Do you guys remember when the majority of the challenge with a fancy new game was finishing it? It's one of the things I find quite striking about this cancerous 'modern game design'. It's almost like with advertising online where the goal isn't to engage you with something genuinely interesting it's to practically force you to at any cost to keep you clicked onto something or watch something.
So as long as big studios see numbers go up and their player count being maintained, they're happy. Doesn't matter to them if they get 100,000 negative reviews on steam they'll just chug along going "Well those people might all be complaining but we've got 300,000 players durrr". Which is another example of how people who don't fucking play video games have taken over this industry.
The first descendent and once human seem to be classic examples of this mentality and explains to me at least a bit of why the studios refuse to give a shit. No peasant, how dare you demand good gameplay in a game, you're supposed to become a mentally ill skin addict and grind for hours to keep our numbers up or pay us money if you can't be bothered doing that.
Oh and of course I can't forget the cancer that is skill based matchmaking.
I honestly like if I can say "I finished the game" and then uninstall it. I don't mind additional achievements, people who want to go for 100% can do so.
If I really like a game the community adds their own challenges. Think the old Thief series and "ghosting".
I mean you got my money and most likely will get my money again for a sequel. Don't try to get me to log in fucking often and if I don't then my experience will be worse. Cause that will lead me to not buying your game at all.
For multiplayer games:
Give us back community servers. It solves almost every problem - including moderation. Server X is okay with people calling each other names? Cool, play on another server. Someone is annoying you on your server Y? Cool he can be kicked and play on another server.
Your community server idea for multiplayer modes is probably the best solution I've heard. Do you think it can work on consoles, especially given the power of the PS5 and Xbox Series X?
It sounds like it could make the problems of FOMO content, always online DRM, overreaching moderation, and grossly exploitative monetization models disappear overnight.