Topic: 2014: The Worst Year For Gaming I Can Remember

Where I'm at, we still have an hour left to go in this year (probably way less once I'm done). I was gonna type this later but I might as well get this out now.

So, let me tell you a fun story. I had for many years wanted to get into game design as a career. I had always loved games, thought they were frequently the most enjoyable experiences in entertainment. But while I had slowly realized my actual apathy for actually creating games (particularly in terms of computer programming), it wasn't until this year that I decided that leaving college was the best option for me. This genuinely terrified me but I needed to find something else, this was not working. But despite that, my apathy for creating games correlated with my increasing appreciation for gaming as an entertainment medium and even as an art. A large chunk of this was admittedly because of other people talking about it as an art form and having very intelligent discussions on it, but I felt I learned more about gaming then I ever did from a programming class perspective, or at least more I would actually remember and appreciate. So even though I've been limited in how many games I could play, that is not the only way to appreciate games. I've never played Journey for example, but everything talked about the game makes me incredibly happy that it exists. And I get a lot of enjoyment out of reviews or Let's Plays or whatever. I'll never not make fun of myself for this, but it's true.

So here's the thing. Good games came out this year. Great games came out this year. Thanks to indie games and the like, there were plenty of good games to play. But that's largely because we're in an era where 3 guys can easily (at least compared to years ago) make a good game and make some money. But everyone was miserable and nothing great actually mattered. It's really that simple. No one in gaming was happy and that killed a large chunk of what I was actually able to get out of gaming this year. This is partially my fault for getting so focused on THAT CONTROVERSY (which I refuse to name as I don't want any of you sucked into its black hole of fun) that I am straight up worse off as a person. I went into this year expecting to be better as a person and came out so much worse just by so stupidly getting dragged into irrational argument theater that I am straight up worse off as a human being. I just feel defeated and hopeless, a sort of "what am I doing with my life" situation, and lord knows that IRL hasn't had drastic improvements (for many people). So if there's one positive, this will probably end any interest in me not being productive, just so that this never happens again.

But getting immediately past that elephant in the room, gaming barely mattered this year. Every big title worth getting excited about was delayed until next year and this year had to have set a new record for disappointment and rehashing. Next gen has been embarrassingly safe and being embarassing and/or safe is what is selling. At least last year we had some big titles that mattered and were worth discussing. By the time Watch Dogs came out, all people were like "eh" and seemingly completely forgot the game existed. Destiny was just a lie, Titanfall's community is halfway dead from what I've heard (which is a scary sign if true) and nothing came around to make up for that in AAA gaming. Not to mention, my attempts to defend Ubisoft as a company just blew up in my face this year. What a joke.

If I stopped paying attention to video games this year, I would've missed nothing.

It's Midnight. It's 2015, hallelujah.

My main concern going forward is if developers and publishers will learn from their mistakes regarding broken and games with an astounding amount of glitches. I'm just glad I don't have to worry about this when playing Nintendo's games.

Its just that every game was broken.....like games were put out half broken and the patches for the games were HUGE. Almost every AAA game needed a huge day one patch, and there are still some games with patches that are still broken. The only games that worked were Nintendo games and indies its really sad.

I think that the real problem is that we live in an era of impatience. Gamers want new games ALL of the time, and companies want to get those games out to gamers to make money. In the end developers get screwed over with strict deadlines and have to deal with severe creative limitations because of this. I guess you could say that gamers are partially the reason for the downfall of the industry, the second half are the companies themselves, which need to take pride in quality instead of quantity.

I thought it was a great year for gaming personally. Second Son was fantastic, and I'm loving Destiny. I think it's a great game. It has some problems, and the story may have been something better removed then left in it's shattered state, but I think that's the price of a new IP. I think part of the problem with making a new IP, is people have a hard time with the inevitable rough edges that come from them.
Plus, we got a great new SSB, and Samurai Warriors 4 was great.

"That controversy" seriously set gaming back as a hobby by like 30 years. It was just getting mainstream approval and widespread popularity and then THAT came along, and we're back to the basement-dwelling losers we were in 1985, as far as the media is concerned. And that is truly a miserable thing.

As for the hobby itself though, we are reaching a point of... I don't even know what to call it. Everything is safe. It's not even really developers' fault. Marketing is heavily based around CGI cutscenes and QTEs, because that's what looks the coolest and sells the best. Beyond that, games sell well because they're familiar. I'm not just talking about the same IP, but the same tone, same gameplay, etc. Anybody who tries to argue that Watch Dogs is an original game is a liar. Besides Ubisoft all drooling and losing their minds over GTAV sales and hoping in the "me too!" boat, it's the same game that Ubisoft has been making since the beginning of last gen. It's funny how a game that nobody seems to like sells millions of copies. Because marketing. And because familiarity. And because Rule of Cool.

I like you, Slider55. You seem like a pretty reasonable person that has a knack for being realistic. But you're going to reduce an entire year to Twitter users being dumb and major game releases being flawed/broken? There were a ton of great things that made 2014 a good year for gaming, even if overly-hyped releases were disappointing. For example;

• Lots of Awesome Crowdfunded Game Got Released: While I can't vouch for any of the games, Broken Age Act 1, The Banner Saga. Shovel Knight. Divinity: Original Sin. and Neverending Nightmare were all released to critical praise. Heck, Divinity: Original Sin is even winning GOTY at a few high-profile PC gaming websites. There's even a bunch of other good crowdfunded games that released and pleased their respective audience.
• Licensed Games Are Worth Caring About: While Rocksteady and Telltale were on the front lines of this push for licensed games not automatically being terrible, 2014 was when developers understood that they can make a great game from a license. South Park: The Stick of Truth, Alien Isolation, and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor are some of the best games of the year and they're really good at keeping their core identity or forging another through the license that it's burdened with.
• DLCs And Expansions Were Great: Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls and its accompanying, completely free Loot 2.0 patch almost eliminated the frustrations lots of people had with the base game. FTL got tons of extra content in its free Advanced Edition update. Dark Souls II had three expansions that are widely regarded as being better than the main game. Nintendo dipped its toes into the water and came out on top with awesome Mario Kart 8 DLC. That's not even counting the dozens of finished games which got free content updates just because the developers were nice and had some free time on their hands.
• Some Series Had (Arguably) Their Best Entries Released In 2014: Yeah, Assassin's Creed Unity was another Assassin's Creed game that somehow spectacularly failed to work at launch, but that shouldn't be the reason that other entries in other series are ignored. Games like Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Forza Horizon 2, Mario Kart 8, Bayonetta 2, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and several others are strong contenders for the best games in their respective series.

While 2014 did have its share of problems in the video game world, being such a downer and focusing on the negatives doesn't give the year the recognition or respect it deserves.

Your post really serves to remind me how little the PS4 deserves its many sales. I like your points about the positives of gaming in 2014. They were my first thoughts on rebuttals to kksliders post. But at the same time, general consumers don't seem to be making purchases that are influenced by what was actually worth playing.

I agree about Destiny. I got the PS3 version on Christmas, and I've had a lot of fun with it so far, despite not being perfect.

There were some low points this year in the gaming industry, but it wasn't all gloom, at least for me. Nintendo released a ton of awesome games, and I'm becoming more interested in a PS4 now with everything Sony's been showing. I thought this year was fantastic for games.

I don't even know what you are talking about. You're post boils down to "I left college (oh noes?) = gaming suxxorz".

The worst thing of 2014 was pushing Arkham Knight to 2015. Other than that, it was awesome year.

Sad next year Ubisoft will do the same thing they did this year.Hype up a new Assassins creed game say it's next gen then release the game,then it turns out it's broken.And the cycle continues after that.

The Wii U had a solid year. Irony at its finest, no?

My problem is that the industry is changing so much for the worse that I find hard to get excited for anything new. Good games come out like they always do every year, but I really find hard to appreciate stuff. One of the reasons is that there seems to be a controversy every other day - be it about "games", about marketing strategies, about budgets or sales, about savage gamers interacting with each other or videogame developers starting to act like rock-stars on crack cocaine etc. I grew up admiring the descrete and mysterious Japanese industry, so I find very hard to relate to this opulent beast.
But I would lie if I don't mention that most of my disappointment is in gamers and their inability to see beyond the "game" itself. I'm simply tired of talking to people who think that by pouring money senselessly into the industry they are making it better, because it's never been worse. I'm sick of gamers who act like bears in a cage that are content as long as the machine keeps feeding them the biscuit.

I can't really keep track of 2014. I'm currently playing games from all over the spectrum of time. This year was a bad time for major third parties, but they've always sucked in my opinion. Yes, Assassin's Creed got old past three. Exclusives for Wii U and Xbox One were amazing, we can't forget that.

I don't think it was worse than 2001. What Sega had with the Dreamcast was everything I ever wanted. 60hz Arcade Experience at home. Games designed to be played not watched. (Nintendo does that as well but they are not competing which brings out the best in both sides).

Very interesting.

Here's exactly how I see it: It was a terrible year to be a gamer, but a somewhat tolerable year (perhaps even "good") to own a Nintendo/PC.

The way of the gaming industry at large is quite disgusting. Releasing broken games, DLC becoming almost a necessity to experience vast swaths of a game's storyline that seem to have been left out of original releases ON PURPOSE, and the ever-growing ranks of vocal "babies" on internet gaming forums continue to sap my faith in this industry.

And yes, we are on a Nintendo forum so this next comment seems rather convenient, but I must say: Nintendo is (mostly) not like that. There is still that refreshing amount of polish and "completeness" to their games that is so satisfying in an era where most other AAA titles seem to lack it sorely. And I've spent more time with my Wii U this year than my Xbox One and PC combined. Tropical Freeze, Hyrule Warriors (which I didn't even have money for until recently!), Link to the Past, Treasure Tracker, Smash Brothers, MARIO KART 8 (I love that game so much)... man, Nintendo really brought the quality this year and reminded me what it's like to love a game simply because you love the gameplay and you most likely will never stop playing it. I can't think of a game on my Xbox/Playstation released in the last decade that I feel that way about (I feel that way about DOTA on PC, though).

And now, looking ahead, 2015 is looking to be awesome for Nintendo (ZELDA, Splatoon, Mario Party, STEAM). I'm still not quite sure how much playtime my Xbox will be getting, and I'm a bit afraid of what potential disasters can arise from the next wave of AAA releases. All I know is that this hobby has been with me my entire life since my uncle bought me an NES for my third birthday, and it's something I will always love. Nintendo will always be closest to my heart because of that, but I'm always willing to give every company its fair shake. Here's to hoping those other companies can get their acts together and improve upon this medium. Good luck to everyone!

It was foolish of you to come here tonight gamergate, the aurors are on their way!

Kinda agree but

This War of Mine made my year

Now that i think about it, there were some amazing games, Divinity Original Sin, Wasteland 2, Dark Souls 2, Grimrock 2, Endless Legend, Mario 3D World, Smash 4, Bayo 2, MK8

I really cant remember any game that blowed me away on PS4

It wasnt decent year, but on PC and WiiU there were some truly great games, RPG made a full comeback with DOS and Wasteland 2, 4X games got a new fresh idea with Endless Legend, This War of Mine which might as well be one of the best ges ive ever played (even though its not a "fun" game to play) & and all the Nintendo Classic games that are at the top of their respective franchises

Yeah, but it was great, wasn't it?

Nah, I mean, 2014 did suck, but there was tons to enjoy... you know, if you're a Nintendo fan. The amount of time I sunk into games from October to December rivaled the amount of time I threw at games at previous junctions (spring/summer 2008 [gooo Brawl!] and the two week period in October where I played 82 hours of Team Fortress 2: seriously). Games and the games industry are continuing to be awful due to a number of things that have been festering for a couple years (I won't name any to keep everything civil, of course. I know which side of things I'm on, though), and 2015 will probably be terrible too. Except for the Nintendo games. Lots more games to buy and enjoy this year!

Eh, I enjoyed it...Smash Wii U, finally got to play Bayonetta...Garden Warfare is addicting as ever. (well, used to be, since people stopped playing GO and G&G is constantly littered with cheaters and/or lag)