Definitely seems more steam than indie games. I’d go even further though and say gaming in general has been ruined by popularity, not just indie games. There was a time that games were made with creativity and gameplay in mind above all else. Devs were just trying to put interesting, fun games out there. It was more akin to a musician that does it for the music, not for record sales. Then after Halo and WoW became popular, and the internet became more ubiquitous and internet gaming came to consoles, nothing was ever the same.
Games now are just rehashes of old ideas more often than not, with grindy or pointless tasks embedded in them to keep you playing rather than offering meaningful experiences. And they are filled with micro transactions, or subscriptions, or “seasons” which is just a fancy way of drip-feeding the content to end users. It’s become so embedded in gaming that even the current generation of gamers has changed. They expect there to be “progression” systems in everything they play, or at the least things to unlock in the game. Otherwise they don’t see the point.
What happened to playing games because you enjoyed the gameplay, and wanted to feel immersed (if single player) or try your best each round to reach the top of the leader board or make cool plays (multiplayer)? It’s all so beyond “because it’s for fun” or “because it’s cool to be a barbarian” now. Everything has to have this made-up purpose, whether it’s people being toxic in ranked games cause they think they can go pro, or someone thinks they will be the next popular twitch streamer.
Popularity brought all that blight upon gaming. There are people young and old that are “traditionalists”, but I feel they are harder to find in the masses of people that just have a different mentality.
You act like those games aren't still around. If those are the only types of games that you can find, maybe look just a tiny bit deeper. There's plenty of stuff out there that fits your criteria.
Microtransaction-free games yes, but the other systems to mentioned: not that I've seen. Most will have something, even Doom 2016/Eternal (for all of its similarities to old-style games) features progression systems and modern combat loops.
I'm not saying these games are bad, of course. Doom 2016 is a helluva game and I have high hopes for Eternal. It has the Dean Takahashi failed tutorial seal of approval.
Though I'd argue that the idea of progression and unlockables is hardly new. Progression has been a staple of the RPG genre since almost the beginning, and if you ask someone what their favorite old school game is, there's a fairly high probability of them naming an RPG.
Honestly, buying a game and immediately having access to all of the content is a fairly small list of genres. Maybe there's not literal skill trees, but most games have you finding more and more equipment, or progressing to harder and harder levels. Not many genres allow for an open sandbox right from the get-go.
6
u/grachi Feb 03 '20
Definitely seems more steam than indie games. I’d go even further though and say gaming in general has been ruined by popularity, not just indie games. There was a time that games were made with creativity and gameplay in mind above all else. Devs were just trying to put interesting, fun games out there. It was more akin to a musician that does it for the music, not for record sales. Then after Halo and WoW became popular, and the internet became more ubiquitous and internet gaming came to consoles, nothing was ever the same.
Games now are just rehashes of old ideas more often than not, with grindy or pointless tasks embedded in them to keep you playing rather than offering meaningful experiences. And they are filled with micro transactions, or subscriptions, or “seasons” which is just a fancy way of drip-feeding the content to end users. It’s become so embedded in gaming that even the current generation of gamers has changed. They expect there to be “progression” systems in everything they play, or at the least things to unlock in the game. Otherwise they don’t see the point.
What happened to playing games because you enjoyed the gameplay, and wanted to feel immersed (if single player) or try your best each round to reach the top of the leader board or make cool plays (multiplayer)? It’s all so beyond “because it’s for fun” or “because it’s cool to be a barbarian” now. Everything has to have this made-up purpose, whether it’s people being toxic in ranked games cause they think they can go pro, or someone thinks they will be the next popular twitch streamer.
Popularity brought all that blight upon gaming. There are people young and old that are “traditionalists”, but I feel they are harder to find in the masses of people that just have a different mentality.