Maybe we should stop chasing Graphics?

[Lethologica]

Counter-counter point: look at Shovel Knight and Stardew Valley, both extremely popular indie games (the latter one *so* popular it's been ported to the Nintendo Switch). The graphics in either game would not look out of place on an early 90s console.

What is true of the industry is not necessarily true of every single game in every single genre in the indie sector. In particular, games that are intent on delivering an 8-bit or otherwise retro aesthetic and target audience are going to have a particular outlook that doesn't generalize well to games lacking that intent. Look at the indie games being developed on Unity and Unreal and CryEngine, all developed for and/or influenced by AAA games. And it's not like the indie devs who use bespoke engines to make games like Braid or Path of Exile or The Witness do so to handicap themselves by ignoring the work done on the AAA side of the industry.

[factotum]

So you're basically saying that, if the AAA industry collapsed, all those indie devs using Unity or whatever would immediately lose all their creativity and be unable to produce games anymore? Yeah, not buying that one.

[Lethologica]

So you're basically saying that, if the AAA industry collapsed, all those indie devs using Unity or whatever would immediately lose all their creativity and be unable to produce games anymore? Yeah, not buying that one.

What? No. My points are that (a) graphics have also mattered for indie games, and (b) the AAA graphics focus has had a halo effect on the graphics quality of indie games.

[BeerMug Paladin]

I've generally always thought of myself as not caring about graphics as much as gameplay.

But I still do have moments where I see graphics in some game or other and I'm just impressed by what I'm looking at. There's certain times where I can just sit a moment and admire what it is the game is showing me. It's nice. And I don't think it's really possible to say those moments don't influence my overall enjoyment of the game itself.

Of course, I play very few games lately, but I can find the fun in most newer games I play. I'm not discerning or terribly picky. I grew up in the NES days, and while there are some challenges from that era that I still find enjoyable (Nintendo Hard was really a thing), I think games these days are just better.

I don't think games have to be terribly deep or particularly involved to be fun. Sometimes fun is just clicking on little monsters until your character's numbers go up so you can click on more monsters. In such cases, I'm hard pressed to figure out what else there is to do with a game except make more graphics. Sometimes I think there can be a ceiling of suitable gameplay features and graphics is the only place for more resources to possibly go.

In regards to DLC, pre-orders, season passes, lootboxes, etc... If those bother one on a moral level, then one shouldn't buy games with those features. Boycott them entirely (not just the extra-features), just knowing that those things have been coded in. There's a whole lot of variety and choice out there, something can be found that's fun and won't be upsetting. I can't say I would never engage in those things if they were in a game (or series) I enjoyed, but for the most part those things haven't been present in games I've played, or if they were available, I have not put any serious consideration in to them.

Actually, come to think of it, I think the most recent thing out of those options I did was a pre-order for one of the DS Castlevania games...

[Slipperychicken]

I was under the impression that the graphics arms race was meant partly as a market entry barrier, so that triple-A developers can make it prohibitively expensive for smaller entrants to gain traction in their part of the market.

As for DLC and micro-transactions, I don't see the big deal. If you really hate it so much, you can just stop throwing money at them. No one's forcing you to pull out your credit card every time a new skin comes out.

[137beth]

So does just about every game right now, that's kind of the point. They aren't profiting from that if you don't purchase the boxes, however.

For what it's worth, neither Super Mario Odyssey nor Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild have lootboxes. If you want AAA games without exploitative microtransactions, the Switch is a pretty good place to look.

Who said anything about government regulation in this thread?

Though in this case, it really should already be regulated. Casinos are regulated, online poker is regulated, why are lootboxes not regulated?

Regardless, the individual has zero power. A community might have some (a small sum of some) but you essentially need more people than make up the corporation to combat the kind of momentum they have, or at least a very large core of VERY dedicated people. Believing otherwise is just naive.

In both Japan and South Korea, lootboxes are regulated. You can see some of the effects in action by trying some of the big freemium iOS/Android games made by Japanese companies. In many cases (e.g., Puzzles and Dragons from GungHo and Fire Emblem Heroes[/i] from Nintendo), the developers keep the English verions of the game close to the Japanese versions to save development costs, and as a side effect the English versions comply with a lot of the Japanese regulations. They still use lootbox-style IAPs, but they are restricted in how deceptive they can be.

At any rate, I'm fairly satisfied with the lack of microtransactions in indie games on all platforms, as well as console games from (some) AAA companies. I avoid AAA PC games in large part because of my dislike of the things other people have described on this thread better than me.