What is the worst trend in modern gaming?

Annual installments.

Selling the ending separately.

It's definitely the different pre-order bonuses at different stores. I don't want to have to research where to buy a game so I get the best content.

As far as game design goes, let's completely get rid of QTE's. They suck. Always have, always will.

As far as business practices go? Pick one. Any one. Many of them are pretty terrible. Microtransactions, sell-you-the-ending-as-DLC...

Launch day patches

Its getting to the point where companies will purposely release busted games and just patch them after the fact.

Preorder bonuses and apps hidden behind a pay wall are the worst. Stop cash grabbing you greedy assholes.

Yep.

Other: The gaming community being unable to control their spending habit, allowing the video game industry to nickel and dime the hell out of the consumer for less content.

The market would correct itself if its customer base had self control and spoke with their wallet.

It's going to be super lame in 15 years when you want to go back to a game from this gen and find out some neat thing was only a preorder bonus.

Imagine if you went back to Ocarina of Time and there were a few items missing from the first tim you played, or if you couldn't unlock more costumes in the Re2.

Call of Duty

Nah, not really. I'd just argue that most developers don't know how to use them properly.

@believer258: If done well, they can be pretty awesome. Asura's Wraith being a prime example.
Lazily thrown in QTEs are the worst though. Such as the ones in Bayonetta.

I know this is a very 2006 opinion, but I'm gonna say DLC. It's gotten to the point where when I buy a game I feel like I'm not actually buying the full game. This has led me to not buying full price games anymore, I almost always wait for them to be on sale or reduced on Amazon. I definitely don't hate DLC, sometimes it adds content to a game I'm craving to play more of, but sometimes it's kind of ridiculous. It seems like every single game these days has to have some sort of added content.

I've also been thinking a lot about current gen games in 15 to 20 years, probably because I've been playing a lot of SNES for the past few weeks. The way most games work now I think it will be horrible, if not impossible, to go back to. Are there going to be any "timeless classics", like Super Metroid for example? You can buy that game off of Ebay today, put it in a snes and it'll work. What if you want to go retro and play a 360 in 20 years? Will games even be able to patch all the broken shit developers have shipped these games with? What about game enhancing DLC, like Asura's Wrath. What about all the amazing downloadable games out there? Will they be gone forever? Games today feel so disposable, consume it, throw it away when you're done and wait for the next new thing, and with the rumors of no used games on next-gen platforms it gets even worse. If that's true then good luck playing those games 20 years later. This problem probably does not effect a ton of people, but it does bum me out.

Annual installments followed closely by Perks/Classes in FPS a la basically every mulitplayer turning into a COD clone.

This, but of the options the paywalls. Everything else is more of a nuisance or inconsequential. Mobile paywall games are just terrible.

There's so many to choose from.

• DLC
• Season Passes (you're banking on getting content that won't suck -- remember SR3 DLC?).
• Shitty PC ports (poor controls, lag, low framerate, shitty console textures).
• Downloadable console games going from $10 to $12 to $15 to $20 as the norm.
• Burning through a franchise with annual releases (hello, Assassin's Creed!).

I hate games that are free to play but there are in games purchases. Such as being able to buy in game currency for better stuff or to progress you further into the games. It's unfair to all the players.

@dethfish: Absolutely games this gen are not going to age well unless there is support on next gen consoles. So many games this gen are dependent on having a multiplayer community too. That's going to be gone in 10 years, look at Halo 2.

Imagine trying to play Mass Effect 2 in 15 years and you'd have to track down all the DLC that was good and really added to the story.

Also while we are on the topic of not aging well, the photorealistic look many games have is not going to be treated well by time.

I listed quick time events, but that is more of a stand in with the number of random mini-games that are thrown in for the sake of blowing up the budget/AAAness of it. QTEs end up being one kind of mini-game, but the more general issue is inserting little sections that virtually nobody would consider a entertaining sort of experience between actual fun game play experiences (mass effect 2 hacking, I'm looking at you).

Assassin's Creed just needs needs a 2D mode shark jumping mini-game during the next outing.

pre order stuff

Everything because all games are the worst!

I would say the Call of dutification of the FPS ... :( I just hate that game´s nasty influence in all games

DLC that contains something that shouldve been on the main game.

Like Mass Effect 3 for example.

It is this rubbish right here except it's only going to get worse as more and more online only games come out like your destiny and simcity. The idea that you straight up won't be able to play games anymore once they decide to shut servers down and then even if you can play them you will only be able to play half of it because you won't be able to get the DLC anymore. Also this was really the first generation to have patches and stuff which means that IF you can play the games in 20 years or whatever you will only be able to play version 1 of that game which get more and more buggy and messy as time goes by. The idea that games can be lost in time is so weird and sad when you consider that we can read just about everything that has been written, listen to just about everything that has been recorded and watch just about everything that has been filmed.

Every decently successful developer streamlining their game to follow the best seller in that genre.

One I don't see is: putting MMO elements into every fucking game. Namely random loot and level grinding.

The worst trend is gamers themselves. Sure, games are being dumbed down, but there´s a good reason for it: A lot of people playing games these days are stupid as hell.

Just look at your average gaming forum. People are unable to put their thoughts into words or even write three coherent sentences in their first language. Maybe I´m wrong, but videogames used to be the domain of the geeks- and those were usually pretty intelligent people. Hell, all my friends growing up were huge nerds- and that was fucking awesome. Nowadays it seems like the vast majority of gamers are drooling fools and under aged idiots who like to troll others on forums.

Don´t get me wrong, some streamlining in gamedesign was absolutely right, but it feels like games attract the wrong crowd these days.

Yeah. People were vastly more intelligent 10-20 years ago. I'm glad you were able to sum up a complicated economic and social situation with such sweeping generalizations.

The fan community. More specifically, the rampant negativity within it and the gaming media. Makes enjoying games nowadays extremely difficult.

All I said was that games attract a different crowd these days- and they don´t exactly happen to be the smartest bunch in the world. At no point did I state that people were more intelligent some random number of years ago. Yeah, way to misread my comment.

There are still smart people out there who play games and want a challenge (maybe even an intellectual challenge) from games. But publishers have to make more money and of course they are going to aim for the mass market.

Hate to break it to you: Smart people are in the minority- and always have been.

Your whole argument is games are easier so it means people are dumber. I'm glad you can see things so simply. It won't ever get you into trouble when analysing complex things. I mean look at this.

http://www.cybercollege.com/fog33.htm

The statistics prove that religion is directly causing these high murder rates right?

I also really don't understand why you keep implying that gamers used to be a lot more intelligent than they are currently. I'm not even sure if you actually relaise you're doing it.

The other way around: People playing games being dumber [leads to] games being easier and more accessible.

I´m well aware that I´m generalizing here, but the core of the matter is true. Of course there are other factors playing into the simplification of games, like the increased focus on narrative and cinematic elements. And of course there are varying levels of intelligence and stupidity, but we´re not running scientific analysis here.

And yes, "gamers used to be a lot more intelligent than they are currently" is exactly what I´m implying. I realize that this is a generalization, but we´re talking averages here. If you´ve got a group of people with relatively high I.Q and you start mixing in other random people into this group, the average group I.Q is going to go down until it hits the average. Gamers as a whole used to be more intelligent because there were fewer gamers and they were freaking nerds. Again, not all of them were nerdy smart kids.. but in my (limited) childhood experience as well as the experience of a lot of people I know, most of them were. Nowadays, you´ll have trouble finding kids that don´t play games.

So, there is something to this whole dumbing down for the masses thing, isn´t it?

BTW: I´m not going to comment on your link, other than to say: You can basically twist statistics to prove anything. To further discuss this would really be too much for this thread.

none of that stuff bothers me.

what bothers me is fully voiced playable characters in rpgs.

the developer is the dungeon master, i'm the character. that's how it works, and that's half the appeal.

i don't want to spend that many hours acting out the market-friendly approximations of some other guy's idea of a hero, because that could only ever be generic, and it just doesn't involve enough play.

Day one patches. This sucks when it happens on the pc, but you never have to worry 10 years down the line that you won't be able to find these fixes. Once this generation of consoles have there servers shut down, you're screwed if you don't have all the patches you need for your games and the dlc you paid for.

Thinking about what may happen with the extent of backwards compatibility, or lack there of, on the next generation of consoles has me seriously considering just sticking with the pc for the upcoming generation.

i dont think this would go as smoothly as you assume with how much money now goes into games many companies will go out of business...or maybe thats a good thing.

:/

DLC and season passes are fine conceptually. Sometimes they just don't pan out. And downloadable games going from $10 to $15 just reflects the increase in quality of those titles. Geometry Wars and Hexic aren't the standard anymore: Bastion and Braid are--two games that very evidently warrant their $15 price.

Fucking hate retail-specific DLC. Hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it

DLC is a problem because it is just a bunch of crap cluttering up the game while making it feel shady and gross. There are occasionally great pieces of DLC, but even the phrase "DLC" is just gross. We used to call it "expansions" and things that sounded more player-friendly. Calling it "DLC" is as sterile and soulless as calling everything "IP", which also feels gross. Season Passes are terrible, because they're suckering you into paying $30 to $50 on top of the game you already have, for content that you're hoping you'll get and enjoy, even though you have absolutely no idea what you'll be getting. If it was laid out exactly what you'd be getting and the quality of it, that'd be reasonable. Instead, they just say "for $40, you can get the four DLC drops that will come out over the next twelve months". Too vague. I'm not aware of any Season Pass for which the content was explicitly laid out at the start.

I love launch-day patches. It means they've been fixing final bugs. Remember, the final code base for shipped games often has to be submitted weeks or months before launch, which gives them plenty of time to address additional things in the meantime and issue a patch on launch day. Even on Steam, if I understand correctly. Granted, it also suggests (and sometimes, may be accurate) that they rushed to hit a deadline and then aren't actually bringing the final game together until after the fact, which is a shitty way to treat consumers.

At any rate, I'll take launch-day patches that will impact my play over patches a week or a month after launch, well after I've already completed the game and won't receive any benefit from the patch.

mine would be co-op forced into single player games for the love of god i t annoys me having to wait for dumb AI, just so i ca n open a fucking door or hoist fucking dumb AI over a ledge! GTF.

Other: Shoe-horned MP, co-op and every big game using OTT action to draw the CoD demographic. Games losing their identity and being focused-grouped to death.

And pre-orders... All those silly pre-orders :(

I understand the necessity of day one patches in order to meet shipping deadlines. I respect a developer's devotion to ensuring the QA process isn't ignored or sacrificed for the sake of maintaining a street date and that minor bugs are addressed in order to make the product as polished as possible. In the short term its not an issue, though games like Assassin's Creed 3 definitely abuse the purpose of the day one patch when they're releasing gigantic updates out of the box.

In the long term, say a couple years after they turn off the servers for the ps3 and Xbox 360, this is when these updates are going to become a problem. With no way to obtain day one patches, that for same games will be necessary in order to enjoy them to their full extent, people who did have a chance to play them when that console generation was active will be out of luck. It's a little thing, but something to think about.

Other than quick time events there's not really anything wrong with any of the stuff on that list.

Stale game design

I could deal with a lot of bullshit from a game but if it has interesting concepts in I'll have a good time. Just because one game did something well or in a way that has mass appeal doesn't mean if you all jump on it that those games will be successful

Games hidden behind a pay wall is absolutely my least favorite things about games. When I buy a game, I just want it all and to have things be hidden and trying to nickel and dime me is horrible. QTE are pretty bad too since they are very boring.

I don't think day one patches are a big deal since they are fixing some things which is better then it not getting fixed, right?

Progression systems in multiplayer outside of just a player ranking.

Why isn't Square-Enix an option..?

@Nottle Just wait till a generation of always on drm always shows up. A whole generation we cant play 20 years from now...