Not playing games, or not playing the current live service shovelware they keep pushing out?

Lots of people are realizing there were more quality games released between 1985 and 2015 than you could ever play in a lifetime. We don't need new shit if it's just gonna suck.

Well... It's kinda like this.

1. People love to waste money thinking they will make a profit. - Gambling.

2. People love pussy. And girls turn 18 every day so there is never a shortage. From Christy Canyon to Reilly Reid to Sweetie Fox- Porn

2a. Just to be inclusive, people like dicks too. Johnny Sins is never out of work.

(Being super inclusive here, Reilly Reid and Johnny Sins don't discriminate. They both have fucked the whole goddamned rainbow.)

1. People REALLY love to waste money thinking they will make a profit. - Crypto

Meanwhile,

1. AAA studios are doubling down on micro transactions, "performative" social justice, AI slop, and live service slop. - AC Shadows

2. Expedition 33 and Silk Song are the exceptions to the rule as far as how the AA performs financially. - No One Wants to Die

3. Private Equity and MBA majors have too much influence on the game space. - Embracer Group

4. Gamers just grow up. Some things you just grow out of. - Inflation, fascism, life, etc.

5. And most modern games just cost too damned much! - GTA 6 projections.

There's plenty of great new stuff too, often times even modern iterations of the retro stuff we loved, but it doesn't get the same level of marketing, so it's harder to find.

I'm reading between the lines a bit here, but back when I regularly attended PAX East, one of my favorite panels to attend was the video game data panel hosted by EEDAR (now a part of Circana). The games like NBA 2K, GTA, Call of Duty, or Assassin's Creed that can regularly break $1B in revenue are the kinds of games that may sell to people like you or me on a gaming forum, but also that they can sell to the kind of person who only plays four or fewer games per year. Since then, I imagine live service games that keep you hooked on that one game in particular have only exacerbated that figure of four or fewer games per year. That's a huge segment of the market. And I imagine that's the customer that the market is losing on a Friday night to TikTok or OnlyFans.

Hey buddy, those live service shovelware games are manufactured by Shovel-Spyware-Freemium Holdings Inc. They are returning valuable profits back to their shareholders!

And isn't that what video games are really about anyway? Think of the shareholders.

This article should be Exhibit A in any class on "correlation does not imply causation."

1. Gambling was made more accessible in the US because of a SCOTUS case in 2018. Starting later that year, Delaware became the 2nd state to allow sports betting (after Nevada). The list of states allowing access to online sports betting keeps growing, with Missouri the latest to join less than 3 months ago. 39 states now have gambling in some form, with 7 more considering legislation in the next year or two.

2. Gaming revenue took off in 2020-2021 because more people were spending all day at home. It has since flattened, or slightly declined as a) pandemic-era games that were written and designed in those tough circumstances turned out poorly. b) gaming company execs thought the gravy train would never end, so set projections too high. c) acquisitions and mergers due to a combination of a) and b) meant massive layoffs and low-effort slop. d) VCs bought up the shells of former successes and accelerated c). Oh look:

A new report by Epyllion, a gaming industry advisory company headed by venture capitalist and market guru

These two things have nothing to do with one another, besides coincidentally happening at roughly the same time.

Gambling/crypto is all risk, porn is risk-free reward

If people have more alluring alternatives for cheap dopamine, maybe video games can prioritize satisfying gameplay and narratives. Play has value, that'd be ok

I don't care about the gambling (if it's for money --- I'm fine with variable-ratio schedule reward stuff in games, like having random loot drops in games). We know that that strongly appeals to humans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement

Variable ratio schedule (VR) – reinforced on average every nth response, but not always on the nth response.[16]: 88
 
(ex. Gamblers win 1 out of every 10 spins on a slot machine, however this is an average and they could hypothetically win on any given turn)

Variable ratio: rapid, steady rate of responding; most resistant to extinction.

...and I'm amazed that people would be dicking around with cryptocurrencies as a form of recreation, but if you put out good games that have erotica that appeals to me in 'em, I'll buy those. Video games are not incompatible with erotica. There are a lot of really bad video games with erotica out there, too.

In just the US consumption of Tiktok is up 39m hours a day compared to pre-COVID figures.

I really don't like short-form video, but I do appreciate that a lot of people do like it.

In the 2025, American consumers spent roughly $5bn on Onlyfans.

My suspicion is that streamed pornography is likely presently more of a substitute good for stuff like static pornographic movies than video games, though I'm willing to believe that I could be wrong.

During this 2025 period, AI apps that allowed for "role play, erotica, and art" have soared. The latest tracked statistic for installs for this software came to just under one billion worldwide.

Well, yeah. That's new tech.

AAA studios are doubling down on micro transactions, “performative” social justice, AI slop, and live service slop. - AC Shadows

I think that one factor driving either microtransactions, freemium, free-to-play stuff that does data-mining, or "incomplete" games with expansions is resistance to a higher initial price. I mean, if a studio isn't making their return on the initial price, they're going to look for alternate routes. AAA games cost more than ever to make these days. If people say --- and I've seen plenty of people on here do so --- "I absolutely will not buy a game with an up-front price of more than $N"....but then they're okay playing freemium stuff or games with microtransactions, I mean...that's what game studios are going to do.

I'm generally okay with an expansion model, because I like the idea of giving the studio the option to expand really popular games, and it de-risks things for both the player (you just buy the base game and get expansions if you want) and the publisher (you don't put down a ton of money to create massive amounts of stuff for a flop). Plus, some of my favorite games (including indie and open-source games, like Caves of Qud) have very long development cycles, and selling expansions is one way for larger developers to do a long development cycle...though honestly, I do agree that I miss the "just pay and get a complete game" approach, for a lot of games.

porn is risk-free reward

for the watcher, sure, but for the actors?

also don't underestimate porn addiction. people can spend thousands of dollars on such addictions.

Yeah, it's got NOTHING to do with the cost of GPU's in the last 6 years...

Nothing at all...

For a the past few years, I had wondered why videogames, movies, and TV shows nowadays feel so... Bland. Meaningless. Soulless. Corporate. Like, I know they ARE corporate, but these industries have all been dominated by gigantic corporations for my entire life. What changed recently? Am I just getting old and curmudgeonly and preferring content that was made back when I was younger?

Then I was watching DoorMonster talk about some show (I could be wrong, but I think it was the video about how Arcane had a great Season 1 that was largely ruined by Season 2) where they kept joking about not accusing them of using AI to write things.

Then it clicked. The Writer's Strike from May-September 2023. On paper, the Writer's Guild secured restrictions on the use of AI. And I can't point to anything specific and say "that was clearly written by AI". But I can say that for the past few years everything put out by pretty much every company has felt very... "Meh". Nothing new has grabbed me and said "wow I need to watch/play that". Could be a coincidence, but I also have to wonder whether AI tools involved in writing and visuals have cost us something intangible that I can still feel.

You're right, of course. Indie devs with passion are still putting out some great stuff.

My ire was much more for the AAA studios, which seem to have tossed out all the talent and vision that brought them to the top.

I mean, I was Ride or Die with Square Enix for decades, when they were different companies. After 16, I think I'm just done with new Final Fantasy games altogether. Fuck you guys, imma go play 6, 8, and 9.

Whenever there is a format war the side chosen by porn is always the winner. It makes sense it would win this battle too.

No. We lost interest in corporate fuck heads with no ties to gaming, using any imaginable way possible to milk, manipulate and fuck their customers over. We still love games.

I mean, they are trying to turn video games into porn, crypto and gambling.

You're right, of course - I just meant in the context of why it's competing with video games for user attention. Gambling, porn, crypto, video games : one of these things is not like the other (he says with several 1000+ hour games in his steam library)

I mean, isn't this what Gacha games basically are?

milk, manipulate and fuck

That definitely sounds like porn /s

just spent 45 on 3 new indie games. gonna play the shit out of them. also playing cash cleaner simulator and loving every minute of it.

anytime I see any AAAAAA slop on steam from companies like ea, ubisoft, activision etc...i click their game, then click ignore so I never see it on my lists again.

YES! 6 ftw

Anytime I see FF6 mentioned, I have to refer that person to view Ethra. I'm super stoked to play this game. it's the sprite style game I've wanted for a while. octopath was fun but I dunno..this game looks amazing.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2177510/EthrA/

I see it as eating a sandwich mades by a loved one, vs one you find at a gas station made by some machine with fillers and packed with sugars.

one is made with love, and you can sense it. mustard in a smile on the bread, meats and crunchy lettuce layered properly.

the other is because you essentially have no choice, you know it takes like crap, is stupidly overpriced and could potentially make you sick but you need it to keep driving to get home from the work trip to see your loved one who makes the best sandwiches ever.

This is shareholder bait.

For Hollywood, I think it's more about the financialization. Investors don't want to do risky productions, so we only get the decade old "IP"s rehashed for the thousandth time, rather than independent art experiments.

To continue the sandwich analogy, it's also, like...

You eat the sandwich made by your loved one, and not only is it everything you asked for, but they also threw in some good salami and a dash of balsamic vinegar that you never thought to even ask for in the first place, because they know your tastes and thought you'd like it. You now have a new favorite sandwich.

Versus the gas station sandwich, which is fine, but only just meets the bare minimum qualifications to be a sandwich. They used to load it up with cheap cuts of meat, which at least made it good value for the price, but lately they put in maybe a single slice of ham or two, a single sad piece of rubbery cheese, and condiments are all sold extra. And the price of the sandwich itself, smaller and cheaper than ever, has only gone up.

but for the actors?

Animated porn superiority.

Shareholders: “so you’re telling me that people want a gambling, porn, crypto game?”

Already exists. Gacha H-games (which may accept crypto payment, not sure) happen to be extremely expensive to play, too.

They're not losing mine.

I have a lot of attention to provide.

Exactly

So they're losing non-gamers who like EA sports?

Crypto? Really? What data have they been looking at? I would say different people engage with these mediums for completely different reasons. Gaming being the more casual activity while crypto is for addicts.

I don’t play AAA games anymore (haven’t in years) but I still feel somewhat sympathetic to their plight. What has happened to them is the same thing that happened in the music industry and the film industry and a long time ago in the book publishing industry.

The marketplace is too crowded with quality stuff and so it’s extremely difficult to compete with what’s already out there. The only real answer is to take massive risks and hope you can hit a home run. Unfortunately, AAA studios just like big movie studios aren’t set up to take risks anymore. They’re set up to spend a huge amount of money on a project that’s supposed to be guaranteed to succeed. Indies can survive more easily in this space because they’re small so they can take more risks.

It’s like the dinosaurs after the asteroid impact. The big ones are dying off and the tiny ones are surviving and will eventually become birds. Or something I dunno!

They got the gambling part down pat.

They have been trying to get crypto in with little success.

And while porn games do exist, very few of them are both good at being porn AND being a game (modding in porn to good games not withstanding). Which sucks, because this is the only one of the three that would actually be cool.

Porn addiction isn't real, it's a Christian grooming term

Sounds like fud, from all angles. No one but Tech Bros and their bots care about crypto, porn has always been porn. There are literally thousands of great, dirt cheap games to play.

But anecdotally, I observed YouTube suck away a lot of attention from games and TV in my family. It’s lower brainpower, so if one is (say) dog tired from work, the algorithm has a lot of appeal vs a hardcore KCD2 session or an intense TV drama.

Discoverability is certainly an issue too. If game advertising boils down to “The TikTok algorithm and YouTube influencers,” then of course the predatory casino games are going to win that war.

The data that they have been looking at is in the original report, linked in the article, to some great detail.

The thing they are tracking is primarily money. If people are playing games they already own and spending money on crypto chasing a big win, that speaks more to increased economic desperation than loss of interest in video games.

That's being mean to gas station sandwiches, but otherwise I agree

PREACH!

Bollocks. I call this bullshit.

Those three companies are dead to me, even if they hold some IP I used to hold dear.

That's because most games suck.

God of War did a pretty good job of mixing porn with a solid game.

Yeah this is probably the angle of the report. Bet it’s paid for by a firm that owns a lot of stocks in game companies. They want to push the game companies they own into that direction so they can squeeze more “value” out of their portfolio. And now they have the “evidence”.

Remember many of these industry report are paid for by someone with an agenda. They are not independent science.

I thought GCP is Google Cloud Platform but turns out it's Gambling Crypto Porn.

Lightning in a bottle, I had a blast

The lightning in the bottle dlc will cost 200 donnycoins and the luck to pull it is 0.0001%.