A whopping 37% of Steam users' playtime in 2024 was spent on titles released eight or more years ago

[vicsrealms]

Modded old copies of the GTA Trilogy, Fallout 3, and Fallout New Vegas. Going through them right now while I finish up Skyrim and Fallout 4. Also, playing on a WOTLK private server for WoW. The newest gaming I'm playing right now is Elden Ring.

Although, I am kind of tempted to pickup Space Marine 2.

 

[Liranan]

Shocking that people don't want to be beaten over the head with ideologies that 99% reject and then get geniuses spamming the internet with rhetoric such as: "Don't buy the game, it's not for you!" and "We hate you!"

None of these DEI loving ESG addicts will be missed.

 

[umeng2002]

The best thing about playing older games is just turning up all the bells and whistles and knowing even your mid-range GPU can handle it.

DLAA and super sampling makes games look really nice, even on a 1440p screen.

The absurd prices of GPUs now don't help things either.

 

[A Tabby Person]

I do not want to pay new game premium. Let other people pay it. Games economy is big enough that a given game or maker will not live or die on my Steam/Epic/GOG purchase. Wishlist and wait for deals. My already bought games bench is 25+ years deep. If I were younger or more interested in social gaming, I would likely roll the dice / pay the newness premium on games.

All this chatter about DEI/woke... really? As earlier poster mentioned, reads like Tumbler-4Chan foodfight.

 

[Watzupken]

There are a few reasons for this,
1. New games look good, but have very shallow game play. Older games tend to put more focus on game play and story which I prefer. Big game publishers are aware, hence, they have been remastering games to try to modernize the graphics, while saving themselves a lot of time and money on developing good story and game play.

2. Even on 1080p, a lot of these new "good looking" graphics can't run well on a lot of PCs.

3. Developers completely missed the point around making good games vs games with one of the priorities to showcase this or that ideology.

 

[McMurdeR]

Games are garbage these days. It's not politics and it's not COVID. It's just garbage games. They just don't know how to make games anymore, they've forgotten what fun is.

They've even forgotten how to review them - they think that another AAA remake is game of the year, and then they swoon over yet another bs Indy pixel-art rogue-like.

I could go on all day.

 

[LuxZg]

Explanation is so so simple. Have an example:
- Cyberpunk releases for 60$
- is full of bugs on release and way overpriced
- takes a year to patch up
- takes 4 years to actually finish the release cycle
- currently 46€ for ultimate edition and it's also lowest price ever

Game is still great, actually better than on release, and effectively half the price (on release prices were 60$ game + 30$ DLC).

So why would we pay full price for half done products when we can pay half price for fully finished product?

You also get benefits of mods, realistic reviews, and thus realistic expectations.

I'm currently also eyeing Red Dead Redemption 2: Ultimate Edition at lowest price of 23€. A 2018 game that still kicks a** and is almost a third of the price of original release. Again, patched, mods, etc.

With such great picks for 20-30$/€ why would I gamble 70$/€ on a new release that isn't yet properly "field tested"?

 

[poohbear]

Has anyone tried cloud gaming? Like Geforce Now. I'm moving about a lot for the holidays and got the Black Friday discount price. I can play w/ maximum settings on a server that renders at 4080 super quality off my laptop! It's crazy how it just works! This is definitely the future of gaming. If Netflix took over the TV streaming industry (which is a smaller market than video games), then Nvidia is not far behind. With Wi-Fi 7 speeds & latency on the horizon, the potential for this market is enormous!

 

[amstech]

The cancel culture powered by entitled pampered brats combined with endless liberal crybabies has produced a generation with no imagination and very few new ideas. Its not just games and movies, its everything. Thanks liberals. Up next...another Superman! Again!

 

[JCChua]

I am not surprised at all. That's because the vast majority of the latest AAA Games are overpriced garbage with lots of monetization schemes. I would rather prefer to play Classic Games that would happily run on older PC Hardware at 4K120Hz.

 

[JohnRambo4]

I still play online multiplayer Doom II.

 

[Jimster480]

My game play is limited to titles that are older, require little time having to remember stuff, have few and short cut scenes, aren't remakes and some of which I have played many times. If I played a game and finished it 10 years ago I must have enjoyed it. In 10 years I forget a lot so much of it is new again. New games maybe great but I am not spending $60 to find out it sux.

The problem is that most new games are not great. In fact, they aren't good at all. And it's showing that gamers are just not buying these new games that are not good. They don't want narrative-based games to push political views, and they don't want games that are extremely short with basically long cutscenes like interactive movies.

 

[Jimster480]

My game play is limited to titles that are older, require little time having to remember stuff, have few and short cut scenes, aren't remakes and some of which I have played many times. If I played a game and finished it 10 years ago I must have enjoyed it. In 10 years I forget a lot so much of it is new again. New games maybe great but I am not spending $60 to find out it sux.

The problem is that most new games are not great. In fact, they aren't good at all. And it's showing that gamers are just not buying these new games that are not good. They don't want narrative-based games to push political views, and they don't want games that are extremely short with basically long cutscenes like interactive movies.

I blame Trump. Hold on, I know what you're thinking, but hear me out.

Games started to get bad because of microtransactions, that started before Trump. For some reason, companies are completely unable to make a good mobile game and that bled over to "real" platforms once companies saw how profitable they were.

Then comes Trump in 2016. Him getting elected angered the far left and suddenly, we had DEI and "woke"(I hate that word) as a form of protest. Companies RAN with it and we ended up with games that noone want to play. Everyone was gaming during covid, even my 80 year old mother was playing Mario Kart with me during Covid, good times.

So for the people who want to politicize media, the easiest way to reach people during Trump and covid was through video games.

Biden got in and the far far left, the weirdos that make the actual left look bad, became a VERY vocal minority. Media companies with strong DEI initiatives made games targeting that vocal minority while assuming it was what the market wanted. It wasn't just politics, it was companies not reading the market properly because of how vocal that minority was.

And here we are now....

Frankly, I don't blame Trump, it's just that him getting elected set a series of events into motion where we are today.

I can totally understand this perspective.
Part of it does have to do with COVID and another part also with corporate greed. Because people were all sent home and not much work was done in 2020, the entire timeline of things became shifted. Never mind that after the certain mandates came out and people were barred from working, this further reduced the workforce and as such things were delayed even further.

Therefore, companies started shipping unfinished products. And as a way to make more money during a time of rampant inflation, they went towards a microtransaction model that was successful on phones rather than focusing on what gaming was prior to COVID.
As companies started struggling, they took more and more DEI money in order to stay afloat and started creating games that nobody wanted to buy. And now we have landed here where most new games are terrible and people are all playing older titles.

 

[Milest]

Because they're routinely on sale and they're cheap!

 

[ZedRM]

37% of gamers playing older titles? How is this surprising? Most modern games are crap..

 

[Gars]

Play games is the key, the graphic no matter
just play
make the man to play and u have it
old titles have a gameplay,
new titles are shiny mechanics P2W, with no gameplay

 

[Watzupken]

Games are garbage these days. It's not politics and it's not COVID. It's just garbage games. They just don't know how to make games anymore, they've forgotten what fun is.

They've even forgotten how to review them - they think that another AAA remake is game of the year, and then they swoon over yet another bs Indy pixel-art rogue-like.

I could go on all day.

As more game studios get acquired by big brands, the objective is no more about producing entertaining games. It is more about getting something, anything, out as soon as they can to make money. So you have a bunch of game developers that are just mindlessly producing something on a fixed cadence, with no emphasis on story or game play. Which is one of the reasons I am buying old or indie games instead of new AAA. And they probably cost a tiny fraction of these "shiny" new AAA titles.

 

[BadThad]

I blame Trump. Hold on, I know what you're thinking, but hear me out.

Games started to get bad because of microtransactions, that started before Trump. For some reason, companies are completely unable to make a good mobile game and that bled over to "real" platforms once companies saw how profitable they were.

Then comes Trump in 2016. Him getting elected angered the far left and suddenly, we had DEI and "woke"(I hate that word) as a form of protest. Companies RAN with it and we ended up with games that noone want to play. Everyone was gaming during covid, even my 80 year old mother was playing Mario Kart with me during Covid, good times.

So for the people who want to politicize media, the easiest way to reach people during Trump and covid was through video games.

Biden got in and the far far left, the weirdos that make the actual left look bad, became a VERY vocal minority. Media companies with strong DEI initiatives made games targeting that vocal minority while assuming it was what the market wanted. It wasn't just politics, it was companies not reading the market properly because of how vocal that minority was.

And here we are now....

Frankly, I don't blame Trump, it's just that him getting elected set a series of events into motion where we are today.

That's very insightful....nice vision!

 

[BadThad]

Age doesn't matter with gaming! A good, fun game is a good, fun game that will survive the test of time. We still have people enjoying Pong today for God's sake.

On a side note, I picked-up an Atari VCS system for $80 with free shipping on BF. Bought a 1 year sub to Ant Arcade for $20. EXCELLENT deal for $100! They have hundreds of the old games for streaming. My granddaughter (8) is discovering the joy of the classics like Burger Time. For that alone it was worth $100!