Games were also significantly less complex then. It takes teams of 100s of people to make a AAA game now. But don’t kid yourself, there were definitely game-breaking bugs back then. And in the pc world, patches arrived much, much earlier than in the console world.
The people who are vocal and discuss games on the internet are a small fraction of the population that actually buys games. Doesn’t mean there isn’t a market for that stuff. Gaming market is bigger than it’s ever been. Direct delivery makes it incredibly easy for small indie devs to get their games out there. But that’s not the stuff that’s making the most money
Don’t think that’s actually true, though. Edit: top selling games of 2023. Pretty sure the idea that “old games were higher quality” is a example of a cognitive bias, too. I say this as someone that’s been gaming since the 80s.
I really wonder how the palworld devs feel about being gamepass day 1. I have no idea what the payouts look like for them. It probably got a lot more people to try their game, but would they have done better selling it only on steam? They probably weren’t in a position to negotiate a very favorable contract with Microsoft.
Pretty overinflated number (most new players don’t really do a lot of side stuff until they get caught up on story) but yeah the new player experience could definitely be improved (more). I have more of an issue with how long it takes to get a decent rotation of skills. The early dungeons are very boring, even if it’s teaching you how to play the game.
Yeah, I’m glad they put the work in and I’ve gotten a lot of hours, but…certain things about the game seem broken by design. I just don’t feel like buying a more expensive ship is letting me do things that I couldn’t do without it. So personally I’m looking forward to their next game, and seeing what they do with all the lessons they’ve learned here. But I’m probably done with NMS.
Ehhh, maybe. While the game is so much better than it was at launch, it’s still pretty sandboxy and repetitive. I found myself dropping it after I realized I was trying to build bases to get better at gathering resources to make money to buy bigger ships to make more money to… What exactly?