So, I've noticed, in my personal opinion, that games the resent years have been going downhill. The first games that comes to mind are: Need for speed, Battlefield, Call of Duty, UFC, WWE, FIFA, Heroes of might and magic, GTA. If anybody agrees, what can we do about this? Any suggestions?

I agree but sadly there is nothing we can do about this. Most gamers these days don't want a game with amazing story and gameplay the just want shiny graphics.

Why say GTA has gone downhill?

The story and mechanics were both strong and made for a memorable title. I was fortunate in not having tech problems with it but I can understand if that affected someone's perception of it.


Easiest way to "do something" is to actually not do anything.

Don't buy crap games, there'll be a declining market for them.

Nothing really, what you can do as a consumer for yourself, is buy more indie games and take stabs at games that you've never heard of/played..

But, have you played:

Red Dead Redemption
Batman Arkham Asylum/City
InFamous 1/2
Mass Effect 2/3
etc, etc, etc


Most of these games you've listed are games that come out annually and hardly get upgraded, while the other few have been going down for a while

Indie gaming is the way to go!

GTA? Going down hill? I think its getting better, GTA IV is like the most favoured game ever. It has the highest metascore than any other game.

As for the others yes. Especially CoD, same engine and gameplay for like the last 5 games and WWE.

I say GTA has gone downhill because I feel they haven't made any progress. Graphics and playability, I feel they've stayed the same.

Red Dead Redemption and Batman are very good games. I didn't like Infamous or Mass Effect but that's just my opinion.

I loved GTA IV and GTA V looks to be even better, best part is that they dropped the terrible unrealistic level design and gameplay that they used in San Andreas, i hated that game.

Wait GTA IV's and San Andreas' graphics aren't the same.

Don't buy games that you feel are going downhill. Buy a lot of indie games. Hope that the developers will get the clue.

I think they look equally [censored]. Checked around with a few buddies and they feel the same.

Also try buying games that have a lot of love put into them such as:

- Dark Souls
- Demon's Souls
- Borderlands
- Deus Ex
- Journey, etc.

Look around and support good games. Then developers will see the trend and shift accordingly.

Edit: Also stray away from the notion of "If this doesnt look like it has amazing graphics I'm not playing it" mindset. That supports games that are all about fluff rather than quality.

If you wanna change the trend, don't support its causes.

Might be the only solution. But some of these games are still better than indie games though.

That would imply all of those games were any good to begin with.
Game these days are great.
You just gotta play the right games.



Untrue. You can buy games that you feel are "good", new. If you buy them used the game company gets no money from the sale, it all goes to the game store you support. Do research on games before you buy them and don't believe the hype, never reserve anything.

WWE '13 looks amazing and Skyrim is the greatest game this generation.

I half-agree.
I say half because I think some of it (for me) is changing interests and jaded "been there done that" perspective.

Also from my personal "PC-gamer" perspective, it's been going downhill in part because of the console-oriented/dominance of the industry the past years. Not because consoles as a gaming option svck, but because of the simpler controls, interfaces, gameplay (because of less options for controls perhaps) that now often affect PC games. I don't think combat is always "easier" (how often you die), it's more that .... there's just less to do in the game, so I get bored of the game a lot of faster. The crossover of genres doesn't help me personally either, because if I want to shoot things mindlessly, I don't want a "story-FPS" with cutscenes and scripted "follow the NPC" bits and all of that ... I want to shoot things ala Doom. eg, I don't want to play a movie.

And of course, there's the sequel-itis issue that strikes all entertainment industries. Sure, I like it when a fave game gives me a sequel so I can (hopefully) have some more of the same with new areas, but at the same time, I don't want all the games to be sequels. I want more new IP's, new worlds, new environments, new characters, lore, and backgrounds and all of that, even if the gameplay concept is fairly similar to older games.

What can we do? Not much. Voting with dollars is about it, imo.

They were great. That's the whole point.

I don't generally agree here. Graphics are one thing but storyline, dialogs, gear, gameplay doesn't have anything with PC vs Console. It's the developers relaxing.

Call of Duty was never great, and GTA has taken huge steps forward while other games out there are taking steps back.

People actually play UFC, WWE, FIFA? Those games look so horrible and obsolete!

San Andreas is the best one.

Erm... San Andreas. GTA4.

No graphical or playability improvements?

You can't seriously think that, right? Right? You're trolling, right?

I too think games in general gone a bit worse since the introduction of Xbox, which really opened up for a new wave of multi-platform games which now is stronger than ever. Multi-platform games were really strong back in the 80s and early 90s too but kinda died when only PC computers remained and C64, Amiga, Atari, Spectrum and other home computers died.

However, I wouldn't just blame the Xbox for this, I think more of the fault simply lies in that gaming gone mainstream (which is something the Playstation and Xbox helped with). It's not something that only "gaming geeks" do anymore, but something everyone do. Games are made for the general audience, not the 1% that are geeky enough to waste time on forums and whatnot.

Then again, I never really liked any of the gaming series that the OP mentions, they always been rather meh to me Even Heroes of Might and Magic been weak in my eyes compared to http://www.gog.com/gamecard/master_of_magic. And it's not like the gaming industry is a complete disaster or anything, excellent games are still made now and then (I'm currently looking forward to Dishonored a lot).

I don't think the quality has gone down as much as there are more being realeased. Also if you stick to the same few genres then the games will get stale after a while no matter the quality. Things that seemed new and innovative a few years ago looks like a common occurance later on. Hard to come up with new and interesting mechanics.

Another thing about more games being released is the talent pool gets thinned out. Can't really help that too much as people get fired/hired or just plain hate heach other and can't work with each other.

I would suggest going and pick up Indie games, pick a new genre, or look at translated imports you might find something really enjoyable.

GTA taking steps forward lol? They gutted so much with IV it was heart breaking and gut wrenching. When Beth removes features people cry wolf though. I don't get it? It's ok for Rockstar to do it?