Is Gaming Dying? Or are we entering a new Age?

I always see this question proposed. Gaming isn't dying, it's just that the AAA industry has run stagnant. Too many execs trying to copy off each other without realizing why things that work actually work. The innovation in gaming is happening at the indie level and sometimes AA games but never AAA because they deem it too risky. We're just having a change in power. Current AAA companies will vacate the throne as newcomers battle for the spot with creativity.

I feel like the gaming industry had mirrored the film industry in the sense that everything has become very copy paste but every now and then you can find hidden gems

The industry right now sucks, but I'll admit part of it is "growing up." I got bored of gaming right after high school and I think it's because as an adult, it's a lot harder to get all your friends on at the same time. The more I think about it, gaming was a very social thing for me. I RARELY played without friends except when I was younger and the novelty of any game as a child was enough.

Lies of P, Baldurs Gate 3, and various Indie titles like Vampire Survivors and Astlibra have proven to me that even in this somewhat gaming dystopia, true passion and dedication to the art still exists in gaming

I feel like I’m at a point where I like watching videos about video games more than I like playing video games and that sucks

The PS2 era is still the greatest era of gaming to me, I'm so happy to be old enough to have thoroughly experienced gamings golden age.

This Video is the exact reason why i absolutly love Indie gaming, every game from a small dev studio is just so much different from any AAA Game that the Big Publisher not even thinking about making for a minute.

The moment I realised I truly was growing up (and not necessarily in a good way) was when I felt "gamed out" after an hour or so of playing a game.

one major annoying thing about games these days is not getting the full game that you paid for.. with all the DLC or “road maps and seasons”, all the bugs and all micro- transactions.. back in the day companies had to release everything onto a disc / cartridge 😂

I’ve learned that having a productive day before gaming has caused me to appreciate gaming more. It is more fulfilling after you’ve spent your day well.

It hits every gaming generation at some point. It’s the business that kills the art. But every now and then someone breaks the routine and we start it all over again. Been gaming since games were black and white.

I think getting older is a big aspect in why the experience changed. Its hareder to get immersed as you age, you have more "adult" things lingering on your mind. Financial, work, family, health..all things you dont worry about at young age.

I also notice my younger sisters and brother taking an interest in older games more than they do the new ones. I think the gaming industry has changed the most. We just want what we had when we were kids; Not microtransactions, not deals, not pay to win. Just gaming in its purest form, which is why I believe Elden Ring did so well. It didnt need a compelling story or the best built world, but instead just needed to be a pure game and not a moneymaking scheme disguised as an 'interactive online experience'.

I also have a perspective that could help: when you're younger there's not really much that you can do to improve your life so you can just sit for hours at a time playing because really it doesn't matter to you. As I got older, I realized that while technically I could just play games all day, I'd feel really guilty because I know I should be studying. It's not that I don't game anymore, but it's hardly a priority with all the stuff I have to do to get to my goals.

You know what? I think newer games tend to require more work and effort just to get into them, and not always the fun kind of work. Something I’ve been thinking about more and more is that when I was younger (or anyone that was playing games from the early 2010’s or before that) is that games used to leave A LOT more to our imaginations. As technology gets better and better, it’s almost by design that developers are filling in all the blanks so that we don’t have to use our imaginations at all. When I first played Skyrim, I didn’t mind that towns felt tiny. Hell, Whiterun felt huge. Going back to it now after playing newer games, it feels quaint. But at the time it was glorious, not because it was a fully realized and realistic city, I didn’t expect it to be that. But it had just enough to give my imagination fuel to get excited about all the mysteries that could be waiting for me around any corner. Now with a gigantic, realistic city, it can be blandly overwhelming. I can wander around aimlessly for a long time without engaging at all with anything of substance or purpose. I can even get lost and potentially waste an hour of play time. Bigger, more detailed worlds that don’t inspire your imagination are MORE WORK to play, and honestly feel more empty, no matter how much more detailed they are. A game like Elden Ring or Breath of the Wild are good examples of ways around that. They have just enough ambiguity and variety to keep your imagination engaged.

With the quality reduce of released games and decreasing trust of game devs through series of disappointments, anticipation becomes less and less attractive for everyone

Maybe you only just started observing it around 2013, but the years you outlined were actually the beginning of a slow trend towards today. Games before this time were a lot more experimental, even without technical advancements games were finding ways to innovate. By around 2013, gaming became big enough that companies knew what would be successful and so started to only make that. To be fair you outlined how nostalgia influenced your opinion in the video and I respect that.

The social aspect is huge. Even games with no thought put into the social elements benefit from kids going to school everyday, that was a place to talk about games. Now as we age having that social circle is much harder, and many AAA games leave out things that could help this aspect like couch co-op. Games that bring us together again succeed, Pokemon Go, Overcooked, Diablo, etc.

I’m 34 and have been playing video games since the Super Nintendo. Times have changed for the worse. I don’t wanna work 50 hours a week just to come home to “grind” or pay my way to win a game. It’s don’t wanna spend half of my experience searching for loot boxes/chests.