Why most of the video game industry is going down the drain

Back in the arcade days maybe even up untillps/n64 times, gamers were a small community of the minority "nerd" group of people. The games that were made during this time were relatively small budget and built out of the love of gaming. Because it wasn't necissarily cool to be a nerd, the group of us remained the small video game market. With such a small group of buyers, big companies weren't that interested in exploiting it. Gammers kept to themselves and enjoyed games that were created to be fun, not to make money. But, since games such as Halo 2 and Gears of War hit the scenes, those big companies realize that this market can be exploited. More ads and commercials for videogames andgiant xbox 360 launch parties were made to get people into the video game market. Since then, it has become acceptable for people to be "nerds" and play videogames. The kids that may have grown up in the early 90's making fun of the metroid and final fantasy nerds are now kids that fit in with the cool kids by playing games like Halo 3 and Gears 2.

I consider those two games the pinnacle of the videogame industy going down the drain. Sure, they are pretty fun games, when you put that many millions of dollars in a project, of course it'll be decent. You think of the basic characteristics of these games (shooting, violence, epic story, and first/third person gameplay) there is nothing new or innovative, it is only what is cool on the market so they can sell the millions of copies and make even more back. They even add the SPECIAL COLLECTERS EDITION which is just some crap put in the box to charge another 20 dollars. These games may have good features, but they get boring, they are nothing new. Halo 1 8 years ago was better than the latest installment because that game was new and tried something different that went out on a limb, a risk greedy companies don't want to take.

The Update and additions that companies make to sequels recently are only added so that people will buy the game. I realized this when i had a conversation with my 11 year old cousin about gears/halo. I noted that the newer installments werent as good as the old ones. To which he replied "no way, The new gears has FLAMETHROWERS AND MORTORS AND RIDING BRUMAKS AND HALO HAS BUBBLE SHIELDS AND BRUTE HAMMERS." To me, these are all the dumb additions that ruined these series. Really? adding equipment to halo. That did not improve the gameplay at all, if anything it made it worse, but you know what? It looks really cool. Little kids see removable turrets and bubble shields and they think "mom thats awasome buy it for me!!!!!!"

Games also focus too heavily on story. I admit, some games such as metal gear have amazing stories, but the gears story was terrible. But, aside its terrible writing and Dom's wimpering for MARIA, It looked "cool." Huge guys with chainsaw guns flying on alien creatures, fighting a war, yeah all that looks really cool now, but what about in 5 years when the graphics are outdated and people realize the **** storyline. The story is just to give the game the blockbuster feel that they are going for, because like hollywood, the new video game companies try to pack in so much action into the preview that you just have to give it a try.

Cool is a word i used in this post a lot and i believe it is what is killing videogames. I recently watched a thing about mtv calling it the merchant of cool. It finds what is cool and markets the crap out of it until it is thrown out by the public. I am afraid this is happening to videogames. When the video game community was a relatively small group of social minorties that loved games, it developed groundbreaking material every new series and put games out so that people could have fun, not just to make money. Now that the industry of cool has taken the videogame market, companies are much less likely to make groundbreaking acheivements because they are marketing what is cool at the time. Now that videogames have become "cool" in societies eyes, im afraid they will eventually turn into hollywood, where the small indie games will be cool, but the big blockbuster games will be full of crap that gets people to buy the game.

COOL IS KILLING VIDEOGAMES

p.s. first forum post ever, but i felt compelled to see if anyone else sees what is happening.

Your kinda right in a way.

At least your not a troll.

I skimmed your wall of text, and you have a lot of good points. Gaming was definitely better 10 years ago, overall. It was a more... intimate experience. The games were crafted out of passion and creativity, not influenced (as much) by marketing schemes and big dollar profits. It's also due to the integration of online. Devs feel that they can just patch their game down the road, so they release an unpolished game (ahem, Gears of War). They also realize that they can release some add on down the road for 10 bucks, instead of including it in the game disc. Sometimes, they even include the content on the disc, but you have to pay to play it. (I'm looking at you, SoulCalibur 4).

However, that is not to say the mainstream is all bad. There have been a lot of bad games, but there have been a ton of good ones that have come out in the past few years. If gaming had not gained such mainstream attention, it would not have grown to accommodate so many critically acclaimed gems.

Gaming is better in some aspects than it was before, but yeah, it is sad to see an industry so close to many of our hearts go down the mainstream market path of exploitation. At the same time, gaming is making huge steps thanks to mainstream markets and new technology. We'll just have to see what the future holds.