The death spiral of gaming

Let's say you have thirty minutes of free time out of a busy day, and want to do a little gaming. Which platform could you count on, for that fix.

If you said PC gaming, my pc is currently updating Windows.

If you said console gaming, my console is asking me to login to my account, and the console dash is currently down.

If you said a PS2 you get a cookie.

Modern games are about as reliable as train schedules. Only people with nothing but time to waste, can count on them.

I would never fire up a video game if I only had thirty minutes of free time.

Originally posted by NewGuy01
I would never fire up a video game if I only had thirty minutes of free time.

My point exactly. 👆

Even if you had a day, or a weekend, nothings more annoying then some barrier getting in the way. Whether it's their servers, your isp, an update, whatever.

Remember the Lizard Squad script kiddies ruining a lot of kids Christmas break?

The way updating windows goes these days, it usually takes like 5 minutes.

The second scenario isn't a real world scenario, I don't even know what "console dash is down" means. If you mean the online service is down, then that means you wouldn't have to log into your account. I've never had this second scenario happen to me.

I'd argue that it's actually easier than ever to play games for short periods of time, particularly on consoles, with how consoles can now suspend games in rest mode and what not, it makes it easier to just fire up a console, and start your game exactly where you left it without even having to load up a save or anything.

Personally speaking I play games in 30 minute chunks all the time, never have any issue doing it.

Originally posted by BackFire
The way updating windows goes these days, it usually takes like 5 minutes.

The second scenario isn't a real world scenario, I don't even know what "console dash is down" means. If you mean the online service is down, then that means you wouldn't have to log into your account. I've never had this second scenario happen to me.

I'd argue that it's actually easier than ever to play games for short periods of time, particularly on consoles, with how consoles can now suspend games in rest mode and what not, it makes it easier to just fire up a console, and start your game exactly where you left it without even having to load up a save or anything.

Personally speaking I play games in 30 minute chunks all the time, never have any issue doing it.

I wanted to play Pacman Museum on my Xbox. Only, Xbox Live wasn't accessible.

I had the game in my library, but couldn't prove it by logging in (This is on the tail end of a password change.)

Ended up firing up M.A.M.E. for that quick arcade fix.

Oh okay, well that does suck, yeah, but it sounds like kind of a fluke thing since you had just done a PW change. Normally, at least on PS4, if the online service is down you can still log into your console and play without issue (though if you do a PW change right before then probably not).

Yes, I agree with Backfire.

Gaming is significantly easier than it was.

Fire up Super Mario Odyssey to play while the kids watch a movie. Hit the button on the controller, my TV turns on automatically game is already started and I'm literally playing 15 seconds later at the exact spot I was in.

Or with Xbox....hit button on controller, turn on the TV myself, auto-logins into my account, click on game icon...and I'm at the spot I was before without 1-3 minutes of logo screens.

And I never experience having to update Windows unless I haven't used it in awhile...and it's takes 5 minutes to do.

There are of course downsides to the current generation, like having to install/download enormous file sizes before being able to play, even if you purchased the game on a disc. But yeah, overall it's pretty convenient. Also having saves in the cloud is nice.

Yes, I agree. Patches suck...they always suck. And downloading a patch before playing the game for the first time is not a good experience.

But this generation is better for overall downloads. You can download a patch/update or even a game while you are not using the console. I rarely have to wait 5 minutes to apply a patch.

Plus if you buy a game early you can download it early and play it at release time, which is nice.

Yep. A nice bonus.

I just think this idea that earlier generations of consoles and games were never broken, buggy or needed patches is a false idea.

Evidence! Most of the features people complain about are because they fixed annoyances people had of earlier consoles and games.

There probably was a bit more effort put into releasing a game with as few bugs as possible back then because if something slipped through it would be there for eternity, but yeah there were definitely many bugs in the pre-internet consoles, and ironically a lot of people liked them and figured out ways to abuse them.

Haha.

But games are more complex and have so many systems underneath them that bugs are bound to happen.

In Skyrim, yes...you can fall through the map..."**** modern games and there bugs"

In older games,yes, you can fall through the map...."oh thats funny"

But didn't remember when you lost 2 hours of progress because a glitch happened.....

And...remembering all the amazing, old school classics which were generally clean...but not remember that massive amount of shit games that came out that were filled with glitches that would never be patched.

Originally posted by Smasandian
Yep. A nice bonus.

I just think this idea that earlier generations of consoles and games were never broken, buggy or needed patches is a false idea.

Evidence! Most of the features people complain about are because they fixed annoyances people had of earlier consoles and games.

Finding exploits was actually half the fun back than. 😛

Originally posted by cdtm
Let's say you have thirty minutes of free time out of a busy day, and want to do a little gaming. Which platform could you count on, for that fix.

If you said PC gaming, my pc is currently updating Windows.

If you said console gaming, my console is asking me to login to my account, and the console dash is currently down.

If you said a PS2 you get a cookie.

Modern games are about as reliable as train schedules. Only people with nothing but time to waste, can count on them.

You do not need an account to play games, and you don't have to install windows updates if you don't want to, it's all YOUR choice to do those things.

PS2's online was unstable at best and horrible at worst because companies didn't quite know what they were doing with it yet, hell, Dreamcast revolutionized the gaming industry by being a console that could play online games.

If you're playing on your switch, then forget it, PS4 and Xbox One is as simple as turning the console on and playing the game. Even moreso, no one is ordering you to download updates for games (unless you wanna play online, because well... yeah, that makes sense.) You can even get any console on the market to start up without even going to the dashboard by turning it on in the settings menu.

If anything, PC Gaming has become way more convenient. You had to buy CD-Roms in the past and go out of your way to open the game and put it in the box, speaking of that, what if I feel too lazy to go looking for which game I wanna play on disc, searching through all my 30+ physical games, hmm? Thats one of the reasons today's industry is more convenient for the user, digital gaming, and these games don't disappear, while physical games can get scratched up or broken, or even stop working one day.

In the past, things like the YLOD and the RROD were nearly console-enders, but we've moved past that and today's consoles are super stable then in the past, and you'll be hard-pressed to find a PS3 super-slim that has the YLOD if you've taken good care of it.

Not to mention, here's a huge one, and they are still around in some games, but the majority of games use auto-save.

****ING SAVE POINTS, I hated that, dying and going back to a damn save point, except in Dark Souls, where they felt more like checkpoints then save points (and even then they were still somewhat annoying to me). If I fought a huge monster and ended up dying, only finding out that I ended up being pushed an hour because I either A. couldn't find the save point, or B. forgot to look for one in the first place.

Also, why is finding exploits in older games fun, and not in newer games?

Oh, I was going to mention save points.

Does anybody remember PC gamer where you had to load your own drivers? Or ensure you kept the documentation because it was the only place with the operating system procedures. Or how about the glorious CD keys you needed to keep around. One game I had for the Tandy computer had a code booklet you needed to use to be able to launch the ****ing thing. Hell, one game had you answer questions to start it because it was for adults and not kids.

Or how about when hard drives were so small, all the game was kept on floppy disks and you needed to insert a floppy every single time another scene loaded up. Or how about the lack of compatibility between systems so you couldn't move your keyboard to another computer..and software as well.

Above all else, no matter what we accomplished on the PS2 in the old days, think about what could be accomplished today.

Today we are able to play games like Skyrim, DOOM, Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, Saints Row, on a HANDHELD SYSTEM. Games with cutting-edge graphics and huge world's being played on a tiny nintendo switch.

Originally posted by Smasandian
Oh, I was going to mention save points.

Does anybody remember PC gamer where you had to load your own drivers? Or ensure you kept the documentation because it was the only place with the operating system procedures. Or how about the glorious CD keys you needed to keep around. One game I had for the Tandy computer had a code booklet you needed to use to be able to launch the ****ing thing. Hell, one game had you answer questions to start it because it was for adults and not kids.

Or how about when hard drives were so small, all the game was kept on floppy disks and you needed to insert a floppy every single time another scene loaded up. Or how about the lack of compatibility between systems so you couldn't move your keyboard to another computer..and software as well.

I had one of those cardboard decoder rings. 👆

You sound like capcom with their "1 shot demo" for RE 2

30 minutes ain't enough

I think gaming now is the best it's ever been. That said...

-The assumption companies have that everyone has good internet is a pain in the hole.
-Day 1 patches can **** right off.
-PC games not coming on disc is a travesty. If I'm getting out to the store to buy the box, there'd better be a disc in it.