The 25 Most Disturbing Trends in Video Games

Trends in video gaming come and go. Cool ones like developers taking chances on more story-driven games and the rise eAthletes are amazing. But then, you have the not so cool trends like endless sequels and revampings, retail store specific downloadable content and ridiculously expensive pricing.

If you want to get specific, here are The 25 Most Disturbing Trends in Video Games that are making it a worse place for consumers every single day. we don't expect you to agree with them, but we had to call attention to the elephant in the room.

You're not going to agree with all of these, and we encourage discussion in the comments. If we missed anything that really grinds your gears, let us know below. It's time to vent!

Perpetrators: Microsoft, Sony, Valve

Worst Example: Far Cry 3

Remember when simply beating a game was reward enough for playing? Ever since Microsoft introduced the achievement system with the Xbox 360 there's been a dramatic shift in how players are rewarded in games. On one hand you've got the constant bloop-bloop notifications every time you beat a level, kill a miniboss, or collect 50 golden sparrow eggs, but they've started seeping into the actual design of the games now.

There's nothing inherently wrong with giving your player a little pat on the back for accomplishing something truly remarkable, but at it's worst the propagation of this constant player-affirmation is making for less engaging experiences. It's truly rare now when I actually care about an accomplishment in-game because when I've already been applauded for every little move I've made up to that point. Hell, they hand out ribbons for dying more than everyone else in multiplayer now!

The Solution: Keep achievements, but make them only apply to monumental tasks

Perpetrators: Microsoft, Sony

Worst Example: Halo 4

Hey, while you're enjoying this extended rant of an article, why don't you relax with some delicious Oreo Cakesters and wash it down with a gallon of Strawberry Nesquick? Inside each package is a special code that'll get you access to an article supplement that includes an additional 5 topics, just as vitriolic as this one!

That sounds ridiculous, right? Well then why the hell are we all okay with the fact that snack food companies are providing the means for players to buy their way to faster level progression, exclusive content, and all sorts of other balance-bending stuff? It's one thing to have Master Chief's face plastered on the side of a bag of Doritos, but it's another thing altogether when you can eat your way to success.

The Solution: Keep your co-branding dollars, but stop making it affect the game

Perpetrators: Fanboys, Lazy Marketers

Worst Example: Half the threads on gaming forums

I don't know who to blame more for this one; the long-time gaming fans who insist that filthy casuals are ruining the industry, or the lazy marketers who constantly try to hand-feed neophyte players watered down experiences. Getting upset because someone isn't as versed in gaming as you is just plain stupid and counter-productive to them ever solving your so-called issue, and with marketers creating a very clear divide between games for newbies and games for experienced players, they're never going to cross that threshold.

Yeah, we all want to see the day when you can turn to pretty much anyone and play a round of Street Fighter just as easily as you could suggest watching TV, but that's never going to happen if we keep treating newcomers like another species. That goes for people on both sides of the fence.

The Solution: Stop segregating new players from the old ones and let people learn the fun that comes from more complex games

Perpetrators: Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo

Worst Example: Xbox Live

Apps are great for expanding the functionality of your system without the need for massive firmware updates, but the absolute flood of them that's been hitting the digital marketplaces is bordering on lunacy at this point. Sure, it's great that I can access content from Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus, HBO Go, Crackle, Zune, Cinema Now, MLB TV, SyFy Channel, ESPN...

...Sorry, I lost track of myself. It's great that you can access all this content, but the constant need to switch in and out of applications to access it is a pain in the ass. Of course, that's not to mention the very question of why we need all of this content in the first place, or why it's not integrated more seamlessly into the experience. It's not the most annoying thing in the world, but it's shockingly messy.

The Solution: Make a more unified content management system

Perpetrators: EA, Microsoft, Rockstar, Activision

Worst Example: Call of Duty

There are few things as arrogant in the gaming industry as the concept of a DLC Season Pass. Asking your customers to fork over another $30-$50 immediately after they've just dropped $60 on your game as a glorified pre-order for DLC they have no information about is sheer hubris. This puts consumers completely at the mercy of the publisher's whims because very rarely are specific plans for the content announced until shortly before they're out, meaning consumers are essentially paying for a hope that good DLC will be coming down the road.

It's also a pretty raw deal for developers when you think about it because if their game's a bomb, or the DLC just isn't selling, they're locked into creating it regardless of how profitable it'll be for them. Sure, it's possible that the publisher could have offered a failsafe clause for developers in these circumstances, or just fronted a stack of cash to ensure it's worth their time, but in the probable situation where they didn't, it means developers have to sacrifice time and money on content that might not have an audience just because publishers got greedy and wanted all of their money up front.

The Solution: Give a detailed breakdown of each piece of DLC before you start selling the whole kit and kaboodle

Perpetrators: Pretty much every game publisher, Consumers

Worst Example: Resident Evil 6

Out of all the games shown at this year's E3, I could count on one hand the number of big-budget games with new IPs attached to them. The rest of the games were all sequels, sequels, sequels. This isn't a particularly new trend, but as we head towards the uncertain end of this generation of game systems, publishers are getting incredibly wary of investing in anything that doesn't already have an established customer base. This has lead to complete stagnation in the business where all we get are the same 20 or so games rehashed every other year and fed to us like cattle waiting at the troff.

The publishers are only partly to blame though because every time a stellar new IP, full of hope and promise, gets released, the gaming community by and large ignores it in favor of yet another rote sequel. It's agonizing to the point where I've started treating every new IP like it's the last time I'll ever see it because odds are, when it comes to picking whether you're going to waste one of your limited game purchases for the year on something untested, you're going to play it safe and buy another gorram Resident Evil game.

The Solution: Customers, start buying some original games

Perpetrators: Pretty much every game publisher, Consumers

Worst Example: DMC: Devil May Cry

Yeah, this complaint contradicts the last one; like I care. If publishers aren't investing in more sequels and they're not willing to jump the gun on an original property, you can bet that they'll be revamping one of their classic franchises for a more modern audience. Usually this means tampering with what made the old games great, but sometimes it can lead to pretty interesting results (see: Tomb Raider).

What's frustrating about this though is the need to bring along all of the baggage and expectations of a legacy series when you're trying to do something new. Players expect certain things from their favourite franchises and messing with that for the sake of a new vision isn't quite fair. If you want to do something new, I applaud you to no end; just do the right thing and don't attach it to an already established brand, it deserves its own IP.

The Solution: Let new ideas be new franchises

Perpetrators: DICE, Kojima Productions, 343 Industries

Worst Example: Metal Gear Solid 4

If the whole point of video games is for them to be interactive, taking control out of the players' hands to deliver a majority of the action through cutscenes is absurd. There are things developers want to do in the story that can't be conveyed well through gameplay and they shouldn't sacrifice their narrative vision just to fit this narrow definition of what games should be, but if your player has to sit through cutscene after cutscene, you're kind of missing the purpose of interactivity.

Cinema is not tactilly engaging, it's the one major advantage video games have over film. Cutting that aspect down for the sake of a more traditional delivery is foolish and doesn't capitalize on the opportunities the medium presents. Even worse is when developers try to blend the two, adding quick-time events in cutscenes that force the player to watch them over and over again just because they can't hit X fast enough.

The Solution: Temper the usage of cinematics, try and tell more stories through gameplay

Perpetrators: Gameloft, Zynga

Worst Example: Dungeon Hunter: Alliance

Money may be money, and creativity may be expensive, but the absolute lack of creativity that fuels companies like Gameloft is outright despicable. Seriously, when a majority of your company's library are two-bit clones of more popular, better designed games, you'll eventually hit a point where consumers just won't put up with your cut-rate crap anymore.

This gets even more problematic when you extend this notion to the triple-A world. Developers have been pilfering mechanics from each other for decades, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but stealing things like tone and narrative structure makes the entire marketplace a blur of samey garbage.

The Solution: Stop riding coattails and make something original

Perpetrators: Ubisoft, EA, Microsoft

Worst Example: UPlay

You know what I love more than anything in the whole world? Having to run multiple game clients just to manage my library simply because a particular publisher thought they'd be able to deliver me a better experience by tacking on more shit for me to download and manage before I play my game. As much as letting Steam control the digital marketplace is bad for competitive business, having 6 different applications controlling my games is even dumber.

The stupidest moments come when you buy a game through steam and it loads up Games for Windows Live or some other nonsense as an intermediary before you can even play. Who the hell thought this would be a good user experience? Offering achievements, bonuses, or whatever else you're peddling is worthless when it hinders the experience of the user and that's exactly what these clients are doing.

The Solution: Ditch the clients altogether and sell your games as standalone executables.

Perpetrators: 2K Games, Square Enix, Atlus

Worst Example: Borderlands

The number of times I've gone and bought a game for the PC because I expected it to be a better experience with the enhanced hardware my rig contains and found out that despite looking better all the elements of the interface are catered to a console user's experience is frustratingly high. The PC market is a pretty dubious place for publishers these days and so it makes sense that it's not the prime focus of development, but rushed ports without specific catering to the nuances of the platform are aggravating.

A lot of these issues can be circumvented by just picking up a controller, but the lack of option in most cases is annoying. Games that don't include detailed graphics adjustments, customizable keybindings, or limit my system's capabilities based on the specs of a vastly underpowered console make it a worse experience than if they'd thrown in these minor conveniences.

The Solution: Don't treat ports like quick cash-ins or side projects, give 'em the love they deserve.

Perpetrators: EB Games, Best Buy

Worst Example: Every AAA Release

Pre-orders make no sense for consumers. Sure, it may not seem like a big deal to hand over your money a little early for a game you've already decided you wanted to buy, but the increasing pressure on customers to pre-pay for a product they can't confirm the quality of is ludicrous. The threats of low-stock are the dumbest form of scare tactic to persuade customers because on one hand, it's the store's responsibility to keep a reasonable quantity if they want your money, and on the other, there's no way in hell most of the games they're pimping are going to sell out!

It happens every single year, people get on massive waiting lists to buy collector's editions (or even standard copies) and before the year's through all of the overstock (which there always is) goes on sale for a discounted price. The scarcity of these things is a myth and people need to stop letting retailers scrape a little extra interest cash off of your pre-emptive investments.

The Solution: Stop pre-ordering stuff, wait to find out if it's good!

Perpetrators: EB Games, Best Buy, Wal Mart

Worst Example: Batman: Arkham City

As if the massive pre-order culture wasn't bad enough, most retailers have worked out special deals with publishers to get special content that can only be obtained by shopping at their store. This is great for them as a business move - capitalizing on fans who want more than the base content - but it leads to a fractured experience that says it's impossible to experience everything the game can offer unless you buy multiple copies at multiple stores or do some shifty Craigslist deals.

Most of the time this stuff is generally useless, but when they start throwing in special weapons that unbalance the game - even through the simple addition of options - then it becomes a problem that affects people who don't want to play into the retailers' hand. The irony of it all is that most of this content is made available shortly after release as a stand-alone purchase for more money, even though it's all content that was done and ready day-and-date of release.

The Solution: Offer general pre-order bonuses, but don't lock customers out.

Perpetrators: Fanboys

Worst Example: Uncharted 3

Video game review scores are at best there to inform you with an at-a-glance assessment of a game's quality as seen through the eyes of one particular individual. Taste however is subjective and these scores are not the be-all-end-all judgment on the overall quality of a product. However, this doesn't stop fanboys and angry commenters from losing their shit any time a writer expresses an opinion that deviates from their own, even a fraction.

The idea that a game getting an 8 (or god forbid a 7) is somehow a negative because it doesn't stand up to your inflated views of it is the very definition of lunacy. You're going to disagree with review scores and passionate debates can come out of them; that's the point. However, losing your shit, devaluing a product, or saying that someone is wrong for their opinion is not a productive, useful, or constructive use of the tool that's been provided to you.

The Solution: Use review scores to educate yourself, not define your taste.

Perpetrators: Microsoft, Sony

Worst Example: Forza Motorsport 4

Microsoft and Sony are really interested in getting you to buy a Kinect or a PlayStation Move, and because none of the games developed exclusively for the platforms seem to be catching the eyes of hardcore players, they've done the next best thing; wedge their motion controls into games that really don't need them.

The idea that a game would be "Better With Kinect" or more fun with "Move Support" indicates that the developers really ought to have made the game force the player to use it and cater their experience around it. The truth however is that this is all marketing bullshit and every single time you find a core game with optional support, it's a half-assed attempt to earn a little extra cash by having an additional checkmark on the back of the box.

The Solution: If you want to make a motion game, make a motion game. If you want to shoehorn wagglewand crap into your otherwise fine game, keep going.

Perpetrators: THQ, 2K Games, Rockstar

Worst Example: Bioshock 2

Making a good multiplayer experience is one of the hardest things a developer can ever be tasked with doing. It takes significant resources, time, and planning to execute correctly and a majority of the time, most of the publishers aren't willing to devote enough of any of that to make it work. Instead, they'll either outsource that component of the game to another company that'll create a disjointed experience from the (usually better) single player game or pull folks off the campaign to work on maps or something.

Most of the time, this doesn't result in additional benefits to the consumer, doesn't have them keep their games any longer before trading them in, and very often pulls resources away from making the best part of the game as good as possible.

The Solution: Don't fear making single-player only games.

Perpetrators: Zynga

Worst Example: Farmville 2

Microtransactions aren't inherently a bad thing, but after the rapid success of Facebook and iOS developers like Zynga it seems like the industry has decided their particular model is the only one that can work. If the point of basing your game on microtransactions is to provide a partial experience to a player who would be unwilling to buy the game otherwise, it doesn't make sense to make the experience even worse with routine pay walls.

The proper way of handling things would be to offer a stellar experience out of the box (er... download) and work from there. This however isn't the case for most of these games and it's starting to creep into larger titles. You can now find a number of games that would otherwise have been perfectly fine pay-then-play titles, but because some marketing fat cat decided microtrans was the way to go, the overall quality is made to suffer.

The Solution: Understand when a game is going to be made better with the larger community the microtransaction offers and when it'd be fine as a niche title for people who'd pay up front not to be hassled.

Perpetrators: Roger Ebert, Game Fanatics

Worst Example: Roger Ebert

We've had this conversation far too many times and it needs to stop. I have no clue why we let the opinions of outsiders - most commonly folks who've never picked up a controller in their life - matter to our collective sense of worth. Whether the mainstream deems games as art or not has no relevance on how they impact you personally, how you appreciate them, or how valuable your time spent with them is.

What makes this whole thing a never-ending wheel of pointless justification is that gamers come to the defence of their medium so easily and with such force that it makes the whole culture either look like a bunch of arrogant wannabe-critics with upturned noses, or juvenile kids who can't get over being told their toys aren't a good use of time. Sure, it's not true, but that's just how the perception grows.

The Solution: Stop giving a shit what people think of how you spend your time.

Perpetrators: Bethesda, EA

Worst Example: Medal of Honor: Warfighter

Bugs happen, it's a fact of life. Shipping your game with known bugs in them only to rectify your mistake through a day 1 patch however, shouldn't be. Publishers demand hard ship dates because their marketing revolves around it, but that should always take a backseat to releasing a quality product that's going to work properly the second you put the disc in your system.

The worst cases of this often include last-minute multiplayer balancing that hasn't had enough playtesting to be verified yet. Sure, it's better than not releasing the patches, but it should be a last resort rather than the norm we're seeing now. If publishers want consumers to keep faith in their brands they need to provide developers the time necessary for fixing the issues before they go to print, not during whatever time falls between going gold and release date.

The Solution: Release your game when it's ready, not when you plan to.

Perpetrators: Sony, Microsoft

Worst Example: Xbox Live Arcade

When the Xbox Live Arcade kicked off the mass adoption of digital distribution it was lauded as a cheap alternative to expensive retail games and offered a high quality of content at a fair price. When was the last time you saw a great game release for 400 MSP, or even 800 MSP? The ever-increasing price of downloadable games on the consoles has left us with the average being about 1200 MSP per title despite only an arguably marginal increase in quality.

There are a number of factors that have contributed to this, but the main three in my not-so-humble opinion include the flooding of the marketplace (making fewer sales overall per title), cuts being paid to publishers who indie devs must deal with in order to release on the XBLA, and general greed. None of these are particularly good reasons to keep prices increasing considering that it doesn't benefit the developers all that much and it just asks more of the customer.

The Solution: Stop flooding the marketplace with junk so that good games can hit their revenue targets without inflating prices. Stop forcing indie devs to work with a big publisher and lose a chunk of their sale price to middlemen.

Image Source: Kotaku.com

Perpetrators: THQ, EA, Sony

Worst Example: Resistance 3

Publishers will tell you that online passes for multiplayer are necessary to keep the dirty used game buying horde from accessing the servers they didn't pay for. They'll tell you that the costs of additional users through used sales (the money from which never goes back to the developer or publisher) is insustainable without charging them another $10 for access. That's nonsense.

When a customer trades in their game to a retailer, they are out of the system and aren't using up your bandwidth any more. Whatever cost is associated with a single user accessing the servers has already been paid and that privilege simply transfers to the new user; there is no additional cost. If you wanted to make the case for it, you could argue that permanent player profiles could take up additional server space, but the fact that most of these files are maybe 1-5 MB each makes it a ridiculous argument.

The Solution: Just cut this shit out.

Perpetrators: Capcom

Worst Example: Street Fighter X Tekken

There is no excuse for this. When a consumer buys a game, they're buying rights to all of the content on the disc and asking them to pay another couple of bucks for a 105 kb unlock key that lets them access it is on the margins of criminal.

The argument's been made that including various DLC on the game disc is necessary to keep the multiplayer community from fracturing, but again this is total bullshit. If you don't want to fracture the community, don't lock the gorram content!

The Solution: Never lock any content on my disc and ask for more money just so I can use it or I will find you and you won't be happy.

Perpetrators: Ubisoft, Activision Blizzard

Worst Example: Diablo 3

Piracy's a bitch, but that's no reason to punish your loyal customers by slapping DRM that requires them to be online to play the game all over your product. Seriously, of all the hare-brained schemes to keep pirates at bay, this has to be the one that gets in the way of legitimate customers the most. Now you can't even play your game on the go unless you have a mobile data connection, and even worse is when the servers are out due to no fault of your own, leaving you completely unable to enjoy what you bought.

Combine this with ever-increasing legislation that makes it illegal to circumvent these draconian implements and you've got a situation that treats customers like thieves. The worst part is that this doesn't prevent people from pirating the games, and often the cracked versions are better simply by the fact you don't have to put up with this bullshit.

The Solution: Just stop doing it!

Perpetrators: Microsoft

Worst Example: Netflix

You pay your internet service provider on the monthly for access to the internet, and then you pay Netflix another subscription fee to access their content. Both of these providers are delivering you a regular service and nobody could really argue that they deserve to be paid. Microsoft on the other hand will have you pay all of that, and then an additional annual subscription just for the privilege of using the other two items you bought on the console you bought from them. What is this nonsense?!

In this example Microsoft has done one thing; made an application that accesses Netflix and maybe a little bandwidth on their end to deliver said app to you. The rest of the expense has been paid for you to the people who deliver the internet and the video. Why is it then that Microsoft demands you pay them just to access this stuff? It's even more ridiculous when you consider the number of other devices that connect to your television that offer this completely for free.

The Solution: Charge for your Netflix app if you need to make money, but don't demand a gold subscription to use it.

Perpetrators: Microsoft

Worst Example: Xbox 360 Dashboard

Asking your customers to pay for an online service they recieve free on literally every single other platform is one thing, but having the audacity to plaster their experience with advertisements afterwards is unacceptable. When Microsoft is pulling in $50/year for each user connected to its service, there is no reason why they need to put ads on the service save for unparalleled greed.

Now, you may make the argument that you pay for a cable subscription on your television and still see ads there, but that's an exclusive service that can't be obtained any other way. They've got you by the balls and you don't have a choice. The thing about Xbox Live is that it's not the only service (it's not even the best), and every competitor does the same or more for free.

The Solution: Offer a free version of Xbox Live with ads and stop serving them to Gold members.