Games Inbox: Are video games less popular than they used to be?

The Thursday letters is very dubious about the prospects of the FIFA x Netflix game, as another reader falls in love with Sektori.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email [email protected]

PLEASE NOTE: We are currently preparing articles to run over the Christmas and New Year break, so if you’ve been thinking of writing a Reader’s Feature now would be the perfect time to send it in. It can be on any subject you want, as long as it’s a minimum of 500 words long.

Bubble bobbled
I thought the headline about the worst console sales in 30 years would be an exaggeration but it’s actually worse than it sounds. US records only go back that far, so there’s no saying when interest in buying consoles and physical games was as low as it is right now.

It’s a worrying thought, to think we’re regressing to pre-PlayStation 1 era levels of popularity, when video games were still thought of a niche hobby for teenage boys and most graphics were still only 2D.

We’ve come so far since then and yet now it seems as if the games industry has bitten off more than it can chew. People talk about an AI bubble, but it feels like the video game bubble has burst and everything we’ve gained in the last 30 years is suddenly under threat.

It seems to me video games are getting less popular with the mainstream, who are happy playing the same five live service games as ever, while traditional games are played only by the hardcore. Even the middle ground of Call Of Duty and EA Sports FC is being chipped away and that can’t be healthy for anyone.
Campbell

Strange days
I really am shocked at how badly Black Ops 7 is doing. You don’t need sales charts to tell you that, but just the fact that Activision is sending out denials of rumours straight to somewhere like Charlieintel. The fact that they’ve never, ever done anything like that before shows just how bad things must be.

I’ve no love for Call Of Duty or Activision but it can’t be good for the industry at large to have one of its biggest franchise become a lame duck just as EA turns itself into one as well, and Ubisoft circles the drain. Factor in that Microsoft only bought Activision for Call Of Duty and suddenly you have got a whole industry in crisis.

I know a lot of people will just shrug their shoulders and say they don’t care, they just want to play good games, but at this rate there’s going to be no one left making them. I can’t ever remember things being like this before. And what’s worse I have no idea how it’s all going to end.
Elvis2

No rivals
Why do I get the feeling that new FIFA game is going to be an absolute train wreck? Brought to you by an organisation that knows nothing about video game and a company that knows nothing about football and is actively trying to get out of the games business (even though it accidentally just bought Warner Bros. Games).

I would love to see a serious rival to EA Sports FC, but I can’t imagine it ever coming from FIFA. Maybe if they’d made a deal with Take-Two, like was rumoured, that would’ve worked out but I suspect Take-Two took a look at how much was being charged for the name and how much it would cost to make a decent game and said no.

So now FIFA are left making mobile games on the cheap, from no-name developers that are going to wring them for every penny they’ve got. Good for them, I say.
Woody

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Bad week
I used to really respect Swen Vincke from Larian Studios, but I have to say that has slipped a bit in the last few days. As the other reader said, having their first game after Baldus’s Gate 3 be a Divinity sequel seems not very daring, to say the least.

And now he’s getting suspiciously defensive about using AI. The way he’s acting in those tweets you’d think the people asking him questions were being silly but he’s the one that admitted to using it, so to act as if being worried about how far it’s going is an unreasonable concern seems very odd.

To me the central question is if AI is not that helpful anyway why are you using it at all? The effort to bring this new tech, which is notoriously unreliable, into your workflow seems completely not worth it compared to just carrying on as you were. Which has the side benefit of everyone not assuming that your game wasn’t even made by humans.
Lurch

The click
Certain games have what one might call the click factor. It’s that moment shortly into a new game when the design aesthetic suddenly clicks and you encounter something akin to gaming heaven. The most memorable example of this was Advance Wars, which at first seemed rather basic and routine until an element was introduced that revealed a deep and rewarding play mechanic (it happened too with Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, when deciding simply to explore the game world rather than complete set tasks).

This happened again the other day with Sektori. My love of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved kept me playing, despite frustratingly losing all my shields every time I encountered a boss battle. But with each play through I tried different approaches to levelling up weapons and so forth – realising the importance of harvesting all the remnants of defeated foe – learning the attack patterns of the various bosses and eventually beating them. Before too long it ‘clicked’ and I was hooked: the only thing stopping me from having ‘just one more try’ was a bladder fit to burst.

Thank you for bringing this game to my attention.
Ciara

Sub-Prime investment
Metroid Prime catch-22. No, that isn’t my suggestion for the title of the next Metroid game – it’s a genuine predicament I find myself in. Metroid is one of my favourite franchises, with Super Metroid and Metroid Prime ranking very high among my all-time favourite games.

This brings me to the catch-22 I feel with Prime 4. By most accounts it’s a fine game – not great, not bad – but I’m particularly concerned by how un-Metroid some of the reviews make it sound: linear paths instead of meaningful backtracking, an annoyingly vocal sidekicks, and a dull open-world hub.

Metroid has never been a huge seller, with Dread posting the strongest numbers the series has seen. On one hand, I want to buy Prime 4 to encourage Nintendo to keep making Metroid games. On the other, I don’t want Nintendo to make more Metroid games like Prime 4, which makes me wonder if I shouldn’t buy it at all.

In all honesty, I’ll probably pick it up eventually. Still, I can’t shake the fear that Nintendo either doesn’t fully understand – or is unwilling to accept – what people love about Metroid. And I slightly dread, no pun intended, what might come after Prime 4.
Matt

GC: Your fears are well founded and so we really don’t know what to suggest, especially as the game’s never likely to be discounted all that much. Games like Other M, Federation Force, and Metroid Prime 4 suggest that Nintendo doesn’t fully understand the franchise, and certainly doesn’t know how to handle the storytelling, and yet Metroid Dread was very good. So it’s hard to know what to expect from them next.

Circling back
Probably a bit late in the day now for a review, but I can’t recommend the game The Séance of Blake Manor enough.

It’s a mystery game, so the less said the better, but for me this joins the likes of Obra Dinn and The Golden Idol as games that make you actually feel like a detective. It’s definitely made it into my top 10 of the year.
Daniel Savage

GC: Actually, it’s on our list of games to go back to and review, although we’re not sure if we’ll get round to it this year or not.

Single format
Nice news on an update patch for Divinity: Original Sin 2 on the Switch 2. I’ve noted we are seeing a drip feed of updates now for a lot of titles (though maybe the less said about Skyrim the better) and they do make upgrading to Nintendo’s new platform more enticing. Those big role-playing games are just far better to play on a handheld when you can curl up with the machine as if it’s a good book, without hogging the TV in the living room.

I’m hopeful we’ll see patches for the Doom titles, The Witcher 3, and others land next year. It’s nice too that Switch 2 seems to have held onto i’s Black Friday price cuts permanently, despite the steep accessory pricing (hello MicroSD Express) to get you fully kitted out, that at least makes it somewhat better value.

As someone who would be looking to make Switch 2 the main console there are still problems though, highlighted by The Game Awards actually, last week. I’m not on the PlayStation 5 bandwagon yet either (completely last gen) and watching those trailers ol’ Geoff was shilling does give me pause for thought.

Those games, like Larian’s new Divinity, may come to Switch 2 in time… but Sony has a really big advantage in that they definitely will be on PlayStation 5, and they’ll definitely be best played on PlayStation 5 without compromises. When you’ll looking at £400-ish for either machine it does make the Switch 2 look like a bad investment in a straight shoot out.

It also brings into focus Nintendo’s relatively scarce line-up of bangers and coming soons in the first year. Better communications out of the Big N on the next Mario or Zelda and, y’know, maybe they’d bag another sale. I have a feeling I’m in the minority here, with most Switch 2 owners either using it as a second platform to a PlayStation 5 or PC or having it for the kids to play Mario Kart World.

You can see why Nintendo and Sony don’t see themselves as competitors, outside of competing for free time. Would be interested in other readers opinions on the dilemma and how they are treating their Switch 2.
Marc

Inbox also-rans
Just a quick message to say I’m really looking forward to all the amazing smart and talented game studio CEOs looking at the big drop in console and AAA game sales and jumping to the wrong conclusions. More multiplayer games you say – wonderful.
Chris

GC: Since when has a CEO ever taken a decision that wasn’t based on carefully researched data and long-term planning?

I can smell how bad that new FIFA game is going to be from here. A mobile game by Netflix? Somehow I don’t think EA Sports FC has much to worry about.
Lombard

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The small print
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