DEI was an outside influence making games worse, but half the reasons its failing would be happening regardless of that.
Microtransactions, ballooning costs, live service models, F2P, were all pure capitalism and would have happened regardless.
That's without getting into the more detailed failings, like the weakening of "role playing" aspects to instead tell a straight story, the yellow paint menace, and things like esport chasing and multiplayer focused games.
A common modern design where every "interactable" in a game is slathered with yellow paint, from breakables to ladders to jumpable cliffs.
Its a problem brought on by littering every environment in a game with so much clutter to make it feel "lived in" instead of a game area, that people wouldn't know which barrel is scenery or which is ammo, which object is an invisible wall versus a direction you can go.
Its a necessity given the graphical fidelity of most games, but they chose the most immersion breaking, lazy way of solving it. Literally throwing paint buckets on things.
DEI was an outside influence making games worse, but half the reasons its failing would be happening regardless of that.
Microtransactions, ballooning costs, live service models, F2P, were all pure capitalism and would have happened regardless.
That's without getting into the more detailed failings, like the weakening of "role playing" aspects to instead tell a straight story, the yellow paint menace, and things like esport chasing and multiplayer focused games.
What's the yellow paint menace?
A common modern design where every "interactable" in a game is slathered with yellow paint, from breakables to ladders to jumpable cliffs.
Its a problem brought on by littering every environment in a game with so much clutter to make it feel "lived in" instead of a game area, that people wouldn't know which barrel is scenery or which is ammo, which object is an invisible wall versus a direction you can go.
Its a necessity given the graphical fidelity of most games, but they chose the most immersion breaking, lazy way of solving it. Literally throwing paint buckets on things.
reminds me of the problem most old platformers had, couldnt tell if thats forground, backround or something you could land on.