stores and that fuels these companies and encourages them to make more swill! Also, we still have a ton of indy games that are great and keep us hoping AAA and AAAA (yuck) will clean up their act. It is a shame really, I think the industry could use a small break from milking us for cash with crap

[@goblinounours]

I mean, yeah, Rocksteady went with the daugther of Mr Freeze, that's indeed dumb. Yes they gave her a refrigerator look, that's terrible too. But you can't also discount how they also very much aimed for the short-hair lesbian-style + almost male-ish non-feminine body-shape JUST TO DRIVE everything home too. I'm not saying a woman should have huge breasts and ridiculous curves, but when I was imagining "mrs Freeze", even at worst, I expected to be able to immediately identify a woman. For a moment, I legit thought this was a guy. This to me is another big change in both the movie and video-game industry. The push for all the DEI stuff. That wasn't a thing a decade ago.

[@makani9004]

When people try to tell you that CEOs deserve their huge bonuses for steering the ship, this is what they are supposed to mean: anticipating what people will actually want. But then they drive these companies into the ground and it's the consumer and troops on the frontline who pay.

[@SiggySeven]

I listen to your videos while driving home from work and want to let you know the end card music is mixed a bit loud compared to your mic. It can be a jumpscare when I have my volume turned up to compensate for highway noise lol.

[@plannein]

I think there are more flops from major titles, whether from just being bad or from poor performance. And they're taking longer, improving less, seems like massive leaps forward for console generations are over, no new IPs, so many remakes and remasters, microtransaction hell, etc. I don't think we're in the crash yet, but we're certainly approaching it. What's happening to the industry overall is not sustainable.

[@robsolf]

8:40 On the backlash of rehashed old ideas, I do tend to wonder if "Fall Guy" might have actually done better if it didn't reference the old show. I thought it was a film at its best when it was trying to do its own thing as opposed to pointing and winking at some reference from a long dead show. And for the love of god, these productions just need to be cheaper. 130 million should be mega blockbuster level money, NOT early spring romcoms. I am awestruck by the thought that Madame Web cost 80+ million. Unbelievable.

[@smokedbeefandcheese4144]

It’s funny to think that one of the early Ultima games was made for $3 million

[@Deniryer]

@@smokedbeefandcheese4144 Yeah, but there wasn't 800+ people "working" on it. All of these people require salary ranging from £20K to £100K a year. Also now you have to pay a lot of fees (for tools, store fronts etc), marketing, legal teams and so on... Not that I'm defending that but it's the current reality of a "AAA" game studio & publisher.

[@Shiirow]

then why even have the title be "Fall Guy" if not to reference the old show. they could have just called it something else if it was going to be its own thing.

[@duckieg420_4]

I truly believe the budget reason is a lot of higher ups being waaaaay too overvalued. Like sure, people need to be paid well for their work and what they bring to the team/production, but I feel if Fall guy cost $130 million, no less than 40-50 million went to Ryan and Emily, along with a few Higher-ups

[@Kodurr]

Thank you for your sentiment Alan, very refreshing to hear something spoken so calmly and with such consideration in a place where you otherwise may not have had to. It felt very mature and empathetic to all sides.

[@mawsometall4692]

They stop taking risks, they stop being creative, they stop prioritizing customers and avoiding being "offensive" to some. This had lead towards their demise

[@duckieg420_4]

Why I like games like Outlast Trials! It's a game that knows it's definitely rubbing people the wrong way, but it's intriguing and creates buzz. It's taboo and has alot of content and themes/violence/imagery, etc. That most publishers and companies wouldn't dare produce or stand by. That's why Red Barrels was founded lmao. It's not for everyone but for the people it catches, its almost always a new customer. If that makes sense (sorry I'm high)

[@mawsometall4692]

@@duckieg420_4 thx for sharing bro 👍

[@DenethorDurrandir]

If the majority thinks they are pushing an agenda, they are pushing an agenda, there is no "we didn't mean to push agenda" it's "we're so brainwashed by the agenda we don't even realize we're pushing it". Madden is a bad example, no gamers care about Madden, only sports fans do. EA adding ads to their games genuinely makes sense, seeing RL ads in EA Sports games instead of imaginary ads could slightly improve the experience for many, as long as it's not terribly handled, I don't see no issue with these.

[@xKingSlayer517x]

A lot younger generation is taking over development of games and story writing and then you have companies like sweet baby inc with their BS They are completely out of touch

[@Shiirow]

Im sure a lot of people are clamouring to buy Assassins Creed : Kotaku

[@timbusbee1483]

Hilarious that Saints Row writers thought making fun of workers was the point when we have games like Trucker Simulator and Mechanics Simulator that sell well lol

[@AlexRoivas]

I worked in the game industry from 2015 to 2020. When Luke talks about the disconnect between gamers and developers it hits me particular hard. All my life I wanted to make games and in 2013 I started the SGD program in my community college. I did the programming route. The first day of SGD 111 we had our instructor, an ex Epic dev, show us a video with Dead or Alive and King of Fighter character and then she went on a rant how we should never make character designs like that. It got pretty political but every student remained silent. The first semester of SGD is made to filter most people so by second and third semester you are left with the people that will actually graduate. Sadly, the vast majority of people left are the same type as the devs that made Saints Row 2022 that thought the cringe slay dialogue was going to be accepted and sounded good. I will not lie, once I realized the game industry is led by these people I became the most vocal lefty and annoying progressive. I became friends with my instructors and would hang out with them at the local barcade. They introduced me to their friends, devs that worked in the industry and when I graduated I had job while most people coming out of SGD end up at places like Volt to be farmed out to game companies as contractors with no benefits. Video game developers in most AAA studios live in an echo chamber of progressive talking points so at this point they are as different to most gamers as their grandparents or parents that have no idea what gaming is.

[@mikeg5039]

Battleborn was great it just came out same day as overwatch

[@TitusAndromadon]

Hard agree. I loved that game so much

[@TwoHandedChargedBonk]

I completely agree with Luke here, most of the current entertainment problems come from bad writing, or more general, total lack of creativity. ESG crap is obviously part of it, but that is not the only reason. The other reason is the suits don't have passion for videoganes and don't have balls to do something fresh. That is why everything is designed by committee, and noting creative will ever come out of a committee. A typical MBA corporate executive is often the most spineless slug you can come across. And at the opposite end of the company there are activists who often hate games and gamers, and the diversity hires with zero passion, talent or brains. So there you have it - balls-less and brainless leadership at the top and incompetent activist DEI hires at the bottom. No wonder if the company is structured like that the games come out like shit.

[@heroicgangster9981]

is there a technique in writing to get characters who are LGBT+ accepted by people who hate progressive politics in video games?

[@leonardolopes6360]

​@@heroicgangster9981 yeah, write actual characters, I dont want to be pandered to. screw that paragon of justice that feels off in the world

[@lordrichardson4447]

@@heroicgangster9981sure. It would have to be genuine. Peolle hate it cause it’s deceptive and fake.. the singular goal of these activists is to infuse everything with their world view.. the goal should be to make a good product.. but it’s clearly not.

[@smokedbeefandcheese4144]

I don’t know I feel like you’re just a right winger and no matter what happens you’re going to hate what’s in the game. Because your politics are from 1865 like anyone who talks about activists at companies probably just doesn’t like gay people. And doesn’t want them in games and there is no way to do that that will make you happy

[@TwoHandedChargedBonk]

@@heroicgangster9981 yes. Look at BG3 for example. When you write a good character that happens to be gay no one has issues with it. Also, most of the time the sexuality of a video game character does not matter at all. Who cares if a Doom Guy prefers makes or females when the game is about shredding demons. But the degenerate pink haired activists want the games to advertise gayness of everything and everyone, whether it is suitable or not.

[@Mardark-e4s]

The main problem for modern games is they are being made to appease investors and activists but not the people who actually play games

[@Zynet_Eseled]

The thing is the activists don't want to pay for anything. Because they just want to be mad and not actually do something. They inconvenience people at best, and commit social suicide at worst, making normal people actually hate the very cause they claim to champion. Want to know why anti lgbt rhetoric is going up online? Blame the people who make it out like all lgbt people are fucking psychotic through their "activism". Treating it like that's the only thing that matters.

[@mchammer5592]

I like Luke and his commentary, the one thing that rubs me the wrong way is his frequent attitude of “look at all these people out there with a silly uninformed opinion.” I mean a lot of times he’s right, people tend to blow things once it gets Internet traction, but ultimately that traction means something too. Assassin‘s Creed isn’t Madden, it’s not call of duty. It’s assassin’s creed. And yes, every iteration becomes a more bloated bag of moneygrubbing, but this seems to be at the top of its own pile. You can’t necessarily look at two very different games with two very different pricing structures and simply compare them.

[@ziek3012]

He looks at videogames as a whole and looks at them objectively. That's why he compared it to other games. He looks broader than just one franchise.

[@noobndenial7551]

I mean you can look at ac valhalla for example $60 base game price, $40 for season pass $100 at launch price AC shadows $70 base game $40 season pass Full price at launch $110 Its legit $10 difference. Now if an idiot wants to pay $20 for a skin pack early they can go for the ultimate edition.

[@noobndenial7551]

Also youd have to add if they have an expansion outside of the season pass like valhalla for $40

[@jakubizdebski7177]

I wonder why is it that games like Forespoken are being criticized for poor dialogue when at the same time JRPGs are being praised. I couldn't sit in the same room when my wife was playing through FFVII Remake.

[@Sumunuhriginal]

I think the problem is also how few great games we get now. We used to get a variety of amazing triple a quality games back then but development takes so long now those games are much fewer and further between and it makes those bad games much more obvious because it might be the only big game coming in what could be months. We got 4 good-great Arkham games in a 6 year span. It’s been almost 8 years since an Arkham game and in that time the studio only gave us the horrible mess that is SSKTJL

[@christoffer886]

The reason studios won't listen is due to a combination of the creatively mediocre lead creative directors who aren't open to criticism or changes to their decisions while usually having a pretty big ego; developers who are so overworked they don't have time for massive changes due to feedback and just need to push things to the finish line; and company leader's who micromanage the writers instead of trusting the writer's competence. While there of course are a lot of bad writers, often very inexperienced ones who's almost never read an actual book or learned anything about storytelling, it's usually the leading figures who've reached their position not on competence or knowledge, but through other means of climbing the ladder. The times we see really good games with good writing are the rare ones with actually creative and intelligent leaders who respect the art over their egos. No one can deny that Rockstar is a company that shines in that regard. Because they put storytelling, characters and the atmosphere of the game at the forefront of priorities rather than a slapped on necessity just to have some framing. It's not rocket science. Get people who understands art beyond games, who have deeper thoughts and ideas about the world and not just shallow twitter and tiktok level of societal understanding. It's the same thing in all other forms of expression; life needs to be lived and understood beyond the form that is being worked in. It's one of the first lessons to smack students in the face with in good film schools when they just dig down into prestige films and only think in those terms. Out and suffer, out and see, out and live, then you are able to express honestly. You can't expect great art from people living in a bubble consuming social media and admiring themselves in the mirror.

[@Elayaass]

people tend to forget how many shitters we had back in the nes, snes, n64, playstation 1 and 2. boy there were stinkers back then

[@rshs5821]

At least they were goofy bad, not political.

[@LiquidDIO]

From small companies just getting their feet wet, in a new 3D era of gaming. That's a huge difference. They weren't propaganda thinly disguised by being encased in a shitty game, then given predatory pricing models.

[@SkepticalBucketman]

I agree with the devil´s advocate argument that it can be true that the "Being out of touch" and "Don´t care" options don´t necessarily exclude each other, as in "I´m out of touch to a point where I don´t care what anybody thinks, I still think my approach is the correct one and people should like it". That being said, I don´t know if it has been mentioned but there´s also the super inflated development costs. Which is also a thing that happens in the movie industry with these blockbuster type films in combination with all the lecturing, poor quality and everything else, and going back to the A) and B) options and subverting expectations, there´s also knowing, or at least suspecting that something might or will divide your audience, doing it anyway for whatever reason and then going into surprised pikachu face mode when people start walking away and you lose potential sales, a chunk of your initial audience or both. Also the thing about the pricing models/strategies being already there for years doesn´t invalidate the complaints or addresses any argument, if anything, it´s an acknowledgement that the problem is even larger.

[@chrisflynn9695]

Occam's razor, Luke. We're all just broke. We don't have the extra money to risk it on something that may be bad like we did years ago. These past 4 years have been bleeding us dry. It's that simple.

[@unicorntomboy9736]

Why is that

[@chrisflynn9695]

@@unicorntomboy9736 Cost of living in general is up. Rent, gas, food, utilities, insurance, medicine.

[@unicorntomboy9736]

@@chrisflynn9695 Blame the government for the lockdowns during the pandemic

[@chrisflynn9695]

@@unicorntomboy9736 That's where it started.

[@unicorntomboy9736]

@@chrisflynn9695 It will be resolved soon enough

[@mjohnsen8606]

OMG Arnold voicing Freeze would be the best thing in all of gaming

[@jaaayyy2532]

I also think it has to do with the cost of living crysis we are piving in. Everyone i know is living pay cheque to pay cheque. So of course I'm going to just wait until the new mad max movie is available on a streaming service instead of paying $60-70 to go to a movie I may or may not like. Same goes with games I can't remember the last game I got on release day i usually wait for a sale. I don't have $100 to drop on a game that may or may not work. Especially when 90% of my pay cheque goes to bills and rent.

[@サイバー狼]

Im only 9 minutes in but for me on why the triple A market is going down hill... is 1. Alot of multiplayer focus games uses fomo, heavy microtranactions. Battle passes, and eomm/sbmm which i dislike all of those... and that is a major turnoff for me. 2. The ability to play the game offline... which is becoming less and less common... I do have reliable internet at 500mb a second. But i also have a steamdeck I like to be able to play a game offline if access to the internet is unavailable. Whatever the reason for having no internet may be. 3. Alot of the singleplayer Triple A games have become a grind slog lgbtqrxy+ DEI microtranactions timesavers fest. Which ruins my enjoyment for such games...

[@astronot1578]

14:40 "If you show up wearing a fanny pack, strike one!" -Luke Stephens Lmao

[@DasVadderr]

I think the reasons why bad launches/games are staying longer present nowadays is first, that some games have proven that a comeback is possible and therefor expected by players and second, that studios are announcing additional content before they even release the game in the first place. Games like No Man´s Sky, Cyberpunk, GTA Online, Red Dead Online, Warframe, Age of Empires 4 etc. They went from boring, underwhelming or outright unplayable to beloved and respected games. Sure, most of them may still have some issues and not every game is everybody´s cup of tea, but all of them bounced back even though some were said to be dead on arrival. These games showed that it´s absolutely possible to turn it around. That knowledge leads players to not give up instantly and gives hope that a Suicide Squad or a Starfield will manage the same comeback as NMS did. The announcement of further content before launch is a disservice dealt by the studios to themselves. Remember Witcher 3´s add-on "Blood and Wine" , it was spectacular and a true add-on, because it added more content that was well integrated into the main game but not in a way that you would miss it if it wasn´t there. CDPR probably had concepts of it but they were waiting until they saw how the game was received. On the other hand we have games like Starfield. They announced "Shattered Space" basically with the launch of Starfield. That´s a guaranteed way to keep players talking primarily about all the flaws of your game that they hope to see fixed with the add-on but since you´re already announced it, it´s probably already quite far in development and simply can´t satisfy the players or even worse doubles down on the parts players hated. But the biggest issue is that it inevitably leads to the suspicion that it will be less of an add-on of new content and more of a put-back-in of something artificially removed. Like Shattered Space obviously is. It´s focus will be "House Varuun" an entire faction that according to the lore is one of the major religions and did basically wage war on the whole world (of Starfield). The dangers of entering "House Varuun space" are a topic of the first ever dialogue in the game. Yet they simply don´t exist within the game. It´s incredibly obvious that they were removed in certain places just to sell them as a so called add-on. Imagine R* would realease GTA VI and announce on the date of launch that the "Police add-on" will follow six months down the line. Announcing additional content for a broken game that feels like content that should have been in there from start is a great way of staying in gamers´ minds and on reddit, YT etc for all the wrong reasons.

[@MusingsMuses]

Arnold Schwarzenegger Freeze would be a blast! Everyone talks about his dead wife and Arnold-Freeze is just "what wife? my only love is for diamonds" and makes the absolute worst ice puns all the time to the point the other squad members are telling him to shut up. Yes it'd stop being funny eventually but they just need to make people life for his intro season to get the money for skins n whatnot.

[@JustAnotherAccount8]

I would say it's 100% them being out of touch rather than them having disdain for their community. I bet any money that their market research is essentially just browsing twitter and assuming they speak for everyone. The reason I say its not them having disdain for their community is because they're companies. They couldn't care less about sending a message, they simply want to make the most money possible, and due to the aforementioned market research, they think this is the best way to make money.

[@robsolf]

30:20 My theory is they looked at GTA5, concluded that the characters are total A-holes, and that they should create total a-hole characters in their game, as well... not understanding that characters have to be likable, even as they are being total a-holes. I think maybe they didn't really understand the nuance that makes Trevor a total psychotic PoS that's still hilarious and entertaining to watch.

[@TitusAndromadon]

You are probably correct. But I'll add the ppl who wrote Trevor knew that he was a psychotic pos and dint pretend he was anything else. It is why he works. The characters in saints row are written as idlf they have some sort of moral high ground. They are bad ppl but are written as is lf they are good.

[@jinwei996]

17:15 Luke: let me just play the dialog ... Me: press mute button like my life depends on it

[@CarlWheatley-wi2cl]

Robert Meyer Burnett made a very interesting point about the writing in games and the entertainment media in general. It's now full of writers that were heavily influenced by the Buffy and Twilight era. The irreverant, teen angst, snark focus with quickfire dialogue of (attempted) wit. Absolutely fine for teen/early adult shows but cannot be extrapolated out to other genre's like fantasy and hi-brow sci-fi. He singled out the disaster that was Star Trek Discovery as the prime example with TV but this kind of writing is pervasive everywhere.

[@LordBathtub]

CALIFORNIA AND TWITTER. These two situations combine to make writing of this quality and calibre

[@berthein5476]

Its so sad that furiosa isnt doing better. Its such a great movie. And YOU NEED to watch it in cinemas. Unless you got like a 70" + screen, furiose, just like fury road wont work.

[@Pr0m3th3us]

Don't ask questions, just consume product and get excited for next product. But seriously though that Forspoken dialogue was pure cringe.

[@juanfuenmayor1533]

In my opinion the biggest problem with the gaming and movie industry is the lack of innovation, we could say that we’ve seen all that the movies a games can offer it’s all the same now days, plus everything being controlled by huge corporations that basically are moved by money and not quality products.

[@Zynet_Eseled]

What more can we innovate? The problem is that people are trend chasing instead of making a game that they well and truly do want to make. Like, Onrush may have been somewhat in the trend trenches, but FUCK it was incredibly fun, and felt incredible to play. I wish I could play it again... The problem isn't the lack of innovation, it's the lack of passion. Creatives in the modern era are being "replaced" by automated code that is trying to imitate a person, without any of the capacity to what makes a good person. Aspiration, Imagination, Passion, Creativity, Drive, and Inspiration. An "ai" just does what it is told. It has no autonomy. People are being ground down into drones, no different than "ai". The only difference is that people will inevitably give out because we are not machines. That's the problem. The passion for gaming is dying out in the scene of creating them, because of the executive system and greed of corporate leaders and shareholders, trying to fulfill a lie that has been proven without question. "INFINITE GROWTH, LINE MUST ALWAYS GO UP, AND AT ALL COSTS". Which means that if it ever drops, or it is projected to, then slash and burn until it's a growth. And try to repeat with less workers or cheaper workers and repeat. It's unsustainable, but knowing how the greedy work, they are only capable of seeing short term things. Instead of long term sustainability. In an ideal world, we would have companies where the people at the top, are paid less than the actual people doing the work. Because what does an executive really matter outside of being the person, who is handling the finances. We don't need CEO's. We need passionate people who want to bring dreams to life. And a system that actually treats them well. Otherwise, we are going to live in cyberpunk, minus all the cyber and where punk is stomped out completely. A world of people infected by brain rot and all subservient to the dictators without any thought or drive to have an independence. Just obedience. Tldr, kill all corpos and shareholders, make lobbying illegal, and force executives to be paid equal to or less than their workforce. And have pay be based on what you are doing and how hard you work for it. Champion sustainability over all else.

[@misterhoobomaster]

Assassins Creed 3 even did the different editions in 2012 lol.

[@majorborngusfluunduch8694]

Yeah but the top edition came with some cool shit, like a statue of Connor (still have that one). Now you get nothing tangible for all that money.

[@misterhoobomaster]

@@majorborngusfluunduch8694 I'm talking about digital editions but yes there were indeed also collectors editions at that time.

[@Deniryer]

@@misterhoobomaster But they didn't cross mark of £64.99, now its £99.99 without season pass... Also in that price you could but a collectors edition with physical stuff like I did with Ubisoft points discount I've got a Odyssey Collector Edition with Alexios statue lol.

[@julio1148]

To address the intro, every industry is having layoffs. I work at a energy utility company, arguably one of the safest jobs out there, and many of my engineer peers have been laid off. Manufacturing, software/tech, management consulting, movies (yes, even PIXAR is going through layoffs).

[@GetAwesomeGaming]

Mrs Freeze could have been cool if it was an alternate reality where Nora was the scientist and Victor was the one who died that might have been interesting. Linebacker Karen with a fishbowl helmet isn’t…the design clearly plays a significant role

[@elvickRULES]

Part of Gollum is that we had good LotR games. Some very good ones. The comparisons make the failure more noteworthy.

[@mrjackiemoua]

Back in the day.. big studios Made good games

[@TheStampede_]

Kens Rage 2 was fucking amazing as a Fist Of The North Star fan. One of my favorite Warriors/Musou games

[@RiderZer0]

A crash shouldn’t be measured by the number of flops alone, but by how many revolutionary games get released. How many games have launched recently that set a standard, or change the industry? Elden ring and Baldur’s Gate 3 are the only two that can think of.

[@radelc]

In every example you gave I just kept thinking Sweet Baby Ideology detected. They dumb down games for game journos now bc of past game backlash over Dark Souls and such.

[@lordfaust023]

That actress is collecting infinity stones of Bad Movie, Bad NetflixSeries, and now a Bad VideoGame...wonder if she already starred in a Bad MusicVideo

[@tHeWasTeDYouTh]

there wont be a game crash because there are so many games making billions of dollars but I do believe a lot of big AAA publishers will continue to lose a lot of money as they become more bland and safe as they try to sell more and copy other successful games, also, the people writing games and making character designs in the West are at complete odds with most gamers, no one wants ugly characters made on purpose. During the American video game crash all console games sales crashed and that damaged Atari and other companies to the point that many went under or got sold off. It was until the NES came out that the market began to recover.

[@np6697]

More of this kind of criticism please. Keep the pressure and pain on the gaming industry and keep them intellectually honest

[@fashowallday4073]

I don't know why, but fanny pack to the side is fine, fanny pack to the 5 or 7 o'clock position is kinda cool actually, fanny pack to the front, huge nerd. One of the mysteries of life.

[@Killercutsvideo]

I just got burned out on girl power

[@flamingburitto]

There's also a particular company, or a particular type of company that is responsible for this. Companies like Sweet Baby Inc, Take this, etc. An artist needs creative freedom to express their art. You can't just come in as an outsider and then change it completely to suit your narrative or political correctness or anything of the kind. That will always ruin the art.

[@jacobsmith2577]

Can’t be friends with any man who wears skinny jeans

[@abrahamlincoln3181]

Project Farm has a video comparing thermal cups, Stanley and Yeti are included.

[@bigswisschh]

We are in the age where “there is no such thing as bad press” isn’t as true as it used to be

[@jake51515]

Game crash is soley dependant upon ones perspective. For example, as an RE fan, is there a game crash? Hell no, in fact theres never been a better time to be a resident evil fan. Hell we just got a leak for the next doom game and it SOUNDS AWESOME! For me, i enjoy playing the same titles so even like re2 remake still keeps me going. So am I in a gamr crash? No, not at all. But are those who want a new title every year? Yeah, and they always will be.

[@EhEhEhEINSTEIN]

Sad Battlefield and Halo noises.. BF5 and Infinite are generally fine now but I have basically no faith going forward.

[@jake51515]

@@EhEhEhEINSTEIN I get the sadness and lack of faith, but certain companies are doing well. Like the new doom game about be announced, that game guarantee will be awesome, but if one keeps putting faith in companies and games that have proven to have a shitty track record, then what can you really expect?

[@RonanTheRonin]

I think the main difference is that now when a game is bad they get made that you dare to claim it's bad.

[@vinnythewebsurfer]

The business side is one thing, for the actual games themselves; it’s less of a crash and more like the quality for games has just hit a brick wall. It’s all just stagnating because there isn’t much room for innovation anymore whether in the graphics or storytelling. We’ve exhausted the TLOU model and unlike previous generations in the last 30 years, nothing obvious seems to be coming in to replace it. It’s more about holding patterns with remakes and reboots or supporting games long term with live services. If Gen 4, 5 and 6 was the line skyrocketing and Gen 7 and 8 as the line curving down, Gen 9 is just flatline.

[@cooldudeninja0219]

I would say from a graphic point of view then yeah we've hit a brick wall but storytelling and gameplay is an entirely different story. Honestly there so many many ways to innovated on gameplay or stories that could be done but we've only hit a brick wall because either the money isn't there, there people who shouldn't be in this industry or the companies are not willing to take on higher risk. If you wanting examples there a ton from the indie scene when it comes to gameplay or storytelling but not a lot coming out of triple A because they usually want to play it safe.

[@archangelkatano]

I think the reason flops stand out so much now is because we don't have as many games to drown them out. We've probably had roughly the same number of flop games over the recent console gens but the ratio of flop:total games is a lot worse. Plus with games getting more expensive it's not just "game X flopped" it's become "150 million dollar game X flopped" it becomes so much bigger and the budgets require so much more since straight up sales won't cover the costs in some cases so it's not just needing more copies sold, it's needing more copies and more MTX or whatever sold to cover these catastrophic losses. Like others have said too. A lot of modern games aren't made by gamers for gamers. They're made for investors. They're made to get people in the door so the studio execs can go "See? We got X number of people. If you give us more money we'll make another game and get even more people." They promise infinite growth when it's simply not there.

[@scottgodfrey3506]

EA also said, and I quote "When you are six hours into playing Battlefield and you run out of ammo in your clip and we ask you for a dollar to reload, you're really not that price sensitive at that point in time, and so essentially what ends up happening, and the reason the play-first, pay-later model works so nicely, is a consumer gets engaged in a property. They may spend ten, twenty, thirty, fifty hours in a game. And then, when they're deep into the game, they're well invested in it, we're not gauging but we're charging." So ads in an EA game, I can definitely see that.

[@TNTspaz]

I think honestly the biggest issue is how complicit a lot of people are with it. To the point they'll even defend things out of a sense of moral superiority. Not realizing they are basically arguing against their own best interest. A lot of these companies use the complicity as an excuse

[@Hauerization]

I belive its the discrepency of what a game cost to make today that makes people suddenly go "Wait just one god damn minute - you spent WHAT on this crap?". A polished turd at least didnt cost so much back in the days.

[@TNTITAN]

It’s hard to know how much of those costs are real vs accounting tricks.

[@tHeWasTeDYouTh]

the most horrible Marvel quip writing in video games has to be Forspoken and Immortals of Aveum. The new Sony hero shooter Concord also looks to have it and it just burned the game for so many people.

[@Otinashi]

We've always had bad AAA games, the difference is, there's a bigger platform of people talking about and analyzing them than ever before. A flop in the early 2000s was just immediately forgotten. A flop these days is talked about and joked about and criticized for a long time after release. There's also the fact that we're just getting more games in general. You could argue motivations have changed in the industry, and games may be flopping in different ways, but it's definitely not a new thing and the industry isn't on a downward trend, it's the complete opposite

[@BOOGiNS]

This is what happens developers try to copy each others success model rather than forge their own creative path.

[@joelledbetter2926]

The problem is people recognize real quick when you don't put in rhe effort to be creative ...ppl usually notice effort and when a game is truly loved by its creators

[@Zynet_Eseled]

Or rather, it's obvious to see when a game is being made out of obligation, as opposed to being made out of passion. See: Goodbye Volcano High vs the parody of said game known as Snoot Game. One, isn't very well made tells a rather bland story that doesn't even have anything to say, and was made because the Canadian government was trying to make jobs in the gaming industry for Canadians. The other was a parody that, took the bones of the game, recontextualized it into a visual novel with designs that were actually better than the 3D models in GVH, had a pretty serious depiction on topics that play into the same culture, but it used them in a way that isn't often explored. Here's an example: The main character in snoot game, is a riff on the common /v/ or /b/ shitposter from 4chan. A guy by the name of Anon Mous. A play on anonymous, or Anon, as is typically referred to on 4chan. He's a fffffffUCKING ASSHOLE, when starting the game. But, in a sense, not entirely without reason. He was quite severely bullied at his old high school over...interests and shit, that took place and led to severe ridicule, and his situation with his father isn't shown to be much better either. A strained relationship. Before the pivotal concert scene, he well and truly is a fucking jackass who wanted to be invisible to the world, ignore everyone, and just coast through the remainder of his tuition. Given the relentless bullying that happened to him, I can honestly empathize with him. I've gone through that myself. It isn't until he is confronted by the school principal at the concert after the students laugh at the band consisting of Fang, Trish and Reed (the same three characters from snoot game who play in a band), that things start to actually change in how he views others. The words are as follows. "You are not the only person in the world. Everyone is fighting their own battles". This, really is an important moment, that's actually affected people who have gone through the story. I, won't tell everything that happens, but, let's just say that if you somehow end up getting ending 1 on your first run through, then prepare to have some of the bleakest yet, most well written realistic horror that has come out in years. As for how it is handling the tough issues...its in regards to the second primary character, Fang. Going through a severe identity crisis and in a situation dealing with repressed trauma that has been left unconfronted for years. The writers treat the topic with immense respect, and actually talk about the matter from, the perspective of when you fall into things and try to shield yourself from the world by trying to be different. As for what the core theme is...its about perspective, empathy, letting go of preconceptions, and learning to actually listen.

[@hugocastanheira5680]

Sales performance doesn't necessarily correlate directly with progressive politics in games, however, people are catching up and quite frankly getting tired of progressive politics stuffed in every art form. Art can't be all about checking boxes, and pushing agendas.

[@YourBlackLocal]

Except most games people say are progressive, have literally nothing but someone of a different gender or ethnicity… There are very few games that make any political statement at all.

[@vault29a]

and bet you are the one of those who scream "white man genocide" at every opportunity. and what you are so afraid of, becoming a MINORITY?

[@PervySage723]

​@@YourBlackLocalnot true at all man

[@YourBlackLocal]

@@PervySage723name 3 AAA games that have in the past five years…

[@spirostsiggenopoulos6385]

@@PervySage723 actually false, remember when AW2 released the hog mob run screaming "DEI" and "oH LoOk a BlaCk" person just because Saga Anderson was black? The game even went and explained the reason as to why that is(spoilers), and yet people were so cranky about a stand in actress from a 2016 game in which AW2 was teased being absent, not like there can be changes to the story during development, right?(Yes pun intended).