What is going on in the gaming industry and where has the value gone?

So many games these days consist of high end marketing with crazy amazing cinematic trailers and hyped up storylines, plot twists and game play teasers. Then why with today’s technology are we still shelling out for expensive special editions of utter crap. Harsh? I don’t think so.

A recent example is the largely anticipated Watch_Dogs, which was a massively hyped up game, and money wise it was a great success. But I know players, myself included, who were highly disappointed with the game’s content. The story was brief, had little progression, and it sort of jumped to the next part in such a staggered way that you just didn’t have time to connect with the characters. Not only this, but the graphics were vastly downgraded from previous teasers shown at the gaming expo’s- and then there is the huge ‘loading screen corruption’ fiasco.

Watch_Dogs whs not the only disappointment though, there have been so many in recent years.

Lightning Returns failed to meet players expectations with its new style of side quests becoming the main way to proceed with game. Not only that, but the storyline did not end the trilogy in the triumphant way the FF fans were expecting. Batman Arkham Origins, and its counter part BAO: Blackgate, also fell short of the hype the developers created, the story so intensely talked about came down to being too big for the game, and ultimately left fans feeling disappointed.

Now with so many games upcoming, and so much hype to them, it is getting more and more difficult to see which games are even worth it. Prices are forever growing, with some next gen games costing around £50 for standard editions. What exactly are we paying for any more? At the moment the majority of games take anything from 15 hours to maybe 35 hours to complete. What ever happened to games like FFIX, taking around 2 weeks to finish the story. Is it a case of the marketing teams are charging so much that developers don’t have time to write these intricate stories that keep us going throughout the game? Or is it a case of them not caring about the gamer any more, and only being bothered about making money for ridiculous add-ons and DLC that should of been part of the game already (ouch, you went there -ed).

Already reviews are circulating for the newest Tolkein based game, Shadow of Mordor, and already people have expressed how poor the story content is. Not all gamers may share my opinions, but it isn’t just fancy battle systems and upgrading this for that, to play a game for an extended time period you need something more. You need a connection to the game, whether it be a particular character or the story or background as a whole. The cinematics for SoM have been quite intense, and with the revelation of Celebrimbor being the identity of the wraith helping Talion on his journey, and the indepth videos showing how the game’s ‘Nemesis system’ works, what have developers actually left unknown for the game to give players a reason to buy.

Charging through the decent but less-exciting story missions would probably take around 12 hours, but the goal of killing or dominating the Warchiefs is much more time-consuming and interesting. I spent around 25 hours to reach the end, and there’s still a lot of challenging side missions based around testing sword, bow, and dagger skills left to do. And, of course, lots of collectables and wildlife-hunting challenges.

The above is just a snippet of the IGN review of the game (ours will be along sometime soon -ed), does this really sound like a game you want to be spending around £40 on, for such little time? Why is it that developers need to reveal so much to gamers, that they are either left with a game that’s unexciting, or one that has little to no plot or point to be played?

Games being pushed back for release are joining ranks of being too hyped. Sometimes the mystery adds to the excitement of the game. That mystery is not when will it be released though, especially when it is still released needing endless patches, and DLC at obscene prices.

Obviously there are games out there that are worth the hype, and some worth the prices we are charged. But I feel lately, there is just too many games that play for maybe 2 days, yet you paid £30 plus. And with trade-ins falling, and those prices dropping- maybe, just maybe, you have to ask yourself if there’s any point in buying these games.

Why not watch someone else playing it? Then you could go back to your retro games, where you got your moneys worth, where the mystery paid off, and the accomplishments of completing your game were something to celebrate, and something to be proud of; that month of hard work paid off.

In the end of course this is just an opinion. Everyone will see things differently. Games in my opinion are lacking, and it is us in totality as The Gamer, that suffers.