Are Games getting Worse?

The year was 2007, the Great Recession was kicking off, couch co-op was at its peak, and Halo 3 had just released. Many of us remember this time with nostalgia, especially gamers. Though, was it a better era in gaming than it is now?

Currently, Elden Ring, the Fromsoft title, is taking the gaming community by storm. Flush with raving reviews from the public, as well as prominent video game news companies; such as IGN, Metacritic, and Gamespot. So with all the praise for a recently released game, that would give you an obvious answer to the articles question, would it not? Not quite.

Games currently have features that have been progressively getting better, such as graphics, complex mechanics, and scale. However it appears, that once important features have fallen by the wayside for many game studios. One of those features is free games with live service. What that means is instead of paying the universal 60$, for a AAA game. You instead get it for free, depending on what subscriptions you have, for a game that isn’t quite finished. Sometimes these features would be game-breaking, but with the game being a “live service,” this is allowed. 

In 2007 if your game wasn’t finished and you sent it out, that would be a disaster, because at that point not everyone was using online services and would not be able to receive the update, that would hopefully fix this game-breaking glitch. Though like I stated, the game came out for free, so why should it matter if it works or not? Well, although not all of them are free, it also breeds the creation that began with mobile games. That’s right, pay to win or more currently loot box mechanics all under the hated name of microtransactions.

You can see how some issues can create a type of domino effect, that creates more. Pay to win, released unfinished games, only online multiplayer, microtransactions, and games only working if connected online. None of these issues were around back in the day, which has created this belief that gaming was better years ago.

Though, the advancement that we have with games now, vs back then is immense. The creation and development of Virtual Reality and motion tracking have come so far from the days when the Wii, by Nintendo, was first released with its “game-changing” controller tracking. This was something we could only dream about not so long ago. VR is still in its infancy, however, this is what is truly advancing gaming for many people.

Truthfully there is no correct answer to an opinionated question, but I can see two different paths the gaming industry can take that will either send it to collapse or bring it into the limelight that will cause people of every age and upbringing to be playing them.

We can either see these schemes and ploys to gauge money from players while also abusing the company’s workers. That will cause many to fall back on the games in the past that they loved, and no longer indulge the companies’ greedy ambitions.

Or we can see an outcry of users to these new gimmicks, forcing companies who wish to keep their reputation from doing them, while also developing fun and engaging new ways to play games that will broaden their customer base. Only time will tell…