Why do modern RPGs have 0% soul?

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

There is this false narrative being spread around how allegedly 2023 is best year for RPGs EVUR! Yet every day I leave General RPG Discussion's first page with my To: Play list staying the same or I cross one name off it. Last name I crossed was Rogue Trader

Caves of Lore was pretty nice, without controversial stuff.
Which is probably why I haven't seen OP posting into that thread.

 

[The Wall]

How do you define THE SOUL?

Game Makers make game that they KNOW wouldn't be liked by 100% of market. Part of game's design is to be Its Thing™. Everything coming from critique that would demand changing that "Thing" the game is, would end in trash can

Very few Game Makers like that today. Every single one is ready to get down on his knees and suck cock of first negative review on Steam. Games are nowadays made by Devs but designed by Internet's HIVEMIND. Not a meme, truth and explains a lot

 

[Butter]

It's the same reason modern movies are, as a rule, fucking terrible. It's the same reason modern music is, as a rule, fucking terrible. Across our entire civilization, people regard themselves and others as little more than animals. It doesn't occur to them to pour their heart and soul into their work, to create something awe-inspiring. They're just making product to be consumed. They're just piggies regurgitating slop for the other piggies. When you look at great works of art throughout history, those artists were attempting to channel the divine and the pure and the beautiful because they were able to conceptualize themselves in relation to the divine, and it gave their lives meaning and purpose. Western civilization, on the whole, no longer has this. The modern trend (in movies as well as in video games) toward remakes is undoubtedly driven by cynical safety-first corporate greed, but it also betrays the unconscious feeling, even among normies, that our culture used to be a lot better.

 

[Falksi]

Because the dregs of society have jumped on board the hobby and - like they do with everything from arts, to crafts, to music, to films and now gaming - they've normalized bad "creative" practices. Everything's designed by committee and check-box standards to sell, rather than designed out of a creative vision to express the creators ideas, entertain, and stretch our skills and perceptions.

You've only got to look at the amount of fuckwits who bring "but this game sold X many copies!" into conversations to realize how dumb most normie cunts out there are, as they clearly don't recognize that stuff like Baldurs Gate 2 and John Boorman's Excalibur blow away shite like Final Fantasy 16 and Avengers Endgame. But here we are.

It's our own fault. We should have beat these people more back in t' day.

 

[flushfire]

I was listening to the intro music to Wizardry 7 the other day and thought the same thing. I don't know maybe I just got old, but I never feel that sense of wonder in newer games.

 

[Tavar]

Still! It's not normal to wait 15 years for next Elder Scrolls. FIFTEEN YEARS, c'mon mate. From Bethesda or any other studio that would make same game under different name. It's not normal to wait 10+ years for GTA6, or any, and I do mean A N Y decent copycat. Game Industry is seriously ill. As is Western Civilization. Pretending otherwise is entering fire and screaming "I'M COLD! I'M COLD!" as you're burning

But whole situation is also giant opportunity, I guess. Fall of Rome was very fun time and carcass of old can be good fertilizer for something new and better. From now on I'll focus on solutions

Wait, you seriously think Skyrim and GTA 5 are good games? They are the very core of the mainstreamed, casualized, soulless, normie bullshit you complain about!

Regarding the lack of soul: There are at least some modern games with a unique look and/or gameplay, but few of them are RPGs. Ghostrunner, Katana Zero and Neon White come to my mind. They are excellent and somewhat unique games. For RPGs Persona 5 comes to my mind with its highly distinct style and while it is probably not everybody's cup of tea it has a lot of soul.

 

[duskvile]

Game Makers make game that they KNOW wouldn't be liked by 100% of market. Part of game's design is to be Its Thing™. Everything coming from critique that would demand changing that "Thing" the game is, would end in trash can

Very few Game Makers like that today. Every single one is ready to get down on his knees and suck cock of first negative review on Steam. Games are nowadays made by Devs but designed by Internet's HIVEMIND.

You've answered for yourself. Game takes a lot of time to make, projects are more expensive and devs are at risk of shutdown if huge project fails. They need to make sure almost 100% of market will play the game.

 

[grimer]

All new games: look the same, play the same, tell the same story.

gold box

 

[Gandalf]

There's a plenty of passion in the indie scene, but those games can't compete that much with classics from an old player's perspective. If you'd be super young again and just starting being a gamer, you'd see plenty of soul in those indies because everything would feel new and inspiring.

I agree that there are a lot of unknown indie gems. I'm thinking of ways how to shine light upon them. It's kinda ridiculous that this forum mostly talks about Bear Sex Simulator and StarShit

I'm oldest zoomer/youngest millenial. Not old. It's not that one, chief. Gaming Industry and Western entertainment simply SUUUCK today

Yeah, mainstream sucks hard now, but it's not like the game industry did not also sucked in the early days. It did. Nowdays indies are quite good comparing to the stuff made in the ancient times. It's the real continuation of what has been. So, that is a change for good, I think. The issue is current mainstream production line being just mostly business oriented.

 

[Falksi]

it's not like the game industry did not also sucked in the early days. It did.

On what are you basing this rather dubious claim?

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Why do modern people have 0% soul?

 

[Gandalf]

it's not like the game industry did not also sucked in the early days. It did.

On what are you basing this rather dubious claim?

I'm not a great comunicator. What I mean is: Yeah, I know that it was something special and amazing back then, like experiencing those pure text games or what would be identified as 1 bit graphic games, but it really sucks technologically to what we have now. So I wrote that it sucked looking at it from today's point of view.

 

[Supermedo]

it's not like the game industry did not also sucked in the early days. It did.

On what are you basing this rather dubious claim?

Because you only remember the good games and forget the shit one, we all remember good classic crpg, but of you went to any game database website and filter by date like from 90s to early 2000s you will find tons of RPGs you never heard about it and can't buy it anywhere or even download it because they were bad and nobody cares about it.

 

[just]

cant have soul if more than 3 people are working on the game

 

[Falksi]

it's not like the game industry did not also sucked in the early days. It did.

On what are you basing this rather dubious claim?

Because you only remember the good games and forget the shit one, we all remember good classic crpg, but of you went to any game database website and filter by date like from 90s to early 2000s you will find tons of RPGs you never heard about it and can't buy it anywhere or even download it because they were bad and nobody cares about it.

Having spent the past 6 years playing through over 600 games between '89 to '96, I can assure you that your claim is very wide of the mark.

Now I'm not saying there weren't bad, soulless RPGs...there were....a lot for sure....but the ratio was far less than what it is now. Even a lot of the shit ones had soul, they were just poorly made (e.g. Secret of Evermore).

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

Not just games, it's everything. Architecture, music, media, it's all meant to depress you. Have to keep the population neutered, and those neutered husks are making the content.

It plagues indie games too, you have to wade through hundreds of soulless pieces of trash to find anything even worth taking a second glance at (not surprising considering a large % of specific kinds of people who go into that line of work/hobby)

 

[Just Locus]

Because you only remember the good games and forget the shit one, we all remember good classic crpg, but of you went to any game database website and filter by date like from 90s to early 2000s you will find tons of RPGs you never heard about it and can't buy it anywhere or even download it because they were bad and nobody cares about it.

 

[Butter]

Because you only remember the good games and forget the shit one, we all remember good classic crpg, but of you went to any game database website and filter by date like from 90s to early 2000s you will find tons of RPGs you never heard about it and can't buy it anywhere or even download it because they were bad and nobody cares about it.

This is what rolling a critical failure persuasion looks like. You're a 2013 account, so I can't imagine you're actually young/ignorant enough to believe this. Anyone who's been gaming since the 90s has witnessed the decline themselves, and you can't just handwave that away.

 

[Sòren]

i always find myself playing, or willing to play, the Drakensang games again. no matter what people think about them, and i admit they are far from perfect on a mechanical level, they have a discerning beauty and innocence. they didn't want to tell a story concerning any politics, telling people what to think, they seem like they just wanted to transport the spirit of adventure. pure and innocent. at least BG1 (and in my opinion BG2 and Arcanum and other troika games) did the same thing. the "artists" were free to do what they want, up to a certain point, restrictions based on the level of technology or a bit of marketing.

videogames have become big business (it tires me to look up the numbers, but they are far bigger than hollywood at the moment). you cannot do what you wish to do anymore. - if you are involved in any established company

 

[Lyric Suite]

it's not like the game industry did not also sucked in the early days. It did.

On what are you basing this rather dubious claim?

Because you only remember the good games and forget the shit one

The shit ones then were better than the good ones today.

 

[VerSacrum]

i always find myself playing, or willing to play, the Drakensang games again. no matter what people think about them, and i admit they are far from perfect on a mechanical level, they have a discerning beauty and innocence. they didn't want to tell a story concerning any politics, telling people what to think, they seem like they just wanted to transport the spirit of adventure. pure and innocent. at least BG1 (and in my opinion BG2 and Arcanum and other troika games) did the same thing. the "artists" were free to do what they want, up to a certain point, restrictions based on the level of technology or a bit of marketing.

videogames have become big business (it tires me to look up the numbers, but they are far bigger than hollywood at the moment). you cannot do what you wish to do anymore. - if you are involved in any established company

I replay River of Time and the classic DSA games like once a year for the same reasons. Really a shame what happened to the studio.

 

[jaekl]

Too many cooks spoil the broth

 

[The Wall]

Still! It's not normal to wait 15 years for next Elder Scrolls. FIFTEEN YEARS, c'mon mate. From Bethesda or any other studio that would make same game under different name. It's not normal to wait 10+ years for GTA6, or any, and I do mean A N Y decent copycat. Game Industry is seriously ill. As is Western Civilization. Pretending otherwise is entering fire and screaming "I'M COLD! I'M COLD!" as you're burning

But whole situation is also giant opportunity, I guess. Fall of Rome was very fun time and carcass of old can be good fertilizer for something new and better. From now on I'll focus on solutions

Wait, you seriously think Skyrim and GTA 5 are good games? They are the very core of the mainstreamed, casualized, soulless, normie bullshit you complain about!

No, I was more mentioning those titles as format and archetype. OpenWorld, Living, Explorative RPG and Big Blockbuster. They're so rarely made these days yet we used to get them several each year

Western Gaming Industry is physically incapable of making good video games anymore. Only dull propaganda for WOKE! World Order

 

[The Wall]

Game Makers make game that they KNOW wouldn't be liked by 100% of market. Part of game's design is to be Its Thing™. Everything coming from critique that would demand changing that "Thing" the game is, would end in trash can

Very few Game Makers like that today. Every single one is ready to get down on his knees and suck cock of first negative review on Steam. Games are nowadays made by Devs but designed by Internet's HIVEMIND.

You've answered for yourself. Game takes a lot of time to make, projects are more expensive and devs are at risk of shutdown if huge project fails. They need to make sure almost 100% of market will play the game.

Not true. Games used to take 1-3 years. Games which are played until this day and considered classics. All the indie gems everybody mentions are proof. Manor Lords for example, though not RPG, proves that single or few passionate Devs can make wonders today

 

[TripJack]

if the artist doesnt have it the art cant have it either