Gaming. Gaming has changed. Playing video games was a lot simpler back then – all you had to turn on the gaming platform, put in the cartridge/CD into the console or PC and then play the game in its full glory. These days, gaming has become more complicated than ever before due to publishers’ schemes on raking in more money from their customers.
In this article, we’ll be talking about why playing older games is much more favorable than investing time in today’s trending game titles.
Publisher Greed
What used to be just a passionate hobby is now seen as a form of high income for publishers that were once loved. Gone are the days where we get to experience the fullness of the game. Instead, AAA games are incomplete. It’s highly questionable how modern high-profile games manage to have worse gameplay and story experiences compared to the games of yesteryear.
where you must cash in their DLCs in order to get the full content.
High-profile publishers such as EA, Activision, Bethesda, Konami, and Take Two never considered people who play their games as “fans”. In fact, they see people who invest time in their games as consumers – nothing more than just individuals that bring in money for them. They never care about what the gamers feel – they only care about how much money they’re willing to spend.
Short DLCs, paid cosmetics, paywalled stories and a whole ton of loot boxes are what shaped gaming today into a forefront of income for businessmen. It’s so vile, Belgium officially made a law that lootboxes are considered as illegal gambling – a law in which gamers would see it happening all around the world soon.
But not all of them…
It’s only the smaller companies these days that make full tact-on games brimming with content. Indie games bring in great gameplay experiences for the modern gamer that makes the big publishers look very shameful.
The only exempted big companies are Capcom, Nintendo, Sony, and CD Projekt Red.
Capcom made a huge turn-around by making up for their lackluster games from 2009 to 2017. In late 2017, the release of Resident Evil VII became a critical success that marked the comeback for the company. In early 2018, they released Monster Hunter World which became Japan’s best-selling game of the year. It showed up later in August 2018 on Steam. Street Fighter V showed its apology to disappointed long-time fans with the release of Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition – an updated version that added fan-favorite characters, more balances and a better fighting system. Later that same year, the highly-anticipated Megaman 11 came in stores and brought in both financial and critical success. In 2019, Capcom officially got back the love of fans with Devil May Cry 5.
CD Projekt Red is no stranger to gamers thanks to their pro-consumer practices and great game releases that include The Witcher trilogy, GWENT and the soon-to-be-released Cyberpunk 2077, which could be the biggest revolution in modern gaming. And the best part about them? They despise the idea of monetizing on DLCs and addition of lootboxes.
Nintendo and Sony have their own ups and downs, particularly on their business practices on their online services for consoles, but their games show nothing but astonishing. Nintendo has great exclusive lineups including Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, and Super Smash Bros Ultimate while Sony ushered in memorable games like Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War and the awaited The Last of Us Part II.
The Death of Unlockables
Remember back in the days when you had to beat Tekken 5 several times to keep unlocking characters or when Secrets were a thing in platform games? Well, they’re long gone.
We don’t get to have that sense of progression anymore because everything else extra in the game is behind a paywall. Instead of finishing the story mode, you had to pay for the character. Instead of speedrunning through the survival horror game in order to unlock alternate costumes, you have to use real money now to gain access to these costumes.
Big investors and corporations simply ruined the heart of video game progression. Even a simple brawl game like WWE is now capitalizing on its fans by making them purchase legendary wrestlers of yesterday if they want them to be in the game.
All Digital, No Physical
Whatever happened to rushing to the store to buy the latest copy of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, complete with a full cover? Where did the physical copies that came with 2 alternate covers, strategy guides, a poster and in-game map go?
The internet is now a necessity for every gamer these days – whether you prefer single player or multiplayer. That’s because games are more convenient to buy digitally. At the same time, developers constantly patch up the games with bug fixes and added content through internet updates.
Sure, there are still physical copies in stores but there’s no denying that more and more people are turning to digital downloads instead.
Launchers on PC
Sure, Steam is good, but nothing beats the experience of just popping in a CD, install the game and let it stick around in your desktop. These days, PC is very synonymous to Steam – the most popular launcher that houses major games that you can purchase digitally. Even if you buy a physical copy of the PC game, you’ll be redirected to Steam in order to play them.
But, if you thought Steam was the end of the story, it gets more complicated especially in 2019. Ever since the start of the year, the newly-established Epic Games Store tries to constantly buy-in major game titles such as Metro Exodus and Borderlands 3 to make them exclusive in their launcher for a period of time. This lead to PC gamers highly upset with Epic’s practice on making a monopoly instead of being competitive with Steam.
Recap
In short, video games had more heart. Developers made what they want without thinking about the money first. Only a few developers and publishers these days are honest, transparent, and passionate in their games instead of being soulless companies on a chokehold by investors.