> What the gaming experience has become
Today the gaming experience could be summed-up as follow.
• You go on steam.
• You buy and download a 4GB game.
• You play at it.
I don't know on which planet the author lives but my experience is a bit different:
• you go to the store and buy the game. Allmost all games have the same price.
• Come home, insert DVD, install it.
• after instalation the game wants an online account for which it needs to install a windows service.
• account created, try to start the game, it needs an update (couple of GB, it needs one hour)
• after update you can finaly start the game (entusiasm is gone) and you play for some time. Graphics is a bit better than 20 years but nothing "wow".
• you don't touch the game for a couple of days
• you want to play again, try to start the game, it needs another multi GB update, another hour lost.
• you decide next time to avoid this company (EA) when buying games.
Probably just using a console instead of a PC for gaming; AFAIK, Steam doesn't exist on consoles (other than the Steam Deck), and you still have to buy physical media (which for some reason seems to act more like a license dongle, since as the parent comment mentions, you still have to download the whole game).
Don’t most of the consoles have their own store though? Like I thought you didn’t have to purse the disk, you could go to the Xbox/PS/etc. store and just download the digital copy there.
You are 100% correct. It made me essentially switch from all physical on consoles to "all digital, but physical for games I ended up liking a lot and would want to preserve/have it on my shelf". Mostly out of sheer convenience of not having to swap disks or look for them or having to dedicate space for them in my apt.
> Graphics is a bit better than 20 years but nothing "wow"
Maybe 10 years — in which case the answer is: graphics nowadays is mostly bound to the current console generation. GTA 5 was released almost 10 years ago for PS 4. Uncharted 4 was released 8 years ago. The Last of Us 2 was released 2 years ago.
Now we're entering the next generation — ray tracing, nicer global illumination, AI upscaling, and much more. The Unreal Engine 5 enables indie developers to produce an image almost as good as AAA titles of the previous generation.
I’m still trying to figure out how the CK3 console port is going to work. A lot of people compared that the games looks simple/boring because of the fact that they wanted it to run on consoles, but I have no clue how you’re going to navigate that UI without a mouse, I would probably have an Aneurysm.
Yah, I guess i'm the only one that hard power cycles an xbox? Because its a miserable experience turning it back on when its not been on for a month or so.
It seems ever single one of the 20-30 games it has installed need 20+GB updates, and the download speeds are often a fraction of my home internet connection. Has no one heard of incremental/differential package upgrade? MS should charge companies a bandwidth recovery fee by the size of their updates.
Plus, I hate typing passwords on the controller, and it seems to always want people to sign in/etc.
The Nintendo emulator thing I have blows it away in usability. Turn it on, pick a game, play. Takes less than 20 seconds. The xbox takes that long just to show its logo sometimes. I want to play games not play system admin for a game machine, of schedule my game playing 4 hours in advance.
Yeah, it's like saying "we'll fetch your beer... in 15 minutes" to patron at the pub. Entertainment and leisure is about instant gratification and companies don't seem to get that. The people who absolutely get that though are gambling equipment manufacturers - the UX is extremely smooth and polished, so that people don't fall off the hook.
The article laments the death of manuals, but that's because every game has an in-game tutorial-ish start that slowly teaches the mechanics. And given that every AAA game now has completely overloaded controls, you almost have to. I think you can add this to your list.
It's also because the manual needs to be finished so it can go to the printers, but the game is going to get a day one patch that often makes major changes.
A lot of 80s and 90s games in boxes would have the main manual, and then a small pamphlet (printed later) describing last minute changes, because the manuals had to be finalized before the disks, and you wouldn't reprint the manuals unless hell froze over, anyway.
Then there's the expense of localizing that. And the budget, and that nobody will read the manual anyway.
I miss the days of manuals thick with lore and tidbits and things not directly related to gameplay. You're right, the tutorial can cover bits related to actually playing the game, the controls, etc. Manuals are likely to be overrun by development between the time they're finalized and sent for printing anyway (e.g. I distinctly recall the WoW manual saying that Priests could wear leather armor) but please feed me a bunch of backstory.
I can't count the number of times I read through the manuals for Starsiege, Arcanum, various Jane's simulators, and so on.
Unfortunately that means if you need a quick refresher (say you put it down for a few months and pick it back up) you're stuck, since you'll need to replay a large chunk to get at the tutorials.
As a PS4 gamer, I don't understand why I can't predownload and install a game's assets. Let me download and install what I need to ahead of time so when I do get the disc and pop it in, it just launches.
I don't know on which planet the author lives but my experience is a bit different: • you go to the store and buy the game. Allmost all games have the same price. • Come home, insert DVD, install it. • after instalation the game wants an online account for which it needs to install a windows service. • account created, try to start the game, it needs an update (couple of GB, it needs one hour) • after update you can finaly start the game (entusiasm is gone) and you play for some time. Graphics is a bit better than 20 years but nothing "wow". • you don't touch the game for a couple of days • you want to play again, try to start the game, it needs another multi GB update, another hour lost. • you decide next time to avoid this company (EA) when buying games.