General Gaming Gamers Are Not Playing New Games...

[skillzdadirecta]

"Gamers spent most of their time playing games that are six years or older"

 

 

 

[best3444]

I'm usually a mix. Sometimes I play games that came out a few years ago that didn't initially click for me then get back into them. This is interesting though. 

[legend]

Not spending their time predominantly on new games doesn't mean they're not playing them. Multiplayer games can skew much older and will stay in a rotation for long time even while people buy and play new games.

[ort]

I've noticed this with my kids, they don't seek out new gaming experiences. They just play whatever all of their friends are playing. It's much more social and much less solitary. They don't want single player experiences at all. It's multiplayer or nothing. It's kind of weird to me, but whatever.

[Paperclyp]

With the established monsters being pretty old at this point it makes sense, but it’s still somewhat surprising to me. 

[stepee]

I’m doing what I can to help

[Dodger]

Take those $70 games and shove them up your ass

[Dre801]

Guilty.  Haven't played anything current in quite some time.

[Xbob42]

Wonder how my stats would look to this data. Brand new AAA single player game one week, 25 year old JRPG the next, then a 24 year old online RPG followed by it's 3-12 year old sequel (depending on how you look at it) followed by a hardcore survival horror RPG maker game, a fairly new procgen indie detective game, a 7 year old imsim, and 350 separate hentai games.

[gamer.tv]

It’s such a busy medium and games take such a big investment that I literally can’t keep up with new releases. I think the last time I managed was the GC/PS2/Xbox era when I both worked and had money, but also vaguely had infinite free time.

[Ghost_MH]

4 hours ago, legend said:

Not spending their time predominantly on new games doesn't mean they're not playing them. Multiplayer games can skew much older and will stay in a rotation for long time even while people buy and play new games.

 

I remember when these numbers first popped up and this was my take away. New game comes out, a bunch of people buy/play them, and then go back to their long time favorites. I don't see this as a bad thing.

 

The industry has had this unhealthy obsession with holding onto players' attention for as long as possible, even if the game doesn't warrant it. There is nothing wrong with a great single player game that everyone pays for and then moves on from. However, that's treated like some sort of failure; like how WB wants to double down on live service games and move away from even ultra successful single player games. I get that everyone wants to be the next forever game, but the industry is going to kill itself if that's all everyone is aiming for.

 

I just read an article about this sort of thing earlier today...

I'm so sick of games that shoot themselves in the foot just to boost phoney player engagement numbers | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

---

Someone please take the shotgun away from in-game economy designers who are ruining the goodwill built up by the rest of the team.

 

 

[skillzdadirecta]

2 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

I remember when these numbers first popped up and this was my take away. New game comes out, a bunch of people buy/play them, and then go back to their long time favorites. I don't see this as a bad thing.

 

The industry has had this unhealthy obsession with holding onto players' attention for as long as possible, even if the game doesn't warrant it. There is nothing wrong with a great single player game that everyone pays for and then moves on from. However, that's treated like some sort of failure; like how WB wants to double down on live service games and move away from even ultra successful single player games. I get that everyone wants to be the next forever game, but the industry is going to kill itself if that's all everyone is aiming for.

 

I just read an article about this sort of thing earlier today...

I'm so sick of games that shoot themselves in the foot just to boost phoney player engagement numbers | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

---

Someone please take the shotgun away from in-game economy designers who are ruining the goodwill built up by the rest of the team.

 

 

The video in the original post makes pretty much the same argument as this article... not that anyone bothered to watch it or anything.

[Ghost_MH]

1 minute ago, skillzdadirecta said:

The video in the original post makes pretty much the same argument as this article... not that anyone bothered to watch it or anything.

 

Ha! Yeah, I didn't watch it, but mostly because I already read the report they're talking about...also, I could totally be playing a new game in the half hour they talk about the thing I already read.

[Keyser_Soze]

I didn't bother to watch it because I heard the same thing on the three podcasts I listen to.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

The podcast hosts claim that there were no "water cooler conversation" games released in 2023 and that the last game to do so was Elden Ring in 2022.

 

This is a really odd claim to make for a year in which Baldur's Gate III released and permeated the overall cultural zeitgeist in a way that Elden Ring never even came remotely close to cracking.

[Slug]

I play lots of games that are a few years old (VII rebirth is the only new window game I'm playing atm).  Mostly it's because there's so many games and a lot of them are really good.  With exceptions for my favorite properties, I no longer feel the rush to run out and buy games at launch when I have a backlog of top notch titles I haven't played yet.  It's not a matter of replay either; I almost never play expansions or DLC.  There's just so much I haven't gotten to.  I don't reject new games, they just have to get in the queue.

 

And as a bonus by the time I do get around to the new games released today, they'll likely be cheaper or on sale rotation (unless it's a first party Nintendo game).

[GameDadGrant]

10 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

Wonder how my stats would look to this data. Brand new AAA single player game one week, 25 year old JRPG the next, then a 24 year old online RPG followed by it's 3-12 year old sequel (depending on how you look at it) followed by a hardcore survival horror RPG maker game, a fairly new procgen indie detective game, a 7 year old imsim, and 350 separate hentai games.

Pretty much the same for me, but instead of an old online RPG, it’d be an old 1v1 fighting game.

 

Same for everything else.

[Xbob42]

4 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

The podcast hosts claim that there were no "water cooler conversation" games released in 2023 and that the last game to do so was Elden Ring in 2022.

 

This is a really odd claim to make for a year in which Baldur's Gate III released and permeated the overall cultural zeitgeist in a way that Elden Ring never even came remotely close to cracking.

Real "anything I'm not playing doesn't exist" vibes.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Just now, Xbob42 said:

Real "anything I'm not playing doesn't exist" vibes.

 

Everything else about their discussion was fine, but that one exchange just stuck out to me as just not reflecting reality.

[skillzdadirecta]

4 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

The podcast hosts claim that there were no "water cooler conversation" games released in 2023 and that the last game to do so was Elden Ring in 2022.

 

This is a really odd claim to make for a year in which Baldur's Gate III released and permeated the overall cultural zeitgeist in a way that Elden Ring never even came remotely close to cracking.

I thought that was odd too because my impression was Baldur's Gate III was that game for 2023 as well. Apparently it wasn't a game that cracked the top 10 for Monthly active users for 2023 which is what these guys are basing the whole discussion on. In fact the only games that did that actually came OUT in 2023 were Starfield, Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom and Hogwarts Legacy? That was 2023 right? Either way these guys are discussing the data presented in that report and not making any personal assumptions.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

10 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

I thought that was odd too because my impression was Baldur's Gate III was that game for 2023 as well. Apparently it wasn't a game that cracked the top 10 for Monthly active users for 2023. In fact the only games that did that actually came OUT in 2023 were Starfield, Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom and Hogwarts Legacy? That was 2023 right? 

 

You're absolutely correct.

 

 

I just don't think that Baldur Gate III not cracking the Top 10 for MAUs negates its status as a "water cooler conversation" game at all when #bearsex was trending on social media for days on end.

[Ghost_MH]

Monthly average users over the course of an entire year is such a terrible way to measure player engagement of a tight, single player RPG. A game that everyone is playing and gushing over a few months after release is going to overtaken by the popular live service and multiplayer games.

 

Nintendo seems to be the only anomaly here with three single player games making it into the top ten. Five, if you count Pokemon and Animal Crossing.

[skillzdadirecta]

15 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

Monthly average users over the course of an entire year is such a terrible way to measure player engagement of a tight, single player RPG. A game that everyone is playing and gushing over a few months after release is going to overtaken by the popular live service and multiplayer games.

Again, that's the point these guys are making in the video. They are concerned that Video game companies are taking exactly the opposite lesson from this data and are looking to double down on Live service games in the hope that can stumble upon a Fortnite or Roblox type game. game devs don't want a Spiderman 2 or Jedi Survivor... great single player games that people play for a bit, then put down and never touch again. They want GTA V type games where they can monetize the fuck out it for a decade. 

[crispy4000]

6 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

The podcast hosts claim that there were no "water cooler conversation" games released in 2023 and that the last game to do so was Elden Ring in 2022.

 

This is a really odd claim to make for a year in which Baldur's Gate III released and permeated the overall cultural zeitgeist in a way that Elden Ring never even came remotely close to cracking.

Also ToTK and all the building shenanigans.

[Keyser_Soze]

20 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

Monthly average users over the course of an entire year is such a terrible way to measure player engagement of a tight, single player RPG. A game that everyone is playing and gushing over a few months after release is going to overtaken by the popular live service and multiplayer games.

 

Lately I've decided I hate myself and read the steam discussion forums for Dragon's Dogma 2. A reoccurring thread there is along the lines of "this has less players than x" or highlighting the drop off of players, most of the sane replies are that it's a single player game that can be finished and add on that not everyone finishes games anyway so  that's also a drop off.

 

In any case the takeaways in this thread are interesting as they've gone in a different direction than what I've been hearing and that was the takeaway from what Phil Spencer was talking about in that kids are used to these free multiplayer games and doing it on mobile and aren't really engaging with single player console games. Which I think is the more alarming takeaway, not "people play a game and finish it"

[Ghost_MH]

6 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Again, that's the point these guys are making in the video. They are concerned that Video game companies are taking exactly the opposite lesson from this data and are looking to double down on Live service games in the hope that can stumble upon a Fortnite or Roblox type game. game devs don't want a Spiderman 2 or Jedi Survivor... great single player games that people play for a bit, then put down and never touch again. They want GTA V type games where they can monetize the fuck out it for a decade. 

 

I know, I'm just agreeing with that sentiment. That's why I previously mentioned WB because they had a great selling single player game followed by a flop of a live service game, but their conclusion is that they need more live service games. The videogame industry is run by execs with brain worms.

[Bacon]

I almost exclusively play new games outside of FFXIV.

[Ghost_MH]

2 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Lately I've decided I hate myself and read the steam discussion forums for Dragon's Dogma 2. A reoccurring thread there is along the lines of "this has less players than x" or highlighting the drop off of players, most of the sane replies are that it's a single player game that can be finished and add on that not everyone finishes games anyway so  that's also a drop off.

 

In any case the takeaways in this thread are interesting as they've gone in a different direction than what I've been hearing and that was the takeaway from what Phil Spencer was talking about in that kids are used to these free multiplayer games and doing it on mobile and aren't really engaging with single player console games. Which I think is the more alarming takeaway, not "people play a game and finish it"

 

I'd be more worried when those single player games stop selling. However, half of the best selling games last year were single player games with the top selling game being Hogwarts or Zelda.

[TwinIon]

Personally, I'm not convinced this isn't just the expected way for people to consume all media now that digital distribution has made so much all content available all the time. Here's an article from a couple years back noting a similar trend in music. I couldn't quickly find numbers, but it's no secret that shows like The Office and Friends continue to do numbers on streaming. It hasn't even been that long since games have had these long running titles or large back catalogs that are easy to access, so it makes sense that this might be a new development for the medium as it matures.

 

Games certainly face unique issues when it comes to catalog titles, but I think it's probably a natural state that given access to decades of media that the combined attention will be balanced towards the back catalog more than the most recent stuff. Back catalog media is better vetted, likely more accessible (as prices come down, wider distribution channels, etc), and long term success builds on itself. Get to a certain point of popularity, and that popularity can be self-sustaining for quite a while.

[eventide11]

21 hours ago, ort said:

I've noticed this with my kids, they don't seek out new gaming experiences. They just play whatever all of their friends are playing. It's much more social and much less solitary. They don't want single player experiences at all. It's multiplayer or nothing. It's kind of weird to me, but whatever.

Exact same. Both of mine play Roblox by and large and my oldest plays a mix of Sekiro, Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3 along with Risk of Rain 2

[LazyPiranha]

I don’t know, I’d be interested to know how those stats relate to history overall.  Just by pure math, games that came out within the last year are going to be less than .1% of all possible games, so I’d find it more surprising if they were in the majority somehow.  To me the only thing the so called forever games have done is consolidated the older games into a bunch of large silos instead of just tons of piles of disparate stuff.  

[Nokra]

Without having watched the video (olol) I will say this is true of me at least. I buy very few new games anymore; I've got such a backlog thanks to various sales (looking at you, Steam) that I couldn't hope to ever finish all of my games anyway. Plus as I get older I have less and less time for gaming.  

[LazyPiranha]

Of all my friends, I easily buy the most games overall and the most new games by far.  Once I finally built a gaming PC a decade ago and the novelty of steam sales wore off, I basically never add to my backlog by buying older games.  Looking back at the past handful of years, the only older games I bought new that weren’t remakes or rereleases were Bloodborne because I finally got a PS5 and EDF 5.

 

Even with that, I easily play more older games than new.  I play Vampire Survivors, Amobg Us, Slay the Spire, or Into the Breach on my phone constantly.  I dig out old classic games to play with my boys because they’re simpler and I know what’s in them.  I replay games I love all the time.  Unless a new game comes along and REALLY sucks me in like Valheim or Helldivers, I’m easily playing more than half of my games years out.  

[unogueen]

On 4/17/2024 at 9:26 PM, ort said:

I've noticed this with my kids, they don't seek out new gaming experiences. They just play whatever all of their friends are playing. It's much more social and much less solitary. They don't want single player experiences at all. It's multiplayer or nothing. It's kind of weird to me, but whatever.

Sounds like the arcade days. Like down to microtrasactions and lack of ownership.

[XxEvil AshxX]

Well my thing is that I have such a gigantic backlog that I will buy a game when it's new but then it's old by the time I actually get around to it.