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Sometimes, AAA-Gamers confuse me...
2 months ago
Besides art, gaming is probably my largest hobby. I spend a lot of time playing a large variety of different games, though I generally tend to not be interested in big budget AAA games these days. However, that doesn't mean I never play those, and if an interesting one comes along, I'll still consider getting it. And as a long time fan of the Monster Hunter series, I treated myself to Monster Hunter Wilds on PC when it released in late February.
At this point I played through most of the relevant content and have since moved on to different games, and overall I have to say, very good game. I certainly had a few issues, the graphics took a bit of fiddling (about 10 minutes total) before the game would run smoothly on my mid-power PC. I had to use low settings, but I don't really consider that an issue since the game still looks amazing on those, and graphical fidelity barely matters so long as the art direction and atmosphere are good. After that bit of fiddling though, the game ran quite well. In the end, I was a bit disappointed in the overall lack of challenge and end-game content, but I had already gotten 60 hours of mostly very good entertainment out of the game. And even for 70€, I still consider that a fair deal overall.
So yeah, overall definitely not my favourite outing of the series, some valid criticisms too be had, but I still feel like it was very much worth both my time and money. So I personally closed the book on it and went on to the next game that caught my attention.
Now, I really need to stop this bad habit, but sometimes I tend to consume the media content that algorithms select for me. In this case a youtube-video on "The humiliating collapse of Monster Hunter Wilds". Apparently, the general gaming community is extremely livid at the game at the moment, for mostly the same reasons that I previously criticized the game for. Problems with the optimization and a lack of end game content. And yeah, I think those are fair criticisms, but what I don't get is the level of expectations and vitriol that was on display here.
Yeah, I also want my games to run well, but do they have to run well on the highest graphics settings? Especially if the lower settings still look stunning?
Yeah, I also wanted a longer game, but are 60 h of high-quality entertainment not quite a good offering in their own right?
Yeah, I also wanted something of a more challenging game, but perhaps this one wasn't meant for just the veterans and tried to be more open for new audiences as well. Does every new game in an established franchise need to cater specifically to just the older players?
Sometimes I feel like some people in the AAA-gaming sphere have forgotten that it's okay if a game was "good enough" or "fine for what it is". Maybe this is me being used to lower budget games, but especially when it comes to graphics, it seems to me like nothing beyond perfection even clears the bar of "acceptable" anymore. And it's a shame, because I feel that by focusing on some manageable flaws, we really are missing the full picture. So many tiny and often overlooked parts are going into making a game, sound design, animation quality, environmental interactions, many of which have reached such a state of excellency within AAA games that excellency is being taken for granted in everything. And that leads to any imperfection being seen as a fatal flaw.
Unless the publishers are being actively deceitful, you have the option to look at the game on offer, get some outside opinions and make your purchasing decisions based on that. It's why I generally don't play many AAA games, I feel like most of them aren't worth my time and/or money. I prefer playing a larger variety of smaller games. So I feel like if you buy a game despite having the option to learn about it's flaws beforehand, knowing the price and there aren't any decetful business practices going on... then I think the ownace for that is kind of on you. Nobody owes you a perfect game, all they owe you is honesty about what they are offering at what price. And if you are buying on launch before any reasonably well researched reviews are out, that should always be considered a calculated gamble.
Let art be "okay". Let art be "fine for what it is". Let art be "good enough". Major kudos to any piece of art that goes above and beyond and achieves excellency, but don't let that be your baseline expectation. Doing so is maybe just a little bit... entitled?
Thanks to all who read this far. Just really needed to get that off my chest today. Imma go play some Monster Hunter Rise now.
Bye!
At this point I played through most of the relevant content and have since moved on to different games, and overall I have to say, very good game. I certainly had a few issues, the graphics took a bit of fiddling (about 10 minutes total) before the game would run smoothly on my mid-power PC. I had to use low settings, but I don't really consider that an issue since the game still looks amazing on those, and graphical fidelity barely matters so long as the art direction and atmosphere are good. After that bit of fiddling though, the game ran quite well. In the end, I was a bit disappointed in the overall lack of challenge and end-game content, but I had already gotten 60 hours of mostly very good entertainment out of the game. And even for 70€, I still consider that a fair deal overall.
So yeah, overall definitely not my favourite outing of the series, some valid criticisms too be had, but I still feel like it was very much worth both my time and money. So I personally closed the book on it and went on to the next game that caught my attention.
Now, I really need to stop this bad habit, but sometimes I tend to consume the media content that algorithms select for me. In this case a youtube-video on "The humiliating collapse of Monster Hunter Wilds". Apparently, the general gaming community is extremely livid at the game at the moment, for mostly the same reasons that I previously criticized the game for. Problems with the optimization and a lack of end game content. And yeah, I think those are fair criticisms, but what I don't get is the level of expectations and vitriol that was on display here.
Yeah, I also want my games to run well, but do they have to run well on the highest graphics settings? Especially if the lower settings still look stunning?
Yeah, I also wanted a longer game, but are 60 h of high-quality entertainment not quite a good offering in their own right?
Yeah, I also wanted something of a more challenging game, but perhaps this one wasn't meant for just the veterans and tried to be more open for new audiences as well. Does every new game in an established franchise need to cater specifically to just the older players?
Sometimes I feel like some people in the AAA-gaming sphere have forgotten that it's okay if a game was "good enough" or "fine for what it is". Maybe this is me being used to lower budget games, but especially when it comes to graphics, it seems to me like nothing beyond perfection even clears the bar of "acceptable" anymore. And it's a shame, because I feel that by focusing on some manageable flaws, we really are missing the full picture. So many tiny and often overlooked parts are going into making a game, sound design, animation quality, environmental interactions, many of which have reached such a state of excellency within AAA games that excellency is being taken for granted in everything. And that leads to any imperfection being seen as a fatal flaw.
Unless the publishers are being actively deceitful, you have the option to look at the game on offer, get some outside opinions and make your purchasing decisions based on that. It's why I generally don't play many AAA games, I feel like most of them aren't worth my time and/or money. I prefer playing a larger variety of smaller games. So I feel like if you buy a game despite having the option to learn about it's flaws beforehand, knowing the price and there aren't any decetful business practices going on... then I think the ownace for that is kind of on you. Nobody owes you a perfect game, all they owe you is honesty about what they are offering at what price. And if you are buying on launch before any reasonably well researched reviews are out, that should always be considered a calculated gamble.
Let art be "okay". Let art be "fine for what it is". Let art be "good enough". Major kudos to any piece of art that goes above and beyond and achieves excellency, but don't let that be your baseline expectation. Doing so is maybe just a little bit... entitled?
Thanks to all who read this far. Just really needed to get that off my chest today. Imma go play some Monster Hunter Rise now.
Bye!
To me, I don't have a direct hatred for AAA games, but I do have a direct hatred for the greed present in many of them. Not to say there's no greed found in smaller projects... I'm looking at you, Star Citizen, but AAA development has been crushed under the weight of overblown budgets, 1000s of staff who 40% of them are highly redundant, and playing it too safe for the sake of "mass appeal". Not to go back on Expedition 33, but one of the things that made that game the incredible game it is, is that its founder had a clear vision of a game he wanted to make, and got people on board for that.
I guess my main complaint about AAA Gaming is that it's lost a lot of passion, and it's mostly "what will make the most money". Not all AAA Games of course, but many are just live service, or very safe feeling video games.
60 hours though, is a lot of time for a video game. But, those types of games like Monster Hunter are built upon getting better loot, so some people think 60 hours isn't long. And it's why I don't play MMOs really... the grinding of everything is too much. If a game starts to feel like a second job, I'm out x3
Overall, I agree with many of what you said, :3
I'm annoyed because when dragon's dogma 2 came out, I was ecstatic. An janky xbox 360 era game was getting the modern treatment. And when it came out, the community bashed it instantly for having micro transactions and caused an unneeded controversy.
Why do I say it was unneeded? Because before DD2, capcom execs had been putting microtransactions on their games before on big hits like RE8 and even RE4 remake and no one batted an eye. But the moment a cult hit risky game that really needs support comes in, it gets bashed. The worst part is, the game can be played fully without needing to pay a single cent extra.
To me it's a solid game and could spend time just wandering around it.
I also get that at times the community wants things to be the level of dark souls and thinks EVERYTHING needs to be dark souls difficulty or it's too easy. Some of us like to progress and not fail a boss 50 times or like when parries or counters give a bit of generous timing to work with.
I would touch even on the community and Summer of gaming but already feel I'm ranting enough.
In short, finding myself enjoying indies a lot more and playing roguelites (yes I know what I said about difficulty..). And find myself playing older games a bit more then newer ones.
So I agree. Let games be games. Let art be art. And most of all never let the fun be taken out of the game or else, why are we even playing games anymore?
Edit: Also bring back Megaman Legends 3 capcom! You cowards!
I played Marvel Rivals for 6 months and man, it was big
Match making:
1 in quick match puts you against dumb bots in PVP mode, when you lose too much
2 It puts high skill players on one side, and low skill on second side, and opposite to guarantee the match result. That's how Engagement Oriented Match Making works.
Before there was skill based match making, where people played on similar skill level, giving fair matching, or going even older, where people matched themselves up in server/lobby lists.
balance is horrible and is limiting playstyles.
developers intentionally make one part of heroes stronger than ever, while leaving others in dirt, and clueless or malicious people gaslite you with "get good" mentality.
support heroes are absolute healbots, if you dare to try being offensive, you are becoming a burden to a team, because you charge your ultimate ability slower, that grants almost an immortality for 12 seconds
The casual section of PVP is actually moved to Practice vs AI.
And it became an alien concept that is casual PVP for these tryharders.
I tried my best learning aiming with Rocket Raccoon, yet it wasn't enough, it was never enough. I tried to be more aggressive support player, but the "balance" was setup against my playstyle from the start.
When I just started playing Paladins, I noticed that I need less effort to excel at aggressive play with Pip.
Big shame Paladins is in abandoned state.
And hey, Marvel Rivals is now having huge playerbase dropout as well, because people noticed that matchmaking is rigged and wastes your time with bots in quick matches.
And competitive is not worth either, because it's full of smurfs and cheaters.
Main reason Wilds in specific has such lofty expectations is because the game was made by Capcom, one of the few studios left that seemed to have standards. Every game up to that point in the series has been pretty spectacular, and the game directly before it (in terms of 'similar feel'), was Monster Hunter World. A game that started out breathtaking, had a ludicrous amount of content in it, then got a DLC that added a massive amount more, all while looking gorgeous, running decently well (at least nowadays), and being a perfect middle ground between 'hard core fans' and 'newcomers to the series'. I know I walked in in World because I hatted how obtuse the game series was up to that point, but feel in love with it then and pumped it well over 500-1000 hours (between console and PC releases and different friend groups) and I didn't even finish the game.
Then they pop out Rise, which was a gimick, but a stylized, well put together gimmick that was $40 bucks ($60 with the DLC which makes sense), made to ran on the switch so it ran like a dream, and was basically part of the 'off shoot' part of the series. Not considered main line, but insanely fun regardless with a fun movement tool that added new combos, added in the mount, and made a lot of nice changes without screwing up the 'core' of the series. Many loved it, and where excited to see what the next main line in the series would be.
Fast forward to Wild, and the game's flopped compared to both of it's predecessors, while also coming out amidst the backlash toward Capcom related to the realization that the entire company is just FULL of nepotism and obscenely terrible favoritism practices, off the back of the Dragon's Dogma developer leaving after releasing 2, and his story about it and how he had to fight forever just to make a game he wanted only to get shafted time and time again for monster hunter (same style of game but not a raw RPG) made by the directors son and instead being forced to work on it. And now not only does all that come out, but Wild's is unoptimized, has no end game, and is considered a 'main line' entry to the series ($70) while sanding down the edges of Monster Hunter so much you're basically just playing 'monster fighter'. You no longer have to track the monster even a little bit, you no longer have to 'get good at it' by doing it multiple times so your scout flies will track them, you just afk on your mount between fight zones and mash the 'collect resources' button by shooting nets out. All that on top of a vastly more forgiving combo structure and the game basically plays like a gimick side release version of the game while being marketed and released as a main line entry, resulting in a massive amount of back lash because it's like 'you already have a system for releasing games like this, why amidst all this controversy are you releasing an upotimized, jittery mess with nothing to do past most Monster Hunter games 'early game' bits, and a world that actively discourages you not to engage with it as it autopaths you through the entire thing?'.
It's just one of those things that like, every levy made against it is justified. It's not 'good enough' compared to the template of the previous games. And sure, there's something to be said about 'ohh, triple A gamers are entitled', but it's mostly 'triple A gamers are tired and frustrated that they have to settle for worse than what they used to receive'. Triple A used to be the pinnacle of gaming, and was and still continues to be priced as such. But they are actively the bargain bin bottom of the barrel these days, but still demand full price, so it creates a disconnect that frustrates a lot of people. I know I never buy triple A at full price these days, preferring to wait until they are 'worth their cost' with steam sales, but many want to be a part of the hype as a game releases, and then get burned because instead of buying multiple highly polished games made with passion from the indi/double A space, they buy a pile of dog crap that barely lasts them a week but eat up all of their excess money for the month (because it's important to remember, $70 is a LOT of money to a LOT of people, that's like 7 meals even in current day inflation hell, and you just knocked all that out for an afternoon of mild enjoyment? what the heck this used to buy me multiple months worth of fun and deep enjoyment? and it used to be $60!).
So, I feel that's where a lot of it lies, and I personally feel it's entirely justified. Games made by multi billion dollar corporations should be held to a standard that they themselves tout and ask for, and none of their games meet that standard 95% of the time. It would be one thing if they still dedicated themselves to smaller projects and made games for smaller price points to be enjoyed in that light, but they don't. So if they want to pretend like their games are the 'next big thing', then it's their own fault when it's judged as such and they don't meet the bar.
The best thing you can do is to NOT buy AAA games outright, just wait for the prices to drop below a certain threshold. It's some form of boycott that we all can perform.
To make matters worse, the games are becoming less of owning the game as you buy them. You would only get the game key and play the game but now own it. Prepare to rise the black flag in the sea of Internet.
60 hours for 70 € sound like a really, really, really bad deal, if something I got for less than ten can last over two decades and still does not want to stop.
Both games, incidentally, are being continuously improved even today by unpaid volunteers.
Do you know of any AAA title that was eventually open-sourced?
Just to clarify, of course there are better deals out there than 1.17€/h of good entertainment. Many of my favourite games have been much better value than that. If you think that's really bad, that's of course subjective, but I don't think it's the kind of rate someone would get furiously upset about, which I've seen happen quite a bit for the example of Monster Hunter Wilds. What's puzzling to me is that so many people who are deep into the AAA space seem to hate AAA games, yet they keep buying them. Maybe that's just me as I tend to hop from game to game a lot.
Often playtime also does not equal entertainment 1:1 - I have almost 400h of recorded playtime in Hearts of Iron 4 and I must admit to my own shame, that I enjoyed none of them. Even in games, which are enjoyable overall, there are often long segments inbetween, which are not. AAA games are usually on the less open-ended side and thereby make it harder to escape such segments. E.g. in Space Empires 5 or in Distant Worlds I can literally automate away every single part of the game I dislike, but if I am stuck in a Jump'n'Run or if I cannot match the average skill level in an online shooter, I have to power through or find another game. - I do not think this is directly connected with "AAA-ness", but it does seem to hit these games particularly often due to their choice of genre. (Similarly there are different kinds of un-entertainment, e.g. the poor UI of Star Wars: Rebellion or the Victoria series is a constant bother, but if a player can put up with it, they may still enjoy most of their playtime overall. Progression stoppers, on the other hand, cannot be averaged out with other gameplay. To the contrary, they may retroactively ruin the impression of a gaming session, even after most of it had already been enjoyable.)
... There is also plain old internet-illiteracy at work, I think, especially for those people, who stick to game series they do not like: They might not even know how to find alternatives. E.g. I often see people on itch.io pester the developers to go to Steam so they, too, can play the games - when they could play the games just fine, right there and then.
Anecdotally, just the other day I overheard an acquaintance complain that they would like to play Corruption of Champions 2 but cannot affort to buy it; surprised I checked the developer's home page - and sure enough, the game is still as free as it was on day one, with the purely optional Patreon/Subscribestar donation options that many/most indie games offer nowadays... but it is also sold on Steam and that, apparently, renders people blind to these options...
Finally, sequels in particular entice the player to try and find the fun that surely must be hidden therein, based on prior experience. Before Hearts of Iron 4, I enjoyed 3, 2 and both spin-offs of 2, but 4 eludes me. Similarly while it was an overall enjoyable game, I put far too many hours into Company of Heroes 2, "because" its predecessor had actually deserved that. Dunno if that counts as "Sunken Cost Fallacity" but it is definitely a real phenomenon.
It’s this practice which destroys measured criticism. So even minor issues are blown out of proportion, and creates high expectations in fans.
Not that some AAA game companies don’t deserve criticism, but there are far worse games and shoddy practices out there.