We are ripe for another Luddite movement with this giant AI grift the Tech Bros are forcing on us.

This is why publisher's are trying to derail "Stop Killing Games."

When they are done with a a game the don't WANT you to continue to play and enjoy it....

...they want you to forget about it and buy the next product they have and financially engage with the microtransaction ecosystem

I will say though, if you're the kind of guy who likes MMOs and RPGs (like me) you'll love dune.

I used to play a ton of RuneScape back in the day, and recently I've been playing Eve and Star Citizen but dune is just a better game in every possible way than those three. I've been so obsessed that I had to uninstall it this week so I could get to sleep on time for work haha

Nice! I am too, I'll have to check out the modpack loader thingy that sounds fantastic!

Funny how that happens when people don't have any money.

It's fun how when you could really most use a reliable distraction you start to not be able to find joy in things you used to.

Can't afford a home, holiday and now videogames.

Any AAA game I got in the last decade I waited till it was dirt cheap. Red Dead 2 was the last one I bought and played through was maybe 15-20 bucks or something?

It's a two part answer.

One, gamers have less money to spend, along with everyone else.

Two, expensive AAA title games these days tend to be shit, from a graphics, code, community, and content standpoint. If you want good games, cheaper is usually better.

Last AAA title game I bought was Borderlands 3, and I don't see myself buying anymore in the next two years or so.

And when so much of gaming is shit.

Eh. I know what all PvP centric games turn into unless you're willing to devote a fuckton of hours into it and get into a great guild. I'll pass.

In addition to other's comments, I think that we just have enough good games by now that a lot of people can find a game they enjoy enough to sink hundreds or thousands of hours into. Minecraft, Factorio, Satisfactory, Hollow Knight, Elden Ring, etc.

It is here: https://modding-openmw.gitlab.io/umo/

How has Enshrouded been doing? I haven't been able to get on my PC in almost a year and only got to play it on initial release.

Honestly, this has been a great year for games. The past 5 years have been pretty great.

Yeah there has always been sales and "greatest hits" type shit, but go back and look at how much they were charging for the NES and Super Mario Bros. 3 back when they came out. Then adjust them for inflation.

Nitpick: It's probably not the devs so much as the capitalist owners and management collaborators. I'd guess most of the people making the games would be happy to have someone play their game at all. It's not like they typically get a cut of the profits (again: capitalism)

That's when you play PvP games that piss you off so much sadness goes to anger, which can be a nice distraction.

But you can get hundreds of hours from a f2p game, so that's the competition $70 games have. Then there's older triple a titles that are cheaper, and there's so many that it's not possible to have played all of them. Then epic giveaways, game bundles, indies, etc.

And price increases push more consumers away from impulse purchases. And that can lead to them becoming patient gamers once they see not buying at release isn't a big deal.

I don’t need the 7th iteration of the same game dressed up with new graphics for the price they're charging.