{"id":8917,"date":"2021-04-05T13:00:38","date_gmt":"2021-04-05T10:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/playlab.uta.fi\/?p=8917"},"modified":"2021-04-05T13:00:38","modified_gmt":"2021-04-05T10:00:38","slug":"have-games-changed-over-the-years-or-have-i-maybe-both","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/have-games-changed-over-the-years-or-have-i-maybe-both\/","title":{"rendered":"Have games changed over the years, or have I? Maybe both."},"content":{"rendered":"

As I\u2019m procrastinating writing this article, I\u2019m listening and bobbing my head to Nightwish\u2019s Century Child<\/em> (CC), an album that hasn\u2019t aged a day since 2002. I have vague childhood memories of listening to this for the first time and thinking: \u201cthis sounds cool!\u201d. Now I\u2019m sitting here almost 20 years later and still thinking: \u201cthis sounds cool!\u201d. It\u2019s safe to say we\u2019re talking about my favourite album of all time. In 20 years, my appreciation for this piece of music has not changed one bit, and I can enjoy it every time like it was the first. Very few games have the same status as CC in my books. I will always enjoy slashing Stormtroopers in Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy\u2019s<\/em> movement-focused combat. Counter-Strike<\/em> never fails to provide a competitive thrill with friends. Clone Hero<\/em> keeps my inner musician engaged with new high-scores to beat, and brutally slaying orcs in Shadow of Mordor<\/em> never gets old.<\/p>\n

But unfortunately, in the past few years I\u2019ve struggled to find exciting new games to play and enjoy. This has been especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic since I\u2019ve spent more time than ever at home. What I want is a hook. I want a mechanic that feels as good the first time, as the 100th. A good story would do as well, but engaging stories and relatable characters are too rare in games to this day, and a story is difficult to enjoy a second time since you already know what\u2019s going to happen. Funnily enough, music does not suffer the same fate, not in my ears anyway. But why do I struggle to find these hooks? I remember enjoying so many games as a kid, but nowadays it\u2019s all the same slog from one game to the next. Have I been spoiled? Have all the good games already been made, and now studios just copy and paste whatever made the old ones great to make a quick dollar? That last sentence is a matter of fact, no doubt. But it still bothers me that even outside of the AAA industry, infamous for recycling game ideas, I can\u2019t find a good bait to nibble on and get hooked.<\/p>\n

The social aspect of gaming seems unchanged. I\u2019ll gladly join a game when asked, even if I don\u2019t particularly feel like playing it. I always value spending time with friends, and if they want to play with me then I\u2019m happy. But this only goes for multiplayer games. It seems it\u2019s the singleplayer games that are the issue. It used to be that I could enjoy most games thrown my way, but now it feels like I\u2019ve developed a niche for myself, and only a handful of games fulfill that desire. On the other hand, it is nice to at least know myself a little better now. Over the years I\u2019ve learned to narrow potential games down to the few that I might like, and if nothing else, it helps to save some money when you\u2019re not compelled to buy every new game that has an awesome trailer. And there are some fantastic trailers out there. Trailers so great you could say they are giving players a false positive impression of the game, but that\u2019s a subject for a different text.<\/p>\n

As I alluded to before, the AAA industry doesn\u2019t provide for me nowadays. Too many studios have found their bread and butter that sells, and why fix something that isn\u2019t broken. There has also been a lot of copying game mechanics. See what works for others and just do the same thing. One of the unfortunate victims of this has been Assassin\u2019s Creed<\/em>, which was one of my favorite franchises. At least at the time, it fulfilled my gameplay niche. Fun, mostly unique gameplay mechanics with interesting stories and lore. The stories are still there I think, but the gameplay of the most recent ones has moved towards an RPG approach, most likely after the success of the Witcher 3<\/em> or so the internet would have you believe. This was something that unfortunately pushed the franchise out of my little niche space, and I haven\u2019t been able to enjoy them since Assassin\u2019s Creed: Origins<\/em>.<\/p>\n

To conclude, I think it\u2019s fair to say that all things move forward one way or another. I\u2019ve certainly grown not only as a person but as a player. And the Gaming industry has also moved forward and evolved in many ways, both good and bad. Never have there been so many games to choose from, but at the same time it feels as if even fewer of those games fulfill my needs and wants.<\/p>\n

Title image\/screenshot taken by the author, from Steam library user interface.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are more games than ever to play, yet I struggle to find the good ones to play. Here I explore some of the reasons why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":8920,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[206,365,1210,173,272,388,354],"class_list":["post-8917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-digital-games","tag-game-design","tag-gamer","tag-games","tag-multiplayer","tag-pc","tag-single-player","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}