This is /v/, which means this post is behind over 9000 layers of sarcasm.

I'm going to school right now for game design. I'm an international student hoping to work here after too. I've put all my eggs in this basket, I barely even have enough estimated money for a plane ticket home if I don't get work right out of school

Let AAA burn. I want to see it collapse, I want to see all the big game companies shutter. Now is such a great time to see indie studios going wild making pieces of art and I want people working there instead

AAA profits are higher than ever. Layoffs are tremendously inefficient. They do nothing to reduce costs long term, and can actually lead to increased costs. There is a good amount of economic research which demonstrates that.

Layoffs are corporatist virtue signalling.

It's the enshitification of triple AAA titles fucking slapping surcharges on EVERYTHING; day one dlc, microtransactions, always online DRM, the ability to revoke access to the shit we pay for, it's death by 1000 cuts. EVERY anti-consumer action, every attempt to squeeze more of us while delivering the same rehashed shit over and over. Yup I will keep playing my old consoles and the games I own. The intent of us withholding our money and refusing to purchase your shit is to provide publishers with a sense of pride and accomplishment for retaining their customer base.

They should sell products users want at prices they're willing to pay. Without abuse, deception, or other malicious acts.

It's easy problem to fix they just have {YOU MUST OWN THE PREMIUM BATTLE PACK FOR $9.99/MONTH* TO VIEW THIS CONTENT}

Start making better games.

let AAA and AAAA fail. indie devs would have a much larger platform. current gen equipment is too expensive as it is and will get worse.

2024 survey from Consumer Reports here. Representative sample of 2022 people.

"Still playing gaming systems released before 2000" in this case means "has used at least one gaming system released before 2000 at least once in the past year."

What you probably imagined is probably very different from what the survey actually reported.

People still read classic books, watch classic movies, go to see classical art and listen to classical music. Why would video games as an entertainment art form be any different?

If I were to come up with my top 10 favorite games list, I believe more then half would be indie.

GOOD. The AAA gaming industry deserves to be destroyed, the main thing is they're happy to be considered art but don't treat it that way at all.

This could literally cause the collapse of the entire western AAA gaming industry.

Wouldn't be the first time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983

TL;DR: A much smaller gaming industry was enshitified at an alarming pace, barely after it got started. There were too many competing options, many of which were sub-par experiences, and there was no way to tell until after purchase.

Perhaps that's not directly comparable, but to my eye, the biggest similarity is not enough value for the liquidity (disposable capital) people are willing to put forward on a product. At some point, people will just spend less or spend on something else entirely.

Meanwhile, you have older gamers like myself that are more than happy to take a trip down memory lane, since a few decades can make those old games fun again. I'm in this 14%. That said, I tend to buy new indie titles, mostly due to the lower pricepoint, lower expectations, reliably better art, lower system specs, smaller time commitment, and so on. Games like Assasin's Creed Odyssey showed me that big studios aren't necessarily pushing more and interesting narrative into monster-sized titles, opting for cut/paste easter-egg hunts and aftermarket content purchases instead. Less really can be more.

Micro transactions weren't addictive enough. Games should sell bump of heroin

The gaming industry turned its back on gamers a long time ago by making it difficult to truly own a game. It's no wonder people want to go back and play old games that don't rely on a server somewhere that could be shutdown at any point.

sorry anon but i'm with guybrush

I started being done with modern games around the ps4 era. Things have not gotten better since then. I just bought a ps3 and it feels great to just put in a disk and boot up a game.

I admit there are some games that ask you to update them but it has not been madatory for me yet. I just got the system and am still exploring it. But, a ps3 super slim with 23 good games for about $100 is better than any AAA experience you will get for the same money.

I am not even going to pirate games since they are so cheap. The only exception will be in cases where there is not an option to get a disk.

Maybe don't make everything a micro transaction grindfest and actually make a good game. Outside of Nintendo which I play with my kids, I hardly fuck with new games. I've skipped the last gen of consoles because I can't fucking stand modern gaming, and I honestly don't think I've missed anything important. I know I'm painting with a broad brush, but for the most part I don't think I've missed anything extraordinary. I'm sure I'll get GTA 6 as long as my 2020 mid ass gaming laptop can support it, but I've grown very jaded about the gaming industry. It feels like games are designed by the C-suite and not gamers these days.

I mean ive thought of this. I mostly do play pre 2002 games. And I'm always thinking wow, they put so much work into this, no vibe coded bullshit, no endless updates, working with difficult hardware , mad respect for those devs. And I feel a little bad I can enjoy their creations 20 years later and they're not getting anything for it.

However we know what's coming. Corporations aren't dumb, they see this, and in a couple years there will be a huge crackdown on retro gaming (they already shut down a huge archive). So enjoy while you can, they're coming for you.

You know, maybe if you could buy physical disks and cards of games that dont require internet access (unless it has specific online features like trade, battles, co-op, etc) And the games were actually good and not corporate slop then maybe we'd want them

It's only retro if it's a modern thing made to look old, otherwise it's vintage.

Greed can be like that. Stop being greedy and your fans may come back