Re: It's Been A Busy Year For Video Games

On Tue, 31 Dec 2024 11:04:33 -0700, "rms"
<rsquiresMOO@MOOflashMOO.net> wrote:

Unfortunately, there's little answer to the real question: WHAT ARE
THESE NEW GAMES, and who is making them?

>
  The answers are pretty clear of course; it's never been easier to make
games, engines are 'free', sound/visual assets cheaply available, tools
well-understood:  Barriers to entry lower than they've ever been, not to
mention platforms to both play and develop ubiquitous, and free time for
both at a greater level than any time in human history.

That's very much the how, but does nothing for the who and why.

I suspect the majority are scam-games; hacked-together asset-flips
that convince just enough people into thinking that they're getting
something of value to make a profit. Or games that eat up spare CPU
cycles to chug on crypto-shit. Or are involved in online gambling. Or
are just outright malware that steal your credentials. None of them
have to be good, and once you've a pipeline you can probably knock out
dozens of the games a month for a pittance. All you need is a handful
of people to fall victim for your scam and you're probably making a
profit.

But there are probably a good number of legitimate games too. "My
first game" attempts by neophyte Indie devs, or "Hey bud, I made this
game for you" titles mostly made for a small in-group of friends

[Coming soon: CSIPGA: The Game!]

And then there are titles made for larger groups that generally don't
get much attention: the latest FPS designed for East Malysian Atheists
Who Also Like Parrots. Or even shit-post troll games made for the
lolz. All legitimate games, just made for relatively small and
targeted audiences.

Then there are the games that fall in-between: legitimate games that
are intended to sell but are slightly sleazy. Porn-games or games that
blatantly rip-off somebody else's game.

A lot of the former two groups are the equivalent of the flood of
flash games that once filled the web; short, crappy and only really
worth playing if you're into the community its targeted towards.

The article stated there are less than 4000 games that actually
reached any sort of traction: that is, gained enough audience outside
their niche. And I wouldn't be surprised that even amongst those
games, the bulk of them are still crappy 'joke titles' that were never
really expected to sell. I suspect the number of actual 'legitimate'
games, where real effort was put into them, probably is less than a
quarter of that.

Unfortunately, at this point, speculation is all we have. But I think
it does Valve -and gamers in general- no favor to have 19000 new games
dumped on them each year. It clutters the store-front and makes it
impossible to find stuff actually worth playing. Some moderation or
curation by Valve would be welcome, I think.