The Gaming Industry Makes Me Rage

The Gaming Industry Makes Me Rage is a pretty good title and summary. It does make me pissed off more often than not, especially the sense of disregard of the customers. The sequels that showers down, the DLCs we pay for, Nintendo, Square Enix. All of these things will make me rage like a madwoman. Obviously I’m not an expert, but it doesn’t take an expert to see and understand that this will inevitably kill the industry, or at least choke out every ounce of creativity and microwave it for 90 seconds until it implodes and kill everyone who ever touched a game.

The games will always cost a small fortune:

As much as I realize that a game needs to cost a certain sum to be worth the cost of developing, publishing, and finally getting everyone their salaries and extra bonuses and whatnot – I really cannot be bothered to buy a game which will set me back $85. I will wait, if not until the game is xx% of, a few years until I can actually afford to be bothered to play it. It’s not like I get games delivered to my mailbox just because I own a gaming news site. If companies were less interested in shoving the money into their various holes, they would still generate the same income, if not more. Which are you more likely to buy? A game that costs $85, or a game that costs $40? Yeah, I thought so. But wait, what about the DLCs?

There will always be DLCs:

Because for some reason, the amount I pay for a game is not enough to cover this “must have” extra content everyone is raging about.

DLCs have their Pros and Cons, like a lot of things in life. But when a game has barely been released, and DLCs are being announced, then you’re doing it exclusively to make more money. And ripping me, your customer, off. I’m apparently supposed to pay 100 dollars and more for the “full gaming experience”. If the game has been out for a year, I can understand that the developers go something like, “Oh, we should have totally included that in the game”. Season Pass are just another thing to make the developers and publishers look less “guilty”. You already have the bloody content on the disc, why do I have to pay to unlock it?!?!

Indie Games Are Always Better:

Indie games have the benefit of not being controlled by major companies which dictates every move the studios makes. Does this mean the games are better? Not necessarily. The indie games are for the most part unusual, and that’s what they gain their reputation for. They’re doing something that hasn’t been done before.

If, for some reason, EA or any other gaming company would make an indie-esque game, then it would suck, according to some anyway. The same game, developed by an indie studio is an instantaneous hit. See the hypocritical part in all? An indie game is not good just because it is an indie game. More often than not it’s shit. Plain and simple. There are gems out there, just like there is gems in the mainstream game market. Not everything is black or white, I’ve heard there’s a grey zone.

Sequels are always fun, or not:

As much as I love a good sequel, or two, there comes a point where sequels are just plain annoying. If Mirror’s Edge comes out with a sequel in the future, then I will buy it. If the sequels keeps coming like crazy (annually) then I will not buy it.

There’s only so much content you can milk from a series without losing what made it special. Can we just see a new IP, please? Annual series such as racing games are even worse. Is there really a point? What have been updated? The game mechanism is probably the same – there’s only one way you can drive a car. What makes it special? The various locations you can race at? The extra content you can use to make your character/car stand out? I just don’t see the point in racing games that are released annually. And don’t come and give me the bullshit that you like them for the story. You can basically just release a DLC for it, which probably is cheaper for the customers. But no, you’re going to get more money for the same thing.

Don’t get me wrong, I love playing a racing game or two, but I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart if they were put next to each other. Which kind of defeats the point.

Nintendo will always release a new Super Mario, Square Enix will always release a new FF game: 

This is like I said with the sequels – these two companies are abusing the franchises. What is the goddamn point? FF stopped being good a long time ago, and instead of actually giving us what we want – namely a reboot of FF7, we get these sequels. They can’t even name them properly, what the hell is Final Fantasy 13-2 supposed to mean? Is it a sequel to a sequel? Why are companies that are sitting with so much knowledge, so much money, so afraid of creating some new. Nintendo isn’t better themselves. After marketing their games and consoles to a young market, they’re wondering why no one is buying their games. Honestly, would you rather buy your kid a smartphone than a console? I’d go for the latter, but most would go for the first option and that’s a problem for Nintendo.

I’m not entirely sure if you’ve seen the game selection for the Nintendo 3DS. Because, in the stores I shop all I see are brain games, or some type of game involving animals. The Wii U is even worse. Do I honestly need to keep my attention at two screens? One is enough for the most part. They can’t even get the software out there before they release the console! What do they expect? “Oh, excuse me while I’ll spend many hundred dollars on a console which I got no idea if the unreleased games will be good or not”.  Sounds legit.

In the end, I suppose it all comes down to money. As much as  I realize the companies want to make money, the same thing gets produced over and over again.  I’m not saying games have to be a work of art, but with the constant sequels there’s a certain drainage which will suck the industry dry. What I want to see is how companies such as Thatgamecompany will be able to survive with releases such as Journey. It’s quite obvious that Journey is an amazing title, but is it enough to spawn more companies to continue the trend? I certainly hope so.