Video Games Are Dying (But Actually For Real This Time [Except Maybe Indies But You Know])

It's 8 p.m. on March 3rd 2026, a little over 24 hours from the conclusion of the Marathon Sever Slam - No not that Marathon, instead its new younger sibling; a live service extraction shooter with immaculate aesthetics but horrific always-online restrictions and pay-to-pay-more monetization.[*1] Given my own history with the Halo series and my many many hours in Destiny, I should've guessed that I'd already be fiending to claw my way back onto Tau Ceti IV. And yet, the thing that's kept me from pulling the trigger[*4] is a sinking feeling that I'm getting across the digital gaming sphere. That there's a magic to video gaming that's been slowly eroded, that spark that made it the Big New Medium, the thing that got you excited on Christmas morning, has been slowly getting drown in the churn of microtransactions and always online grind. 

Are video games... dying?

Now this is hyperbole (mostly) but have you noticed that Tabletop Games are kind of Having a Moment? The Critical Roll honeymoon phase has long gone cold, and WotC has burned so many bridges that when someone says D&D they'll usually assume you mean anything but its most recent official iteration. And yet a lot of people seem to be seeking out the TTRPG, yeah? The momentum hasn't slowed, in fact its only getting bigger: Heck my local OSR con (Arcane Con! You should go if you're near Western MA) has had to double its size from demand! And it's not just RPGs! Board game clubs, the TCG Renaissance, hell even wargaming is starting to enter a much more public vernacular. So what's happening?

I think on the one hand people are reaching for more human-to-human connection. Even before the proliferation of AI, social media had slowly alienated and abstracted ourselves from ourselves - Commodifying our every action into likes, bytes and Tinder swipes. But it feels like there's a bit of an exodus happening too. If you, like I, have been going to PAX East since its first opening, but have finally decided to skip this year because it's increasingly dominated by gaming chairs, sports arenas and CPU chips rather than cutting edge demos, cool swag and fun times, then you might be seeing this too!

Where once video games offered an escape into new worlds, a chance to challenge our skills and enrich our souls, more and more video games are returning to their arcadey quarter munching roots of merely trying to kill time and syphon money, occasionally in the company of others. With the exception of the (frankly beautiful and fruitful) indie friendslop genre, most online interactions in video games are constantly haunted by grind heavy battle-passes, invasive microtransactions, ad banners, login bonuses, buy, buy, buy, stay, stay, stay. It kinda sucks doesn't it? And hey that's if you can even get your hands on the damn things with rampant scalping, poor optimization, and skyrocketing RAM prices, this hobby's a BIG investment. It stops feeling like fun, and starts feeling like stress.[*7]

While single player games are slowly getting their mojo back (looking at you Stellar Blade with your astounding set of well over 50 cosmetics, all collectible unlocks in the game instead of being caustic and vapid microtransactions) and games like Baldur's Gate 3 have made headway in more nuanced multiplayer experiences in the AAA sphere, most games just kinda suck these days.[*5] Lots of bugs, samey gameplay, padded runtimes, and that's without the multiplayer.

Do you remember when you could get a game like Halo 3 that had fresh gameplay, a variety of multiplayer modes, a compelling single player campaign and a Forge[*2] (good lord the Forge! That's the Forge I learned to design from) all packaged in one game that you buy once and you can enjoy even when the servers go down? Yeah. Unheard of today. Most games emphatically do not support modding, never mind creating suites of content for players to freely make, play and share their own works regardless of servers.[*6]

Even the FGC seems to be feeling this squeeze! While fighting games have been taking off, huge swaths of DLC characters are an expectation while Patch Culture leads to waves of grief, debates over balance and version control headaches. A challenge tower is well and good until your character gets nerfed into the ground or their button mapping changed. And that's ignoring how badly optimized some of these games are for modern hardware, or how Rollback Netcode is still no replacement from the twitchy frame-to-frame combat of in-person matches.

They actually do not, in fact, make 'em like they used to. Instead you're expected to pay a premium for a game that could EoS[*3] at any time, and will harass you to buy the season pass every time you log in. That's not to say these games are irredeemable - I steal ideas from them often. But it's clear the golden age of video gaming has come to a close.

And where does that leave video games?

No longer shall they don the triforce tattoo and "I paused my game to be here" shirt - Instead they shall keep dice in their purses, head held by the "Nat 1 to wake up" cap. Sure they can (and do) return to their retro video games, enjoying how good we used to have it, but most people want to feel like they're part of something new, alive, ongoing, in-person. Something that respects their time and their wallet. Something that fosters their creativity and lets them own what they buy. Something that lets people be tactile, in-person, and really submerge themselves in the art. Something to take them to new worlds, to challenge their skills and enrich their souls.

That something, I'd wager, is tabletop games.

[*1 : If all these buzz-words make no sense to you, or fill you with dread, congratulations! You too are witnessing the death of video games]

[*2 : The Forge is essentially a map-making tool that allowed players to create and share their own game modes! It was a toolset so robust that it led to people making entire shows inside of it ~]

[*3 : End of Service - When they pull the plug on that game you bought and spent time in and now your beloved Exoprimal Bluray is an artifact that you hope can one day be reversed engineered by an alien race whose only touch-point for dinosaurs will be a 2023 PvPvE shooter.]

[*4 : I actually caved shortly after writing the first draft...]

[*5 : Someone is gonna come in here and say "BUT WHAT ABOUT INDIE GAMES" and I'm here to tell you they ALSO do not make those like they used to. The reason for this is simple: Roguelikes. Hades has a great story and OST, but Bastion does these even better IMO and can be enjoyed in just a few sittings and that's actually a good thing. Mullet Madjack is a spectacular gorefest with flashy visuals and a lot of heart, but Hotline Miami it is not. And don't even get me started on Vampire Survivor... There's still a lot of lovely little indie projects out there keeping video games alive and blooming as an artform (looking at you UltraKill, Cruelty Squad Hollow Knight and whatever twisted beauties come out of Critical Reflex and Devolver), but by and large the video games most people play, and the indies with the biggest budgets mimic their AAA cousins' pension for grind, repetition and eventually burning their players out.]

[*6 : OKOKOK you notice how Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft (gem that it is) all do phenomenally well because they embraced this? And how Roblox and Fortnite lag behind Minecraft in this department because Minecraft is SO mod heavy? Just a thought...

I will also say that, while these games can be very cool, Halo 3 they are not. A sandbox game is a very different experience than what Halo 3 and the Forge's restrictions provide, which is to say a deeply varied and flexible but ultimately very focused experience. You just don't see that anymore. I think it's a huge part of why Little Big Planet died on the vine, it lost its platformer/2D focus.]

[*7 : Which is to say nothing of the human toll of hire-fire cycles, long crunch times, billowing development costs and slop AI assets.]