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Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

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Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#281

Post by mstade »

meheleventyone wrote: post #243
mstade wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did some research into this when I worked for Improbable a few years ago, and back then it was remarkably difficult to try out games without going through a full purchase and refund cycle, which in many cases was hit-and-miss and could actually get your account suspended in some stores which has tremendous impact since this is also tied to your online gaming persona. Since then I know some stores have loosened thei…

This comes from the industry abandoning making demos available because they would hurt sales figures. There's been a recent resurgence in making demos over the last six months though.

I'd like to see research to support the sales hypothesis. I've heard it before as well but never seen any actual data to support the argument. It's also a really tricky thing to research, given triple-a developers typically don't like sharing much.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#282

Post by hnick »

the_duke wrote: post #118
compscistd wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just finished playing through Horizon Zero Dawn which had been untouched, collecting dust on the shelf for a couple years. Found more time in the pandemic and I'm wondering what else I've missed out on! The only other titles I've played with great acclaim are God of War and Zelda: Breath of the Wild. From a brief wiki search, it seems outside of Nintendo, studios only tend to have one-hit wonders. I never played th…

Since you liked Horizon Zero Dawn: - Witcher 3 brought me back to gaming after a 10+ year hiatus. While not perfect, it's the best/most immersive game I have ever played. Thanks to truly incredible writing, an interesting, engaging world where small side quests are some of the best content, good graphics that still hold up very well (especially with mods on PC, but just fine on console). All built on a foundation of…

Nier Automata is just something else. Not every part of the game is that well executed, but the music alone is worth the price of entry and the emotional payoff in the story makes me forgive the many clunky elements.

I'm so glad I gave it a chance, because battle androids in maid costumes was not something that got my attention for the right reasons. Skill Up's review on YouTube is what tipped me over the edge - he expressed he had many of the same concerns going in.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#283

Post by hnick »

omega3 wrote: post #216
rcpt wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tbf the TV show was pretty convoluted with time jumping all over the place

That's because it's based on the books which are a collections of shorter stories (at least the first one iirc).

They could've very easily had text on the screen saying what time period the current scene was in. It seems like they left it out deliberately for artistic reasons and many people have been confused as a result.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#284

Post by hnick »

onemiketwelve wrote: post #121
ArtWomb wrote: post #80

Ghosts of Tsushima may be the best Playstation game I have played EVER. It's a testament to how late in the console release cycle, developers are just now mastering internals. It's the ideal video game: open world, 13-century feudal Japan, Age of the Samurai. High contrast "Kurosawa" mode, 4K HDR is cinematically photoreal. I really hope it remains a Major IP for many years to come ;) https://blog.selfshadow.com/publ…

I can't believe I've never heard of this before. Am I really going to have to buy a PlayStation just to play this? Hmm

Well, Twitch is popular for a reason. Plenty of people consume their games vicariously these days. So there's an option.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#285

Post by hazbot »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #277

Everyone I know plays something: DoTA, candy crush, Codenames, Jackbox, online cards, Skyrim, Zelda, Witcher, DnD on Foundry, even my old relatives play various games on mobile and iPad. Whereas, the younger, especially male, people I know almost all have a gaming system of one kind or another. I am very into Starcraft myself. It is a wonderful combination of speed, strategy, economics, deception, and accuracy.

I discovered starcraft2 when it became free to play. I find addictive in a similar way to my LoL days, without the toxic teammates.

It's super fun and engrossing, but I have to admit I occasionally get flashes of worry about is this how I want to spend my time? To be fair, I get the same thoughts about my job.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#286

Post by watwut »

belorn wrote: post #270
watwut wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least those games don't take over your complete life the way big online games. And don't lead to those playing often overnight, am addicted, am sleep deprived raging gamer situations.

Have you seen the hours some people put into farmville and farmville-like games? Overnight play? Checked. Addicted? Checked. Sleep deprived? Checked. Physical pain from holding the phone and looking at a small screen? Checked. Raging behavior? Mood is definitively effected, especially when the social aspect has a negative turn.

I know farmville, candy crush and the like playing people. I also know AAA online pubg, world of warcraft etc games playing people. The worst behavior I have seen definitely did not came from farmville candy crush crowd.

Also, overall, steam sales seems to cost way more money I have ever seen being spent on games. And not just that, spending a lot of money on steam sales is point of pride for gamers - who ten turn around and act all superior over causual player ... spending less money (or no money) overall.

> Raging behavior? Mood is definitively effected, especially when the social aspect has a negative turn.

Rage and affected mood are two different things. But again, the level of anger or irritability in relation with farmville are super mild compared to what I have seen in pc/console gamers.

------------------------------

The most irritable to me is the level of hypocrisy pc/console gamers display when they complain about causual games.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#287

Post by RandoHolmes »

Funes- wrote: post #262
ArtWomb wrote: post #80

Ghosts of Tsushima may be the best Playstation game I have played EVER. It's a testament to how late in the console release cycle, developers are just now mastering internals. It's the ideal video game: open world, 13-century feudal Japan, Age of the Samurai. High contrast "Kurosawa" mode, 4K HDR is cinematically photoreal. I really hope it remains a Major IP for many years to come ;) https://blog.selfshadow.com/publ…

As every other mainstream game for the last ten to fifteen years, give or take, it's just a forced course of action narratively illustrated by an interrupted sequence of dull cinematic scenes; the player just follows along with very limited space--if any --for exploration, decision-making, flexibility or creativity. The open world experience is ridiculously limited, as well. Does it look good? Sure! (Although every g…

hard agree.

I liken AAA games to porn.They put a little bit of everything in there to try and appeal to as wide an audience as they can.

Back in the day, exploring the game itself and its systems used to be part of the appeal. Nowadays developers are scared to death that a player might make a decision that locks them out of content.

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#288

Post by throwaway3699 »

Shacklz wrote: post #197
throwaway3699 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With modern VR techniques (teleportation) and hardware (Vive/Rift hardware or later), this is no longer a problem.

Wouldn't generalize this; I think there are also factors like game performance (FPS) that are at play. I can play Beat Saber and HL:Alyx just fine on the Vive without any issues whatsoever, but whenever I want to give 'Blade & Sorcery' another try I feel absolutely terrible after a few minutes of gameplay. I do think it's poor performance (low FPS and 'location stutter' where the game seemingly can't decide where to…

Yeah - performance is an issue here (I've worked on VR tech before). What I'm suggesting isn't that developers are getting it perfect, but that we have technologies and techniques that make it work at scale (without people being sick).

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#289

Post by politelemon »

rowanG077 wrote: post #249
deathcalibur wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this to be the most disturbing part. I have done a substantial amount of game development myself on the side, it's how I got into programming originally ~15 years ago. I say that because I find it demotivating sometimes to work on games that I think are fun and non-addictive. My wife will show me some simple addictive game on the phone and ask why I can't just make a knock-off version of that... I could, but a…

I wholly wish micro transactions would be made illegal. To me micro transaction is equivalent to a movie pausing mid scene and ask "Do you want to continue watching this scene? You can if only you pay 99 cent.". It's a pure evil practice that taints games.

That reminds me of the infamous "Please drink a verification can to continue" greentext.

https://i.imgur.com/dgGvgKF.png

Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports

#290

Post by RandoHolmes »

IceDane wrote: post #278
Funes- wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As every other mainstream game for the last ten to fifteen years, give or take, it's just a forced course of action narratively illustrated by an interrupted sequence of dull cinematic scenes; the player just follows along with very limited space--if any --for exploration, decision-making, flexibility or creativity. The open world experience is ridiculously limited, as well. Does it look good? Sure! (Although every g…

Exactly. Popular video games today are purposefully engineered products made to maximize addiction and play time with decisions being made based almost entirely on how to maximizing profit for shareholders. It's sad. Incidentally I've been finding much more enjoyment in indie games the past few years, because these tend to be made by people who aren't doing so to become rich(though I suppose they wouldn't mind that h…

Same, but it's because Indie developers have to make trade-offs and those trade-offs result in more interesting games even if they're not as polished.

One of the reasons I was excited for VR is because I was hoping it would turn into the wild west again like it was back in the NES/SNES days where people where experimenting. You'd play a game where some stuff worked and some stuff didn't, but you appreciated the entertainment regardless.

Nowadays it's all so engineered and samey that I often find it more difficult to finish AAA games than indie games.

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