For as many years as I’ve been a joypad warrior, myself and other game fans have been excited for the latest news, releases and updates in the game industry. There was a time when a rare but special month littered with triple A releases would present problems for us gamers, namely “How can we afford so many titles at one time” and having to strategically research and select which new release would win our money and time. Now, there’s a new kind of problem.

February saw the release of four top tier games in the space of one week; Farcry New Dawn, Crackdown 3, Anthem and Metro Exodus. Sadly, three of these were not well received, innovative or inspiring. In some cases, they just failed on all levels.

Before we get into this, I personally enjoyed Crackdown 3, an Xbox One exclusive. While most reviewers were not impressed with it, I had a great time playing. This could be because I’d never played the first two in the series so this was something fresh and new, and not just a repeat of the first two games. Still, I didn’t agree with most criticisms of the game that came with the reviews. I definitely recommend it even if you have played the others. You can also try it for free with game pass, so you have literally nothing to lose!

A huge part of the problem is greed and laziness, on the part of the publishers. The main thing they have in mind is how to make more money after the last game has sold, so they rush and hurry to push out a new title as quickly as possible.

Most popular franchises release a follow up title every year now, so there just isn’t time to be creative and innovative with such a short time to develop a new game. As well as this, publishers want to not only make money on the price of the game, including special editions, but they want players to keep paying, which usually involves implementing loot boxes or DLC.

Sometimes you can simply avoid these measures, if you don’t want to pay after buying the game. But it’s becoming more common that games are being made in a certain way, that they become unenjoyable and grindy if you don’t spend extra. For example, in a game where leveling up allows you to progress through the story; certain titles now make it that leveling up makes you repeat the same tasks, or the same gameplay, much more than is reasonable before you can level up. You can do this, OR you can pay extra and buy in game currency or points that let you bypass the grind so you can continue.

This isn’t acceptable.

My personal principle in life is to never pay for bad service. If I go into a shop and something negative happens, I will not hand money over, recommend the shop, or even visit ever again. I’m sure that solo, my action won’t have any effect on the business, and nothing will change but I stand by it, and if more people did the same, things would change quickly because then there would be an effect. I treat games the same.

The more complex and technologically challenging games become, the more I see these toxic practices creeping in. This year alone, I’ve missed a good 90% of the big blockbuster games due to a combination of such practices; either “pay to play” tactics that I’m not willing to support, or simply lazy design. On the other hand, Nintendo are going from strength to strength. While we are seeing many follow up games in the Mario, Zelda and Pokemon series, each offers something new and rewarding without trying to con more money from the player. Each title takes time to release with a nice space in-between releases; you know as soon as you pick up a Switch game where love, care and attention has gone into it.

Until things change, I’ll continue to follow my principles and would urge anybody else that’s unhappy with the state of gaming to do the same. As the old saying goes, “Nothing ever changes by staying the same”, after all!

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash.