"Gaming Isn't Dying" 

Wow, thanks for the kind words and support Zack! Happy to see you enjoyed watching the video as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

Bad games have always existed, they just weren't as overhyped pre-release to create the many disappointments we have today.

"Gaming is dying" mfs after explaining to them that Activision and ubisoft aren't the only game studios (they complain but will never try to seek new experiences)

Gaming is not dying, but our standards sure are going down.

He does bring an interesting perspective in regards to whether not gaming is actually "dying" Also I never expected this level of production for a channel with less than 1K subs.

Now is the best time for gaming because there hasn't been an easier time for indie developers to create and publish their own games. Such a thing would have been impossible before digital distribution. Indie is where videogames flourish.

Don't let the cartoonish style of Wind Waker fool you. It is an absolute masterpiece with one of the most epic final battles ever. There are so many things that could be said about that game, but I'll end this by saying that Asmon missed a BIG one by not giving Wind Waker a chance. He would've loved it for sure.

The Asylum Demon is a personality test. You either grind at it forever with a broken sword, you look for another solution, or you quit.

One of the big downsides of 'photorealism' is the loss of unique visual styles as everything ends up looking basically the same.

I have about a billion games on my backlist to play. I've spent the last two months playing Octopath Traveller 1 & 2 and will play tons of Zelda soon. The biggest problem about gaming these days is that nobody beats the damn games they buy.

Gaming will never die! That’s like saying movies are dying. I remember in the 90’s they said gaming is dying. There will always be a company that comes along and changes the game and draws gamers back in.

Moon wasn't the bad guy in Majora's Mask it's skill kid, the moon isn't angry it's scared AF because it's about to crash into earth, that's why it sheds a tear you pick up.

Gameplay always triumphs over story because gameplay is one thing games can actually do that other forms of media really can't.

Asmon is the reason Nintendo made Twilight Princess after Wind Waker lmao

The thing about gaming in the 90s and 2000s is there was a new amazing game to look forward to every 1 or 2 months. Now it's something around 6 months to several years. A single game could have one or two sequels, one per year back to back, in one console generation and all of them actually be great worthwhile games.

I used to think live service games were bad but then I realized I've been playing them for years. The first was Neverwinter Nights on AoL back in 1991 followed by Ultima Online then WoW. Live service games are fine when they are done right.

Fuck that, 2004 was Halo 2. I would do 2004-2011 on repeat for all of time. The golden era

Some great single player games actually that I've been playing for the past months and loving are Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, Survivalist: Invisible Strain, Sapiens, Project Zomboid, RimWorld and so many more. Like while they haven't released THIS YEAR, they are all game still being developed and have incredible single player experiences that people gloss over when saying the single player genre is dying. I mean the five games I named I have collectively put 497 hours into... and not only that but they are all capable of being modded using the official steam workshop allowing you to have an even more tailored experience to what you want. (Oh yeah also for the ones on this list that do also have capabilities to play multiplayer... it's completely free and isn't pay to win! Fantastic!)

He displays Super Mario (1986), Golden Axe 2 (1991), Street Fighter and CastleVania (that both exploded in the 90s), while talking about story and narrative. For people who weren't around back then, let me tell you that this debate was 100% debated all the way back in the 80s, with a rift between people who played action games and people who preferred adventuregames like Zork (1977) and King's Quest (1984). They were enjoyed primarily because they had a strong story and narrative. Around 1990 the adventure games were among the most anticipated out there, with Lucas Arts and Sierra being market leaders. The Adventure Games genre only ceased to be in the center when other genres began to be able to deliver the same depth of story and narrative, as if they passed over a torch. Gameplay WAS secondary for these adventuregames. Gameplay was pretty much based on puzzles and the reward for beating them was more of the story.

Doki Doki Literature Club is literally mindblowing. It's honestly a greatly made game. Definitely was awesome watching Markiplier playing it.

Dude. Gaming literally will never die. Do you realize the thousands of roms and emulators out there that will run games from the 80s to current? A person has a lifetime of titles to go through

I think the best example of have heard is, yes, you can go up to a random medicine cabinet and see the intricate details of each little bottle on the shelf, then see every wrinkle, line and eyelash in the mirror... and not a bit of this made the game more fun or more in depth, it just made the game take longer and cost more.

In fighting games, we maybe living a new golden age with the arrival of Street Fighter VI , MK 12 , Tekken 8 and KOF XV So yeah it's a good time for gaming for me .

I think video games can be a very immersive way to tell a story if done right, but a lot of times it fails because the developers don't take in to account the gameplay when they make the story. Like how they try to make it a big deal about you killing one person or another, when you already killed 50 of his henchmen on the way to that person.

I think that in order to make his arguement about stories in games more solid he misrepresents reality to a great degree. Games are not the best medium to tell or experience a story, it depends on the story. You cant have a game that its story is exploring the 24 hours of an investment bank during the start of the 2008 mortgage crisis, but in movies you can get Margin Call. You cant have a game about a single father and his son trying to survive in San Francisco pursuing the American Dream, but you can have Pursuit of Happiness. You cant have a game about New Year's Eve chaos in a restaurant kitchen, but you can have Boiling Point. And there are so many more examples that we can go for hours. Moreover, older games were not devoid of story telling either. Sure all the arcade games he displays are basically exclusively gameplay, but there are many MANY games of that era or older that are story based. Multitude of text based or The Mist-like RPGS are story based, adventure games like Monkey Island, The Dig, Broken Sword... all of them primarily story based. So yeah while games back then where a lot different than today in their majority, there was a pretty big subset of them that focused on storytelling.

I think gaming is more then just a medium for storytelling. The gameplay itself is the core of a video game.

I honestly think that one of the most sinister things the AAA guys ever did isnt anything to do with microtransactions or whatnot, instead it's something else: They convinced a lot of gamers that they, the AAA guys, are the ONLY thing in town, and that any games not from them arent "real" games. That's part of why you see so many "gaming is dying" videos... if you actually watch those, a lot of them only talk about AAA stuff, they dont ever mention indies or perhaps AA studios. Or they'll mention them but it'll be a brief little "yeah I guess these exist, but whatever". Because those arent "real" games. I've got a friend who is like this, complains all the time that nothing good ever comes out, and argh the latest release from whoever is terrible, oh they screwed it up AGAIN, okay back to playing through Skyrim or Fallout for the 300th time because "there's nothing else". While here I am, practically drowning in amazing games, just one after another. He wont try any of the ones I like though. They arent from a giant company and didnt come with a misleading trailer full of TEH GRAFIX. I mean good grief, even just looking through the comments on this very video you see evidence of this. And half the time, even when you do see someone acknowledge indies, they'll be like "well I guess there are a couple of good ones **points at Hades** but like 99% of them are garbage" and generally it's at that point that I realize they never ACTUALLY tried much. Which brings me to the OTHER sinister thing the AAA guys managed to do: they make it so that nobody wants to, you know, BROWSE. With AAA games, you dont have to browse around, they come screaming at you with giant blinking signs about their game, and if you somehow miss that, they'll just keep doing it over and over. They come to YOU. But with indies, or just anything non-AAA, it's the other way around. They arent going to come to you, because they dont have giant marketing teams. YOU have to go and ACTUALLY LOOK AROUND. But so many mainstream gamers wont do that. Because that's not what they're used to now. And so the AAA guys continue to be the center of attention. The good part is, more and more people seem to be realizing that there's more out there. Vampire Survivors is a GREAT example of this. I mean... just freaking look at it. Yet despite how it looks, people freaking eat it up! It's good stuff! And then, suddenly, they want more. Yeah it doesnt have TEH GRAFIX but it was still fun... maybe there's more out there. Definitely seeing that happening more often. Not just because of VS. Just in general I mean. Still frustrating though, watching people complain about this topic overall when good stuff is like, RIGHT FREAKING THERE, if only they'd, you know, turn and look.

I think the trouble is video games are probably the most popular hobby in the world, while also being the most recently developed hobby. If the hobby was built on understanding and camaraderie like many other hobbies it would be in a much healthier state for both the hobbyists and the games themselves. Take for example something like wood carving, sure you aren’t gonna meet a ton of people who enjoy it, but those who do are extremely knowledgeable in the hobby and are functioning adults outside of the hobby. Which also sheds light on how many gamers are not functioning adults with a stable income. There is this obsession with binging a game all at once rather than taking time over a month to finish a single game while having a life outside of it. As well as the lifestyle of anyone playing games simply leads to being unhelthy, snacking, junk food, and not seeing the sun. Another thing to point out is how playing video games is extremely new compared to any other hobby that has existed for hundreds if not thousands of years depending on each hobby.

Gaming has gotten way more bigger than it ever was 10+ years ago(which is why I still don't agree with the $70 price tag), but I feel like when people say it's dying, it doesn't necessarily mean it's becoming an obsolete form of entertainment, but the pure excitement of playing a game has dwindled so much to the point that you get excited of a new game, play it, enjoy (or hate it), but regardless of whether you hated it or loved it, it never has that staying power, you just move on to a different game.

there will always be incentive for the underdogs to create compelling games. you should remember that at one point, nearly every company was a small group of people that were in love with what they were making. there will always be a smaller group that are iterating ideas into better and more vast versions of older things

Just don't buy $70 0/10 broken games.

With indies you don't have to always innovate, sometimes you just have to use already existing mechanics from other good games and make a simple polished game.

A game with good graphics, gameplay and a good story can easily be utterly destroyed by corporate greed.

Wind Waker was still dark and you didn’t fight the moon in Majora’s Mask. 😂😂 You fight the possessed skull kid that tries to drop it.

Even fighting games have gravitated toward real story modes. They were one of the most notorious "gameplay only" genres.

Played games basically all day every day for 15 years and can safely say that RDR2 is basically the last game in memory that made me go "Holy shit" whilst playing it. Recommend a playthrough 100%

this isn't the end of gaming this is the end point of buyers remorse and devs refusing to do anything to promote amazing gaming experiences anymore

When you said online service games have a potential to die made me think of when death comes for oldschool runescape, its 10 years now and I cant really see it dying any time soon

The fact is people have accepted it they complain but still go out buy it and companies know this.

Does anyone else just love baldy?

I think the general complaint about modern day gaming is that it feels less and less like a work of art and passion and more like a FOMO inducing dopamine generator tweaked for maximum business profit.

The western video game industry has become perfectly shitty, but fortunately there are always the indie and Japanese ones in 2023: Final Bar Line, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Zelda TotK, Metroid Prime Remaster, Hi-Fi Rush, Dredge, Pizza Tower, all of them seem very nice to me.

It used to be the norm to pick your tape based game and early cartridge games by the cover art on the box and if you were lucky from a half decent screenshot on the box or in a magazine. The covers were like the covers of sci-fi books and for the same reason - th player was going to use a lot of visual imagination to cover the distance between the premise and the execution which was always just some dots and lines. You would often get a bad game, but you'd play it anyway because you only had 5 or so games and it was months until someone would buy you a new 'toy'. When we got a good game, often found by accident by a friend, it would be AMAZING fortune. People look at the retro games that are still known and played and think that's all there was, like there used to be a concentration of great games then that changed somehow but no, there was always a sea of crap and we had very few options to navigate it, those that are still going are just what survived. No-one is too young for nostalgia, we are all happily remembering the good times and comparing them to the current bad times but it is an illusion. Good and bad are there both then and now. That's just the quality of games, the actual industry appears to have changed a lot and is suffering from it's own size and scale, so the bad is coming from different avenues than in the past but good games do still exist and are easier to evalute prior purchase than ever before.

Dude i was thinking about this a few months ago. I downloaded a xbox 360 emulator only to realize that there arent really any games i want to download. All the games i used to play were multiplayer or they were xbox arcade games. But i can go to my ps2 emulator and theres close 50 games that i go back to regularly and can still enjoy them.

Gaming isn’t dying, gamers are dying. Each day we get older and march towards the sweet release

Man hearing Asmon's opinion on Wind Waker makes me sad. Aesthetically might not have been for him, but it has some dark moments and a genuine good story full of exploration. Hyrule flooded. Sages killed, a remoseful Ganondorf and just so many subtle things that tied into OoT Future Timeline. Get where he is coming from feeling it wasn't as dark but it was a change for the better mechanically and helped artistically lead into Skyward Sword and BotW. I suppose TP would of been more up his alley.

Wind Waker is also brutal, don't let the cel-shaded art style fool you.

Before Elden Ring: "Gaming is dying" After Elden Ring: "Gaming is no longer dying"

Dude, Blasphemous is such a great game I never see anyone talk about. The setting is so good! Definitely play it. :) It gets pretty ruthless once you start playing NG+ with modifiers, but it's still very fun. They recently announced Blasphemous 2, too.

I love gaming in 2023 *boots up another early 2010s game* .

Not only that. Back in the good ol'days, a demo was usually released before the full release. PC magz had a ton of demos. Half Life had a demo, Age of Empires 2 had a demo, Battlefield 1942 had a demo. It was a common practice to have demos. I didn't buy Empire Total War because the demo was bad and knew the launch would be terrible. I kept all my games. I had NES and SNES, but I never bought any games myself to these consoles. Like the NES that I would later inherited from my grandmother. Basically a handful of Mario games + DuckTales. Only good games tho. I still have the CD's of my old games + Nintendo 64, GameBoy Color games and they are all old gems. Back in the old days I was never disappointed. I had more games but these is what I bought myself. PC: Half Life, The Sims, Civilization 2, Settlers 3, Settlers 4, Uprising: Join or Die, Age of Empires 2, Age of Empires 2 The Conquerors, Age of Mythology, Warcraft 3, Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne, Battlefield 1942, Battlefield Vietnam, Battlefield 2, Rome Total War, Medieval 2 Total War, Shogun 2 Total War, Sudden Strike 2, WarBirds, Command & Conquer Red Alert: Aftermath, Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun, Heart of Darkness, Star Wars: Galaxies Nintendo 64: Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Zelda Ocarina of Time, Zelda Majoras Mask, Golden Eye 64, World Cup 98 (Fifa), 1080° Snowboarding, Diddy Kong Racing, Donkey Kong. GameBoy Color: Pokemon Red, Pokemon Blue, Pokemon Silver, Pokemon Gold Xbox: Halo Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Desert Conflict, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas PS3: I actually got a PS3 for free, when GTA 5 released. GTA 5 was a PS exclusive game and would not be released on PC before a year later. So I actually bought this game on CD, just so I could play GTA5. Otherwise Shogun 2 would be the last game I bought on CD. I pre-ordered Shogun 2 for the March 15, 2011 release date. And it would be the last good Total War game :( I enjoyed Rome 2 , but it had a rough release. It was definitely better back then. Easier to find a real good game and we had fewer games to choose from. So LAN-party was actually fun, people played the same game most of the time. If I check my friend list on Steam today, most gamers are now playing different games. Before LAN parties, other kids in my street and around would come to me and would play split-screen games in my basement.

gaming has always been fun for me. 😎 bad game came out? I simply don't play it. good game came out? add it to the list.

Mods were indeed the pioneers of new game genres. I raise you Counter-Strike as the mod for Half-Life. Basically blew up FPS market. Then the DotA mod for Warcraft created the MOBA genre.

Does everyone already forget about Rockstar's GTA remakes? Funny to hear that Rockstar is different than Ubisoft in their greed

Games were more fun when I was young and oblivious. When I was playing harvest moon on GBA or even the sims I didn't know how to lookup for guides online nor do I know it existed. I simply just play the game as is and discover things along the way. Nowadays I just google every minor detail to min-max a game, reading the wiki and following guides. Maybe games didn't change, but we changed.

I think the PS3 era was the GOAT. Most of the big franchises started on the PS3. Online was free on the PS3. PS+ started on PS3. Getting free games every month started on PS3. Souls and souls like games started on PS3. Companies were just starting to experiment with online (around the time of PS3) so there were no loot boxes... there were no season passes... there were no microtransactions (in most games I played)... there was no FTP pay to win... and it was the golden age of FPS's (you had to enjoy it while it lasted because nothing lasts forever lol). GTAV launched on PS3 lol for the PS3 (its 2023 and GTAV was a PS3 game). But they did do DLC (but the DLC was good). Then, the quality going from ps2 to ps3 was jaw droppingly good.

4:55 this explains breath of the wild. It is light on story as Zelda games go. But the game play is so fun and addictive. That's why it got game of the year, and why tears of the kingdom will also get game of the year.

People hate live service because it ruined so many amazing ips it makes sense honestly. If you get screwed over by someone multiple times you won’t trust them as much.

damn, his opinion on Wind Waker might be his worst take of all time

i felt the same way about windwaker, but once you start playing it its undeniably great.

It's easy to tell Asmon didn't play Zelda Windwaker at release. Windwaker was groundbreaking. It had a lot of dark undertones typical to Zelda, but most importantly, the vastness of the world and the feeling of going on an open world adventure on your little boat had no parallel in the gaming world of the time. Maybe still doesn't.

7:00 But... Wind Waker is literally a post-apocalypse...

i actually belive its not the games that have deterriorated but the friendships we had that did. Any game is fun if you got your friends on discord. Very few games can be good when you are playing alone.

The industry actually went through something similar in 1977 & 1983 which caused the market to completely collapse. The second time specifically forced companies to stop rushing and shipping garbage (relative to the time period). The recovery is largely attributed to Nintendo.

Wind Waker is GOATed

Its interesting how the landscape has changed. It used to be all the casuals would play single player AAA games ( GTA 3, God of war, etc), the hardcore players would be the ones playing online. This began to shift during PS3 X360 era. Now its the opposite. I honestly think the main reason these games are played is because they are free. The game being good is second fiddle.

Gaming is like my 2nd job and 2nd family, I like my first one more at this point

100% wrong about Wind Waker. Typical case of judging a book by its cover. It's got some of the darkest and coolest moments in the series, and an art style that is truly timeless.

Who cares if some things improved if the OVERALL experience is worse!! Game companies have gone from "greed" territory straight into "ABSOLUTE SCUM!!!" territory.

The main issue with AAA games tooday is a lack of innovation in all but monetisation. Almost every AAA studio tends to only use concepts that have proven themselves in the past but with everyone doing it the field, it is causing major burnout from said concepts. The reason indie games are doing so well in comparison is that they are innovating said concepts, wich prevents said burnout even if the innovation may not always be for the better.

The problem isn't that we don't have great games. The problem is the games and developers we loved fell off. Many stubbornly refuse to move on.

Here is a list of games that are not very known outside of fans of the genre today, but I encourage people to give it a try: - Tactics Ogre Reborn - Deep Sky Derelicts - Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura - Iconoclasts - Unsighted - 9 Years of Shadows - Ib - Odin Sphere - Battletech (2018) - Homeworld - Dragon's Crown - Unreal (no, not Unreal Tournament or the Engine but the original 1998 game) - VA-11 HALL-A (it is spelled Valhalla)

ok, so his reasons are: 1: graphics are gettingbetter (wich means very little) 2: indie is getting bigger 3: single player isn't dying (wow. great improvement) 4 not all life service games are total trash. fantastic points, my outlook on gaming has greatly improved. Now I'll return to play games from over 10 years ago, because most games coming out today are still trash.

Good games are better than ever, but the bar for 'average' games has dipped dramatically and truly bad games have tanked so far its criminal. Overall we've hit a threshold where the handful of gems we get are highly polished treasures, but they are buried ever deeper in half-finished cash grabs and reprinted trash.

Its not even gaming at this point its gambling

2012, 1 year before the Xbox one and ps4 release would be my dream era to be frozen in for gaming

Absolutely love and agree with your take on Zelda! I'm still hooked though and play them all just really miss that old in your face style

Gaming isn't dying, but AAA games are. Indie games is the place to be as of now.

I. Literally. Don't. Care. About. Graphics. some of the most immersed i've ever been in a game was in the 16bit era. you get immersed in the story, not the gameplay. you have fun with the gameplay, not the story. graphics are 100% secondary to both gameplay and story. I think you've glossed over the problem with live service. it's not always about giving us a game that's updating, it's about punching out a subpar piece of shit game and fixing it later. meanwhile, charging people for early access and being beta testers. P.S. I do not preorder or play early-access games, but almost every one of my friends does and it's infuriating.

They have limited themselves. I know a lot of studio's that have some real jerks in charge and it's not only the devs that are being dumb, but also the higher ups that continue to tunnelvision their resources into projects that serve little to no purpose. Back then, the developers weren't limiting themselves on creativity. Right now, it's a neccesity to keep devs in check for what they can do and can't do.

Man I’d pay money to watch Asmon play those old games on stream and reminisce about the times he played them. It would take forever but it would be incredible

Everyone here talking about Zelda was their childhood seem to never have caressed a golden original Nintendo cartridge and waited for an hour plus drive to get home. And lord help you if your mom had plans between the lone game store in your (non)general area and your house.... Sheer pain.

what's more sad is I watch these videos before asmon even finds them and then I rewatch his reactions because I have no life. and his takes are hilarious and down to earth for gamers 😂👈

0:07 I love how I already watched this too

Indie games are really popping off so I’m satisfied with the current gaming scene, I don’t really get the newest triple A games so I don’t really deal with some of the bad releases, I occasionally play some of the established games like apex, persona games, overwatch etc. but overall, my experience is good

Imagine playing Custer's revenge way back then...

No. Just no. Games should be expected to be good, it shouldn't be a celebrated thing when a game is good because they just should be. It is unacceptable for a product to not deliver on its promises without recompense, and I don't consider finishing the game slowly over the course of two years after release to be recompense.

Totally agree.. Indie Games have been always getting better. Nowadays I usually just play Indie Games because of that

7:20 clearly asmon didnt pay attention to windwaker at all considering that's the timeline where link loses and the world was flooded by the goddesses prevent ganon from killing everyone while the king died in his doomed kingdom lmao

The problem not addressed is how live service is eroding away single player content from first party studios. Look at rocksteady. Hasn't released a new game since 2015 and now they're releasing anthem 2.0. Whoopie. The problem is studios are unwilling to take risks because games are so bloated now that there's no way they're letting their massive IP exist without some sort of live service game

Recently found out I have Aphantasia, so games is a great way for me to get into a story. I could read a book and forget details that become plot twists later on and I just give up confused.

have to love when his saying "evolved positive way" and "playing 1997 year game music"

People are more likely pessimistic about modern monetization and the direction its going while the games themselves are actually better but the monetization hates gets conflated with hate of modern gaming in general.

It's what happens to an industry that is massively popular and profitable, it becomes corporate and soulless. Even good AAA games that come out nowadays are throttled by some kind of grubby money making scheme, not all, but many are and it's pathetic. Corporations kill creativity in pursuit of higher profit margins.

L Wind Waker opinion

Windwaker was dark too

Story and game play to me is what matters to me in that order I can play a game with slighty bad game play if the story is amazing. but its best if both are really good.

Just replayed chronotrigger over a couple weeks and it's still amazing. It just felt like a normal thought process while playing. Your buddy got killed by some asshole then you don't like him. Keep playing and you see the big picture and understand everything better. There was no UwU shit and it was just well made

I’ve honestly had some of my best game experiences playing random indie games from Game Pass recently

3:30 Sure games are prettier now, and better acted, that doesnt mean they are better at all overall. 2001-2011 was the prime for gaming. 2007 is the best year ever in gaming. The quality of games overall is shit now. Boring, generic, no one tries anything new. How many souls copy cat games have we had now? Or Sony cutscene games?