To me it sounds more like the social media algorithms put you into the “gaming tech” corner so that’s all you see. Indie gaming is huge and not at all about graphics. Look at the currently popular games on Steam and a ton of them are technologically very basic.

I definitely think you’re in a bubble of AAA games. This is literally the middle of an indie game renaissance.

Get off of consoles, and get a midrange gaming PC.

That’s just triple A games, I think. Indie games are varied and don’t necessarily focus on graphics

Valheim was one of the best selling games and is still a huge success. Indies are getting better and more popular to the point that even big companies like Nexon are indiewashing their studio and pretending that Dave the Diver is an indie game with pixel art instead of a work of one of the biggest publishers there is. In my experience most of the gamers nowadays are people that grew up on minecraft, terraria or probably more likely today - roblox.

So basically no, I don’t think so. Maybe big studios want you to believe that and it might be true for a casual FIFA or CoD gamer but for anyone else, there are more options than ever and the supply of good smaller simpler games is just overwhelming, the days are too short to even keep track of them anymore.

Nothing happened. It is the same as always. There was no time, when graphics (and audio) weren’t the hottest shit to talk about. We did that in the 90s in ads, game magazines and in the schoolyard. And the people before us did the same. The buzzwords back then were different but that’s all.

Maybe stop watching youtubers, if that annoys you? Idk.

There are a lot of phenomenal indie games. There also are still a couple of really good AAA games, but AAA gaming isn’t what it used to mean. In fact I’d be careful with AAA by default unless reviews state that the game is actually good. Ubisoft even tried to establish an “AAAA quality” game with Skulls & Bones or how it’s called and it’s a total flop.

The real quality these days lies in indie games or (mostly) independent gaming studios. I think it’s kind of safe at this point to just assume by default that Bethesda, Microsoft, EA, Activision-Blizzard and so on simply cannot produce actual good games anymore (there may be some exceptions, but again, wait for independent reviews, and unless it was independently verified, don’t trust them to produce a good game).

Another problem is the sheer mass of games flooding the market, because it means that true gems aren’t found so easily. But they exist. There’s no shortage of great games, you just have to look harder, and look in the right places.

You may as well have typed this in 2009 or 2015.

It used to be that people argued that it’s worth getting the new game console because “better graphics”. The console wars hasn’t gone anywhere, it’s just expanded.

In any case, in regards to just installing a game and playing it, no, not really. When I was playing games in college in 2012 it was still a time when you would open a game and go to the settings menu to adjust settings.

Sometimes it was just turning off motion blur, but there was always settings to change to try to reach a stable 60FPS.

Nothing changed, it just expanded. Now instead of 60FPS it’s a variable 60-240FPS. Instead of just 720p-1080p resolution, unless it’s portable, it’s 1080p minimum otherwise variable up to 4k. Instead of “maxing out” we now have raytracing which pushes software further than our hardware is capable.

These aren’t bad things, they’re just now 1) slightly marketed, 2) more well known in the social sphere. There isn’t anything stopping you from opening up the game and going right away, and there’s nothing stopping other people from wondering about frame timings and other technical details.

Sure, focusing on the little things like that can take away from the wider experience, but people pursue things for different reasons. When I got Cyberpunk 2077 I knew that there were issues under the hood, but my experience with the game at launch was also pretty much perfect because I was focused on different things. I personally don’t think a dip here and there is worth fretting over, but some people it ruins the game for them. Other people just like knowing that they’re taking full advantage of their hardware, hence figuring out the utilization of their components.

There’s one last aspect not mentioned. Architectures. 10 years ago games would just boot up and run… But what about games from 10 years before then? Most players not on consoles were having to do weird CPU timing shenanigans to be able to boot up a game from (now 20) years ago. We’re in the same boat now with emulation, which while emulation is faring better, X360/PS3 generation games that had PC ports are starting to have issues on modern Windows. Even just 5 or 6 years ago games like Sleeping Dogs wouldn’t play nice on modern PC’s, so there’s a whole extra aspect of tinkering on PC that hasn’t even been touched on.

All this to say, we are in the same boat we’ve always been in. The only difference is that social media now has more knowledge about these aspects of gaming so it’s being focused on more.

The one thing I do agree with though is that this is all part of software development. Making users need better hardware, intentional or not, is pretty crazy. The fact that consoles themselves now have Quality vs Performance modes is also crazy. But, I will never say no to more options. I actually think it’s wrong that the console version of games often are missing settings adjustments, when the PC counterpart has full control. I understand when it’s to keep performance at an acceptable level, but it can be annoying.

Everything you said is just telling us what You’ve been focusing on. If you don’t want to focus on resolution, frame rates, etc, then don’t.

There are hundreds and hundreds of great games easily available. Play them. Ive been living the days of just installing a game and playing it for decades. And I’ll continue to do so with no problem.

Balatro is nominated for game of the year. Some other games from the past year you could check out: animal well, nine sols.

Ignore all the that, it’s marketing. A lot of cool indies that have better story and mechanics than AAA games, you just have to look beyond your usual places

It’s hype for marketing. Our society is based on consumption and over spending. The GPU and CPU manufactures want us to keep spending money to have the latest and greatest.

this makes me nostalgic… people were saying this about fallout 3.

Tbh… no, i don’t feel like we did. Those things have always been discussed on the mainstream ever since gaming became a thing. It mostly sounds like you have an algorithm/internet bubble problem, maybe it’s time to curate your feeds more to cater to your tastes? If you’re interested in a nice gaming podcast that doesn’t focus on graphics i can very much recommend “Gaming in the Wild”, it’s very chill and covers a variety of games, i like the way he describes things.

What you’re describing is not exactly gaming, but a different hobby entirely which is sometimes referred to as benchmarking. I’ve dabbled in it myself for some games, and the goal isn’t to experience and talk about the game as it is, but to figure out how to benchmark, best settings for performance and all that jazz.

Discussions about specific games for their merits are still very much alive on the internet though, you usually have to go to reddit and look for a dedicated subreddit for the game you’re interested in or their itch/discord if it’s a small indie game.

Nope, because I don’t give one shit about those kinds of games. Nintendo and indie games have never cared about graphics and performance. I haven’t owned a PlayStation since the PS2, and I’ve never owned an Xbox. Crazy how if your only console is a Nintendo then you never really care about that stuff. I do have a gaming pc but still play mostly indie games.