Hard to believe it’s been 24 years since Y2K (2000) And it feels like we’ve come such a long way, but this decade started off very poorly with one of the worst pandemics the modern world has ever seen, and technology in general is looking very bleak in several ways
I’m a PC gamer, and it looks like things are stagnating massively in our space. So many gaming companies are incapable of putting out a successful AAA title because people are either too poor, don’t want to play a live service AAA disaster like every single one that has been released lately, Call of Duty, battlefield, anything electronic arts or Ubisoft puts out is almost entirely a failure or undersales. So many gaming studios have been shuttered and are being shuttered, Microsoft is basically one member of an oligopoly with Sony and a couple other companies.
Hardware is stagnating. Nvidia is putting on the brakes for developing their next line of GPUs, we’re not going to see huge gains in performance anymore because AMD isn’t caught up yet and they have no reason to innovate. So they are just going to sell their next line of cards for $1,500 a pop for the top ones, with 10% increase in performance rather than 50 or 60% like we really need. We still don’t have the capability to play games in full native 4K 144 Hertz. That’s at least a decade away
Virtual reality is on the verge of collapse because meta is basically the only real player in that space, they have a monopoly with them and valve index, pico from China is on the verge of developing something incredible as well, and Apple just revealed a mixed reality headset but the price is so extraordinary that barely anyone has it so use isn’t very widespread. We’re again a decade away from seeing anything really substantial in terms of performance
Artificial intelligence is really, really fucking things up in general and the discussions about AI look almost as bad as the news about the latest election in the USA. It’s so clowny and ridiculous and over-the-top hearing any news about AI. The latest news is that open AI is going to go from a non-profit to a for-profit company after they promised they were operating for the good of humanity and broke countless laws stealing copyrighted information, supposedly for the public good, but now they’re just going to snap their fingers and morph into a for-profit company. So they can just basically steal anything they want that’s copyrighted, but claim it’s for the public good, and then randomly swap to a for-profit model. Doesn’t make any sense and just looks like they’re going to be a vessel for widespread economic poverty…
It just seems like there’s a lot of bubbles that are about to burst all at the same time, like I don’t see how things are going to possibly get better for a while now?
COVID also inflated a lot of tech stock massively, as everybody suddenly had to rely a lot more on it to get anything done, and the only thing you could do for entertainment was gaming, streaming movies, or industrial quantities of drugs.
Then that ended, and they all wanted to hold onto that “value”.
It is a bubble, but whether it pops massively like in 2000, or just evens off to the point where everything else catches up, remains to be seen.
“The markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent” are wise words for anyone thinking of shorting this kind of thing.
We still don’t have the capability to play games in full native 4K 144 Hertz.
And we really don’t need that. Gameplay is still more important than game resolution. Most gamers don’t even have hardware that would allow that type of resolution.
I remember when running counter strike at 30fps on a 480p monitor meant you had a good computer.
Modern graphics are amazing, but they’re simply not required to have a good gaming experience.
Gameplay is still more important than game resolution
In your opinion*. You forgot that part. For lots of people, graphics are way more important because they want a beautiful and immersive experience. They are not wrong to want that. I respect that you feel the way you do, but I respect others who care more about graphics. I’ll even go so far as to say that I am of the same mind as you, I don’t care about the graphics much at all but there are some games where the graphics have truly wowed me, or the visual effects. For example two that come to mind, Ori and the will of the wisps, or No Man’s sky. Two very different games but absolutely crazy visual effects and graphics on high-end computers. Another game that I play a lot is World of Warcraft, gameplay is so damn fun but it’s hard to get any of my friends to play it because it’s so ugly, looks like a poorly rendered PS3 game. That horrible quality of graphics prevents people from even trying it
Most gamers don’t even have hardware that would allow that type of resolution.
This is because they refuse to innovate. Think of the DVD player. You think a DVD player costs a lot today? Of course not, there’s a million of them and no one wants them anymore. If they actually innovated and created drastic leaps and technology, then older technology would be cheaper. It’s not expensive to go out and get an RTX 2080, which is the graphics card I currently have. Is about 250 or $300 now, pretty damn solid card. If they actually innovated and kept pushing the limits, technology would accelerate faster. Instead they want the inverse of that. They want as slow growth in technology as feasibly possible, maximum amount of time to innovate, maximum amount of revenue, and maximized impact on the environment. All those carbon emissions and waste of graphics cards being thrown out
If graphics were with it, people would pay for it.
The fact of the matter is that exponential graphics capabilities requires an exponential input of developer and asset creator budget. Given that there is a ceiling on game prices, it isn’t worth it going for higher fidelity games when the market isn’t going to pay for it.
What’s happening is that support from VC money is drying up. Tech companies have for a long time survived on the promise that they will eventually be much more profitable in the future. It doesn’t matter if it’s not profitable today. They will be in the future.
Now we’re in a period where there’s more pressure on tech companies to be profitable today. That’s why they’re going for such anti consumer behaviors. They want to make more with less.
I’m not sure if there’s a bubble bursting. It could just be a plateau.
. . . with 10% increase in performance rather than 50 or 60% like we really need
Why is this a need? The constant push for better and better has not been healthy for humanity or the planet. Exponential growth was always going to hit a ceiling. The limit on Moore’s Law has been more to the economic side than actually packing transistors in.
We still don’t have the capability to play games in full native 4K 144 Hertz. That’s at least a decade away
Sure you can, today, and this is why:
So many gaming companies are incapable of putting out a successful AAA title because . . .
Regardless of the reasons, the AAA space is going to have to pull back. Which is perfectly fine by me, because their games are trash. Even the good ones are often filled with micro transaction nonsense. None of them have innovated anything in years; that’s all been done at the indie level. Which is where the real party is at.
Would it be so bad if graphics were locked at the PS4 level? Comparable hardware can run some incredible games from 50 years of development. We’re not even close to innovating new types of games that can run on that. Planet X2 is a recent RTS game that runs on a Commodore 64. The genre didn’t really exist at the time, and the control scheme is a bit wonky, but it’s playable. If you can essentially backport a genre to the C64, what could we do with PS4 level hardware that we just haven’t thought of yet?
Yeah, there will be worse graphics because of this. Meh. You’ll have native 4K/144Hz just by nature of pulling back on pushing GPUs. Even big games like Rocket League, LoL, and CS:GO have been doing this by not pushing graphics as far as they can go. Those games all look fine for what they’re trying to do.
I want smaller games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less, and I’m not kidding.
This post really nails my take on the issue. Give me original cs level graphics or even aq2 graphics, a decent story, more levels, and a few new little gimmicks (rocket arena grappling hook, anyone?!?!) and you don’t need 4k blah blah bullshit.
The #1 game for kids is literally Minecraft or Roblox…8 bit level gfx outselling your horse armor hi res bullshit.
The last game i bought was 2 days ago. Mohaa airborne for PC for $5 at a pawn shop Give me 100 of this quality of game instead of anything PS5 ever made.
it’s time for you to play PACMAN, as i did when i was young 😂
no AI, no GPU, no shitcoin: you just have to eat ghost, which is very strange in fact when you think about it 🤪Well, that’s the doomer take.
The rumors are that the 80 series card is 10% faster than the 90 series card from last gen: that’s not a ‘10%’ improvement, assuming the prices are the same, that’s more like a 40% improvement. I think a LOT of people don’t realize how shitty the 4080 was compared to the 4090 and are vastly mis-valuing that rumor.
I’d also argue the ‘GAMES MUST BE ULTRA AT 4K144 OR DONT BOTHER’ take is wrong. My gaming has moved almost entirely to my Rog Ally and you know what? Shit is just as fun and way more convenient than the 7700x/3080 12gb desktop even if it’s 1080p low and not 1440p120. If the only thing the game has going for it is ‘ooh it’s pretty’ then it’s unlikely to be one of those games people care about in six months.
And anyways, who gives a crap about AAAAAAAAAAAAA games? Indie games are rocking it in every genre you could care to mention, and the higher budget stuff like BG 3 is, well, probably the best RPG since FO:NV (fight me!).
And yes, VR is in a shitty place because nobody gives a crap about it. I’ve got a Rift, Rift S, Quest, and a Quest 2 and you know what? It’s not interesting. It’s a fun toy that, but it has zero sticking power and that’s frankly due to two things:
- It’s not a social experience at all.
- There’s no budget for the kind of games that would drive adoption, because there’s no adoption to justify spending money on a VR version.
If you could justify spending the kind of money that would lead to having a cool VR experience, then yeah, it might be more compelling but that’s been tried and nobody bought anything. Will say that Beat Saber is great, but one stellar experience will not sell anyone on anything.
And AI is this year’s crypto which was last year’s whatever and it’s bubbles and VC scams all the way down and pretty much always has been. Tech hops from thing to thing that they go all in on because they can hype it and cash out. Good for them, and be skeptical of shit, but if it sticks it sticks, and if it doesn’t it doesn’t.
I’d also argue the ‘GAMES MUST BE ULTRA AT 4K144 OR DONT BOTHER’ take is wrong.
Some of the best games I’ve played have graphics that’ll run on a midrange GPU from a decade ago, if not just integrated graphics
Case in point, this is what I’m playing right now:
I’m a PC gamer, and it looks like things are stagnating massively in our space.
I would like to introduce you to the indie game scene. Where AAA is faltering, indie has never been in a better place.
Overall, I don’t see things the way you see them. I recommend taking a break from social media, go for a walk, play games you like, and fuck the trajectory of tech companies.
Live your life, and take a break from the doomsaying.
Hello indie gamer, it’s me, you, from the future.
I’d like to introduce you to PATIENT indie gaming.
The only games I play are small team, longer running, well documented, developers are passionate, mods exist, can play on a potato or a steam deck, etc
Because I’m patient, I don’t ever get preorder, Kickstarter, prealpha disappointed.
I know exactly what I’m getting, I pay once, and boom, I own a great game for ever. (You can more often fully DL indie games)
Bruh, what do you mean “future?” That’s me right now!
Bro I’m from the future you can’t ask me stuff like that, be patient, you’ll figure it out
