What is the Greatest Evil of Gaming?

Lots of evils but I'd say the DRM is the worst of it. Luckily we all dodged a big bullet this time around.

Console centric game publishers.

EA, /thread.

MS

They showed their true face with wanting to push DRM.

DRM, such a shame its actually embraced on the PC.

I was about to vote the Quick Time Events, but then saw the DRM option.

It all comes down to this; it's completely ineffective at combating piracy (as they always find a way to circumvent it) and only serves to penalize the honest gamers. They're the ones who willingly paid for the product, yet are required to go through all these absurd hoops to get the game to work on their system, while the pirates get the hassle free experience.

If the devs and publishers could just accept that DRM does not and never will work, and instead focus on earning sales through rewards for the people who buy the game (extra free content), they would gain so much better community relations and see their revenue stream flow smoothly.

And CD Projekt Red proved this! They offered their Witcher games free of any DRM, and have no complaint of the sales. Having faith in the community pays off.

Whiny gamers.

Blind fanboys who accept anything a specific company pushes at them.

Where's the "Yearly releases" option?

Not that I would call it "evil" but on disk DLC.

@ mems_1224 "Whiny gamers."

Abit Redundant don't you think ? Just say gamers ;)

Fanboys.

Honestly, none of those you listed. Some I see as rather anti consumer, but as far as I am concerned, they are only symptoms of the real evil.

The real greatest evil are the continiously rising development costs, which in turn is the root to many of those "evils".

Yes. That and developer's obsession with creating "cinematic experiences," which, when you think about it, may be related to what you said.

The horrible fanboys.

This

Free to play.

Most "free to play" games are just the opposite, and implement price gouging to swindle players. A good example is SWTOR and Tribes Ascend.

Thankfully there are games which do F2P well, namely DOTA 2 and TF2. League of Legends is caught in the middle with champions locked behind a paywall.

Tough choice between sequels and DLC. I chose sequels because i think that it can do more harm to the industry, publishers making the same games over and over with re-used assets can ruin even the best of franchises.

DLC if used properly can be great, but it rarely is. I like the way Bioshock does it (its clearly not part of the original game).

Paying for online.

Day one DLC, cutting content from the game to sell to you again separately in general.

When there is loads of DLC, even some that's available on day one, it's an easy choice for me to wait for the complete edition.

Bingo.

Games are getting ridiculously expensive and incredibly limited despite the massive budgets. It's the trend towards improved visual fidelity at the cost of the actual "game" itself that's killing gaming.

True. Super Meat Boy, anyone? Great example of awesome concept that surpasses the visual lines.

XP and too many mindless collectibles.

There are a lot in that list that are evil.

This pretty much. Trolls are atleast funny, but fanboys are annoying as f*ck

Sad thing is...I really do think that most of the "fanboy" users here do it to get a rise out of other users. Some folks, though, I think seriously believe the stupid shit they say.

why is Free to play gaming even on that list?

Sony fans.

Microtransaction games. We could end up reverting to arcade style titles with cheap difficulty in hopes of milking consumer money.

Nintendo

The role gaming plays in the perpetuation of idiocy in society. PC has games that require critical thinking like strategy, sim, etc. Sony is one of the only companies that create story-driven games that don't require I shut my brain off (NOT EVERY game they make does mind you, but many have several). The vast majority however are just SO dumb (I'm staring at you Ryse).

Touch screen gaming (maybe killed mid budget games too).

Hopefully it's just a fad and devs realize that $40-$60 games still have a strong place in the market.

You missed the biggest's Microfuckingtransactions in a £40 game

So, all of them except Valve?

You mean Experience Points? As in leveling up? How the hell is that "evil"?? :|

Padding, collectibles, control stolen away for the devs to force you to look at something (breathtakingly obnoxious), patronizing tutorials, damaging a franchise in the name of chasing a wider audience, unnecessarily massive budgets...without a shred of hyperbole I can say these are worse than Stalin.

Gamers. Not all of them, but I swear I'm not sure why some of them even call gaming their hobby cause they seem to hate it more than anything.

The greatest evil of gaming has to be; with current technology there is absolutely no need for yearly release of games. All EA games and others that follow their model should release one game and update it with DLC. Honestly, madden 2009 could very well be madden 25 with updates so as assassins creed 1 could be black flag today.

why stuff like free to play games and no retail release are even there ?
Sure you can make a case most free 2 play games are garbage but there are alot of good games there ( path of exile,Hawken and planetside are great examples of great F2p games ) and there are ways to find the good from the bad games ( and even if you download a bad game is free so whats the problem )

and CDProjekt, Firaxis,blizzard, Dice, 4A games, Bethesda ( otherwise they wouldnt even bother with great mod support on their games ), most of indie devs, telltale and quite a few others. Yeah its only Valve

@adamosmaki:

You need to learn what a publisher is, friend.

xbox

DRM, then games having DLC tacked on afterwards that should've been included in the game.

Actually.....Yes!

Sega ( no i'm not kidding lately alot of big pc franchises are from sega ), Deep silver ( with games like Anno, stalker, xseries and metro they are primarly a pc publisher ) , Aspyr, Bethesda ( they are publisher as well ). Again is not only valve like some think.

An evil greater evil:

A £40 game with all the expansions, with a monthly sub, that actually sells overpriced microtransactions aswell. Looking at World of Warcraft

I would put Mattel (1978-1990 and 2005-2009) above them. Nintendo does not pay people to leave companies and put them in jailable contracts.

Lack of imagination, in any form.

This is the only acceptable answer.