If you could remove one thing from gaming or gaming culture....

@JoeyRavn said:

From a gameplay perspective, this:

@Mystic_11 said:

Heading towards a multiplayer/connective focus world.

From a moral perspective, this:

@Ping5000 said:

Either the misogyny or the sexism.

But I'll settle for getting rid of Multiplayer Achievements. Goddam, I fucking hate them.

All this, granted the misogyny and sexism goes hand in and with the overall experience of going online in a game and dealing with all the open mics, it's sad that i think it's been years since I've played an xbox live game without a party just cause I hate listening to the idiots on there.

I would remove casual gamers and casual games focus. Maybe then we can progress.

Oh, and children.

Just multiplayer of any kind.

People. It has to be people.

I agree, gamer entitlement needs to go. 
Either that or get rid of fanbois. 
 
Well one can hope that natural selection takes care of the last one, and soon. 

Nothing. The objectification (not to be confused with "sexism" or misused "misogyny" ), the entitlement, the cynicism, the righteous indignation, the rose-colored nostalgia, the elitism, and derogatory profanity are all part of the diverse tapestry that makes up gaming today. I may chose not to indulge in certain areas of gaming, but I don't want to see them disappear. True, the balance between all aspects is not as proportional as it should be, however scraping something that doesn't suit my particular tastes doesn't solve that issue, either. I don't believe in limiting other people's access or opinions because they offend me.

checkpoints

I'd actually like to not remove entitlement, but rather the purely negative connotations associated with it. I'm not defending people that can try and utterly dictate a sequel because it doesn't match their exacting expectations, but I'm tired of people thinking a sense of entitlement is always to the detriment of the product. If you don't feel entitled to a product that works, then if you buy a product that is broken you won't bring it up, or at least be annoyed by it. Sometimes developers and publishers need to know if they've fucked up, because I think we've all seen examples of questionable decisions by creators and distributors.

Opinions.
 
More precisely the way people only listen to their own or their favourite reviewers.
 
I get it, you don't like Halo, so don't bloody review it or try to sound like you actually gave half a damn while playing it.
Don't ask me to review a CoD game either because I know I can't judge it, but a lot of gamers seem to think that their opinion is the best out there and a lot of good games get underrated because of it.
 
Or ignored at launch and later on they turn into cult titles because hey, maybe you guys were dicks about the game and it's actually just awesome.

Nostalgia.

Wow, guess I'll step up to the plate and say what needs to be said. Zombies. Zombies need to go away for a really, REALLY long time. I used to be into zombies back in the Resident Evil 2 days. The amount of zombies in games, movies, TV shows, and books now is just overkill and has given me a pavlovian dog response of muttering under my breath in curses whenever I see or here something zombie related.

All I'm saying is can we please not have a "Zombie" related game or form of entertainment for, at least, seven years? Please?

This is more of an internet thing than specific to gaming, but how about higher standards for spelling and grammar?

@ValiantGrizzly said:

@BaconGames

The high price of games overseas. Even in countries where wages are high enough to afford them, buying games overseas can be a pain when they're equivalent to between $60 and $120. Double the issue for nations where average wage in real US dollars is a good amount lower but game prices are the same if not higher and stay at that price for longer. Global piracy, moral arguments and cultural effects aside, is largely a price issue. Where game prices are high, wages are low, and internet is fast piracy is very popular, especially since a lot of the media being pirated is the well-produced Western stuff. I just want more people to afford more games and establish parity with the American market experience.

This. We pay $90 in euros for new games, and as I understand we're still getting off lightly.

The charge alot for the games that sell alot over here, Fallout 3 was 140 Every COD sells for 130 which is like 110 in USD, digital games should be cheaper ever Sony or Microsoft has to take the plunge, don't be scare that Gamestop will stop stocking games because you are their life blood not the other way around. A new game should be 50 dollars on Xbox Live the day it comes out globally like Steam does.

Jerkiness.

@AhmadMetallic said:

checkpoints

Huh? Or do you mean "replace checkpoints with save anywhere I want"? Because a lack of either can be a real pain.

Anyway, as much as I hate sexist/racist/homophobic things, I hate censorship far more, so I can't say any of those. Gamer entitlement is a symptom of our particular past time being more full of man-children than most others, so it's more a symptom of a bigger cause but still one that I'd like to see gone.

As far as actual gaming? I'd like to see publishers have a better idea of what kind of budget to give a game, and I'd like to see developers better use that budget in making their games. What I mean is, if a game isn't expected to make umpteen amounts of dollars, instead of giving it a budget like it would make a lot money, give it a smaller budget and release it at a lesser price so that the dev in question can prove themselves instead of spending millions of dollars on a game that isn't going to sell so well, and then shutting down the developer because they didn't make the profit. We need more tiers of games than just "AAA" and "indie". We need more Darksiders, Deadly Premonitions, Metro 2033's. Give those kinds of things a chance, they only occasionally do very well.

collectibles for the sake of collecting.

open worlds that lend little to the game (la noire, arkham city (yeah, i said it)).

Having to press "any button". What's the point of that screen?

Also, dickheads. But all communities have those.

@TheUnsavedHero said:

Wow, guess I'll step up to the plate and say what needs to be said. Zombies. Zombies need to go away for a really, REALLY long time. I used to be into zombies back in the Resident Evil 2 days. The amount of zombies in games, movies, TV shows, and books now is just overkill and has given me a pavlovian dog response of muttering under my breath in curses whenever I see or here something zombie related.

All I'm saying is can we please not have a "Zombie" related game or form of entertainment for, at least, seven years? Please?

what do you replace them with though.

The need for every game to look realistic. I like me some video game looking video games.

People accusing other people who are upset/angry about things of being 'entitled.' It doesn't make you sound 'smart' or 'better than everyone else.' People are paying for a fucking product, they have every right to voice their concerns/criticisms.

Bronies

@FunkasaurasRex said:

@Ping5000 said:

Either the misogyny or the sexism.

Pretty much this. I'd say homophobia and racism are also pretty pervasive; sexism seems to be the issue that's very much at the forefront right now though.

100% agree with your additions to the original post. basically anyone and everyone who goes out of their way to marginalize and belittle others, taking something that's supposed to be fun and make it demoralizing.

they are truly vermin.

So many, many, many, many things.

Restricting myself to games and not the world around them - the obligatory multiplayer.

Unsupervised children... I mean racist 12 yr olds, and man babies who can't control their temper, or act respectful to his or her peers when hiding behind the anonymity of the web.

People who use the phrase "gamer entitlement."

platform fanboys.

PC supremacists (nothing is more annoying than the barrage of "is this coming to PC?", "petition to have it on PC!" UGH!)

@Rafaelfc said:

platform fanboys.

PC supremacists (nothing is more annoying than the barrage of "is this coming to PC?", "petition to have it on PC!" UGH!)

Why would it annoy you? What's wrong with people wanting to buy a game?

just the general level of hostility between gamers. people for whatever reason feel the need to be complete dickheads to each other.

Silent protags

I hate when games waste my time on pointless traveling. If my character is "here" and needs to be "there", and there's nothing interesting in between, then fucking teleport my character "there".

WoW was by far the worst offender of this. Looking back, it is kind of sickening how much useless running that game made you do. Players actually did more running/flight-pathing than fighting.

Children

platform fanboys.

PC supremacists (nothing is more annoying than the barrage of "is this coming to PC?", "petition to have it on PC!" UGH!)

Time.

I wish that gamers and game reviewers would stop focusing so much on total playing time as a metric for game quality. Just because a game is huge doesn't mean it's good. I get wanting to get more bang for your buck and all--it's not a meaningless thing--but it's way overused as a way of judging games.

@Splodge said:

@Rafaelfc said:

platform fanboys.

PC supremacists (nothing is more annoying than the barrage of "is this coming to PC?", "petition to have it on PC!" UGH!)

Why would it annoy you? What's wrong with people wanting to buy a game?

Nothing wrong with that. But 10+ people in every thread for every console game going "wah I want this on PC" "wah, this would look better on PC" is annoying to me.

@NekuSakuraba said:

@Rafaelfc

platform fanboys.

PC supremacists (nothing is more annoying than the barrage of "is this coming to PC?", "petition to have it on PC!" UGH!)

I know, right? Why should PC gamers be able to play games, they are all dirty pirating scum.

That's not my point at all. I have nothing against PC as a platform, heck I grew up on PC and love it, is just the whining for wanting console games to be ported for it that is annoying to me, is all.

Chill out people, I play games on a PC too, I didn't mean to be inflamatory it's just something that annoys me (one of the miriad of things that annoy me in gaming)

@JZ said:

Silent protags

Yep. This has got to change. Right there with ya.

@Bell_End: People? Werewolves? Biological experiments? (And I know in Resident Evil, Zombies were a "Bioweapon" and all that jazz. But, what about more of the Hunters, Lickers, and giant insects? I found them more interesting to fight.)

I'm just asking for a break or Zombies will go the way of the Nazis from all those WWII FPS games.

I would remove the notion that a game has to be perfect to be fun.

@Rafaelfc

platform fanboys.

PC supremacists (nothing is more annoying than the barrage of "is this coming to PC?", "petition to have it on PC!" UGH!)

I know, right? Why should PC gamers be able to play games, they are all dirty pirating scum.

there is a lot of things i would love to have removed most of them have allready been said, so ill say one that i have not seen yet.

pointless collectibles in games if they dont add anything then dont but them in and no attaching it to a trophy or achivement does not could just cut it out. its a waste of time and people dont care

I'd get rid of matchmaking. I want to play a specific level with specific rules with a certain amount of people and to not just have that as a recommendation. I don't want to play my least favorite level with the dumbest rules and a full 16 person game.

The entitlement comes from the expense of video games. I get why people act this way. It's also because a lot of gamers are kids, and kids by nature tend to feel entitled these days. It's an aspect of living in a world with less fear then the past. 
 
It's hard for me to say I want anything removed. I would say cynicism. Yet I understand the cynicism. It's annoying when it's directed at a game that is generally pretty good and does great things, but these days it feels innovation is stagnating sometimes. More recently we've seen a resurgence of stealth based games. Dishonored, Mark of the ninja, AC3, Hitman Absolution.... maybe something else I am missing. I haven't played Hitman yet but it still seemed to have that feel blood money had- which is to say it looks pretty good, Dishonored was very reminiscent of the Thief series but with some new ideas, AC3 is a step back in a lot of ways- the real downer of the bunch, and Mark of the Ninja I haven't played yet but seems like some new concepts as well. 
 
It's an interesting time in video games and despite my often jaded nature recently I have been seeing games actually be games (some with set backs but for the most part a decent crop).  
 
I think the biggest thing we could lose is all the studio closures. While some don't mean anything one way or the other, it's a real shame so many great leaders of the industry have fallen or are falling. I know it's just a name, and not all the people that made them great are always the same, but it's hard not to be sad when they go. It also sucks when people lose jobs- which has been happening a lot lately.

Advertising.

Crappy writing.

I'm not saying that every game needs to have a gut wrenching story on the human condition. What I am saying is that games like Portal are as amazing as they are because of the quality of writing behind them. Nor do I say that games need a story at all, but when they have them then I would like them to at least try.

I would say it would have to be either mainstream gaming always catering to the lowest common denominator or the portrayal of gaming in the media to those not familiar with gaming at all.

@Rafaelfc: Agreed. That's also pretty high up on my list. I absolutely love the PC as a platform, but fucking PC elitists (console elitists too, but I find those are more rare...) drive me batshit insane.

Hmmm, well, I'm trying to think of something else I would remove, but I can't pick one I want most...

I guess I'd have to go with this trend (feels like a trend because I can't think of many games in the past that have done it) that more, but dumb enemies = difficulty as opposed to fewer smarter ones. For instance, I love Borderlands, but I'm constantly frustrated when I play it because there's enemies fucking everywhere and they're all dumb. I walk into an area and suddenly I'm getting shot by a bajillion people and that's the so-called difficulty. The "hard" part isn't how they behave, it's the amount of them that there are and that bugs me. Borderlands isn't the only game that does this fyi, I'm just using it as an example. MMOs commit this sin all the goddamn time.

I would personally much rather fight small numbers of enemies, but have every enemy be really smart; or have game mechanics work in such a way that it only makes sense to fight small numbers of enemies. Games like the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series for example are games that I feel strike a wonderful balance between how smart the AI is and the number of them that there are.

@laserbolts said:

The Internet.

Non optional achievement tracking. I hate them and know they're driving games development in a bad direction. As an aside the fact they're timestamped and anyone can compare my games list and know what I've been doing on a particular day isn't something I want. If I'm having a sicky but can still play games that number going up could cause office gossip. Closing my list could be interpreted as having something to hide.

EDIT: Shiggy knows games. Shiggy don't like cheevos. He's better than you, you're wrong.

Probably motion controls, I hate them and have added nothing of value to the legacy of video games as a whole.

@Ping5000 said:

Either the misogyny or the sexism.

this, nobody needs this in their life