#oneaday Day 84: Modern gaming is great

It’s very easy to be cynical about the state of modern gaming if all you pay attention to is triple-A. There are a bajillion YouTube videos on this very subject. I even made my own counterpoint, which you can enjoy here if you see fit:

Fact is, though, if you look outside all the identikit Live Service open-world player retention monetised-out-the-wazoo triple-A space (and the indie darlings who desperately wish they were part of that space), we’ve never had it so good.

We’re living in a world where, in 2024, there is a brand new Famicom Detective Club game out now, with an English version and a physical release. I bought it, because I really enjoyed the modernised versions of the first two. (You can read my thoughts on them here and here, and some more detailed thoughts on this new third entry will follow soon.)

We’re living in a world where preservation of retro games is not just taking place in the form of rereleases — and it’s great that that is happening in itself — but also in the form of fantastic “museum-style” pieces featuring interactive historical artifacts, video clips and all manner of other goodness.

We’re living in a world where Japanese games we once thought would never be localised are readily available in English — and with gorgeous big-box physical releases just like PC games from 25 years ago.

We’re living in a world where all the mainline Yakuza/Like A Dragon games are available in English, which I’m sure makes the guy who used to harass me on MoeGamer because he thought anime-style games were stopping Yakuza games from getting localised mad for some reason.

And, of course, we’re living in a world where thanks to emulation and related solutions, everyone has easy access to pretty much every game ever made, so if you ever claim you have “nothing to play” you really only have your own boring ass to blame.

There’s plenty that’s shit, of course. The aforementioned live service games. Perpetually unfinished releases with endless “roadmaps”. The scourge that is Game Pass. The death of traditional games journalism, particularly magazines. The general standard of “discourse” online (or lack thereof) surrounding video games. All of that sucks fat horse dick.

But a lot of it also doesn’t matter. Because you can shout and scream and yell about how shit you think “modern gaming” is… or you can actually engage with “modern gaming” until you figure out that it’s much, much more than just the incredibly shit bits. And the sooner you leave the incredibly shit bits behind — and yes, it absolutely is possible to do so, I have done since about 2010 and have been eating well games-wise ever since — you’ll find things better than ever.

So close that Twitter window where you’re complaining about Helldivers II or whatever, and boot up a copy of, say, Emio: The Smiling Man. And don’t look back.

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Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.