Do you ever worry about the state of gaming?

From all of these factors:

Politicians / laws.

Bad quality games.

Your favorite franchise company going through hard financial times.

Loosing / damaging your console

Or something else. Explain what your position is and why you think it's important..

I worry about the state of the gaming community.

No not really. I'm having a fantastic time being a gamer with more great games to choose from then I could likely ever hope to play. Everything else seems so frivilous.

Yes and no, I'm not worried about games themselves since the last 10 years have dished out so many amazing games. Stuff like feminist and stupid uncalled for "hey this game has a sex scene so let's put it on the news" is just starting to piss me off.

I don't think you should worry about loosing your consoels unless you regularly have intercourse with them.

I think it's a great time to be a gamer. Aside from player toxicity, greedy business practices (as there always have been), and politicians attacking it cuz they don't understand it (again, something that just happens), I see no reason to bemoan the state of the industry.

LOL

Haha

I worry about the following:

Games being so expensive to build that creativity becomes stagnent. We allready see this in most AAA titles, and it worries me that so many people care so much about Graphics that they are willing to let gameplay suffer a great deal.

Adverticement and hype Means more then the game, we have begun to hear how advertisement campaigns often match or surpass the cost of making the game, which to me seems like the wrong people are in charge of Companies. I am aware that I am one of those people advertisement usually don't Work on, but if the adverts Means more the game, and the hype Means more then the game, then both Publisher and customer cares far too Little about actual games, and more about what is facionable to play.

How politically correctness is forced into the games for the sake of politically corectness only. As long as the characters are interresting I really don't care what colour, sex or religion they have. But forcing something in simply for the sake of having it, and not because there was a reason to, irks me greatly (and as an addendum, I dislike how main characters have become mostly void of traits to make then Unique, more often then not you really could just switch around physical and mental traits of a protagonist since more often then not they are so generic that most 80's action movie protagonist seems Deep and complex in comparison).

But most of all I worry about the consumer, the actual gamer. I am aware that with the rising of the net, and the lack of responsability as a result, the following occurs across multiple hobby areas, but Gaming seems hit the hardest. How many times have we heard about deaththreats and behavior people rightfully should be sent to jail for? When did the average gamer become so hateful and spiteful? We all care a good deal about the games that gave us alot of good memories, and the hobby we love so much.

But when that love for something makes the gamer hateful the, gamer him/herself is sick. And I feel more and more of those show up. It is fine to disagree, and it is fine to find changes to game series you love disheartening. Boycott them then, don't send deaththreats. And if you are so scared of your hobby changing and including more people, it is disheartening, mostly because most of the peopel calling themself gamers and try to bar new people from bering welcomed into the hobby are themselves not the first nor originals, There have always been competition and system wars, but through the last gen of consoles grade A assholes showed up en masse, poisoning Communities.

Not really, the state of gaming is fine, we could do with a bit less of americanization but that can't be helped right now.

@Jacanuk

"Americanization " ? Thats just wrong and I always assumed you was American too...

Not really, although I do worry that like 10-20 years from now when I want to go back to my 360, that shit will not work. Like there's no way that the disc drive could possibly work imo. My hope is that they'll eventually add large USB support for games like how the XB1 is and I'll crank that thing up one last time in hopes that I can install everything to that disk and then throw it in the box.

Once they get dirt cheap (like sub $100) I'll probably buy one just to keep on ice.

Whats wrong with it, both conservatives and liberals are using gaming as a platform to further their own agenda.

So dont know about you but i wish that they would stay out of gaming and stop messing it up.

Well said and thought out. Had to point that out.

Nope dmg already been done.

C'mon we still say ps2 was the best era like really?

In there defense ps3 was shit especially in the innovation department. If this era is just full of wannabe WOW GTA COD clones well this era gunna be shit too. Only difference is that the games will look nicer which is debatable tbh.

I agree with that comment!

@Jacanuk

Everybody does that, its not an American thing.

There are some trends and other things that concern me a bit, but for the most part I just try to enjoy it and not get caught up in all of the negativity. This is supposed to fun, I don't want to get involved in political talk after political talk and nitpicking every little thing that is wrong with a game. If you enjoy doing that and think it's important, that's fine. But I'd rather actually be playing games.

Yeah I agree. Overall, the industry seems healthy. The new consoles are selling well and plenty of awesome games coming.

little worried about indies and kickstarters destroying themselves from within. I've had a lot of positive play experiences with smaller titles on PC, but there is just so much shit that I don't really feel safe buying anything outside of sales, which can't help the future of franchises that are actually good. There is just so much garbage, though, and it's difficult to sift through to get to the gems. It reminds me a little bit of the early 80s with atari, when you could do a game with a small number of people (sometimes even just one person), not spend a whole lot and put it up for sale. The industry choked on its own vomit. I think console indies are safe from this, as there's actually some QC in place, but I'd hate to lose out on all those positive experiences (like the recent Divinity game) because of vendors like Steam not really giving a shit beyond their take.

I agree there's a lot of crap out there, but I feel that usually you can filter out the games that are of better quality. While not all sites might cover some good indie titles, there are usually a few that do. I think Divinity: Original Sin has gotten some attention (though perhaps not as much as it deserves) and all of it was positive, so it's at least enough to convince someone to buy it (or not). If there really isn't anything to find about a game, then it's probably not worth it...

Video games, movies and TV shows are made for women and children these days. Being an educated grown-up male leaves all three fields of "entertainment" predictable and boring.

They're almost all about struggles against despotic powers that they wind up winning on moral levels and sometimes battle *yawn* - because doing the opposite would greatly offend the idiotically liberal mothers out there who would be furious if their kids enjoyed something dark and dreary or their husband wanted to take her to something cruel and nasty for date night.

Politicians, women, children, and minorities have ruined the things mature adult white males loved for decades. The internet was perfect before women were irresistibly drawn to youtube and facebook, and consoles started connecting to it for the kids to access. The result is heavy censorship and long lists of rules that make participation from my kind an afterthought.

Are you a young gamer who doesn't understand or agree with anything I've written? The internet was a much better place before you, your cousins, and friends became a part of the whiny crybabies that forced corporations to make all the fun cramping rules. Your mom is too. Goddamn I miss the old internet from the late 90s and early 2000s, you pukes all disgust me...

@Lulu_Lulu: Ya i know but that doesnt mean i have to like it :D

Just look at how bad Gamespot have become after they changed from "gaming is fun" format to their "we want to be polygon" format, lately you have to be lucky to actually see a video review unless its a AAA high budget game.

I still remember On the Spot and their 24h GTA IV marathon, it was epic fun and all their other shows but today that and the uk office is pretty much dead and if it wasn't for this forum i don't think i would visit the site

@Jacanuk

Yeah, I've definately noticed that. I also just hang around the forums, its my only source of news.

Not really.

I've got nothing to complain about, really; so many great games to play and hidden gems to find, more accessible than ever. And that's what it's all about, I guess, beyond all of the perennial bickering

I worry more about the state of the Single Player Campaign. I worry that in a decade or so, the state of gaming will become too socialized, too Co-oped and too much focus on the Multiplayer Aspect.

@M8ingSeezun

Embrace co-op ! Don't be a lone ranger. ;)

The 1950's called. They want you come home. This pretty much sums up the Angry White Male Syndrome that I mentioned in another thread. People who have been catered to in every aspect of life suddenly are no longer the center of the universe and it eats them up inside. And people say I have an ego... LOL People like this need to get over themselves and realize that you share this world with a lot of different people so its not just about you. People in this world are too freaking selfish and egocentric.

LOL, NO.

I'm 37 years old. There's only a few of my friends (30+ year olds) who even game, and they don't even care about Coop nor Multiplayer. Yeah, we play just for laughs, shits and giggles, a few games of Madden or CoD here and there, but it's almost usually never serious dedication, unlike some of you youngsters who have too much time in your hands. Which is fine, I wish I had that kind of free time, nowadays. That's why my friends and I who still love gaming as a hobby, have been single console owners (Playstation platform), for the past few years. There's far too much time invested in other matters.

If you enjoy it, more power to you.

@M8ingSeezun

You could play with your family .... :)

ha ha nice one bruv

I could do that, but then again I'm not a dedicated MP or Coop gamer. I just do it for laughs.

I have them on PSN and I don't even bother with them, and vice versa, unless it's a CoD game, and there's no dedication on my part when it comes to MP or Coop. And very rarely do I have family members visit me and my girlfriend in our cramped apartment, it's the other way around since they have bigger homes. And when I do visit them for parties or holidays, the kids tend to take over the Playstations, Xbox and WiiU, not me.

the main problem is the community and broken games imho

no, i don't worry. i just accept that the video game industry puts out mostly crap games that is licked up by the casual majority.

I'm quite surprised. No one has brought up the drastic rise of F2P games and what that will do to the industry. Nothing about how everyone seems to be making a MOBA now. WTF is that. What about the battle between devs with DLC against used games sales. There are plenty of things to talk about with the games market. What about how everyone treats Metacritic like the be all end all of what makes a game good? To say there isn't much wrong is pretty naive.

If we just ignore the broken and rehashed crap indie games though, there are still a lot of really really good games coming out though. Seems to be a ton of new IPs just like the start of last gen as well.

Nope. So long as I can play games in the genres I like, I don't really care about issues.

Franchises come and go as do developers. The long road of gaming has a long trail of defunct game company carcasses alongside it.

I've already survived several demises of platforms I use to game on: Atari, Commodore Amiga, 3DO, Sega. Yet, I'm still gaming.

@hailtothequeen: what a worthless and laughably foolish comment. par for the course.

I feel like it's a little bit of both. On the one hand, the gaming industry is getting bigger and more diverse with the influx of new indie games and indie devs making waves. There have been some really interesting concepts to come out in recent years. But on the other hand, the AAA side of the industry seems more content than ever to keep churning out clones year after year. I understand the profit motive, but I just get uneasy seeing so many games released each year that look so similar. I love unique experiences. But again, I think we are still getting plenty of those too, we just have to know where to look.

And then there's the mobile market, which could be a whole topic of its own. Some really good games are coming out on mobile devices, but many may never get recognition because of the mentality of many casual gamers to limit their purchases to 1.99 and below. (And yes, there is a lot of junk coming out there too, especially on iOS.) So, yeah I am worried about some aspects of the industry, but equally excited about others too. It is an interesting time to be a gamer.

I am worried about the over valuing that many seem to give to indie games while under appreciating what AAA does add to gaming. I am still being more impressed by AAA games than the indie games. Some much that I think innovative, refinement, and improving of gaming will stale if we lose the AAA games.

Another thin I am worried about is the push for games as art. The "artistic games" are some of the worse out there and some claim that bad games are good because of artistic trash the dribble out (Spec Ops the Lie).

@wiouds: indie games and art games aren't the problem. Some people had very strong reactions to those kinds of games, even Spec Ops. Just because you don't like em doesn't mean the industry is suffering because of their existence.

Sometimes.

I did not say anything about indie games or art games.

My problem is that there are some that overvalue them. I read posts about how the praise a game that is a indie game or artistic game, and does one thing well. Also in those posts they will hammer and attack AAA with more general statement. They are not even trying to be unbiased while acting as if they are telling facts.

@wiouds: Well for those people, they either genuinely don't like AAA games or are just a bunch of hipsters - in my experience, the latter is the more prominent example. I personally try to find value in any game I play, whether it be an indie or AAA game.

I worry that our games will continuously be sold to us one piece at a time the more and more accepted DLC and micro-transactions become. I worry that The Last Guardian will never come out.

@JustPlainLucas

You don't need to worry about games being sold in pieces, you only need to worry about gamers buying games in pieces. Basicly what I'm trying to say is you only need to worry about people caving in and accepting that this is the way the industry works and just rolling with it. You'd be surprized how many people don't have the stones to just say no.

I've given up on gaming. Just a bunch of near-identical games, doesn't even matter what genre it is there days. They all look and play the same. As far as the big publishers are concerned, us guys who don't drool over every new online shooter aren't welcome in the hobby any more.

Wake me when the next (single player) Elder Scrolls or Fallout Game comes out.

@Jackc8: you aren't looking hard enough then. Plenty of original games out there if you look for em.