Things that bug me in games today (rant warning)

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In no certain order:

1-Loading screens that give away parts of the game! This is mainly big name games, but some indy games have been guilty of this as well. Game makers shouldn't be spoiling parts of the game with a tip or a description of things I havent even seen yet! At the very least, they could make an option to disable the text on the loading screen or something.

2-Trophies/achievements overload. Yes I can understand people enjoying them, but there is many flaws to them. Achieving something should actually be something useful- such as a beating a level, boss and the whole game. Grindy things like "killing 100 enemies" is useless in my view.

Games with online trophies/achievements are also very flawed. When a game is older and someone picks it up- its very likely the server is dead and can't be used. So someone can't get all the stuff anymore. Thats just crappy and needs to stop. I honestly think the online trophies should be disabled once the server closes. People that got them- it shows up for them still, but thats about it.

I don't mind collecting the stuff for games I really enjoy, but other than that.. these things are near useless. I know certain gamers use them to brag or to "relive history" to see what they did I suppose. To each their own. I know trophies and achievements arent going anywhere. I just wish they would get adjusted more or just a way to disable them completely if I want to.

3-Lack of backwards compatibility on most newer consoles. This is just stupid. For a while Xbox One and PlayStation 4 were just flooded with "HD remasters" of LAST GEN games. Gamers ate it up and kept buying the old games. Game companies took notice and this still continues. I can understand a remaster or remake of something very old (in many cases, not all), but last gen stuff doesn't need a new paint job, period. Think of all the money people just threw away on games they bought more than once. So many gamers trade in their old consoles for the fanciest new one, which is a huge reason remasters of games 1-2 years old sell well.

Yes I know it would add more costs to the console, but not everyone has the room to setup many consoles at once. I don't illegally emulate and honestly thats what many have done due to cheapness unfortunately). It would be more than worth it- because less remasters would be out and game companies would have to do NEW games more! Which leads me to my next point...

4-Lack of original games. This generation of gaming (as well as a bit of last) has just been a flood of remakes, remasters, ports, sequels/prequels and not a whole lot. Originality tends to happen on PC more than anywhere else. Indy companies don't get initial support from the big 3 usually, so they go to PC. I strongly feel if people wouldn't buy up every crappy sequel, game companies would need to think more. Many indy games end up on consoles/handhelds eventually but many times that version isnt as good.

5-$50-60 use to get me the full game, not a portion of it. Now there is DLC/expansions like crazy for just about any big game. A majority of it is garbage not worth the money. Then there is the in-app purchase crap that use to be mobile only for the most part, which is now flooding many PC and console games. The free-to-play style games are basically a way to get people hooked in, then they wont notice how much they throw at the game. League of Legends and Hearthstone are big examples of this.

Let's not forget about the "season pass" that many games have now. Pay one set price to get all DLC for a somewhat cheaper price. It still doesn't the hide the fact that its $90 or more for the whole game! Even if I was super rich, I know I would feel the same way. When one game is about 1/3 of the console price, that's an issue.

On a side note- several expansions are worth it, but whats the point? In a year, there is a complete edition for much cheaper in many cases. Paying more now just to play the newest thing doesn't appeal to me much, unless its a game I really enjoy.

My examples were primarily for big games, but more and more indy companies are doing DLC. They charge a small price for base game, then add more and more content. By the end- all the extra content costs more than the base game! Game making isnt cheap but that doesn't completely excuse the ever growing price of games.


So in closing:

As a longtime gamer (console and PC), the industry honestly needs to do better. A new crash is a matter of when, not if.. at this point. You simply can't rely on the same stuff over and over..

Point number 1 I'm not familiar with... I dont really play story-based games which are the ones that tend to do that. Have they really gotten that spoiler-iffic lately?

Number 2.... yeah. I'll be honest, I hate achievements. The way I always put it is: They're not actually ACHIEVEMENTS. Like, things you work towards and accomplish via skill and practice. That's what they COULD have been. But they arent. Now they're just about "gamer score" or whatever, which means a whole lot of crap considering how little skill is needed to get most achievements. Damn stupid idea that just got dumber, really.

Number 3: Dont expect that one to ever happen. I know people have this idea that it's all about the operating system or software that's on the machine in question, that that is what'll give it backwards compatibility, but it isnt. It's not just that it would add costs to the console. It's that it would add ALOT of costs to the console, and the vast majority of players by far simply would not be willing to pay extra for a feature like that. It'd require a bunch of redesign, extra parts, extra time, all of these things that every consumer would have to pay for... when only a few actually are really after it.

Number 4: Yep. Totally agreed here. This is why I dont play AAA games anymore, because they cant get me to give a damn. They're the same thing, over and over and over. So I've become mostly a PC gamer since that's where the creativity actually happens. Well, no, I do have a Wii U and I quite like that thing... Nintendo is still willing to say "screw the trends" and do their own thing, but.... the other consoles? I have a PS4, and it hasnt been used in nearly a year. Bloody useless thing. And I sure as heck dont need an XBone.

But that's what the industry has become. Publishers have dug themselves into a rut; they've hit a point where they now CANNOT be creative. Why? Because it's too much of a risk for the cost. AAA games now are expected to have utterly mind-blowing graphics, which costs a very deeply stupid amount of money. Nobody is going to take real RISKS with that kind of cost. It's the sort of thing that could break a company. So they have no choice but to play it the safe way, to go down the usual route, because anything else is just too risky.

Sad, aint it? I've always berated the gaming public's obsession with graphics, and this, right here, is the reason for it, because this is what I always knew it'd lead to. And it did. Dont expect things to get any more creative anytime soon. If you want interesting and new stuff, like you said, it's the indies that'll do it 95% of the time. I dont even bother looking at the big guys anymore.


Number 5: Oh I hate that season pass crap. You know, I remember when PC games in particular had a specific concept: Expansion packs. Kinda like DLC, except you tended to get a lot more of it at once, and it came in a box. And it took awhile to make; there was always ALOT of content in true expansions, and they often wouldnt come out for a year or so after the game's initial release.

But now? There are some devs that absolutely will hold back content to sell it later (fortunately not THAT many actually do this) or they'll make genuinely new content, but do everything they can to put as little effort in as possible.



Ugh. I could seriously keep up a rant on these things and many more myself, for pages and pages, but I'll not do that.

At this point, honestly, I'd rather enjoy having an industry crash happen. It'd be entertaining....

I'll be nice a correct you here.

Point 3 Backwards compatibility: It is extremely expensive and practically impossible to make backwards compatibility work when going from PPC chipsets (Last gen and Wii U) to x86 (PS4 and Xbox One). It's the same going from x86 to PPC chipsets.


NX won't likely have it Backwards compatibility with most Wii U software other than VC (VC runs on emulators which can easily be modified to run on other chips) for the very same reasons.

It's not worth the added $200+ to add in the previous hardware for native BC, because only a handful of people would pay the added costs.

Are you willing to buy a $600 PS4 to get full PS3 BC?
That's how much it would cost for Sony to breakeven by including the PS3's hardware.


Point 4: The reason why the amount of variety being offered from the major publishers has shrunk is a two fold issue.

1) It takes a lot of resources, time and money to make big games. Most gamers want bigger games with better graphics and more content. That is extremely expensive game to make.

In order to breakeven those games need to sell 1 million - 3 million copies (or more depending on how many resources and money was put into it).

2) Gamers are also the problem, because they prefer to buy only established IPs, AAA blockbuster games which are M-rated and sports. They also hate change too.

This means good games like The Wonderful 101 fail because it's new and too different in gameplay, despite being a good game.
Same thing happened to Code Name S.T.E.A.M.

Yet they all have the nerve to complain that Nintendo doens't make new IPs, despite most of Nintendo's new IPs each gen are ignored because of ____________ !(fill in the blanks)

Or games get rejected by gamers because it's exactly what they've been asking for aka the "Zelda Cycle".
This burns a lot of games.

Or games bomb because they don't have high enough "production values", enough "content", controls, too colorful etc....

All the chickens came home to roost this gen.

But we still get new and original games like Splatoon, Captain Toad, Pokken, etc...
We still get new takes on beloved classics like Mario kart 8, Star Fox Zero (yes I just beat the game and loved it), Super Maroi 3D World (Yes this game is still divisive with gamers).

Point 5) There is nothing wrong with DLC provided said DLC is made long after the game is finished and is priced reasonably.

Games that did DLC right:

Mario Kart 8
Smash Bros 4
Hyrule Warriors
Splatoon
Mario Maker
Mario Golf (3DS)
Cities Skylines

Games that did DLC wrong:

Marvel VS. Capcom 3
Street Fighter IV and V
Gears of War Judgement (or is that out?)
Halo 5
Driveclub
Call of Duty
WBi (especially Mortal Kombat X on PC)
Most EA games
Most Ubisoft games
etc...

Anyways I still find plenty to play and enjoy after all these years.

Yeah, I agree with pretty much all of that.

And you're right, there's nothing wrong with DLC when it's not being done all sucky.

I think most of his rant about DLC though was about 2 things: 1, the "Season pass" thing, which I agree is utter crap, and 2, microtransactions, which I also agree is crap, though I do understand it's usage in true free-to-play games. You cant have games be JUST free without being an indie dev that's making a small game just for the hell of it. These publishers need money, these developers need money, so it makes sense for something like League of Legends (and to me, if I'm getting like 20 million hours out of a game and enjoying it, I really do not mind supporting it with money). But alot of publishers are indeed abusing the hell out of the idea right now, so that particular complaint indeed makes sense.


But things like Mario Maker's wonderful additions or maybe Civilization 5's expansion DLCs (which added a TON to that game) are absolutely the right way to do it. I mean, hell, Mario Maker in particular; they really thought hard about the content they added. They managed to make additions that were technically pretty darn small... yet added a squillion new possibilities to the game. I've absolutely loved every one of them, particularly the update with the keys and pink coins (seriously, that was a BRILLIANT pair of ideas). That's the way to do it, eh?


And yes, new things being ignored because they're too different, or old things being ignored because they're too samey, those drive me crazy. I just.... uuuuuugh.

I'll stop here though before I get overly agitated.

Xenocity, please leave me alone. I left your topics alone, so do the same to mine. You "correcting" MY VIEWS is very rude and disrespectful. Your posts come off as "know-it-all" behavior and thats a big reason I stopped reading and replying to your topics.

I did NOT ask if any of these could be fixed. They are just things that bug me. So stop with the know-it-all nonsense already.

I'll tell you what gets me: games with weak story and dialogue where there is no option to disable the voices.

Calm down everyone, let's not argue.

I personally say that if someone wants to rant, just let them rant.

....partly because I tend to rant alot myself. For whatever baffling reason, nobody has yelled at me yet. Sometimes I seriously wonder why.


Though there's one other big thing I can mention here:

PRE-ORDERS.

I hate this crap now, I really do. These damn big publishers try to get you to pay for a game that isnt even out yet by offering what is often fantastically stupid things for absurd prices. I'm sorry, I"m not going to pay $20 extra for stupid cosmetics to add to a couple of guns or something!

The sad thing is, even games I genuinely love, from developers I really like, sometimes end up doing this one because of publisher/corporate greed. Like, I'm waiting for a game called Stellaris (on PC, it comes out in... 2 weeks, I think?) and I'm familiar with the developer, Paradox... they're one of those developers that A: makes genuinely good stuff, and B: genuinely CARES, yet even they arent immune to this and that game has some of that corporate greed tacked onto it.

And I think that bugs me more, when it's an otherwise great developer having to do that. It's one thing for a group like freaking Activision to do it, but these guys... ugh. It wont stop me from buying the game, mind you. But I'm not going to pre-order.

And you know what, I think alot of people have forgotten WHY pre-ordering exists in the first place. The concept was made in the days when most games were PHYSICAL releases. The idea was that you paid in advance to make sure that you actually GOT a copy at all when the initial shipment came in, because otherwise they might run out, and then you'd have to wait, and waiting sucks. With physical releases, it makes sense.

But with DIGITAL releases, it's just bloody stupid to me.

I dunno. Maybe I'm the only one seeing things this way right now, considering how freaking often people dive into pre-orders and all. But it just bugs me.


Okay I'll stop rambling now. I feel better.

Eh, I'm not really bothered by recent trends in the gaming industry much because mostly they don't affect my habits. Most of my favourite games recently have been either indie titles or first party Nintendo games. Stardew Valley being one of my favourites this year so far, and Rocket League for multiplayer. Both of these have provided fantastic value and a lot of post launch support beyond what would be considered sufficient. Other than Dark Souls I'm not hugely into any of the big gaming franchises.

The only thing that really irritates me currently in gaming at the moment is Facebook's anti-consumer practices in the VR market. I really hope Facebook don't end up getting a good foothold in the PC gaming platform because it really would set a terrible precedent for other companies such as Valve, NVIDIA, AMD and Intel to follow suit.

i don't think anyone has mentioned Exclusive Regional Content.
mostly in Pokemon games....that i've noticed. Japan will get something, that no other region gets. C'mon...Pokemon is played all around the world, not just in Japan. content should be universial!

Region locks is what bugs me. Games don't get released in all countries and there is that region lock that prevents us from playing that game. You would have to get a whole new game system from that region and find a way to hook it up here and play it. I am not that clever. With handheld probably because I would need to use a travel adapter or see if I can use any AC adapter.

True story. Get a fast SSD, and that will pretty much be the end of loading screens. It makes games much more enjoyable. Loading screens are the most agonizing part of gaming for me.