Honestly, most new games just fucking suck. They're too expensive, often don't run properly at launch even on excellent hardware, and those that don't have micro-transactions built-in require you to purchase DLC to get the whole game.

On the other hand, the older titles almost always run well on my machine, have a ton of community DLC, and in general are just designed better because they were built to bring the player as much fun as possible, not to extract as much money as possible.

Plus, the quality content generated from 2005 - 2015 represents some of the best ever, and can provide hundreds of hours of enjoyment before you even get into the 2010s. Why waste money on something that may not work, and that I likely won't enjoy as much as the games I bought 10 years ago?

It's why I usually wait at least a year after release to consider whether or not I'm going to buy a title.

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 5 points 27 minutes ago

I find it kind of funny how games are becoming more mainstream, but every once in a while I still meet people that are like "games are a waste of time". But then again I guess people said that about movies and tv and still do sometimes.

Also I've been playing guild wars 2 again. Base game is like 10 years old but it's still fun

[–] doingthestuff@lemy.lol 2 points 7 minutes ago

I'm playing Fallout 4 right now. It's not the only game I play by any means. Too many new games are overly focused on graphics or monetization. I'm always trying new games and the better ones often don't have the best graphics. We want 2010 gameplay. Hell, I'll still play Unreal Tournament 1999 GOTY edition, but older games usually need resolution and texture upgrade mods. Fortunately a lot of great old games actually get them.

[–] M137@lemmy.world 8 points 1 hour ago

When people found out PhysX doesn't work on the new Nvidia cards I saw several people here on Lemmy say that it doesn't matter because almost no one plays older games. I seriously don't understand how anyone could think that, it's astoundingly stupid and ignorant.

[–] TrojanRoomCoffeePot@lemmy.world 2 points 26 minutes ago

launches Baldur's Gate.exe ♪♫ "Brave, brave Sir Garrick, Sir Garrick led the way. Brave, brave Sir Garrick, Sir Garrick ran away." ♪♫

[–] Nino477@lemmy.world 19 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

There are just so many good games out there. No time to play them all. Also i think epic free games and this prime free game stuff contributed to it. I just started playing bioshock bc of it. Also on pc it feels so good to play an old game and just crank up every setting to max, 4k, install some mods, no ai upscaling but msaa 8x and not having to worry about performance even on mid range PCs. I genuinely prefer the graphics of older games since for me image clarity is much more important than how many polygons a gun has or how the puddle of water reflects light. Like even the new unreal engine 5 games cannot run maxxed out on a 5090 in 4k without upscaling. They only look good in trailers.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 9 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

!patientgamers@sh.itjust.works might be of interest, if you don't follow it.

But yeah...there are a lot of perks to playing older games:

Due to the ubiquity of Internet access today, a lot of games get post-release patches, and ship in a not-entirely-polished state. You wait a few years, you get a game that's actually finished.
There have been wikis, guides, and sometimes mods created.
The games that people are still playing are the ones that have stood the test of time, so it's kinda easy to pick out good ones.
If a 3D game supports a higher framerate

and many don't, due to things like physics running at a fixed frequency

on modern, high-refresh-rate monitors, 3D games can be pleasantly smooth.

There are some downsides, though:

With multiplayer-oriented games, the community can have moved on, rendering the game not very playable.
The game may not leverage your hardware very well. You may have an 86 bazillion core processor, and especially older games are likely to be using one of them. I have a couple of games I like, like Oxygen Not Included, that really don't use multiple cores well...and I'd guess that a similar game released in 2025 likely would.

[–] HK65@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Due to the ubiquity of Internet access today, a lot of games get post-release patches, and ship in a not-entirely-polished state. You wait a few years, you get a game that’s actually finished.

And also, 60 EUR for a single game is a price at least I am not willing to pay for the average game, so in addition to getting a better game, I also get a cheaper one.

There is stuff worth paying that much out there, but it's not Call of Duty Black Ops Eleventeen

[–] Level9831@lemmy.world 3 points 28 minutes ago* (last edited 19 minutes ago)

Black ops 6 is so bad IMHO. It takes forever to boot up the game and then hits you with the "update available, quit & restart". Then waiting another 5 mins to download the update, then another couple mins to reach the main menu again. Oh and what was the actual update? To hit me with an advertisement video of season whatever...with new purchases for dumb costumes etc. Like c'mon just let me play the damn game already! When Im finally in a match the gameplay feels rigged...like I'm playing slots in Vegas than an actual video game. The respawns appearing out of nowhere. I honestly believe what I'm seeing on my screen is not what the other player is seeing. Its like these game designers purposely made this game based on an algorithm rather than setting game rules and allowing the players to compete based on skill. Maybe I'm way off on this (and am just a terrible cod player lol) but would like to hear other people's opinion on this.

all the advertisements, constantly wanting me to spend more money when the game was already expensive to begin with. The game play as described as above. Also the perks/tiers suck. Makes for a very unenjoyable experience. The game is just not fun.

[–] Aggravationstation@feddit.uk 8 points 1 hour ago

11.35% of the human population.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 81 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (6 children)

7.1% of the total hours spent were on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive / Counter-Strike 2
6.4% were in League of Legends
6.2% were in Roblox
5.8% were in Dota 2
5.4% were in Fortnite

That is a lot of people playing free-to-play competitive multiplayer games.

[–] AnyProgressIsGood@lemmy.world 1 points 54 minutes ago (1 children)

I don't get how people are still into those old games. I like new experiences too much

[–] icecreamtaco@lemmy.world 1 points 10 minutes ago* (last edited 7 minutes ago)

People don't get bored of playing/watching the same sports their whole lives

[–] GoumLeChat@jlai.lu 60 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Free is an important reason why. Also, these games run very well on old machines. If you mostly play that and get a new rig, you don't have to spend a lot. Pc parts have gotten ridiculously expensive.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 11 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (6 children)

I get free reducing the barrier-to-entry, but I kinda look at games in terms of "how much is the ratio of the cost to how many hours of fun gameplay that I get?"

I mean, I have some games that I briefly try, dislike, and never play again. Those are pretty expensive, almost regardless of the purchase price.

But the thing is, if it's a game that you play a lot, the purchase price becomes almost irrelevant in cost-per-hour of gameplay. I've played Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead

well, okay, you can download that for free, but I also bought it on Steam to throw the developers some money

and Caves of Qud a ton. The price on them is basically a rounding error. And the same is probably true for the top few games in my game library.

You could charge me probably $2000 for Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, and it'd still be cheaper per hour of gameplay than nearly all games that I've played, because I've spent so many hours in the thing.

If people are playing these like crazy, you'd think that the same would hold for them. That the cost for a game that you play like crazy for many years just...doesn't matter all that much, because the difference in hours played between games is so huge that it overwhelms the difference in price.

[–] Takumidesh@lemmy.world 6 points 1 hour ago

Free means a hell of a lot when you are a child with approximately $0 in expendable income.

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 hour ago

Soo.. What I'm getting is that you kinda like a game called Catapult: Streets Ahead?

[–] fartsparkles@lemmy.world 21 points 3 hours ago (6 children)

Free means you can easily get any friends to dip in and play which is a big factor.

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[–] tetrachromacy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

Love seeing another person with lots of hours in Caves of Qud. It's rapidly climbing up my hours played list since 1.0 release. Bought it at 17.99, played for 220 hours so far. Math says that's 9 cents an hour, and I'm still not done playing. Live and drink, friend!

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[–] nocklobster@lemmy.world 4 points 2 hours ago (3 children)

Where my Civ 6 people at?! Wooo!

[–] daddy32@lemmy.world 2 points 28 minutes ago

I saw a stat on Civ VI steam page today that 45 000 people were playing it at that moment. That counts for something!

[–] SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 1 points 17 minutes ago

UnCiv yo

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 hour ago

Civ4 is the best Civ.

[–] SculptusPoe@lemmy.world 26 points 3 hours ago (4 children)

I have hundreds of games on steam.

I mostly play minecraft.

[–] tonytins@pawb.social 14 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

My games library is so huge, and I suffer from choice paralysis all the time.

[–] gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com 9 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

You might get some use out of this Steam randomizer, I've used it before when I can't pick what to play. You can apply filters too.

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[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 6 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

It's wild how good the cheap games are these days. I'm 30 hours into playing Noita, have hundreds of hours in Vampire Survivor.

And I got about 15 hours into Dragon Age: Veilguard before it occurred to me I could crack open the Dragon Age Origins Ultimate Edition and actually have an enjoyable experience.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 3 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

I’m 30 hours into playing Noita

I kind of want more there. There isn't DLC, and there aren't clones.

I mean, yes, the game is large and very replayable, and I have a blast with it...but it's also kind of the only option for that gameplay.

I also play it modded with health regeneration, because the difficulty level on the vanilla game is very high, and encourages very cautious play.

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I would suggest trying Caveblazers, as it's similar, but it's more barebones and (I think) significantly harder.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 3 points 1 hour ago

Caveblazers

Thanks, purchased.

[–] Eheran@lemmy.world 12 points 3 hours ago

Does "older games" only mean the initial public release? So world of Warcraft, Dota 2, Minecraft... all those games that are constantly updated etc. too?

Because that would be a really useless statistic. Many games are not a one time release and done thing anymore. They evolve over time. The games I listed have large player bases.

[–] IronKrill@lemmy.ca 13 points 4 hours ago

I have a large backlog of five(?)+ plus year old games that are really good and I have yet to play. I'd much rather burn through those enjoying them on high settings instead of playing current games on low settings while trying to dodge crap monetization.

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