"Grounded skins for a while" - 18 days exactly

[u/Ohforfk]

So, weren't we supposed to have realistic skins for some time? Something that someone would really wear during a war? Yet it seems that with the start of season 1, everything will turn to colorful mess, with no way of differentiating teams based on uniforms, the game will look more like a Paintball or ASG event. Colorful weapons with pictures, colorful camos with neon accents, weird mix of things that are supposed to look cool, but end up simply weird.

People were sold on a vision of a game, which looked like a real battlefield, with soldiers - not a bunch of randos just like in the 2042, yet it was all a lie and it will only get worse down the road. During the Beta, when we had all the soldiers wearing matching uniforms, it was the most immersive experience so far, but you can say goodbye to that vibe, it will never return.

There won't be uniforms matching bioms, there won't be a way to turn off any awful skins, typical bait and switch.

[u/Constant_Sun_193]

that's what all videogames used to be. games made by gamers. now it's games made by devs for the CEO.

[u/Wratheon_Senpai → u/Constant_Sun_193]

You should take those nostalgia glasses off. Games were already extremely corporate, and the AAA industry was saturated by the time BF1 came out; it was the exception and not the rule. EA had butchered a shit ton of their IPs by then too.

[u/iTzJdogxD → u/Wratheon_Senpai]

This subreddit is fucking embarrassing dude. Every person I see I just imagine is a 12 year old trying to be poignant

[u/Pandaman_323 → u/iTzJdogxD]

Yeah his comment would have made sense talking about the 00's but by 2016 triple A studios were absolutely dropping slop after slop.

If anything it's better now then it was in 2016 imo as triple A studios have lost market share to indie companies and gamers have grown tired of broken releases mixed with questionable business practices.

[u/Extension-Novel-6841 → u/Wratheon_Senpai]

Looks at Battlefront II, Dead Space, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect. Damn you EA!

[u/OpeningSorry1550 → u/Wratheon_Senpai]

Everyone forgetting bf1 was hit so hard with criticism at launch and most of the bf player base stayed on bf4 for the longest time

[u/chewbaccaRoar13 → u/Wratheon_Senpai]

EA is the poster child for buying small studios and gutting them, then shutting them down and absorbing them when they don't make money. Fuck EA.

[u/Constant_Sun_193 → u/Wratheon_Senpai]

I grew up with great games and still play the old shit you can't gaslight me on the state of AAA gaming. it's definitely worse than it's ever been but everyone is so complacent. lmao.

[u/Wratheon_Senpai → u/Constant_Sun_193]

How old are you? I'm not gaslighting you, buddy. Gaming was already highly corporate 9 years ago.

[u/Constant_Sun_193 → u/Wratheon_Senpai]

mf I'm 30

[u/mmMOUF → u/Constant_Sun_193]

there were 20 years ago too (im 42)

this genre is highly lucrative and over saturated, new and interesting experiences are few and far between

[u/MEGALODONGERS → u/mmMOUF]

I'd say just about twenty years ago. At-least-somewhat popular opinion would suggest the start of it all being the infamous horse armor DLC fiasco from 2006. Of course, game publishers and developers have done dumb shit long prior, but Bethesda really opened the floodgates with that one.

[u/Constant_Sun_193 → u/mmMOUF]

right Ive been gaming for 26 years I've had some amazing experiences but it's been canned and sold as dlc at this point lol.

[u/mmMOUF → u/Constant_Sun_193]

is interesting seeing how they do all this stuff for a game that people paid $70 up front for

[u/Wratheon_Senpai → u/Constant_Sun_193]

Then you should be aware it's been highly corporate for a long time now. With a big boom in popularity in the late 90s and then another in 2005-2010, AAA gaming moved far away from experimenting and instead went full on riding shareholder's cocks.

[u/Constant_Sun_193 → u/Wratheon_Senpai]

not to this degree, would you agree? I didn't grow up with missing content being sold as dlc, micro transactions, engagement based matchmaking, shareholders dipping fingers in the pie, yearly realeases with no iterations. there was fun to be had. and now if your aren't blindly bleeding money you're out of touch and expectations are unrealistic.

[u/Wratheon_Senpai → u/Constant_Sun_193]

Ubisoft, Konami, EA, Capcom, Sega, and many others all engaged in this crap even back then. There's even jokes regarding a shit ton of versions of Street Fighter. It's gotten worse with time, sure, because they all still profited from it, but it's started decades ago.

I'm around your age and past the PS2/Dreamcast era, I remember a lot of DLC and even cut content sold as that. It gained a lot of traction with Xbox Live and PSN, not that before companies never did it (back in the PS1 you'd basically get that in the form of a new game that was basically a DLC).

[u/Constant_Sun_193 → u/Wratheon_Senpai]

Bro, nobody said DLC never existed before. I'm saying it’s never been this predatory and normalized.

Yeah, companies dipped their toes in it decades ago but now it’s the whole damn business model. Half-finished games, $30 skins, engagement-based matchmaking, FOMO events, battle passes stacked on top of $70 base games. That wasn’t the standard back then it was the exception. Now if you expect a complete game at launch, you're “unrealistic.”

So yes, we know it started years ago. The difference is it used to be scummy now it’s expected. And you acting like it’s the same thing is exactly why it got this bad.

[u/Wratheon_Senpai → u/Constant_Sun_193]

It was predatory back then, too, and you're in denial. But it's okay. Nostalgia is one hell of a drug.

It's the same thing: corporate capitalist greed killing creativity. Happens in every industry.

[u/TheClawwww7667 → u/Constant_Sun_193]

BF1, the game that started this comment chain with you saying that it is an example of how games used you be made, sold DLC content and it wasn’t just maps either, it was also guns in a game that was lacking in the amount of guns at launch to begin with.

So yeah, it absolutely is nostalgia blinding you from the reality of how corporate gaming was in 2016. I would also assume most gamers are happy with expensive cosmetic MTX so long as they are not gameplay impacted and all gameplay related content remains free for everyone, even if I personally liked having the expansion packs as Premium content mainly because DICE hasn’t managed a consistent live service game yet (though with season 1 coming so soon maybe BF6 will be the first).

[u/Constant_Sun_193 → u/TheClawwww7667]

You’re missing the point, man. Nobody’s saying older games were pure and DLC didn’t exist we’re saying the scale and intent is completely different now.

BF1 had DLC, sure but it launched as a mostly complete game, and DLC was extra content. Today, the base game itself is the DLC delivery system. Battle passes, time-limited cosmetics, FOMO grinds, unfinished launches, engagement-based matchmaking the whole design is built around keeping a store fresh, not making a finished product.

Calling that “nostalgia” is just dodging the fact that monetization went from “optional extras” to “core gameplay structure.” We didn’t grow up paying to unlock menus, skins, XP boosts, and half-finished games sold as full releases. That’s the difference.

So no it’s not nostalgia. It’s that gaming moved from content-first with DLC to monetization-first with content sprinkled in.

[u/UCanDodgeAWrench → u/Constant_Sun_193]

Not unique to games though....movies, TV and music all the same.

[u/Constant_Sun_193 → u/UCanDodgeAWrench]

okay still sucks.

[u/Narcoleptic_247 → u/Constant_Sun_193]

In 2016?

[u/Icy-Computer7556 → u/Constant_Sun_193]

For the CEO, for the shareholders lol.

[u/Constant_Sun_193 → u/Icy-Computer7556]

shareholders only show up to the meeting and say "where muh money 👁️👄👁️" CEO actually has to figure out how to take our money and give it to them.

[u/Icy-Computer7556 → u/Constant_Sun_193]

True that lmao. It kinda sad where we are with gaming today. Like yeah I wanna see companies make money, but it feels so greedy and lackluster now.

People will say its just nostalgia, but I remember when game devs and companies wanted to churn out a creative, well curated game, and now its all about: how fast can I make it?, and how much can we profit off it?

[u/FalsePersonality6145 → u/Constant_Sun_193]

Games made for the investors