I've been a gamer since the young age of 7 years old when my parents bought an Acorn Electron. My first home console was the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) with Super Mario Bros. Needless to say, from that early age I became hooked on games and have owned a lot of consoles, and even more games, ever since.
A lot of people have said I'm hooked on games and if I take a long look at myself, I'd reluctantly have to agree. I've even been lucky enough to actually work in the games industry and my name is in the credits for several games, something very people can make a claim to. However, there are times when I HATE the computer games industry!
Why is that? Well, there are a couple of really big reasons, lets see if I can explain myself...
1) Annual Releases - you've played and bought most of them, I know you have. You know the ones, year after year, around the same time in the calendar, you can predict with unnerving accuracy when a company's big release is coming. Call of Duty and FIFA are today's biggest culprits. And yes, I know the CoD series is developed by different teams each year, but it still comes under the same badge, its still the same publisher and the underlying idea of the game is exactly the same in each iteration.
The big bug-bear for me with annual releases is three-fold, the lack of imagination, the reluctance by companies to take a risk but above all, gamers complaining and commenting each and every year "Oh look, another <insert annual release title here>" and yet they still buy it.
If gamers voted with their wallets and stopped buying these games, companies would be less likely to release them, wouldn't they? If companies took more of a risk and insisted on their designers being more imaginative, would we not have more original titles being released? Or, at the very least, each version of <insert annual release title here> would warrant a full price release because its actually different enough and brings so much more to the market than it's predecessor(s). Flood the market with the same title, with little thought for content, features and, most of all, the gamers, the games themselves and ultimately the developers, will fail.
2) Downloadable Content (DLC) - so you spend £40 (or equivalent in your currency) on a brand new game. You can't wait to get it home, take off the cellophane wrapping, stick it in your machine and boot it up, you've waited months for this one. You take a minute to pop online, only to be greeted by the news that the first DLC pack has already been announced for said game. Sometimes its actually advertised on the dashboard for your chosen console, before you've even booted the game up. And will you, as an early purchaser of chosen game, be rewarded by being given that extra content free? NO, of course you won't, you'll be expected to fork out an extra £8+ for a few extra maps, or a side mission that might reward you with another weapon or armour (that's actually worse than those you already have). But don't worry, because everyone online is moaning and complaining about this early DLC, so you're not alone............or are you? Because, once again, much like (1) above, people aren't voting with their wallets. While their comments are being submitted, their other hand is on their pad, purchasing the new DLC. Why?! If you stopped buying this worthless extra content, the producers of said content would have to reduce the price of it, make the content better and actually worthwhile, or better still (in some cases) actually stop this act altogether. The worrying fact is, downloadable and digital content are worth millions in the industry.......because people get duped into buying it!
So those are my two biggest gripes with the industry at the moment. I have lots of other little niggles here and there but those are the two issues I seem to be talking about with fellow gamers on a regular basis.
Anyway, feel free to leave your comments below. This is my very first blog post, so go easy eh!
A lot of people have said I'm hooked on games and if I take a long look at myself, I'd reluctantly have to agree. I've even been lucky enough to actually work in the games industry and my name is in the credits for several games, something very people can make a claim to. However, there are times when I HATE the computer games industry!
Why is that? Well, there are a couple of really big reasons, lets see if I can explain myself...
1) Annual Releases - you've played and bought most of them, I know you have. You know the ones, year after year, around the same time in the calendar, you can predict with unnerving accuracy when a company's big release is coming. Call of Duty and FIFA are today's biggest culprits. And yes, I know the CoD series is developed by different teams each year, but it still comes under the same badge, its still the same publisher and the underlying idea of the game is exactly the same in each iteration.
The big bug-bear for me with annual releases is three-fold, the lack of imagination, the reluctance by companies to take a risk but above all, gamers complaining and commenting each and every year "Oh look, another <insert annual release title here>" and yet they still buy it.
If gamers voted with their wallets and stopped buying these games, companies would be less likely to release them, wouldn't they? If companies took more of a risk and insisted on their designers being more imaginative, would we not have more original titles being released? Or, at the very least, each version of <insert annual release title here> would warrant a full price release because its actually different enough and brings so much more to the market than it's predecessor(s). Flood the market with the same title, with little thought for content, features and, most of all, the gamers, the games themselves and ultimately the developers, will fail.
2) Downloadable Content (DLC) - so you spend £40 (or equivalent in your currency) on a brand new game. You can't wait to get it home, take off the cellophane wrapping, stick it in your machine and boot it up, you've waited months for this one. You take a minute to pop online, only to be greeted by the news that the first DLC pack has already been announced for said game. Sometimes its actually advertised on the dashboard for your chosen console, before you've even booted the game up. And will you, as an early purchaser of chosen game, be rewarded by being given that extra content free? NO, of course you won't, you'll be expected to fork out an extra £8+ for a few extra maps, or a side mission that might reward you with another weapon or armour (that's actually worse than those you already have). But don't worry, because everyone online is moaning and complaining about this early DLC, so you're not alone............or are you? Because, once again, much like (1) above, people aren't voting with their wallets. While their comments are being submitted, their other hand is on their pad, purchasing the new DLC. Why?! If you stopped buying this worthless extra content, the producers of said content would have to reduce the price of it, make the content better and actually worthwhile, or better still (in some cases) actually stop this act altogether. The worrying fact is, downloadable and digital content are worth millions in the industry.......because people get duped into buying it!
So those are my two biggest gripes with the industry at the moment. I have lots of other little niggles here and there but those are the two issues I seem to be talking about with fellow gamers on a regular basis.
Anyway, feel free to leave your comments below. This is my very first blog post, so go easy eh!
