Are they getting worse overall or are we just comparing all of the current AAA games to the best AAA of the past few decades? Or comparing the current versions of series to the high points, which might just be the first game in the series?

We definitely have a number of high quality AAA games that come out each year. Most prior years had a few high quality AAA games and a lot of mediocre or terrible ones too. It's kind of like music where the average quality over time is actually pretty consistent, but in any given year there are a lot of turds and there are certain trends that are common to those turds.

90% of every entertainment medium tends to be terrible, but when we look back we mostly remember the 10% that were good and only a few of the absolute worst to laugh at.

[–] greenskye@lemm.ee 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

AAA games are legitimately worse now than before, but the gulf isn't as big as people are claiming.

[–] drosophila@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

I think they're both better and worse.

In the latter half of the 2000s and early 2010s AAA games were becoming increasingly hollowed out husks, with dumbed down paint-by-numbers gameplay and tons of QTEs. And its not like their narratives or art direction were any good either (it being the blurry brown piss filter era). In the same time period we saw the rise of predatory practices like day one DLCs and preorder bonuses.

In more recent times I think we've actually seen a reversal of the gameplay hollowing out trend, and an improvement in art direction. However with the rise of lootboxes, trading, and gatcha, monetization schemes are more predatory than they've ever been (though these are mostly concentrated in multiplayer games). Its also really common now for games to release in an completely broken and unplayable state.

[–] greenskye@lemm.ee 3 points 20 hours ago

I feel like a huge number of franchises were started back in the day, but everything now is just sequels and remasters of old games.

How many of the current biggest AAA titles got their start in the 2005-2015 era vs the number of new franchises in 2015-2025?

Creativity seems to be mostly dead and games all have to be mega hits or they're considered a failure. There's also a distinct lack of AA games (the successful of which often later became AAA titles).