A lot of the "old games were better" is because we mainly remember the best of the best. There has always been shovelware.

On the other hand, I do agree that AAA gaming is fairly stale. I believe it's mainly because the games are huge investments that have to be a "safe" bet, which is one way to make art (of any type) boring.

But there are indie studios making amazing games these days, because the incentive there is to differentiate their product from the others. Once an idea gets popular enough, AAA studios will pick it up and grind it into the dirt.

I would disagree with the idea that games are worse now. I think the best stuff is getting made today, it's just harder to find it in a deluge of shovelware. Look in the indie and AA space for interesting games.

They're not, you're just looking at ones that are shit. Even Android and iOS have good games, but the app stores on those systems don't promote good games at all. You need an external tool or site like minireview.io to even find something that isn't gatcha-laden excrement.

Sturgeon's Law: 90% of anything is crap. You're comparing the best of yesteryear against the entirety of the current crop.

You need to stop doing this thing called generalizing, which is what you're doing. You're assuming that there are NO good games released in what, 5 years? 10 years? When there already has been. The problem is you, you looking in the wrong areas and it also sounds like you're relying on AAA gaming development to deliver something for you which you need to stop expecting them to. They're on autopilot, in which, they don't care what you think.

Also, some people are recommending good games and there you are shooting them down because you're being prissy. Maybe the other problem is you just being too picky.

Ah, I see you have never picked up a "1000 best games for Windows" CD.

There are a lot of low quality games to complain about. There are also a lot of high quality, new games to experience. 10 years from now, the low quality games will be forgotten, while the high quality games will be looked back on, fondly. Posts will be made comparing the "high effort, high quality games from 10 years ago" to the modern slop, and the cycle will repeat..

Because of investors needing a quick "win" with a game studio acquisition, and because gamers buy the slop that someone managed to shit out while trying to appease those investors.

The investors cash out and are emboldened to go burn some other game studio into the ground again. If the studio hasn't imploded badly enough yet, the investors demand another game with whatever IP "worked" last time, but at a lesser budget with more aggressive deadlines, so the next result that is shit out is worse, but players still buy it.

The cycle continues endlessly, it's the same pattern in every industry because it's all the same tiny group of investors with "diversified portfolios" ruining everything in the name of profit.

You clearly don't look at the indie scene enough, if your opinion about the state of gaming is that low. There's absolutely genius games releasing all the time, and more of them than ever before, as it's gotten so much easier to make and release games by yourself.

Obligatory "wrong games".

EA is never gonna be interested in quality. Play Decimate Drive, or Lost Orbit: Terminal Velocity, or Duskers (just picking random games I've played recently).

We used to have 300000-in-1 shovelware too, but I get the sentiment. Many corporate studios have consolidated and enshittified in lockstep with big tech. It plagues mature series much like films that are re-released to death. I'd suggest looking at fresh releases from smaller or independent developers. That said, I don't have recommendations from personal experience since I end up spending more time modding games from 15 years ago than playing.

Why are old games better than new ones

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzx_ak-EKl1zAjC0018-PiZVg9nFqLIos

Balatro is well done

Too commercialized

Capatilism and profit over human beings and facism are Pretty much all of it. Got to keep the profits high as possible and slave labor for more profits.

They cash grab so hard now and days. They do it in movies too. They don't care about the quality. The leader of the creation teams are the new era graduates who suck. Like they aren't that talented and AI their way through exams and test. I also think that the customer has been extremely dumb with lower standards so the creators unfortunately don't put in as much effort

Sure a lot of AAA games are doing pretty poorly. And I think it's due to corporate greed and trying to push out a game as quickly as possible, there are definitely some good new AAA games and the indie market is better than ever before.

None of them were ever good.

2023 has been an amazing year for gaming. One surefire game of the year after the other. And 2025 isn't too shabby either.