Topic: Do You Think The Sales Model And Rising Budgets Are Killing Creativity In The Gaming Industry?

So this is something that I've been thinking about for many years now: we're not getting as many different and unique games as we used to before. Back in the day when games didn't have massive budgets, developers were allowed to experiment, be creative and release all kinds of games. But in recent time, budgets for games have drastically increased and it's not the same as it used to be before. Games take a long time to be developed, not to mention have high costs. Fewer developers are taking risks today because the costs are simply too high if their projects don't meet expectations. While the sales model has worked for a long time, it genuinely feels like as time goes on and the costs keep rising, we're going to see less creativity in the gaming industry.

To give a few examples, one is Sony's Japan Studio. They decided to downsize it and let go of a lot of employees because the games they were making didn't meet expectations. Another example is PlatinumGames, who stated today that they want to focus on making live service games: https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2022/02/platinumgames-boss-mi...

"Inaba goes on to say that a changing industry is a key driving force behind this decision"

To me it sounds like their single-player games just aren't meeting expectations either and they have to go down this route if they want to be successful.

There are plenty of other examples, but the point is that I'm sure if you've been following the gaming industry the past few decades, you will have noticed these changes as well. And I feel like this is something that not a lot of people are focusing on because they are still getting lots of great games. But what about all the different and creative games? Most titles we play today are basically the same games we've been playing for the past decade.

Which is why I now want to focus on Microsoft and their subscription model. Probably a hot take for a lot of people, but I genuinely believe that with Game Pass, developers will be allowed to be more creative with their games than if they had to rely on the sales model. Not having to think about reaching certain expectations, Game Pass developers will be able to experiment more and create more unique and different games. Considering how games are becoming more expensive to develop, the only solution I can see going forward is for a subscription model to provide financial stability to these companies in order for creativity to keep flourishing in the gaming industry.

This is one of the reasons for why I want Game Pass to be successful and for Microsoft to keep acquiring more studios. In this case, it's beneficial to have an actor in the gaming market that has more or less limitless resources in order to provide continuous financial support to their studios so that they can create whatever games they want. For example, with the Activision Blizzard acquisition, my hope is that most of the Call of Duty developers will be freed up and allowed to create other games. Another example is if Microsoft acquired Sega and let their in-house teams create games other than Sonic and Yakuza. A new Super Monkey Ball, NiGHTS, Panzer Dragoon, Skies of Arcadia, Golden Axe, Shinobi, House of the Dead, hell why not a new Samba de Amigo? Sega is sitting on a treasure trove of IPs that have gone under-utilised for such a long time because of the sales model hindering them from taking risks.

As a person who has been playing video games for a long time now, it's clear to me where the gaming industry is headed and which side I will turn to if I want to see more unique and different games. I'm the type of person who has played so many video games that I'm desperately looking for new and fresh experiences. That's why Xbox is looking to be the most appealing platform for me in the future. The variety is there, the creativity is there. Last year, Psychonauts 2 came out and that was one of the most creative 3D platformers I've ever played. I think it's going to take a couple of years before we can get a better picture of what we can expect from Xbox going forward as Microsoft is still in its "growing" phase. But the way I see it right now, Xbox has the most interesting and promising future of the big three.

I feel that Microsoft and Sony's "most powerful console" battle is the biggest culprit and the Switch showcases this very well. The massive increased focus on live service is primarily on Xbox and Playstation with Game Pass actually increasing the focus just like the sales model. Everyone can see that Fallout 76 went from this very buggy and content-light gigantic disaster to a big success all thanks to Game Pass and so now when studios want to release full price live service games they put it on Game Pass to help it succeed, most recent example of this is Rainbow Six Extraction being a day 1 Game Pass release.

Jim Ryan has said about 10 live service games in the next 4 years but there's also rumours about Spartacus, the two things go hand in hand if Spartacus turns out to actually be a Game Pass competitor like the rumours suggest.

I feel Switch is the most interesting and promising future of the big three. The platform has a large variety of games including coming in the future and a Nintendo Direct hasn't even happened this year yet. The most powerful console battle between Microsoft and Sony does mean 3rd party Switch games are starting to go increasingly in the cloud version direction though which is concerning.

@Grumblevolcano I feel like if you had asked me five years ago, I would've said that the Nintendo is the most interesting platform and has a promising future. But now that we're five years into Switch's life cycle, we've already had plenty of time to experience the wonders of a hybrid console. It's not that exciting anymore and Nintendo will most likely release another Switch as their next console. Not to mention that in terms of exclusives, Nintendo mostly have platformers and JRPGs with only one series in several other genres (Smash Bros, Mario Kart etc).

Nintendo is simply not experimenting or putting out different games as much as they used to before. Just look at all the awesome games they put out on the Wii: Punch-Out, Wii Sports, Wario Land: The Shake Dimension, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Sin and Punishment: Successor of the Skies and so on. Not to mention all the great third-party exclusives that were on Wii. They barely care about their other franchises, such as F-Zero, Star Fox, Pikmin (where the hell is Pikmin 4?) and more. The way I see it now, Nintendo has focused a lot more on releasing older games on Switch, like Wii U, 3DS, Wii ports and remakes of older titles rather than creating new and different experiences. That's why it's hard for me to be excited about Nintendo's future because the company is not run by Iwata anymore. He was the one who constantly pushed for more unique software, not these constant re-releases of games. Even when they re-released games on Wii, they did so with a different control scheme. Remember New Play Control? You could play Pikmin 1 and 2, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat and Mario Power Tennis with motion controls. In the case of Pikmin, it made the games that much better to play.

Furthermore, while certain Nintendo franchises have certainly become better by adapting a different formula, the hardware doesn't make them any more interesting to play. Nintendo games have become just like any other games. Before you would have the Wii motion controls or the Wii U's dual screens that made for more unique and refreshing experiences. The Switch just lets you control games with normal controls. It's not any different from PlayStation or Xbox now and it makes Nintendo stand out a lot less in my eyes. In other words, the level of creativity has been lost in a lot of ways for them.

The quick answer is yes I do think that the 'Sales' model is what's killing creativity in the AAA space and why we have sequel after sequel, licensed IP's (Marvel, DC, Star Wars) and/or 'trend' chasing games from all the major publishers.

Activision are perhaps the most obvious 'Sales' driven model taken to the 'extreme'. CoD's popularity and success basically meant that Activision became solely reliant on its 'annual' release and rather than 'miss' that annual date, especially with each new generation adding to the work load increasing the time or man-power needed, they pulled Studio's in to 'help' ensure that got released at the expense of other projects. Why let 'High Moon' make their 'own' games that cost a lot to make but won't sell as many copies as CoD, won't bring in as much revenue per month (inc MTX revenue), so move them to support CoD and ensure that monthly CoD revenue stream remains as 'high' as possible. Treyarch was moved from making the best Spider-Man games, decent Bond games to 'support' Infinity Ward as they needed an 'extra' year to make CoD4:Modern Warfare.

If you are a publisher, not a 'creator' or a 'gamer', you are only looking at which projects will bring in the biggest profits. Some new, creative concept or another sequel? Some 'new' character or a 'returning' favourite from a well known franchise that is easy to market and sell? Of course they are going to take the 'commercial' route after all their primary objective is to make MONEY, not games and the 'only' avenue for Games Publishers without their 'own' platform is through 'sales' of their content on others platforms where as for MS, Sony etc, at least they have other avenues to make money so risk isn't so high. It doesn't matter quite so much if Sony take a 'creative' risk on a 'new' IP because they get 'more' money per game sold than a 3rd party because of also being the platform holder and, in the case of digital games, the retailer. They make money from 'sales' of 3rd Party games on their platform and MORE if they are also the retailer so the 'risks' are significantly 'lower'.

Basing decisions purely on Sales is going to kill creativity in the AAA space. These games take years to develop at huge cost so the 'predicted' sales is what will determine whether a project gets greenlit to go into full production. Unless the Publisher thinks they can market and make more money from a 'new' project, the surest bet is to go with their most popular IP and give people 'more' of the same. The 'best' critically acclaimed games are rarely the 'best' sellers too so that gives publishers less incentive to be 'creative' knowing that 'more' of the same will be more profitable.

Game Pass is a very different model - completely free of 'sales' pressures because these games are not expected to sell. I know they do get released to 'sell' to those who don't Subscribe, but that's 'bonus' money. What is more important now are Player numbers, player engagement (how long do they spend in these games, how much they liked it etc) and for Microsoft, how the Subscriber Growth, the retainment figures etc. That means games must be made more for the Player rather than the Publisher. It allows for creative freedom, a chance to experiment and let the 'gamers' decide whether its a 'success' or not - after all, they have already paid for its development through subscriptions and can try it 'free'.

Also, by its very nature, it needs Studio's working on their OWN projects. 8 studio's working on '1' game essentially, even if it comes out 'every' year is not great, they could have 8 games over 3yrs instead of 3 versions of the 'same' game. They need 'new' games every month, that's at least 12 big games every year - not 2 or 3 a year like a 'console', because they want to entice subscribers to sign up every month
and once Subscribed, give them a big reason to stay subscribed every month. Its much more about the player and because its not 'sales' driven - its player driven, its also much more about the Studio of developers, their 'vision', their passion, their style etc - not the Publisher. As long as Subscriptions continue to grow, the Publisher is 'happy' and can use Player Engagement, Player feedback to 'help' devs too. The Game Pass format makes the Publisher want to have as many 'individual' studio's making their own games to try and fill as many 'months' of releases as possible, makes them want to 'help' those studio's make the best games they can and as quickly/efficiently as possible - whether that's handling the QA testing or helping with adding inclusivity settings/controls etc.

If the Games are 'mediocre', then people won't subscribe or stay subscribed. Its perhaps better to buy the games you want to play and wait for those 'mediocre' games to drop in price. Game Pass works best by having 'great' games people want to play 'every' month, not 2 or 3 a year because then 'financially' it makes 'sense' to subscribe and then sense to remain subscribed. 2 'Exclusives' a year, as that's how a lot look at Game Pass is about the 'same' cost as a year of GPU, and I see it across gaming forums everywhere that GP isn't worth it for them because they can't see more than 2 exclusives a year they want to play - forgetting about ALL the other Game Pass releases every month. 2021 was FH5, Halo and MSFS in their head and if they don't care too much about 2 of those, it seems GPU is a 'waste' of money, they can pick up the one they want for a LOT less in a sale.

That's why they want 'every' studio making their 'own' unique games in their own style. Its already evident in their acquisitions as 'every' studio they acquired, at least before the A/B game, are studio's with their 'own' identity and style. Mojang, Compulsion, Undead Labs, Ninja Theory, Double Fine, Obsidian, inXile, Bethesda, Tango, ID Software, Machine Games, Arcane etc - All studio's with their own identity making games in their 'own' style. Even Rare are now 'back' to being able to create what they want - Sea of Thieves and Everwild certainly look like 'Rare' games...

It makes much more sense for gamers to be 'excited' by the new Bethesda game or new Double Fine game, knowing that it will be 'typical' for their Studio. Ninja Theory are becoming known for tackling Mental Health in games and that's why you are 'excited' to see Hellblade 2 and whatever Project Mara is. You are excited by Starfield because its a 'new' Bethesda game or Redfall because its from Arcane with their game-play systems and style too. The 'next' Double Fine game will be a 'Double Fine' style of game.

Game Pass allows for individual studio's to have their own culture and identity and gives them a platform of eager gamers willing to give your ideas a try. Its certainly not about sales and sales targets, commercial success vs creative 'risk' because there is NO commercial pressure at all. Make a game that sells 0 (zero) copies, no problem at all because 25m+ subscribers can all enjoy it - better than just 560k enjoying it after 'several' months because of 'price' and/or creative risks (Returnal -new IP, new style of game from Studio etc). It can end up being a LOT more successful without selling a single copy leading to more games that people want to 'play' instead of cancelling sequels, forcing more 'commercial' projects on the Studio to make up for 'losses' or even losing the option to create their 'own' games.

Game Pass is more like a 'collection' of Studio's making their 'own' games to compete for players time and attention and its 'better' that every studio has their own 'identity' and style to add their own creative ideas, projects into the mix to bring more variety and creativity to the AAA space. MS has 'several' FPS IP's now, several RPG's in development but 'each' has its own 'studio' behind the project with their own creative ideas, their own 'personality' injected into that project. Its also the way Phil Spencer sees it too as he alluded to when he talked about the A/B issues.

As a company, Microsoft is committed to our journey for inclusion in every aspect of gaming, among both employees and players. We deeply value individual studio cultures. We also believe that creative success and autonomy go hand-in-hand with treating every person with dignity and respect. We hold all teams, and all leaders, to this commitment. We’re looking forward to extending our culture of proactive inclusion to the great teams across Activision Blizzard.

He also talks about Creative 'success' and Autonomy which basically means that Studio's should be able to Self Govern and breed creativity by treating ALL staff with dignity and respect and that his role as 'head of Xbox' is to facilitate those studio's to realise their ambition, to 'help' them develop and release the games they want to make as a Studio.

No.

I think the industry's revolving door model, company mismanagement, and kowtowing to investors is killing creativity.

"The Revolving Door" model. The industry is no different than any other in terms of how they treat its labor force.--Like dogspit. Aside from a few veteran faces we've seen get plastered in articles, there is a revolving door of temps that get no benefits, no voice... and apparently no name in the credits. People just aren't happy.

Company mismanagement. Yeah, the developers at Techland totally wanted to have a "roadmap" of content following the launch of their unfinished game. A game that was scrapped and rebuilt at least twice because the boss wanted them to chase some trend. /sarcasm. At its best, we get Dying Light 2, at its worst, we get a shell of a game patched into existence in 18 month because the leads are misguided or indecisive (talking about Anthem). Months and years of wasted budget. Most of it on marketing.

Kowtowing to investors. Nobody has any stones. The pink-hair on the ground floor doesn't have the stones to tell their boss not to push out the game early. The boss doesn't have the stones to tell their CEO pushing out an unfinished game is a bad idea. The CEO doesn't have the stones to tell the board it's a bad idea. And nobody on the board has the balls to risk putting in a little more time to release a polished product rather than just settling on making a quick buck.

Meanwhile, these companies and their bean-counters are too busy trying to put band-aids on their festering model of wasting money in its many forms. None of which has anything to do with the illusion of rising costs.

@LtSarge I dunno man. Yes every big publisher will jump on games as a service, it actually makes sense for reoccurring monies. Then other companies will step up to provide the 30+ age group for single player stuff.

I think a bigger cause for concern is the complete lack of new ideas from the industry full stop in regards to single player. When the likes of civilization, final fantasy, doom, Minecraft, unreal tournament, halo, project Gotham racing, gran Turismo, Elite, The walking dead and International superstar soccer and all the other trend setters released they wowed us as they were all so good and so unique. Even the multiplayer focused games had a strong single player component.

We have had some good and unique games recently, but they can't really form a genre. Games like Telling lies or The witness. The reality is they are a novelty like Wii bowling.

Then you have the Battle royale genre which has excelled online. Sim racing due to online. Wordle because err online. Online has pushed the creativity away from single player. All the upcoming programmers are big on Fortnite and MMO style games. It's a natural passage way. So many leaps and bound in online, whilst single player games have become a smorgasbord of old genres mashed together. When something as dog ship as Roblox is trading at billions of pounds and Streets of Rage 4 is barely played by anyone comparitivley then we are fighting a losing battle.

However there are so many amazing single player games out there from the last 40 years, and if single player keeps stagnating we can just go all in on retro.

Gaming has definitely gone corporate and many are still looking at ways of milking as much as possible out of folks (loot boxes before they became illegal, NFT's). I'm hoping that things go a bit differently under Xbox/MS purely because they make so much money from other ventures that the shareholders interests are elsewhere. Any publicly traded publisher is demanded to make as much profit as possible and pushes games out in poor states. Hopefully they are starting to learn that crap games on will suffer but CDPR wasn't a lesson... hopefully BF 2042 will be?

Depends on who you ask, what they're looking for, etc. I feel most, if not all game genres are well represented. From fps(halo infinite, valorant), racers(fh5, dirt), platformers(celeste, mario maker 2), rpgs(octopath traveler), action/adventure(take your pick). We also have games like loop hero, hades, hollow knight, wargroove, among us. If the AAA devs focus on big budget, MT, GaaS titles, I feel the indies are there to pick up the slack elsewhere.

The lack of "creativity" might just be due to the fact everything is a remake or a sequel, right now. Hfw, dying light 2. Xbsx has halo infinite and forza horizon 5, both sequels. Ps5 has demon's souls and ratchet and clank, a remake and a sequel. Returnal is there, a AAA effort from an up and coming dev. But what has peoples interest? resident evil 4 remake, tlou remake, GoW Rag, people want next gen upgrade for rdr 2, they want GTA 6, days gone 2. Elden ring, I'm excited for, but let's not pretend it's drastically different from previous souls games. If people feel like things are stale, the consumers are kind of to blame.

There are great, imaginative games out there, for each genre. It's like music. Don't enjoy the mainstream stuff, go underground. Look and listen for the more unheard of songs.

Yes. Gaming is too big now to be too risky. You'll get new gameplay mechanics, but the core of the game won't change. Something like Death Stranding is too risky.

I think the GaaS games are the ones that are trying to be innovating. Look at Fallguys, Rocket League, Fortnite, That spell caster game. That Brawl battle royale Epic published. Knockout City is something new.

While I don't think the overall situation is that dire, at least we can count on indies to pick up the slack.

@BrazillianCara Its definitely not a 'dire' situation. Sony and Nintendo are both Sales Driven business but as they have their own platform and services which is a 'constant' source of income, this significantly reduces the risk and 'pressure' on the company. They are not solely relying on 'sales' of their software to fund their studio's until the next game releases onto the market and get money from 3rd Party published games on their platform so even if Sony had 'no' Software, they'd still get money from sales of all the 3rd party software released, sub services etc etc.

3rd Party Publishers like SE, Ubisoft etc, they rely purely on the sales of their Software to fund their studio's. However, they get a lot less money back per game sold than 1st Party publishers. Some of the profit margin goes to the 'retailer' - either a 'Physical' shop, or the Platform holders own digital shop, and some goes to the Platform holder - just because its 'their' platform and the 3rd Party has to pay to use their Trademarks, their logos, their platform. So the 'profit' margin per sale is a LOT less.

Games tend to sell most in the first 6weeks before fading to obscurity - with maybe periodic spikes as the game features in sales. As the price drops, the profit margin does too, but all this is putting more pressure on the Publishers. With games taking longer to make, that's leading to 'fewer' games releasing to 'fund' the development over longer time frames. Thus its 'easier' to make a Sequel with the vast majority of Assets from previous games and a 'template' to follow than create a whole new IP with Ambitious/creative choices - at least not unless you can 'shoehorn' or tweak that idea into a 'known' license. Its why you see 'sequels' or some 'new' Licensed IP. Quantic Dream games have generally got a 'cult' following but now their 'next' game is a licenced Star Wars game, more eyes are on it without even releasing any game-play and will probably be their biggest seller - even if its like Detroit but different setting/story.

As games tend to drop off relatively quickly, there is more and more Publishers pushing for Live Services - they want to keep you in their 'store' to spend more time and money over time to keep their income coming in over a longer time period. Every game is a 'store' - its inviting you in to spend your valuable time and/or money on. If that 'store' was a success, then its going to make Publishers want to 'repeat' that more than take a chance on an unknown.

I do believe that some 'creativity' and 'Ambition' has been curtailed by Hardware too. Take the size and ambition of Assassins Creed: Unity crowds which were too ambitious for the Console CPU's, which is why we haven't seen anything on that scale since. HDD's/RAM have limited games too, had to be designed certain ways to cope with the limitations of the amount of DATA they can transfer.

I do believe that Game Pass and cloud gaming will actually free up some studio's to be creative and/or ambitious. If a Game is built to release on Game Pass, its not 'expected' to sell (it may well sell to non-subscribers and fans). They can 'experiment' with ideas and let the gamers decide if those 'ideas' worked or not - there is 'no' pressure to sell. The Cloud frees up any developer to be as creative, as ambitious etc as they want with no limitations. Want the whole Earth explorable from the sky at 1:1 like MSFS, well Cloud helps overcome the limited storage capacity. Want advanced AI and Physics based destruction of such complexity that Consoles would grind to a halt to process, well use the Cloud to process that instead...

Point is that whilst most Publishers are sales focussed, there are still some that can allow some creativity/ambition - particularly in 'known' franchises but ultimately, they are not going to take as much 'risk' as Platform holder sales based Publishers because that 'risk' is more detrimental to them. If Sony releases a 'sales' flop, its offset by 'sales' of all games on that platform, all the 'retailer revenue' from Digital content bought in their store (30% is 'normal' on EVERY sale - so that's £18 from a £60 game), offset by subscription services (PS+/Now) etc etc. So can take more 'risk', can take more 'time' (because they have a constant income source rather than widely variable depending purely on number of sales that month). That too can put 'pressure' on Sales based devs to release the game 'too soon', to start bringing money into the Publisher rather than see their 'monthly' income dry up as people have stopped buying their 'older' releases. Its better to sell 'something' that can be fixed over time than go 3-6months of paying out more money on staff wages, overheads etc than you have coming in.

There are 'reasons' that AAA games are not as frequently released as they once were and not taking the creative risks they perhaps would of. CoD would take 1 developer 1 year to make a 'complete' CoD game. That meant Treyarch could make Spider-Man & James Bond games. However, with the 360 era, IW needed '2yrs' per game and so Treyarch was moved over to CoD as that 'sold' more than licenced games and those licences cost Activision money too. Over time, CoD required 'more' and 'more' studio's to keep it on its 'annual' sales cycle and some being 'swallowed' entirely (Neversoft). Because it kept selling 'every' year, more copies than Crash Bandicoot, Tony Hawkes, Spyro or any of the other games those studio's made, it pushed Activision to basically turn all their studio's to working on crunching CoD out every year because 'missing' that Annual sales boost was more 'detrimental' than making a 'new' game - so they got 'trapped' by the 'sales' success and the risk of making anything different was too big - much more important to ensure CoD makes its release window. That is of course the most 'extreme' case of 'sales' dominated approach to gaming.

Now with Subscription services, it may well become an even greater 'risk' for Sales based Publishers. Games on Game Pass are only competing for your valuable game time, not your upfront cash. Some may well take a chance on a 'creative' new IP that's £60+ on Day 1, but if they are not sure about it, may well opt to spend their time on trying 'new' things on Game Pass without risking their hard earned cash on. Preferring to wait for reviews, for inevitable patches and fixes, for inevitable price drops/sales, for the game to come to their 'subscription' service etc. Returnal is perhaps a 'great' example of a game that reviewed very well, won numerous awards, yet sold relatively poorly. Whatever 'reasons', it obviously didn't do 'enough' for most people to decide it was not worth risking their $70's on. Maybe it will reach the number of gamers it perhaps deserves to via Sony's Subscription service, but it didn't really sell that well even with all the awards and critical acclaim.

Game Pass doesn't really categorise games by 'budget'. EVERY game, whether a low budget Indie or blockbuster budget AAA, is competing for your time ONLY and the only question they ask is 'do you want to spend your valuable time with me?' Whatever you 'want', there is something available and with no additional up front costs to try.

I think Early Access has hurt gaming more then anything after all the stupid loot boxes and microtransactions. I am fine if an indie or a small studio needs to put a game in early access but a big publisher launching kick starters and early access is disgusting. Look at baldurs gate 3 its going to end up being in early access for years. Just my two cents.

The more live services it shows who wants to follow a business model and can or can't get in because the top ones already won so them still trying as newcomers with however many is just hilarious too. XD What resources used and however many wasted.

Early access/unfinished games to have updates is kind of awkward. Like it's basically paid QA and for those interested sure but some are or aren't going to be as respected or effective execution of that either. Indies can't have that of course but big studios clearly saving money with early access there. Sure it's an option and I guess you get better fan feedback on what you want the product to be besides it's early state but I don't think much has changed with or without early access has it for some products or were 'all or a good amount' better off with early access then just the blunders we see without early access.

With mo cap, big actors, celebrities, whatever changes to engines, big name brands continuing, whatever directions for trends of live services in big singleplayer or multiplayer games yeah things are changing for sure. PSVR2 isn't going to change much. It is exciting but it has it's devs still having the same control issues as PSVR1, but more noticeable of Wii launch title motions that many people don't want to see again even though PSVR2 should be like the sixth gen refining but still experimenting. Then repeating 2006 Wii again.

Games are interesting but still feel like PS3/360 era games refined in different trending ways. Now I could say the same about many linear games but to me some are following others too hard in the big space still with sometimes awkward balance or 'keeping up' with certain features and I find them disappointing (Jedi Survivor, Bayonetta 3) while Indies may have their inspirations for roguelikes/metroidvanias and such but others still have that spin that makes you go oh we haven't gone here yet and the limits still haven't been reached at all for new mechanics, changes, cool weird directions.

Even though with Switch you have people still enjoying some games without mo cap games and it's great to see 'games' have a space then this big budget expectation all the time as if that's all it is when it clearly isn't and doesn't need to be either (or handhelds continuing on after the un-sure-ness of 3DS/Vita era and mobile) and all this other stuff just improving in the same or different ways. Cloud happening with certain titles because it's easier than downscaling to companies but they do or don't for mobile releases either? You have motion controls/typical controls for those wanting either which is great I like good motion implementation, a dock to put a tablet in like it's a PSP or Nomad to your TV or on the computer side a Pocket PC/PDA to a monitor. Nothing new but hey it's cool it's a thing in handheld consoles again besides just a 2 in 1 tablet having a HDMI cord. We don't get the remote play approach with Steam, PS5, Xbox so those are still going besides phone casting to your TV not TV compatible apps which is cool if you know how it isn't very hard just find a that's new enough (even if probably 5-10 years old then say an older. I used my 32 inch TV I bought in 2016 or so and it worked, of course the old 3D TV doesn't) and you are good to go.

Gaming I think is very eh and also very exciting depending on where you look, play, see marketing, what gameplay/story/graphics, etc. you really care about and if going retro is also the option to seek or not.