The games industry is undergoing a 'generational change,' says Epic CEO Tim Sweeney: 'A lot of games are released with high budgets, and they're not selling'

[u/CiabattaKatsuie]

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/the-games-industry-is-undergoing-a-generational-change-says-epic-ceo-tim-sweeney-a-lot-of-games-are-released-with-high-budgets-and-theyre-not-selling/

Tim Sweeney apparently thinks big budget games fail because... They aren't social enough? I personally feel that this is BS, but what do you guys think? Is there a trend to support his comments?

[u/Neemoman]

Add to that, the culture changed. Back then, you wanted to play what everyone else was playing. Who was everyone else? People you knew personally. So if your circle played Street Fighter, guess what you played? Then a totally different circle wants to play what everyone else is playing, but their "everyone else" is playing Tekken.

Today, playing what everyone else is playing means the one single game the steamers and YouTube people are playing. Why? Because everyone else is playing what they're playing. And everyone else is almost literally everyone.

The diversity within genres from back then have stayed (the handful of fighting games instead of one or two), but new games and IPs are "this is the one" and all others are rendered irrelevant.

[u/Nicole_Zed → u/Neemoman]

I like this comment. But I will add that mortal kombat, street fighter, tekken were all a little different in terms of gameplay. 

Systems mattered more too. Today, the ps5 has little to incentive to me in terms of exclusives so I never bought one.

If I would meet some people who wanted to jam mk3 on the snes, I would bust it out in a heartbeat. 

I just don't think there's that much difference in games other than the flavor they come in. 

I was very disappointed in battlefield 2042 going in the COD direction for instance.

I feel like what aaa gaming companies focus on, beyond sales, is everything else besides how it feels to play the game. 

[u/Neemoman → u/Nicole_Zed]

The differences in gameplay are what I'm talking about when I say that now "there's only one, " when before you could have these "technically different" games coexist.

Just as an example, in terms of true hero shooters, not apex, not fornite. All other actual hero shooters try to be "a little different" in their gameplay to separate themselves from Overwatch and they still fail. Everyone is playing Overwatch and everyone wants to play what everyone is playing. It will take everyone playing whatever new game gets blessed by a no life streamer to get people to actually play something else.

You can even look at MOBAs. People like to point fingers at Blizzard for Heroes of the Storm failing, but honestly "everyone was playing league or dota." They got a decent player count, but that's all it ever could be. Shit even Smite barely squeaked in by being an over the shoulder MOBA and it's still not close to the two top dogs.