Ok, I see your point regarding Factorio, but most games have predecessor and ancestor that were similar in spirit but maybe not as advanced. Transport Tycoon certainly had many of the features, but they weren’t nearly as simulation heavy as Factorio (not that it needs to be, mind). I’m quite familiar with OpenTTD, its a great game, but the advanced signalling stuff you mentioned wasn’t in the original and was added much later (TTD was 94 as you say and OpenTTD started in 04, many of the advanced features added even later). But I take your point!
> There’s a large community of players who strongly disagree with you.
A game doesn’t have to be large or have much gameplay depth for people to sink a lot of time into them or to play them at a very highly skilled level. There are people who sink hundreds (or in some cases thousands) of hours into all sorts of games, including modern shooters which I’m sure you agree are often quite lacking in depth. The videos you showed didn’t show depth in the game, they showed very skilled players who clearly played a lot. I’ll give you an example: does flipping a coin have depth to it? Because given enough practice, I bet I could flip a coin in a way that it will always come up heads.
> Today, there’s just so much competition
The examples you’re giving are on mobile, which is a cesspool of remakes, clones and garbage copies. Of course, so is Steam. The “strike it big” examples you’ve given are also on mobile, where games that can idly occupy someones time while they commute or whatever do well. Outside of mobile, there exist successful indie games that are more sophisticated games that made it big. But you’re right, for every great innovative game, there are 10x trash games that made it, but most of them are on mobile. I don’t know of any examples on PC or console (aside from big budget AAA games) that are like Flappy Bird or whatever and did really well. Instead you see games like Factorio, Stardew Valley, Minecraft, Spacechem, World of Goo, Spelunky, Terreria, Bastion, FTL, Super Meat Boy, Rim World, Prison Architect and Braid.
> There’s a large community of players who strongly disagree with you.
A game doesn’t have to be large or have much gameplay depth for people to sink a lot of time into them or to play them at a very highly skilled level. There are people who sink hundreds (or in some cases thousands) of hours into all sorts of games, including modern shooters which I’m sure you agree are often quite lacking in depth. The videos you showed didn’t show depth in the game, they showed very skilled players who clearly played a lot. I’ll give you an example: does flipping a coin have depth to it? Because given enough practice, I bet I could flip a coin in a way that it will always come up heads.
> Today, there’s just so much competition
The examples you’re giving are on mobile, which is a cesspool of remakes, clones and garbage copies. Of course, so is Steam. The “strike it big” examples you’ve given are also on mobile, where games that can idly occupy someones time while they commute or whatever do well. Outside of mobile, there exist successful indie games that are more sophisticated games that made it big. But you’re right, for every great innovative game, there are 10x trash games that made it, but most of them are on mobile. I don’t know of any examples on PC or console (aside from big budget AAA games) that are like Flappy Bird or whatever and did really well. Instead you see games like Factorio, Stardew Valley, Minecraft, Spacechem, World of Goo, Spelunky, Terreria, Bastion, FTL, Super Meat Boy, Rim World, Prison Architect and Braid.