The game companies want you to buy their crap, but you don’t have to!
Over the last few months, there has been a growing amount of bad games being released. From Ninja Gaiden 3 to Resident Evil: Operation Racoon City, the last couple of months have been less than stellar. Mass Effect 3 is really the only release from this year that’s blown me away. I don’t know if it’s just a come down after how high the industry picked us up last holiday season, or if it’s something else. Either way, I’m tired of it. There is no excuse for bad games to come out of good game companies!
Any game released by a major company that is poorly made; full of glitches, or bad design choices and so on, is a spit in the face to every gamer who is will to shell out hard earned cash for a crap product. Indie games get a pass from me because they tend to be much cheaper and often push boundaries AAA titles aren’t willing to touch. This spit in the face shouldn’t be accepted, but it is! We keep shelling out our money for sub-par material because we’re bored or impulsive or whatever. Either way, we are telling these companies that we don’t care if the next big game sucks because we are willing to buy it anyway. This mentality allows them to cut corners and take short cuts because we reinforce their money grabbing ideals by buying the games anyway! This has to stop!
The people at the local game store may seem nice and friendly, but they don’t have our best interests in mind. Sure, they are open and honest and even add us to their PSN/Xbox Live accounts to play games with them, but they also try their hardest to talk us into pre-ordering every game that comes out. We have no way of knowing if these games will be any good, so we take their word for it. They peddle these pre-orders because their bosses tell them to, because the game companies are telling them to! When Johnny J at game store A talks you into buying crap game B, everyone wins but you! (It took everything I had not to put U) Sure, you may pick up an Uncharted or Skyrim, or you could end up getting something else all together.
This also applies to great games that never change because the formula still sells. MW3 is a fun, competent game, but despite it being the largest release in entertainment history, it was still criticized by many gamers. Yeah, sometimes these large releases are a lot of fun, and it’s exciting to be a part of something so big, but the next day the complaints started flooding in. “It’s just a full priced MW2 DLC!” They cried. Sure, it wasn’t a majority making this claim, but it happened, and it will continue to happen when MW10 comes out, because we’ve shown the company that we don’t mind them not taking any risks with our beloved franchises. Things are sitting still right now as far as ingenuity goes because the large companies are too afraid to take risks. They are afraid because we don’t spend out money on games that take risks. These companies are businesses, and thus need money to make more games. They aren’t going to risk losing millions on something that’s not a sure thing.
This whole Mass Effect 3 ending fiasco may have gamers thinking that their tiny voices will finally be heard by the big wigs behind the gaming companies, but our voices will never compare to how loud our money will be. Look at the 3DS and how quickly the price dropped. Sure, it wasn’t an intentional boycott on our parts, but it taught us something valuable. These companies cannot stand without us, and they are willing to do what it takes to keep our money coming in. Don’t ever forget that we have the power. This is a gaming democracy, and we vote with our wallets every day. You are only a slave to their whims if you allow them to dictate what you will play. You can stop this by investing your cash into well made games, and maybe a few that are willing to push things forward. It’s time to take the power back!
These views are those of the authors and not the personal viewpoints of YARS as a whole.