The Quality of Gaming Today

"Are you content with it?"


     It's indeed been a while since I've spoke upon the issue of gaming today. It's no secret that gaming has a whole has definitely changed. When you instantly bring up classics like.. Oh say Legend of Zelda, Metal Gear Solid, Crash Bandicoot, Mario, Sonic, etc etc... One would think those were the good old days instantly right? Funny enough most of today's generation probably wouldn't remember even that except those who are 18+ and over at the time of me writing this.

If I have to choose a year and time where gaming was in it's next generation "Golden Age", I would say roughly 2007-2008 era. Why you may ask? Well this is where hit titles like Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid 4, Halo 3, and Mirror's edge just to name a few. All of them rose the bar in terms of gameplay, multiplayer, and overall creativity. Around that time I just couldn't wait for new games to drop and talk about it among my friends (and at times, strangers).

Fast forward to today and a few sequels later, we are seriously tired as to what they have been releasing to the market. Call of Duty has just been diminishing in quality and hasn't really been the same since Modern Warfare 2. I even started to wonder why they haven't put Call of Duty Online (insert year). I was never a fan of Assassin's Creed so I can't say too much apart from hearing from friends saying they too are getting sick of games now. Nearly any game that comes out was nearly a copycat of a huge title, yielding no originality what so ever. Companies thoughts of "hey if we have that Call of Duty, Gears of War, Halo, etc type game on our side, we can get a slice of the pie", have slowly decayed this industry.

Now don't get it wrong, I know that companies are in the best interest of making money. They will do whatever to make any type of profit on it, even cutting off content from the full game and sell it back to consumers as DLC (I will definitely explain my Gripes with DLC in a later post). But when you keep spoon-feeding the consumers the same game every year, you can't expect them to remain interested in it (Especially when you make the consumer feel like you keep taking more money out of their pockets).

My mere suggestion would to make something more innovative, but I can understand how increasingly difficult that is with the way the collective are giving back their opinions. But even so, trying something different is what got most of these titles the type of prestige they have now. I am also understanding of the concept of "you can't please everyone", but when loyal fans are starting to have a distaste for your game, then it's time to mix it up. One can only hope with the introduction into the next generation, there will be time to make a better future for gaming.