Games Inbox: What will a post-GTA 6 video games industry be like?

The Monday letters page argues that gaming has never been cheaper than it is now, as one reader questions the purpose of pre-orders.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Fear the future
Completely agree with the Reader’s Feature over the weekend, about publishers destroying themselves, and especially the big about no one – from execs to fans – seeming to care.

I get that people just want to lose themselves in their favourite games, and not have to worry about industry problems and people getting laid off and whatever, but the way things are going there’s not going to be much of gaming left. I can envision a nightmare future where all the current publishers have gone bust or been bought out and everything is made by AI.

Everything is going to be just live service online shooters and indie gaming is the only creativity left, although it struggles to compete against AI slop that can be made quickly and far more cheaply, and which gamers lap up without any problem.

Obviously, things could go differently but with EA, Ubisoft, and Activision all now in different levels of trouble what is the future going to look like? I think GTA 6 is going to decide it. That is going to be so massive that whatever the games industry looks like after that I don’t think any of us can guess at right now.

A post-GTA 6 world is either going to be the signal of the end times for gaming or lancing a boil that allows companies to get back to the coalface. What gaming looks like in another five years I really wouldn’t want to bet on.
Zoltar

All new-ish
I could take or leave a Smash Bros. themed animated show but the Reader’s Feature at the weekend did make me think about how Nintendo has done very little to promote its whole range of characters since the Switch 2 came out. The new Mario Kart doesn’t have other characters in it, the Zelda game doesn’t feature Link, the Donkey Kong game is a redesign, and even the Metroid game doesn’t feature recurring characters.

I’m trying to figure if this is on purpose or not and I’m really not sure. What I do know is that Nintendo has done very little to show off what makes Nintendo so great with the Switch 2, and I say that as someone that likes Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza.

If they’ve got any kind of plan for Smash Bros. they haven’t hinted at it, but I really do think they need to move things up a gear and have some kind of all-in-one game and announce what’s going on with Smash and Zelda and 3D Mario.
Tacle

OAP vs. BOW
I’m surprised Capcom decided to have their Resident Evil characters age in real-time, because Leon, Claire et al. are eventually going to get too old to realistically fight zombies and they’ll have to rely on new characters instead of recognisable and iconic ones.

On the other hand, Heihachi from Tekken was as old as the hills in the very first game and still gets wheeled out to fight because, you know, they’re video games and not real-life.
ANON

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Cel division
Lately I’ve been thinking about the cel-shaded racer Auto Modellista.

I’d like to try the game but there doesn’t seem to be many second-hand copies available and the copies that are available are imports, not playable on a PAL PlayStation 2 and ultra expensive. Was the game any good or was its title the best part of it?

In my mind there was a time in the past when several cel-shaded games came out in close succession and that style of graphics seemed to become a popular fad, amongst developers anyway.

Wasn’t there that wolf game Ōkami and a spy/shooter game called XIII? Is Borderlands the only mainstream cel shaded game that has prevailed? If so that’s a shame because cel-shading is an attractive art style.
Michael Veal (@msv858)

GC: Auto Modellista wasn’t great, it just looked nice. Cel-shading was popularised by Jet Set Radio in 1999, when it was still a new technique. Interest began to peter out over the next few years, for the obvious reason that none of the games were particularly successful. It’s still used occasionally though, most obviously with anime inspired titles.

Not awful
I’ve been going through Metroid Prime 4 and I actually don’t mind it… I totally understand all of the criticisms, and they are completely justified, but I’m still liking it. The bike and open world are awful but outside of that it’s fine.

I feel the same way about Resident Evil 5. It’s totally underrated and a genuinely good game that upset people because it wasn’t 4.

I guess it’s a bit different for you guys, as you have to review stuff, but I’m guessing you have games that you have reviewed badly but still quite like.
Simon

GC: We gave Metroid Prime 4 7/10, we didn’t hate it. We’re not sure anyone does.

Wait and see
I really don’t understand the point of people pre-ordering video games. Why are you giving the publishers your money now? You’re rewarding them for successful marketing, while removing the chance for you to react to negative reviews and cheaper deals closer to launch.

The games industry is in a bad state at the moment, but I really think gamers have as much to blame for it as anyone else. We never buy new franchises, we’d rather waste money on pointless cosmetic items than spend them on actual games, and we killed the physical and second-hand market for the benefit of not having to get up and change discs when we want to play a different game.

Pre-orders barely made any sense when you were reserving a physical copy but now that’s not how most people buy games there is absolutely no reason to pre-order and every reason to avoid giving publishers the benefit of the doubt.

There’s lots of games I hope turn out good, but I’ll wait and see whether they are or not, before I ever consider spending any money on them.
Gorsch

Get on with it
I am convinced Nintendo enjoys trolling fans, especially with these Direct announcements. Can’t wait to find out which four year old third party games are coming to Switch 2, especially as they’ll be full price and yet probably only a tenner on PlayStation or Xbox, because they’re old.

I’m being negative, I realise, but this is what happens when Nintendo go to so much effort to avoid doing the obvious thing that everyone wants. Just please get a move on and announce what is happening this year. I do not care about anything you’ve revealed so far and probably not anything that’s going to be in the Partner Showcase.
Korbie

Video games forever
With all the negative press around the games industry nowadays I’d like to throw my hat in. Now, gaming consoles lately are expensive I agree, but I paid £299 for my second-hand PlayStation 5 from Cash Converters around a year ago. It was a Slim disc version and I know it was only a few months old, as when I checked Sony’s warranty checker it was well within the time frame.

Now, I don’t know if I could access that warranty, I’m not sure how it works, but when I had issues with Xbox in the past I only had to give the serial number, no receipt or anything, so I assume it would be OK. I built my daughter a PC from mostly second-hand parts and a second-hand PC already built for under £500, which I’ve used for Battlefield 6 at over 100fps in 1440p.

I also bought a PlayStation Portal for £120 from another store second-hand and it literally doesn’t have a mark on it. I would put my hand on my heart and say gaming is cheaper than ever. With Game Pass (OK that’s gone up) and PS Plus at a few pounds per week, to a massive library of games I wanted to play, and a huge amount of games I’ve enjoyed but would never have paid for is amazing value.

Nintendo is Nintendo, I paid a lot for my Switch 2 and all the games but Nintendo doesn’t do sales so it is what it is and if you are a Nintendo fan you know you’ll pay for it eventually. I’ve been into games since the ‘80s and so long as I live long enough I’ll be playing games until the 2080s.

Is it getting a little stale? Sure. Are companies chasing trends that I’m not interested in? Absolutely. But am I a happy gamer with more quality titles I have time to play? 100%, yes. So, like all things in life, stop looking at what’s wrong and look at all the things that are right. And if you live by that, you’ll game and live happily ever after.

If you’re like me then we’ll still be here playing researching and enjoying games forever.
Philly B

Inbox also-rans
I would definitely agree that not only is there no need for the PlayStation 6 but that a portable PlayStation 5 would be a great thing to do instead of it. This is such a good idea I expect that Sony will not consider it for even a moment.
Rusty

Been playing Look Outside for the last few days and wanted to thank GC for the recommend. Never heard about it before but it’s a great mix of role-player, survival games, and Lovecraftian horror. It has a really weird atmosphere that I love.
Pyro

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