I love video games. Have I said that already? It's true; it's probably the one activity I have spent the most time and money on in my life. I'm a mixture of proud and ashamed to say that my Steam Library alone contains 275 games, let alone all my games that aren't on Steam. I've even got a category in there of games I know I will never play. Now I know what you're thinking, but:
A. I buy a lot of games in bundles, so that's not wasted money, and...
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B. I have very good reason not to play a lot of those games.
Unfortunately, when you're as seasoned as I am in the world of video games, you start to become privy to a lot of the industry's worst practices. These are things that game studios intentionally do that have a negative impact on the player's experience, in terms of both marketing and design. Herein, I lament seven of the practices I find particularly destructive. I've picked up on these through years of play and through reading and watching other people's critical analyses of our favorite medium. In no particular order, the Seven Deadly Sins of Game Design are as follows...
1. Microtransactions
As if paying ~$60 for a full price video game wasn't enough, not to mention anywhere from $20-50 for downloadable content (DLC) additions, some game companies have taken up the practice of adding even more purchasable minutia available via in-game cash shops, also known as microtransactions.
The items on offer range from the cosmetic (alternate outfits/skins, decals, pets, etc.) to the practical (energy, currency, extra carry capacity, etc.). The microtransaction model thrives in the mobile market in free-to-play games, where developers choose to make their revenue from the sale in-game goods rather than the game itself. It's the difference between an amusement park that charges admission with free rides and those with free entry where you pay for certain rides. Unfortunately, many triple-A video games for PC and console have adopted this business model to destructive effect. To carry on the amusement park analogy, with a show of hands, who likes paying for the overpriced food and rigged games at the park in addition to the up-front costs for admission? No? How about you competitive types inclined to slip the stall attendant a tenner to "improve your odds?" Like a teenaged employee with one day left of their summer job, some game companies have no qualms about taking that "pay-to-win" bribe. One particular offender that struck a nerve with me was the recently released Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. For a game franchise with such a celebrated pedigree (the original entry tops a number of "Best PC Games Ever" lists), the addition of microtransactions in the single player for Chrissake left longtime fans feeling betrayed.
2. Half-Baked at Launch
A cautionary tale of the Early Access world on Steam: the Half-Baked at Launch flop. Early Access on Steam allows players to pay a reduced price to play a game as it is being made, sometimes getting the chance to influence the development process. But buying a game in Early Access is a risky investment. There is no guarantee that the proto-game you're interested in will be what you expect, or any good, or even finished when it reaches full release. It could spend years in limbo with no progress made by the developers, with persistent bugs and a stagnation of features. Fortunately, very few Early Access titles languish this way, but there are a notable few that turned heads and forced Valve to update their policies on the platform. With Double-Fine at the helm, fans were expecting quality and wit from the Dwarf Fortress-inspired SpaceBase DF-9. What they got was an incomplete shadow of what could have been. The art direction and narrative finesse was there, but the game was abandoned and shoved out the door as the studio could no longer work on it. The story was notable because it was the first time a high-profile developer left an Early Access game to wither on the vine. Sadly, it will almost certainly not be the last.
3. Big World, No Substance
4. Same Game, Different Year ('17)
EA Sports, I'm looking at you. Another insipid installment of Madden/NHL/NBA twenty-umpteen? If you're the type of person who pays full price for essentially the same game every year, you might be part of the problem. Electronic Arts has learned over the years that it can basically make money for nothing by touching up their engine, updating the roster, and buying some popular music licenses for its soundtrack. Am I being unfair? Maybe it's because I was never much of a sports fan...
But it's not like any of my favorite developers would ever do something like that, right?
5. Same Game, Different Year ('18)
Huh? Deja vu? No, it-it's different this time. I swear.
6. Handholding, Spoonfeeding, and Babying the Player
But seriously now, this is a problem in triple-A game design I've seen growing over the years, with no sign of slowing down. Too often, developers lead their players by the nose with heavy-handed tutorials, hamfisted exposition, and narrative elements that tell more than they show. Even if the developers who include these details mean well (wanting to appeal to wider audiences, including first-time gamers), the techniques on display only insult the intelligence of the player. Mark Brown's series "Gamemaker's Toolkit" has an excellent video contrasting the different ways Dead Space and Half-Life 2 teach the player about how to dismember zombies. In purest form, video games are a medium where player interaction is paramount. The best designers will always find ways to use play rather than dialogue or interface to convey their ideas about the game. They respect and trust their players enough to let go of their hands, and tailor the experiences they build to the organic curiosity and exploration inherent in play. Everything in this list really boils down to this.
7. Cut Content Sold as DLC
Wait, the article is due when?
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