Why Gaming Feels Different Now
I started noticing something was off in gaming around 2018. It wasn’t one big moment, more like a slow shift that crept in over time. Games were taking longer to release, but the quality wasn’t rising with the wait. If anything, it felt the opposite. The industry was slowing down, but not in a way that made games better, just in a way that made them feel heavier, more bloated, and less confident in what they were trying to be.
AAA studios especially started leaning on the idea that they could fix everything later. Launch now, patch later. It became normal to see day‑one updates bigger than the game itself, or releases so broken they needed months of work just to reach a playable state. Ubisoft is the perfect example of this shift: a studio that used to set standards is now struggling to meet the ones it created. And as players, we’re paying full price for these products. We’re consumers. We deserve better than unfinished games and promises of future fixes.
What’s interesting is that the magic didn’t disappear from gaming; it just moved somewhere else. Indies are the ones delivering the spark now. They come out of nowhere with fresh ideas, bold art styles, and gameplay that feels alive. Expedition 33 impressed me more than most AAA releases in the last few years, and that says a lot. Indies take risks because they have to. AAA copies those risks because they’re too scared to make their own.
And honestly, I understand why they’re scared. When a single game costs hundreds of millions of dollars, one failure can sink a studio. Budgets are out of control. Development cycles are too long. Teams are stretched thin. But the solution isn’t to spend more, it’s to spend smarter. Tighten budgets. Cut the bloat. Give creatives room to breathe. Make games that the people working on them can actually be proud of.
Right now, I’m all in on indies. They’re the ones carrying creativity, pushing boundaries, and reminding us why we fell in love with gaming in the first place. Meanwhile, AAA feels like it’s chasing trends instead of setting them. And the worst trend of all, live service, needs to go. Burn it. Studios need to respect players’ time. We don’t owe them daily logins, battle pass grinds, or endless checklists. If a game doesn’t hit in the first twenty minutes, we’re done. It’s like going to a restaurant: if the first bite is bad, you’re not finishing the meal.
Even with all of this, I don’t think the industry is beyond saving. It’s failing in some areas, sure, but it can claw its way back. It just needs to take smarter risks, give new voices a chance, and stop pretending that bigger budgets automatically mean better games. Players know what they like. We know when something feels genuine. And if studios can get back to making games with heart, not just games with marketing budgets. The magic can return.