Topic: There's a serious problem with the gaming industry today

I'm not usually one to start topics, but I wanted to post my thoughts on this.

Part 1: Companies

As I see it there are two parts to this. The first is the studios making the games. While I must applaud those that are putting the work into making the games, and who actually care about making games (to name a couple, Sora Ltd. and Yacht Club Games (from what I see)), and there are far too many companies that are making games solely for the money. I mean, sure, that's to be expected, and I know that, but this really is corrupting the industry. Companies aren't making games for fun, it's for money. Let me tell you that at some point in my life (after getting through high school and graduating college) I full intend to make video games and, as long as I make enough to survive, y'know, I'm not going to care too much about what I'm making money-wise because I think I'd find making games fun. But far too many people are going into the industry with the wrong mentality. It's come to the point where I am finding it progressively harder and harder to find original games that people put honest work into. Not only is this just morally wrong for those that aren't putting much work into their games, it's also corrupting the industry; making gaming look bad and making there be quite a few games that exist that no one's buying (either because they're bad or because they're overlooked). There really are a ton of games being made right now. A lot are half-baked, but the developers often don't care. As an example, let me say Call of Duty. They're cranking out new games every... year? And how many of those games actually have $60 more worth of content than its predecessor? I just don't get it sometimes. Companies are corrupting their own industry and not working for their own ideals. It's senseless, and it needs to change. Companies also need to be more honest with customers (think iPhone games, FIFA or PES, and Day One: Garry's Incident) and stop using such dishonest tactics to sell their games. (I'll add more to this if I feel the need, because I feel I will remember something later)

Part 2: The Media

Yeah, I realize I am indeed on a gaming site. And I can gladly say that this is definitely not one of the sites that I'm going to talk about. And yes, I honestly believe that this is the second reason for a corrupt industry. Many sites these days are doing one of two things: posting an amazing number of rumors that people believe wholeheartedly (I'm not against gaming rumors, for the record, but I hear like 10 new ones a day. Seriously. Cut back), and trying to assert certain opinions and force companies to do certain things. I can't count the number of articles I've been lately that have to do with some person or site or newspaper first restating how badly something is doing or how great/bad something is, before strongly trying to enforce an opinion on what some company should do (most recently the biggest trend is talking about how Nintendo should go mobile. I really do wish those people would keep their opinions to themselves). Again, I am not against well-meant opinions and discussion or some ideas, but it seems as if these opinions are being enforced so strongly that it just gets tiring to see them. I don't even have to read articles mentioning some stuff anymore (like the ones I just mentioned) because I already know the general gist of everything they're saying. This isn't even to mention how many times a day I hear someone on the radio, TV, or somewhere else talking about the failure of the Wii U. I'm still confident the Wii U's glory days are yet to come, but apparently I'm alone on that thought, or so you'd think. As far as spreading false information or rumors, it annoys me how often I'll hear one of my friends at school talking about something (like Nintendo cutting the Wii U, a new game in some series that I would've heard about (like Kid Icarus), or a new system by Nintendo coming out soon. When I ask them where they get this information, usually it's from some gaming site! Finally, and this somewhat ties in with rumors, there is unbelievable amount of bias in today's media that should not be present, and I really do have something against this. Whether it's a popular gaming site trying to cut down a game or company, or my school newspaper that has a gaming section that has not even once so much as mentioned the word Nintendo in the past year, bias is increasingly prevalent in today's media, and it needs to be stopped. People get angry when a rumored game never comes out. It's not their fault though, at least mostly; it's the media's fault for starting the rumors.

Part 3: You, the gamer

You may have already known this. You may have seen this coming. I've seen articles on this before, so I'll try to bring up my own ideas and such. Essentially, the gamers are probably the biggest of problems in today's industry. We're complaining about, say, no third party support on Wii U, and really, why isn't there third party support on Wii U? Because Nintendo fans buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games. We are so biased towards certain games we forget other games, too. I found (and this probably really is just me) games like Super Mario 3D World, Super Mario 3D Land, Pokémon Black, and others to be subpar, but it seems as if everyone (seriously. I've never heard a bad thing about the game) LOVES the game. And it got me wondering: is it me not enjoying the game, or is it everyone else forcing themselves to like the game? I don't mean to offend anyone: if you say you like a game, I'll believe you. But it seems as if EVERY Mario, Pokémon, GTA, Call of Duty, and some other series are ALWAYS met with WAY more praise than they deserve. And do you know what we're doing? We're supporting Part 1 by doing this. If we're blindly supporting certain companies, they will realize this and realize they can continue making subpar games without worry. We gamers, especially us Nintendo gamers, are also unwilling to try something new, which is a problem, and it leads back to why third party companies don't support Nintendo consoles as much as they support Xbox and PlayStation. The other huge problem with us, and I'll freely admit that I'm guilty of this, is hating. We just can't seem to enjoy a game. There's always a problem. There's always a flaw. Always something that they did wrong. My question to haters is: whatever happened to gaming for gaming's sake? I play games because I like playing games. I play the games I enjoy playing. I'm going to (try) not to hate the games I don't like. Yet, there are all these hate thread all the time. Adding on to hate threads are doom and gloom, which I see even more than hate threads. It seems as it tons of these are posted everywhere every day, and they are. Again, why can't we just game for gaming's sake? Stop worrying about the industry. And stop trying to get others to worry. We're creating our own problems, really. This is all negatively affecting the entire industry. If you want change? Make it happen yourself.

As said in Part 1, I'll add onto this if needed, or if I remember something. Bottom line is, we're living is a slowly corrupting industry, and we can change that. I'm not 100% sure why I wrote this thread, but I wanted to state my opinion on all this. Discuss if desired.

I agree with every word you said.

I'm not an fan of reading a wall of text but I love this wall of text ever! You break it up into three parts and you went straight to the point and explains it in detail. Good job buddy! Give yourself an pat on your back. If there is wall of text in the future then its should be like this!

For part 1, if they are half-baked games then why are they selling so well? Is this really an company can pulled this off? I think customers and marketing does come into play.

For part 2, I agreed with you. I don't think this is just happening in gaming industry but I think its happening everywhere. I'm sick of movies, games, anime, cartoons, drinks, foods, and etc that are so "amazing" popular that is in trend turned out to be "okay" or "piece of crap" lately.

For part 3, are you aiming at the fan boys or fan girls? I think it is more of my respond to part 2 for this part. I think it is trend thing that people tend to follow trend greatly now a day. I never see so many people in my lifetime until now that they are truly care for something so much.

But companies exist to make money!

PS: Seriously, when did making money become so blasted glorious an ideal that we should all respect and give companies like EA a free pass when they screw the consumer over?

i agree about them rumours. it's like all that people talk about. i wanna hear new ideas not condemn old ones! i believe rumours are just plagiarism.

I agree with what you've said but I love the stupid drama in the hater threads(in the beggining after a while they take it too far and it gets annoying)

Eh, it's just games.

@Super_Gravy - Pt. 1 - That was kinda covered in Pt. 3, but to restate, that's our fault. The gamers. Blindly buying games from series we like, regardless of whether or not they're actually good.
Pt. 3 - Hm, I was trying to make a general statement about gamers or fans themselves, so I wasn't really going for either. But my problem was just how we're corrupting the industry whether it's through hate, doom and gloom, bias, fear of the unknown, or blind support. Did that answer that question for you?

@MickeyTheGreat - Yes, but I was trying to say that perhaps companies would make more if they did more and to care about what they're doing. I know companies exist to make money, and I understand that, but I think they should at least have some standard in place.

Also, ikr >.< thanks for bringing that up.

There's a serious problem with a lot of things. Not to undermine your points, its just that it doesn't really matter how much a few smart people say something is wrong, since the only people with the capacity to do anything only understand the language of money and certainly don't understand the concept of foresight, and will only do things differently once they're not making money. All we can do is hope that the drivers of fate don't take us all off a cliff...

@DashChargedShot: Yes it did answer my question but the gamers in the past don't blindly buy games. What have changed in the present? Did the used policy and pre-order bonus have to do with this? Did those gamers promised by the company for how great the game is? Did the marketing skills improve over the years or the ethics is lost over the years?

@CanisWolfred - Yeah. I knew this as I wrote it which kinda made me wonder it as I wrote it, but I guess the most I can do is post something like this and hope others heed the advice of opening their minds to new games and being more critical of some practices.

@DashChargedShot Exactly. Companies can make money while also making good games, so the "companies exist to make money" defense just holds no water in my opinion.

PS: Seriously, though, you've earned major brownie points of respect from me for this thread. Thank you.

Well, maybe I have the right idea then, I want to get into making games so I can tell stories. :3

I think video games are the final frontier of storytelling, and very few people have tried really tapping into it so far. Yes, I'd like to eventually make money off of it, but goal number one is making unique experiences and telling stories.

@Super_Gravy - That's a good question. I don't have an exact answer for it, but here's what I think. For one, in the past there were fewer option; thus everyone knew about most games and knew who to trust, along with stuff such as money being slightly harder to acquire as a kid (ok, maybe I'm thinking too far back), but I think it's much easier for someone my age to get a job and make enough money to buy video games often, without caring quite as much what I got. Plus, since the Internet has improved in popularity, there's less consulting trusted real-life friends' opinions. Those might be extremes, though. There is certainly, however, a very strong "coolness" factor to games such as CoD that existed somewhat less 20 years ago. There's also the fact that since gaming companies are using shiftier methods to sell games or to make games, people know that in order to avoid wasting money, they MUST only buy certain games from trusted companies. And yes, I think marketing is much better now than it was years ago (can you count how many ads you've seen/heard on the radio, TV, YouTube, websites, and other places in the past week?) and that thee are definitely business ethics lost over the years. Perhaps it's for businesses to stay alive, perhaps it's laziness. I still thoroughly believe it can stop if they companies made an effort to stop it, and that it'd be a win-win for everyone if they did.

i agree with you. i tried to start a thread on here to see people's ideas for new games, but people thought it sucked. i wish someone else would start one.

^Probably not a good idea to give your ideas for an awesome game away...especially if you and/or your listeners are in a position to actually make a game, like some people on this forum are...

that's why I never told my "for real" game ideas(though I'll share all my "still learning how to make games and trying to push the bar even lower" ideas)

I would love to hear your idea so very much!
A matter of fact, this thread should be about everyone making walls of text .
_{finally I will make a thread full of walls and walls text, and no one will read them, this has to be my best idea ever!}

I don't mind sharing/asking for ideas because I'm actually using them as I get them... instead of just making up what I'd like to do some day. This is real-time with me.

i want to give mine away, i'll never be able to make them myself. i understand if no one else wants to. i give ideas to game companies all the time and sometimes they have used them. in other words my ideas are always free. I've givin ideas to Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft and I'm sure you've seen them.