Scientists prove that AAA gaming sucks.

[scalliano]

"Slaughter is its own reward." - Stuart "Ahoy" Brown

 

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.220411

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-07-27-gaming-does-not-appear-harmful-mental-health-unless-gamer-cant-stop-oxford-study

 

A lot of you may have already come across this study in the last few days - a group of boffins at Oxford University conducted a large study which found once and for all that gaming is not harmful to your mental health. Cue a load of articles and Youtube videos lauding the study and cries of "We Told You So." Mountain Dews all round, guys, am I right?

 

HOWEVER!

 

One part of the study I found particularly interesting - the difference between what they referred to as intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation, simply put as, "the difference between playing a game for the hell of it and because it's fun" versus "playing to grind out XP/unlocks/daily challenges/currency/skins/whatever". What they found was probably not all that surprising - that mental wellbeing increased over time when players were doing it for fun, but decreased whenever there were external factors involved, such as grinding out battle passes to get all the gear before they expired. Or, as the study put it:

 

Quote

Play experienced as a volitional experience was positively predictive of subsequent well-being whereas the opposite was true of engagement characterized by a sense of compulsion.

 

In a nutshell, it's better to want to play a game than to feel as if you need to.

 

Well, duh, right? Right, except now we have the data.

 

I can speak from personal experience on this - it's the reason I no longer play GTA Online and the reason I bounced the fuck off Gran Turismo 7 pretty much as soon as I rolled credits on the bugger. And the reason I don't play mobile games at all. Once a game starts to feel like a job in itself, it stops being fun. And seeing those iconic cars and garage staples from previous GT games being locked behind insurmountable sums of ingame currency just soured me on the whole experience. Of course, you could always drop a few extra quid, couldn't you? That would make the game fun again, right? And so the demon of AAA game design reveals itself.

 

AAA games WANT you to keep playing. They don't want you to ever stop. That's why there's been such a clamour for live services - maximum revenue for minimal effort. There is a veritable boneyard of failed live games (*cough*Ubisoft*cough*) but they don't care. They will keep pushing them onto players because it only takes ONE of them to stick. Every AAA pub wants their Fortnite, and they will sacrifice YOUR mental wellbeing in order to get it.

 

Rant over. Thoughts?

[heliumlamb]

the state pretty much every currently active competitive multiplayer game post-dota is in, and has been in, is most exemplary of that. they are also probably the sole reason why singleplayer games have started to adopt the "grind then skin then grind and store hahaha numbers go up" nonsense in the past console generation.

of course a competitive multiplayer game in 2022 wouldn't be without xp, skins, or marketplaces thanks to valve unfortunately setting that standard with their mann co store experiment. the addition of ELO into competitive online games is genuinely destroying the livelihood of all who play them. the compulsion to reach global grand platinum elite or whatever shit, by any and all means, has and will continue to lead to some of the worst interpersonal human interactions due to the whims of video games.

i've seen too many cases of this:

oh no! something happened in the network connected lines of code that you didn't like! time to say one Angry Video Game Word of many. gamer rage seething, use of slurs increasing. you're not having fun so you will make damn sure all of your teammates are not having fun as well. months and months go by nobody's having fun anymore, your precious skill assessment number has caused you to fall in rank, and ignites your gamer rage once more. another month and your rank stays where it has fallen. you still have the same teammates, you're making sure they won't leave you but nobody has enjoyed playing that game, and playing it with you for at least a year at that point. you want your rank to go up to where it was, so you turn to your search engine, and begin to look for some fairness-removing executable. if you're lucky, you will eventually find one that may at least do what it describes, and with that you will hope your precious little rank number starts to go up. eventually, you will either be reported by observant players and/or have your OS start to deteriorate due to the malware that was embedded in all the fairness-removing executables you downloaded and at least tested, both real and fake. you get a new account, nuked hard drive and new teammates unaware of your previous behaviors to verbally abuse in the name of your ELO-based rank. repeat.

the fact that i recently had more fun in 10 minutes of action quake 2/aqtion than i ever did in 200ish hours of CSGO (all before it went f2p) has me thinking a lot about this again

**most recent AAA singleplayer game i have played was arkane prey <3 so i don't have much of a feel for the average AAA singleplayer game in the 2020's. my switch collects dust and downloaded old arcade games.

Edited August 2, 2022 by heliumlamb : **another sentence on singleplayer

[Rudolph]

I would object to framing the study as "proof", as science is ultimately more about sharing findings that are subject to change.

 

Nitpick aside, yeah, this seems to confirm what I have been feeling about those big-budget titles. That is why I cannot help but cringe whenever they claim to satirize the industry. I have previously expressed my frustration with Doom 2016's shallow lampshading of corporate culture, but it turns out that Borderlands 3 does that too - specifically with the Transaction-Packed quest, which makes fun of the predatory business practices that Gearbox is very much guilty of, even if it is definitely not to the same extent.

 

Something has gone terribly wrong when playing games feel like work!

Edited August 2, 2022 by Rudolph

[7Mahonin]

I barely get interested in new AAA games. They have turned multiplayer into a money making scheme. DLC is used for trivial bullshit that in games of yesteryear would’ve been featured as unlockables either by finding secrets, items, or even just replaying on different difficulties, etc. Everything that has sold well gets rereleased sooner and sooner too, and multiple times at that. This stuff, and much more I don’t feel like typing out right now, annoys me, but you know what? We can’t blame the people making this shit up and selling it at this point. The blame is now on the people who continue to throw money into these schemes that make gaming like it is now. 

[Biodegradable]

I figured that one out a decade ago when pre-order culture was running rampant and microtransactions were only just becoming a thing, so I stopped buying AAA games, ditched the consoles and now only play older games and indie titles on my PC.

 

Where's my big fancy science degree?

[Nikku4211]

Doesn't this apply to RPGs in general, too?

 

Especially the ones with heavy grinding like Final Fantasy on NES.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

I hate to be "that guy", but I really do think most AAA games suck these days. There are exceptions, but I just don't enjoy modern stuff anymore. Games have lost their charm due to multiplayer XP grindfests, live-service shit, microtransactions, all that good stuff everyone complains about. At least when it comes to western developers. Another reason they have lost their charm is due to the fact that the focus on realistic graphics has taken away the feeling of imagination and creativity. Either that or you get indie games that are too focused on being artsy-fartsy, or retro-style indie games imitating older, better games.

 

The last games I've played have been Okami, Dragon Quest VIII, Dark Cloud, and other PS2 games. No modern game can capture the feeling of wonder I get from those games. The "realistic" graphics of the PS360 Era were impressive for about a year or two, and then it got old, and to me there hasn't been an impressive graphical advancement yet. I'm also sick of people defending indie games just because they feel like they're rebelling against the industry, but many of the indie games people champion are even more shallow than the AAA games they detest so much (not talking about people like @Biodegradable). I like a lot of indie games too, but there is a recurring theme of "art over gameplay in many of them, and the art is usually evocative of the same feeling and atmosphere: that melancholy, downbeat-but-soothing atmosphere that so many indie titles strive for gets really old.

[Murdoch]

2 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

I hate to be "that guy"

 

Aka "anyone who's not an imbecile".

 

There are exceptions but I am honestly struggling to remember the last time I purchased a brand new AAA game at the time of release. Probably Doom Eternal? But companies do this shit because idiots have told them "why yes, I will give you absurd amounts of money for basically nothing". People need to wise up and vote with their wallets but sadly I cannot see that happening.

[INfront95]

Quote

Scientists prove that AAA gaming sucks.

Fire is hot
Water is Wet
Doom3 is a good Doom game

[dasho]

I will never forgive the Oblivion Horse Armor DLC.

[The BMFG]

most modern triple a games ive seen have turned out as just complete rubbish or a disaster launch. the only triple a companies im really interested in are id software and monolith. monolith made my absolute favorite game of all time

seriously shadow of war is a masterpiece

 

[Rudolph]

47 minutes ago, Nikku4211 said:

Doesn't this apply to RPGs in general, too?

That is a good question. I guess unlike other genres, RPGs are expected to feature some kind of grinding.

 

Then again, having to grind for loot oftentimes feel like an artificial way to extend a game's length. Borderlands, for example, loves to brag about its billions of gun variations or so, but at the end of the day, only a handful is really worth your time. Maybe the game could ditch the randomly-generated weapons as well as the experience-based level-up system for a smaller arsenal of unique weapons and a RPG system that is more along the lines of System Shock 2, where you unlock skills through in-game currency?

 

Granted, System Shock 2 is more of a survival horror, so I am not sure if its mechanics would work for an action game like Borderlands.

[MattFright]

14 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

Then again, having to grind for loot oftentimes feel like an artificial way to extend a game's length.

I feel like this plagues a lot of games where there's abusive levels of grinding and time wasting, not too different from that seen in mobile games, just out of the notion from a few designers that that's just inherent to the genre (most commonly RPGs and MMOs), without necessarily being predatory.

 

I feel like most of the RPGs and MMOs that i've enjoyed it was despite these mechanics, rather than because of them. I also feel like this drives away people who want something more respectful to their time, leaving only the people who are fine with it or grown to a stockholm syndrome with it, which then spread the notion that those things are the reason people like them to the point that most games in those genres have come to adapt them, and since people who would like them but can't stand the grind think it's also just inherent to RPGs and MMOs and dismiss them as just "not for them".

 

...This is partially just a rant from my anger in seeing MMOs going from simply roleplaying game spaces actually making use of the fact that there's a ton of players around for its fun, to games that you could probably just play offline and replace most players with NPCs and you wouldn't notice a difference. lol

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

Grinding can be a good or a bad thing, I love grinding/farming in From Software games and JRPG series like Dragon Quest. It's obviously a lot different than a live service/multiplayer game where the developers drip-feed you some XP every match to keep you hooked. It's similar to buying drugs from a shitty dealer. "Pre-order our game and get a free week of 2X XP! Play all week as much as you can, that way when that 2X shit wears off you'll want to buy one of our sweet 2X boosters for $4.99!". 

 

For me, grinding is only predatory in online games. Is the game is a standard offline affair with no microtransactions and there's a lot of grinding, that's just a style you don't like. You already gave them the money for the game, they don't need to keep you hooked. I sure as hell don't want stuff like JRPG grinding to go away, it's a staple feature in the gaming world. I can understand the "doesn't respect my time" argument when it comes to stuff like MMO games, but not offline single-player games. I've seen people say that about stuff like Skyrim and Witcher, which I find to be ridiculous.

Edited August 2, 2022 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[Majin]

1 hour ago, Nikku4211 said:

Doesn't this apply to RPGs in general, too?

 

Especially the ones with heavy grinding like Final Fantasy on NES.

i think so, i'd say grinding can be an appeal to many players of rpgs, specifically the delayed gratification you get from your progression, so there is intrinsic motivation there. when im immersed in my characters & world i can seamlessly spend hours doing so without much thought to it but when i'm not as interested in it, then yeah even the tiniest of grinds become a glaring bore. i've played rpgs before that in hindsight where complete & utter wastes of times but when i did play it back then i was far too immersed in other aspects to care. 

 

34 minutes ago, MattFright said:

I feel like most of the RPGs and MMOs that i've enjoyed it was despite these mechanics

very reminiscent of how i feel. most mmos & rpgs to an extent tend to blast you with with a million popups that are a mixture of their monthly 5% off sale for their 5000 content expansions, tips on how to play chore-like game, or just the cumbersome game UI that has a steep learning curve just to use. ive stopped playing mmos quite a long time ago, i had fun playing runescape, wow & wizard 101 when i was younger but when i revisited them i was mentally repeating to myself "where's the fun???".  though being fair, rpgs don't have a track record for smooth experiences, i have a lot of fun memories playing baldur's gate but whenever i tried it since then the inconvenience of the UI & controls take me out of the experience. 

 

34 minutes ago, MattFright said:

...This is partially just a rant from my anger in seeing MMOs going from simply roleplaying game spaces actually making use of the fact that there's a ton of players around for its fun, to games that you could probably just play offline and replace most players with NPCs and you wouldn't notice a difference. lol

it's kinda crazy how these huge games feel like ghost towns, no one is all that interested in the world, characters or players. the most interaction i have with these players is seeing someone walk by me as they're grinding their 500000th quest. i legitimately question if the players are npcs at times because of how cold & non existent their interactions are, it feels like playing a singleplayer game with the ghosts of other people in it, like a cringe creepypasta

[Mr. Freeze]

For people that don't like AAA games, you lot seem to be spilling a lot of virtual ink over them. 

 

I mostly don't play them, or care about them. AAA games could have machines hooked up to your computer that punch you in the dick if you don't buy microtransactions and it wouldn't affect me in the slightest. I'm sure the people buying Ubisoft Tower Climbing Simulator 2023 are furious at their NFT support though. 

[The BMFG]

5 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

 Play all week as much as you can

this reminds me of the time when i grinded for the gold skin on my 275 on modern warfare. i remember getting so pissed cause i had to do so much stupid shit just so i could an stupidly overpowered weapon look a little bit pretty

[INfront95]

Im more annoyed how gaming trends like microtransactions, are actively harming core and visual game design.
For example: I can tollerate grinding and repetitive content for a nice reward. A cool looking sword, A nice fucking armor...... to be prefectly honest for me ,personaly, cool looking drip is enough reward for grind. But we cant have nice things don't we? For the sake of pushing microtransations , they spend more time on design of paid content than on what there is in the base game.
Bad take: I was liking later AC games, yea they repetitive bloated grind fests, but for mind numbing evening past time they... uh pass. So about what i was saying. Valhalla and Odyssey have "Legendary loot" that you can obtain by grinding and actively looking for them. You think they spend time on a "BIG gameplay goal" to make it worth? Fuck no. Every set of endgame loot is .... Drum roll.... the same models they use for common items  BUT GOLD! While 30+ PAYED sets in the shop are almost all unique models. Fuck this is insulting. People who pay for microtransactions deserve the industy they helped to grow.

[OpenRift]

This is pretty much what I've been saying the whole time, most of the AAA industry is so fixated on incentivizing players to play their game that they just forget that they need to make a good fucking game first. It's a scam, it's just creating and fueling a materialistic instinct to play just to unlock some stupid item that had no reason being locked behind progression, in some cases tempting you toward just buying said item instead. It's capitalism in its most petty, manipulative form. When it's not pay-to-win, it's basically turning play into work. It's fucking pathetic.

 

Imagine if you had to unlock multiplayer maps by leveling up, you know how awful that would be?

 

I think the problem now is that you have gamers believing there are only two approaches that companies can go about this: play-to-win and pay-to-win. The "winning" in this case not being like winning a match or beating the campaign, no. It's just getting some item or cosmetic.

 

The real answer is don't implement either model. Make a fun game, then make CONTENT for it, not artificial challenge. Make new maps, make more modes, I should not have to grind to fucking level 50 just to unlock a goddamn machine gun, Activision. It's lazy game design. Fuck both schools of thought and the greasy pile of money they rode in on.

 

This is why I really liked Doom Eternal, sure they did have some cosmetics stuff, but the thing is they made a good game, and then actual content post-launch. All games should strive to follow that model.

[Solmyr]

Hatred towards modern AAA gaming on a forum mostly dedicated to modding and mapping for a 29 year old game, who woulda thunk?

 

Leaving that aside, i don't care about AAA gaming since the last decade or so, i just stick with whatever satisfies my monkey brain, and that happens to be mostly retro games, i wish people would just stick to what they find fun and don't cause them any form of psychological harm or dependency, nor inconvenience them in their daily lives such as taking away time for your close ones, other hobbies and life duties, just playing for fun and feeling no pressure about it. 

 

Unfortunately things can't be that good and simple.

 

2 hours ago, Nikku4211 said:

Doesn't this apply to RPGs in general, too?

 

Especially the ones with heavy grinding like Final Fantasy on NES.

 

Pretty much, JRPGs in general stop being fun at times when they reach a point where you have to grind to move the plot forward and face stronger bosses, unlock better character abilities and find better gear, especially if they are optional, the player experiences similar symptoms to what's described in the article, you reach a point where you mentalise yourself that you HAVE to reach level 60/70/99 no matter what and then see how long you have to endure as the levels get higher and experience gain grows more and more insufficient, you no longer have fun at that point. Fortunately it's only parts of those games not the entirety, at least for most JRPGs.

[Biodegradable]

2 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

For people that don't like AAA games, you lot seem to be spilling a lot of virtual ink over them. 

 

"A discussion about the state of games on a gaming discussion board? The audacity!" :^P

[Kinsie]

I like videogames and enjoy playing them.

[TheFocus]

i will say this:

AAA gaming is mostly dead. studios like Id, Insomniac, Rocksteady, Dennaton, Voidpoint, they're carrying the industry.

 

indie gaming is obviously better (indie shooters are popping off right now, good shit), but people don't realize, there's a lot of stale ideas being beaten to death in the indie scene as well. a ton of small teams are making the same types of, and i hate saying this, artsy games. nothing wrong with that, of course, but after the 100th Artful Escape clone, you need new ideas.

And maybe i'm alone on this, but can we move on from 80's focused nostalgia? please? i wasn't alive then, so i don't "get it", but it's been like 12 damn years. it's been getting to cringe levels since 2019.

[TheFocus]

10 minutes ago, Kinsie said:

I like videogames and enjoy playing them.

imagine that.

[Graf Zahl]

Remind me again - why are we discussing this on a forum for a 27+ year old game?

 

I haven't played an AAA game since Quake 4 because I refuse to buy DRM'd products as a matter of principle. Everything that came after Half Life 2 was the inevitable consequence of authenticating games with online services. At this point I think the only viable countermeasure would be to outright prohibit such schemes on games that target minors, but our laggard, aging politicians which mostly come from a pre-internet generation are simply too far behind the curve in these things that they can do anything.

 

What's good to see is that indie releases really have increased over recent years where fully developed game engines have reduced the barrier for entry quite significantly.

And once a player gets past the visual barrier of not expecting photorealistic graphics in an otherwise well-made game, the chances are high that they rather pay for 5 of those games, than one un-fun AAA abomination. We'll see how this works out, but I'd expect the indie scene to grow steadily.

[Kinsie]

22 minutes ago, map11has2names said:

imagine that.

It's a controversial statement, I understand, but I am willing to stand alone.

[Graf Zahl]

If you feed the monster, you will eventually become part of the monster. Those who have seen the light will try their hardest to go out of its way! :P

[TheFocus]

1 hour ago, Graf Zahl said:

Remind me again - why are we discussing this on a forum for a 27+ year old game?

 

I haven't played an AAA game since Quake 4 because I refuse to buy DRM'd products as a matter of principle. Everything that came after Half Life 2 was the inevitable consequence of authenticating games with online services. At this point I think the only viable countermeasure would be to outright prohibit such schemes on games that target minors, but our laggard, aging politicians which mostly come from a pre-internet generation are simply too far behind the curve in these things that they can do anything.

 

What's good to see is that indie releases really have increased over recent years where fully developed game engines have reduced the barrier for entry quite significantly.

And once a player gets past the visual barrier of not expecting photorealistic graphics in an otherwise well-made game, the chances are high that they rather pay for 5 of those games, than one un-fun AAA abomination. We'll see how this works out, but I'd expect the indie scene to grow steadily.

i think this statement is a little extreme. the only group i can think of that cares that much about graphics, is Playstation fanboys.

[Graf Zahl]

I don't think so. Younger people who grew up on games that became ever more photorealistic will have to change their expectations to accept graphical standards from 20 years ago. And not all will.

It's not "caring about graphics", but learning to accept a very different artistic standard than what is technically doable today.

 

[Daytime Waitress]

6 hours ago, dasho said:

I will never forgive the Oblivion Horse Armor DLC.

 

People will have a giggle at this, but it truly was the point where devs realised people would pay for what was formerly unlockable. That emboldened publishers to push for making progression more onerous, with the caveat that players could bypass that if they shelled out even more. And that's the reason we're all taking refuge on a site for a 29-year old game.

 

As for the study itself, I found the opening sentence of the conclusion quite telling [emphasis mine]:

 

Quote

 

Policymakers, healthcare professionals and game developers urgently need to know if video games influence players' well-being.

 

 

Because publishers, who are driving the absolute worst aspects of AAA gaming, do not give a single fuck.

 

I think the best that can come of this study is that it will form the bedrock of further research, and provide... something to further legal attempts going after in-game gambling and other predatory behaviours by megacorps like EA.

 

11 hours ago, scalliano said:

Once a game starts to feel like a job in itself, it stops being fun. And seeing those iconic cars and garage staples from previous GT games being locked behind insurmountable sums of ingame currency just soured me on the whole experience. Of course, you could always drop a few extra quid, couldn't you? That would make the game fun again, right?

 

Sugar, next time there's a Gabesale, do youself a favour and grab Assetto Corsa. Tens of thousands of mods: practically any car and track combination you can imagine. And while it will chug on a true potato, if you're capable of running modern games you can crank the shit out of it thanks to some truly impressive filters - again, community provided.