Topic: What's your least favorite thing about modern gaming?

This was something I had been thinking about for a while. There are so many things that make me steer clear from most Triple A games nowadays, minus Nintendo and Ubisoft. Of course there are also games that go against the grain and deliver great single player experiences, but its sometimes hard to make the good outshine the bad. From DLC, micro-transactions, loot boxes, early announcements, delays, download only, etc. So I wanted to ask you Nintendolife users, whats the worst of the bunch?

To me? Its the damn secrecy. I understand the idea that games need to be as hidden as possible to make reveals maintain the hype. However that doesn't explain teases. What's the point of trying to tease us like dogs just because we like video games and want video games? Sometimes companies will straight up lie just to keep the game secret (like with Beyond Good and Evil 2).

Also whats the point in hiding sales numbers. Companies like Ubisoft rarely ever give official numbers leaving us to estimate the success. Why hide the numbers to Mario Rabbids a successful game but one I want to know if you got enough return to continue developing for the Switch?

For me it is the free to play, pay to play more, or play faster, games. This format ties in micro transactions and loot boxes as they all kind of fall under the umbrella of, rather than buying a game as a finished product you a getting a "free" frame of a game that you basically either have to grind for weeks in, or pay money for, often, RNG based unlockables to play. It is horribly anti-consumer, preys on people's natural gambling tendencies, and heavily warps game design. It breaks the immersion in the game when a thing pops up saying you can unlock this gun for 4.99 right now, or 5 days worth of in-game currency. This style also breaks from feeling like you own a copy of the game. You can't own a copy of these games as there are always things locked behind paywalls. When I was a kid, I got a game and it was MINE. My copy of Pokemon Blue or Mario 64 and it was a complete product. When I was a teen I got a game and it was MINE, any additions, such as DLC were one-time purchases and expansions that added new content that was not previously in the game and still once that was done, it was a complete product, and it was mine.

Today even many "triple A" mainstream titles that you buy now suffer from planned DLC that is sometimes even already in the game, half done or something. Loot boxes, and other stuff locked behind micro-transaction pay walls. I HATE that. Free to play titles have you paying(real money or in-game) regularly to play as you please or they lock gameplay behind timers, fatigue systems, gems, or whatever other BS limiter they put on gameplay to twist you into at least consider spending more money on it.

This modern trend in gaming has proven successful for companies, raking in massive profits, and I suppose I am old school (26 years old, sometimes I feel like 62 with these sorts of issues) but I HATE this trend.

I blame the trend on the rise of mobile phone gaming where it is most saturated, which is probably related to why I hate phone games too. But that's a whole different discussion.

The overall lack of secrets and mystery (within the games themselves).

Even if a dev tries to sneak in a little thing, chances are people will know everything about the game 12 days before it comes out.

I say it is how toxic the gaming community is. Things like all the racism and bigotry and sexism; inappropriate things found prevalent in the community, in online multiplayer with chat, as well as this same kind of stuff in twitch chats. You'll see a lot of gamers saying vulgar and inappropriate things to people on twitter if they don't like them (or worse, actually hate them), they'll harass women on twitter that they don't like/hate (including comments about rape), and lots of them will freely throw around death threats or tell people to kill themselves.

It is really bad how a lot of gamers can be on the internet. Their behavior does a disservice to all other gamers, as it makes many think of gamers, in general, in a negative manner.

The SJWs

That term gets thrown around too loosely

@JoetheLion This.

I think we are quite lucky that the Nintendo Life forums is a pretty good place to be, even if it (obviously) leans towards Nintendo stuff. I like that this place feels friendly and has a nice small community spirit.

I used to lurk on NeoGAF for the news and rumours for Nintendo stuff, which seemingly took days to arrive over here, but the community in general was very toxic ~ for every one good person, there were a couple who had specific (bad) agendas. Eventually this toxicity caught up with the place.

With NeoGAF being exposed last October for having an owner with sexual allegations against him, as well as finding out that some of the mods could essentially do what they like (ban people for not sharing their views), people fled that place and a small team of longtime members built ResetEra.

I much prefer lurking on ResetEra however, there are still too many aggressive members with angry views, and anytime there’s good news for any one of three main companies, it ends up being quite grim to read once the agitators pop in to rile everybody up. I don’t understand their mentality...

So yes, the gaming community is often toxic, but as long as there are places like this, I think we’ll be okay!

It's a toss up between achievements and having to pay a subscription to play online

Market trends in general. It's discouraging to see single-player games struggle because most people would rather play whichever online shooter is hot this year. At least people seem to be getting over their prejudices against indie games.

@JoetheLion Not that all of this isn't a problem still, but I'd argue that it precedes what most people consider "modern gaming". And if anything, the community at large is in a much better place than it was ten years ago.

A few posts above seem to be more of a gripe against Internet culture rather than gaming specific issues - stay off the Internet and those issues disappear. But whatevs.

Mine is probably the move to digital licensing as opposed to selling physical media.

I'm not sure if any of the 9 Switch games I own physically are 'complete' on the game card (maybe Skyrim is the only one...?), imposing a dependency on the continued availability of the patch /dlc via the Internet.

Lack of refund option on digital licences.

Discontinuation of services that were part of the original deal - e.g. Miiverse. If a product is sold that's tied to a digital service, then at the point of sale the seller should guarantee a minimum period in which that service will be maintained.

tl;dr - the internet has ruined everything.

The audience, the press, the fact that people would rather read a website that kisses the big companies' arse for free than pay for professional criticism, stupid youtubers influencing people's taste and opinions, crowd funding that almost always goes wrong, people who collect games "as an investment", football games built around the analogue stick rather than the d-pad, Nintendo's vampirism against its user base, developers wasting millions of dollars on badly written, forgettable soundtracks, the artificial hype surrounding most things, the new elitism of console gamers against mobile games, videogames that prompt you to "Press START" to start the game and then you press any other button and the game starts anyway, people who care way too much about games and aren't really interested in anything else etc etc. I mean, what's not to hate about modern gaming — it has basically brought youth culture to its knees...

Actually laughed at this. Can't disagree with the rest either.

Too many games to play and they take up so much time. They also just suck. Everything was better as a kid

@gcunit Don't worry I hate that too. I have a differing opinion in that when I am older and want to go back to my favorite games on PS4 Xbox One and Switch all I'm going to get are broken piles of stuff I loved. In general I don't understand the "day one" patch. Like you went gold but needed three gigabites of data to fix bugs?! Switch is a little better with this, my PS4 main hardrive is full from five games alone, but it isn't immune.

@shaneoh Achievements really? Wow didn't expect that answer out of anything. Maybe it's because I grew up with the shift from Gamecube to 360 Wii is why I like them. It feels as if I get an extra challenge mode, and I never feel inclined to get them all. Only real exceptions are games that pride themselves on challenge runs (rouge-likes), I think achievements aren't needed out of game there since the whole game is about different wins.

@spizzamarozii Oh my god absolutely with the youth culture bull. I swear, I love video games and all, but how can you be so boring as to make friends SOLELY for their video game shared interest. I know people who only tried talking to me after they realized I played games. God read a book, watch a movie, live a life instead of being a media shell.

The things i Hate from Modern Gaming :
1. Digital Download Only
2. Day One Patch
3. Partial Download to play games, like happened on NBA 2K18 Switch version.
4. Too Big Game Sizes (More than 100 GB)
5. Too many FPS games Overloaded
6. Edgy & Scary looking from rated 18 games
7. Too Realistic HD graphics
8. The disappearance of some Games genre due to lack of popularity, like Boxing games, DDR, Cute games for Girls, etc
9. Games with Negative words titles to sound like a Cool games (Assasin, Kill, Dark, Blood, etc)
10. Must Connected Online to play or else.

@JoetheLion I'll change it then: The Killjoys

When hames try to mimic movies, I hate it

The toxicity of the gaming community. No one can just like something without other people putting them down and ridiculing them for liking it. This extends beyond the gaming community as well, but it seems particularly prevalent among gamers. Even though most gamers are adults nowadays, it often seems like most gamers are angry children.

Another thing I hate is the pure greed in the gaming industry. Nowhere else do you see things like basic features being locked behind a paywall, such as the save files in Metal Gear Survive. Actual good and complete experiences are also becoming less prevalent in favor of soulless cash-grabs like Star Wars Battlefront 2. It's just ridiculous that it's gotten to the point that companies who release complete experiences without micro-transactions and loot boxes are praised nowadays when that should just be considered the norm.

The fact that AAA companies are shying away from single player games in favor of multiplayer ones is also a huge shame. My fondest gaming memories have always come from single player games, not multiplayer ones, and the fact that so many of them include micro-transactions is just the icing on the cake.

Leaks. They just ruin the surprise of the official announcement and make it less exciting. I also agree with what Meowpheel said about it being impossible for devs to hide secrets in games these days.

I guess it's a bit more on the community that sometimes, really, really seems to be hating on people that enjoy game to... just enjoy it.

Like everything must be hardcore (I agree that there needs to be some semblance of challenge), but why even complain if it's a choice by itself... If a game offers Easy to Hard/Super Hard/Nightmare or something, why be so snide to people that enjoy games on easier difficulty?

Also of how the community sometimes really hate indies- even if they did really slick work. This is especially prevalent on games with pixel style.

I guess this all kinda ends up on the community problems.