Author: Dankster McFly

Lego Bucket vs. Lego Set

So there are two schools of thought that every single game can fall into, these being linear and nonlinear in design. Both of which have their strengths as well as their inherent weaknesses. What I’m gonna talk about in this article is how more and more games are wanting to be a Lego Set rather than a Lego Bucket in their structure.

So what do I mean by Lego Bucket and Lego Set huh? Well if you’re over the age of 18 you just might have grown up with both in your house so let me explain what they mean in relation to video games. The Lego Bucket is a full sandbox where the developers give you the tools to craft whatever you please. That can come in many forms but the most basic and easiest example of this design philosophy is Minecraft. Sure there is a sort of main plot where you just have to go and kill a dragon but beyond that the game is basically if the Lego Bucket was a video game. Mojang gave us, quite literally, all the building blocks we would need to build whatever we want, however we want. This design can also be seen in Grand Theft Auto Vice City. A good example is on a certain mission you have to chase a guy, he gets in his car so you chase him in his car, then you kill him after that car chase. A player was getting frustrated with this mission so he had the idea to steal the guy’s car before the mission started, put a bomb in it, then initiate the chase and watch him explode when he got in the car, and he succeeded in the mission. This wasn’t Rockstar telling him to do this he just had the idea to do it with the tools he was given.

The Lego Set if the complete opposite, think of it like the Telltale games or Uncharted. Very heavy in their stories and while in Telltale’s case there are branching narrative paths you’re still following the story that the developers want you to. These games are closer to interactive movies, kind of like choose your own adventure books, sure you have a choice in the matter but the developers don’t give you the tools to craft what you want, they give you directions to get to the end. These are much more linear in their nature rather than the Bucket’s non linearity.

The Lego Set has instructions that you follow to get to the end goal, making certain that your creation will be almost identical to someone else who bought the same set. The bucket however is way more fun in the long run, because you can build whatever you want assuming you have the pieces and the imagination. The set is over once you’re done with the instructions. The bucket is closer to Minecraft, Vice City, and Breath of the Wild, where as the set is closer to the Telltale games, every Bethesda RPG since Fallout 3, and Red Dead Redemption 2, at least in terms of the story missions in that game. The Set has things that happen to you, the Bucket has things happen because of you.

So now that you know what I mean by the Set and the Bucket lets bring it further into games. I feel that most games today are all trying to do the same thing, they are trying to have and infinite amount of side activities, a huge sprawling open world, lots of RPG elements, and a sweeping epic main story. The problems come when you try and do everything is instead of honing down onto a few things you just water down every aspect of your game. Every game wants to be the next Skyrim, but also every game wants to be a movie. The problem with that is that not every game series should have an open world with an infinite amount of side quests, nor should every game try and be a movie. There are markets for those things but it isn’t for everyone. In my opinion the gameplay of a game is the most important part of a GAME, if your game isn’t fun but looks super pretty then you should have just made a movie instead. On top of that when it comes to the infinite amount of side activities, the idea is that they want you to keep playing your game forever, especially now that you have single player games with micro transactions, the more people that keep playing your game for a long time means that you are more likely to get more money. The problem is when you have every game trying to be a forever game then people won’t be buying as many games because they’ll be stuck on one forever.

For the most part games are trying to be linear, and sure you have open world RPGs but they are still ridiculously linear. The only choice you have in Skyrim is how you look, what armor you wear, and what you smack Alduin with. In Fallout 3 the only choice you have is a black and white good vs evil. Case in point when you get to Little Lamplight either you have a certain perk, a high enough speech skill, or you do their bitchy little quest. Those are your only options because Bethesda has a story that they want you to see. Another sort of case in point is that you can’t lose, in Fallout 3, Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout 4, or Fallout 76. The only real failing you can do is if you die, but then you just reload a save. You can’t fail quests, even if you really want to, unless it is scripted in the case of killing the Dark Brotherhood or the horn that the Greybeards send you to fetch. In Fallout 4 the only real choice you have is again, what you look like, what you wear, what weapon you use, and which faction to pick at the end. That last one seems big and it does decide your ending but still it is just one choice and in the end it is really the same choice no matter what, every faction kills the Institute, unless you are the Institute, then you kill the Brotherhood and the Railroad. You’re only choosing which linear path you want to go down.

Take Fallout 2 for a good example of what the bucket is in modern gaming. Yes you have a goal, get the GECK, and yes if you follow the story line beat for beat it does appear linear, but it really isn’t a main quest in the sense that you really have to follow it. Sure if you wanna save your village and get beat up by Frank Horrigan you can but the game just throws you out there and it is up to you to find your way in the wasteland. The developers gave you a target but gave you the tools to go about the entire game however you want. You can run around and become a porn star and drug dealer in Reno if you want instead. You see what I’m getting at? Bethesda wants you to experience their story, where as Black Isle lets you do whatever you want.

Another great example of the bucket is The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. It just drops you in a huge world and yes there is a main quest but like I said before the developers gave you the option to not do it and instead do whatever you wanted. Nowadays you’re the Chosen One who is forced down a path that was chosen by the developers because the want you to go down it, not necessarily because you want to. Unlike before where the developers dropped you in the world which let you do whatever you want, which allowed you to go about the main story because you wanted to.

I mention Red Dead 2 earlier in this article so let me talk about that. Rockstar has two sides, the open world crazy whacky funtimes Lego Bucket, and the scripted linear story movie Lego Set. In one you can essentially do whatever you want to and in the other your hand is being held by the developers, because they want you to go about the story how they have laid it out for you. The story missions are just you following a yellow line on your minimap, shooting some dudes, getting some money, repeat. The only choice you have in the matter is which gun you wanna use, and what outfit you’ve got on.

I think I’ve gone on long enough about it all so I hope you catch my drift. If more games took the bucket route, giving players more freedom to go about the world how they want, then the players would have a unique experience which will make the game that much more enjoyable, instead of going down the scripted linear Set path where if you and your buddy play the game then you both will have the exact same story give or take a bit here and there. A little tidbit that I thought up on my drive from Florida back to Texas is that there is a 3rd thing in this Set and Bucket debate, that being the people who take the Lego sets and break them down into their own new creations, those being the modders that, in some cases, arguably do a better job with Bethesda’s own tools than Bethesda themselves.

All in all the Bucket style games, especially in Minecraft’s case, treat their audience like adults, allowing them to make their own decisions in how they use the tools they are given, and the Set style games, Red Dead 2, treats their audience like kids by holding their hands and telling them what to do at every corner. If you want to hear more on this topic, especially in the case of Red Dead 2, watch this video by NakeyJakey on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvJPKOLDSos

He does a wonderful job at explaining all of this plus he is a wonderful dude. Thanks for reading.

Lego Bucket vs. Lego Set

So there are two schools of thought that every single game can fall into, these being linear and nonlinear in design. Both of which have their strengths as well as their inherent weaknesses. What I’m gonna talk about in this article is how more and more games are wanting to be a Lego Set rather than a Lego Bucket in their structure.

So what do I mean by Lego Bucket and Lego Set huh? Well if you’re over the age of 18 you just might have grown up with both in your house so let me explain what they mean in relation to video games. The Lego Bucket is a full sandbox where the developers give you the tools to craft whatever you please. That can come in many forms but the most basic and easiest example of this design philosophy is Minecraft. Sure there is a sort of main plot where you just have to go and kill a dragon but beyond that the game is basically if the Lego Bucket was a video game. Mojang gave us, quite literally, all the building blocks we would need to build whatever we want, however we want. This design can also be seen in Grand Theft Auto Vice City. A good example is on a certain mission you have to chase a guy, he gets in his car so you chase him in his car, then you kill him after that car chase. A player was getting frustrated with this mission so he had the idea to steal the guy’s car before the mission started, put a bomb in it, then initiate the chase and watch him explode when he got in the car, and he succeeded in the mission. This wasn’t Rockstar telling him to do this he just had the idea to do it with the tools he was given.

The Lego Set if the complete opposite, think of it like the Telltale games or Uncharted. Very heavy in their stories and while in Telltale’s case there are branching narrative paths you’re still following the story that the developers want you to. These games are closer to interactive movies, kind of like choose your own adventure books, sure you have a choice in the matter but the developers don’t give you the tools to craft what you want, they give you directions to get to the end. These are much more linear in their nature rather than the Bucket’s non linearity.

The Lego Set has instructions that you follow to get to the end goal, making certain that your creation will be almost identical to someone else who bought the same set. The bucket however is way more fun in the long run, because you can build whatever you want assuming you have the pieces and the imagination. The set is over once you’re done with the instructions. The bucket is closer to Minecraft, Vice City, and Breath of the Wild, where as the set is closer to the Telltale games, every Bethesda RPG since Fallout 3, and Red Dead Redemption 2, at least in terms of the story missions in that game. The Set has things that happen to you, the Bucket has things happen because of you.

So now that you know what I mean by the Set and the Bucket lets bring it further into games. I feel that most games today are all trying to do the same thing, they are trying to have and infinite amount of side activities, a huge sprawling open world, lots of RPG elements, and a sweeping epic main story. The problems come when you try and do everything is instead of honing down onto a few things you just water down every aspect of your game. Every game wants to be the next Skyrim, but also every game wants to be a movie. The problem with that is that not every game series should have an open world with an infinite amount of side quests, nor should every game try and be a movie. There are markets for those things but it isn’t for everyone. In my opinion the gameplay of a game is the most important part of a GAME, if your game isn’t fun but looks super pretty then you should have just made a movie instead. On top of that when it comes to the infinite amount of side activities, the idea is that they want you to keep playing your game forever, especially now that you have single player games with micro transactions, the more people that keep playing your game for a long time means that you are more likely to get more money. The problem is when you have every game trying to be a forever game then people won’t be buying as many games because they’ll be stuck on one forever.

For the most part games are trying to be linear, and sure you have open world RPGs but they are still ridiculously linear. The only choice you have in Skyrim is how you look, what armor you wear, and what you smack Alduin with. In Fallout 3 the only choice you have is a black and white good vs evil. Case in point when you get to Little Lamplight either you have a certain perk, a high enough speech skill, or you do their bitchy little quest. Those are your only options because Bethesda has a story that they want you to see. Another sort of case in point is that you can’t lose, in Fallout 3, Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout 4, or Fallout 76. The only real failing you can do is if you die, but then you just reload a save. You can’t fail quests, even if you really want to, unless it is scripted in the case of killing the Dark Brotherhood or the horn that the Greybeards send you to fetch. In Fallout 4 the only real choice you have is again, what you look like, what you wear, what weapon you use, and which faction to pick at the end. That last one seems big and it does decide your ending but still it is just one choice and in the end it is really the same choice no matter what, every faction kills the Institute, unless you are the Institute, then you kill the Brotherhood and the Railroad. You’re only choosing which linear path you want to go down.

Take Fallout 2 for a good example of what the bucket is in modern gaming. Yes you have a goal, get the GECK, and yes if you follow the story line beat for beat it does appear linear, but it really isn’t a main quest in the sense that you really have to follow it. Sure if you wanna save your village and get beat up by Frank Horrigan you can but the game just throws you out there and it is up to you to find your way in the wasteland. The developers gave you a target but gave you the tools to go about the entire game however you want. You can run around and become a porn star and drug dealer in Reno if you want instead. You see what I’m getting at? Bethesda wants you to experience their story, where as Black Isle lets you do whatever you want.

Another great example of the bucket is The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. It just drops you in a huge world and yes there is a main quest but like I said before the developers gave you the option to not do it and instead do whatever you wanted. Nowadays you’re the Chosen One who is forced down a path that was chosen by the developers because the want you to go down it, not necessarily because you want to. Unlike before where the developers dropped you in the world which let you do whatever you want, which allowed you to go about the main story because you wanted to.

I mention Red Dead 2 earlier in this article so let me talk about that. Rockstar has two sides, the open world crazy whacky funtimes Lego Bucket, and the scripted linear story movie Lego Set. In one you can essentially do whatever you want to and in the other your hand is being held by the developers, because they want you to go about the story how they have laid it out for you. The story missions are just you following a yellow line on your minimap, shooting some dudes, getting some money, repeat. The only choice you have in the matter is which gun you wanna use, and what outfit you’ve got on.

I think I’ve gone on long enough about it all so I hope you catch my drift. If more games took the bucket route, giving players more freedom to go about the world how they want, then the players would have a unique experience which will make the game that much more enjoyable, instead of going down the scripted linear Set path where if you and your buddy play the game then you both will have the exact same story give or take a bit here and there. A little tidbit that I thought up on my drive from Florida back to Texas is that there is a 3rd thing in this Set and Bucket debate, that being the people who take the Lego sets and break them down into their own new creations, those being the modders that, in some cases, arguably do a better job with Bethesda’s own tools than Bethesda themselves.

All in all the Bucket style games, especially in Minecraft’s case, treat their audience like adults, allowing them to make their own decisions in how they use the tools they are given, and the Set style games, Red Dead 2, treats their audience like kids by holding their hands and telling them what to do at every corner. If you want to hear more on this topic, especially in the case of Red Dead 2, watch this video by NakeyJakey on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvJPKOLDSos

He does a wonderful job at explaining all of this plus he is a wonderful dude. Thanks for reading.

Bethesda: Creation Grounded in Destruction

Todd Howard once explained his creation process in an interview back when Skyrim was the new kid on the block. He talked about how instead of looking at how to add things into the game, he would rather take something out that he, or rather his team, would view as boring, redundant or not necessary. This means that, when crafting a new game, they sit down and take out things before they add things in, or they at least build a new game with what they want to take out from the previous game in their heads.

Now they obviously do add things to their games, but at the same time they do take things out. Going from Oblivion to Skyrim they took out several skills that you could build your character out with. They took out attributes that helped specialize your characters and they took out the entire class system, which helped you feel specialized. Sure you could just build your character out to being an archer but when you went to your character screen you actually saw that under your character’s name, they had a definitive title that helped you feel someone unique. On top of that they took out weapon and armor degradation which meant that the gear you would run around with in game would never break. This made Skyrim lose a majority of it’s Role Playing elements. They took out some of the skills so the pool of skill your character could use was smaller, attributes were no longer a thing so now when you leveled up you just chose whether to increase your health, stamina or magicka, and the class system wasn’t there so now you could just build out whatever character you wanted. It just made Skyrim feel less of an action RPG and more an action game where Bethesda was just trying to wow you with spectacle and the world rather than giving you a deep Role Playing experience.

On the flip side though they did add a lot to the experience. Now you could craft your own weapons and armor which was super fun since, unless you felt like buying all of your supplies, you would have to go out and actually tan the hides of animals for leather, or mine the ore you would smelt into bars for crafting. The implications of this system, though, meant that all of the legendary Daedric artifacts that were literally items given to you by Gods weren’t as useful as the gear you could craft yourself. You basically just did those quests for the quest’s sake and through the gear on a display case or shoved it in a chest.

I’m not saying that Skyrim isn’t an RPG because it absolutely is but it was way watered down from it’s predecessor, Oblivion, to which that game was watered down compared to Morrowind. See the trend that I’m talking about? With each installment of the games they add new features but water down the RPG experience.

Another example is Fallout. Bethesda bought the franchise from Interplay and turned it into an 3rd person RPG from an isometric RPG. In Fallout 3 you had the SPECIAL system along with skills and perks. You can actually build your character out to specifically be good at some things while being bad at others. Sure the actual main story only offered the black and white good or bad choices and the Karma system only reinforced it but since it was their first crack at the series it was a success in most people’s eyes, mine included.

I won’t be touching on New Vegas since that wasn’t Bethesda’s creation so after 7 years of waiting in the dark ages we finally got Fallout 4. I like this game, hell I’m playing it right now as I’m writing this. Fallout 4’s way of leveling up though is that when you level up you can add another point into a SPECIAL stat or pick a perk. Sure you can have a build from this but seeing as there is no level cap there is no real reason to do this because eventually you can have every perk in the game. Sure it would take forever and usually everyone runs with a build but the idea that there is no hard system to run with means that there is no real reason to stick with the build that you are running with. Its all wishy washy and watered down.

The biggest watering down though is that there are essentially no choices in how you do the quests in the game. This is especially noticeable if you download the mod that allows you to fully see all of your dialogue options. It is crazy how often your character will actually say the same things, or that the quest doesn’t care which option you pick, the game just gives you the illusion of choice, which is why I think that the default dialogue system is so vague in your options. Most of the time your options consist of, yes, snarky yes, a little more information which will advance the quest as if you said yes anyways, and not right now but still yes I’ll do it later.

But sure they did add a whole as settlement system where you can build little towns and shit while also making the weapon and armor customization all kinds of wild which means that all the random junk you find in the world actually useful. On top of that the combat in the game isn’t that bad, especially when you compare it the Fallout 3 or New Vegas and they brought back individual armor pieces like we saw way back in the days of Morrowind which is one of the best things the game did and I will always applaud Bethesda for it’s inclusion. Sure that stuff is awesome but in the end they’ve just turned the game into an action first person shooter with super duper light RPG elements which really only determine which gun you use. They add a little building mechanic with weapon and armor customization but drop just about all of their RPG elements. They add a little haha fun things but take out the stuff that their core fan base fell in love with back in the days of Fallout 3 and Oblivion or Morrowind. They make RPGs right? That is Bethesda’s thing they’re the RPG boys right? Not anymore.

This idea is super exposed when it comes to their newest game Fallout 76. They made the settlement system into the new CAMP system which is essentially one scaled down settlement with no people in it but you can put it wherever you want so long as it isn’t near a location or quest. They added in plans and recipes so you have to grind for the weapon and armor crafting which I do like. They added in ammo crafting and just crafting in general seeing as in Fallout 4 you could just craft drugs and that was it. Now you can craft weapons, armor, ammo, food and drugs so long as you have the plans or recipes for it. I do like this part of the game and on top of that they added in multiplayer which is super sick when the game decides to work for longer than 2 hours which is kinda rare these days. You know what they took out? Dialogue, skills, real factions, companions, human NPCs, and choices. Fallout 76 did put a lot more emphasis on the legendary items side of things so you could really have an actual build in this game which is wonderful and I do think they did good in that regard. And on the topic of roleplaying you can do a lot with this game but you’ll always be fighting the game in doing so. Say you just want to be apart of the Brotherhood of Steel, well in the main quest you do end up joining them but you also end up joining the Responders, you become a Firebreather, you join the Free States, and you join the Enclave which is the same faction the Brotherhood fights in Fallout 3. You have to join the Enclave to beat the game as well, hell you have to become the general of the Enclave.

On top of that there are no choices in the quests or events in 76, you just follow a quest marker and shooty shooty bang bang your way through the game. With the only real roleplaying that they game itself supports you in doing being your weapons, armor, and perks. They tried to sell this game as the ultimate roleplaying experience because you weren’t tied down by any sort of dialogue at all. You could run around and be Preston Garvey from Fallout 4, you could run around and be a travelling merchant, but nothing in the game supports this.

By this I mean in Skyrim if you wanted to be a thief there were perks that would help you do so, sets of armor that would give you the look and boost your abilities in that field, and an entire faction and quest line that you could follow. In Fallout 4 if you wanted to join the Brotherhood you could, you’d get a slick suit of power armor with some awesome paint, you could call in a vertibird, and there were radiant quests in the game that would help support the fact that you were in the faction. You could run around with scribes and protect them while they found some technology, or take a kid from the faction on a sort of ride along, parts of the game reinforced your ability to roleplay but the most you’ll get from 76 are events that repeat over and over and over.

I don’t know I just feel that Bethesda’s mentality when it comes to creating something seems way too backwards to actually be stable in the long run.

Pokemon is Having an Identity Crisis

So Pokemon has been around for about as long as I’ve been alive, and for most of that time it has stayed pretty consistent with what it was, but now its decided that, with every new generation of games, it has to go radically into some new direction. By that I mean that the core of each and every Pokemon game changes with each new installment.

Obviously game series have to change with time, if a company released the same product every three years they would get nowhere, but what I mean by all these pretentious words is that Pokemon, at its core, is confused. Think of it like a midlife crises if you will.

So the formula for Pokemon is that you get your starter, an asshole/ annoying little shit of a rival, you run around beating up peoples pets, catching new ones of your own, fighting through gyms and eventually beating the elite four and champion. There is a bunch more layered on top of that to spice things up and make the game playable after the “main story” is complete, but for the most part that has stayed the same all the way up until about generation 5 with the release of Pokemon black and white. Now when I say that it changed I really just mean the focus of the games themselves did. You still collect the gym badges and you still beat the elite four and the champion, but the focus of the game is much more story heavy. This, I think is when Pokemon really began to change with the seasons.

After that we got the first ever direct squeals, black and white 2 which continued the story from the first games but still had the whole gym structure that we have come to know and love. Then we got generation 6 which was X and Y, gym structure was still there but we got mega evolution which drastically changed the core game play of the games, that being battling other trainers and wild Pokemon. Once that was said and done we got the remakes of generation 3 being Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, those didn’t really add anything really new to the core game play, just carried over mega evolution from X and Y. This is when things got a little wild though with the release of Pokemon Sun and Moon where the took out mega evolution, until the post game, and added in Totem Pokemon, regional variants, and stripped away the gym system. On top of that they designed the game so that there really wasn’t much exploration that was involved, most side paths were short and just looped back around, there were a huge amount of cut scenes, and the game held your hand much more than previous games by giving you items rather regularly, as well as there being a fucking quest marker in a Pokemon game. This is more rough when you remember that, for the most part, the you were funneled down a narrow path for most of the game. I will admit that this was the last Pokemon game I played so the rest is based off of what I have seen. The next games in the series were Pokemom Sun and Moon 2 which, from what I understand, just expand upon the base games and don’t add too much, until the post game where they let you battle the previous game’s villains please and thank you! Then we get into Lets Go Pikachu and Lets Go Eevee which were essentially remakes of Red and Blue but with Pokemon Go implemented into it, which, again, I have not played, but it seems like it would be super awful to do so, that’s just me, my apologies if you like these games. Then we get to Pokemon Sword and Shield which is said to have a true open world, and a super dumb mechanic where your Pokemon just get really big. What the hell is going on? The true open world is something that I dig immensely, I think that level of openness and the potential for exploration would fit the series super well if they pulled it off correctly. They’ve also added a new mechanic to battles where your Pokemon just get really big too so yeah that’s a thing.

I don’t know maybe I’m just a grumpy old 20 year old when I get just a little upset at the fact that Pokemon, as I knew and grew up with, is dead. I was all for mega evolution but after that each generation scraps the last’s ideas in favor of it’s own half backed pieces of shit. Why not stick with something and refine it instead of throwing away great ideas every year? Maybe stick with something long enough to make it good, if not just a little better. I don’t know man it just seems whack that such a huge series would throw away just about everything each year to add something new to the point where its, “Hey they’re big now whoopie…”

Its also a whole other discussion when we get into the fact that there are so many Pokemon now that, not only could they potentially be running out of ideas, but you really cannot catch them all, nor could you really catch most of them anymore. Its almost pointless to have a favorite Pokemon that isn’t in the current generation because the likelihood of it being in the games is slim and the likelihood of you being able to get it in these games is even worse. It just seems wild that Pokemon is wildly different, its sales are going down between Sun and Moon and the Lets Go games, although those could just maybe be considered spin offs, but I don’t know, I just thought it’d be neat to talk about Pokemon and how its going through its midlife crisis or something.

Video Games – Bad Trends

Video Games Have Changed (No Shit)

The trends that are being set and followed in the modern video gaming industry will only serve to hurt the consumer, drive consumers away from AAA developers, and overall just mark a stain on this industries rather short but sweet history. These trends are, non consumer friendly practices, and over saturation of a genre of games, and a view of quantity over quality.

By non consumer friendly practices I mean the type that not only hurt the player’s experience with the game, but also their wallets. Examples of this hit the mainstream hard when EA completely broke the internet and started a real political debate with gambling in video games. That is obviously a big deal and needs to stop immediately, but that’s not just what we’re seeing these days. One example that I know all to well is the Atomic Shop in Fallout 76. I play 76 pretty regularly since I do genuinely enjoy a good bit of the game, but mostly because I have a solid friend group to hang out with. The problem with the shop is that the pricing is entirely too much. A few skins for armor and you’re at the price of Fallout 4’s Far Harbor DLC which had several new armors, outfits, weapons, locations, enemies, characters, quests, and probably much more. The problem with this is rather obvious, a few skins does not equal an entire DLC. Granted all of the additions to the game are free since the shop pays for it. The problem isn’t that they have a store, the problem is the pricing versus the content. A few skins does not have the value that an entire DLC has. That is not consumer friendly, especially when you factor in how slow the trickle of content for the game is, on top of the bugs and server stability and all that jazz. Not that fun but granted I do still play it so take it as you will. On top of that the shop was pitched to be cosmetics only, that is no longer the case. Repair kits, Scrap kits, the Unstoppables Bonus from a while ago, and the entirely new weapon called the invader. Not to mention the fact that the shop is now advertised in game and the train stations by these cardboard cutouts, that by the way aren’t that high res textures. Even farther than that though the Christmas emote bundle was falsely advertised as half off, when it had never been offered for sale in the first place. They artificially inflated the price, then offered it up for discount, which was the actual price, just to get people to buy emotes. Emotes.

So what do I mean by over saturation of a genre of games? Well obviously it is a blanket statement, not all franchises and companies are doing this, but the trend is there. Just about every game HAS to be open world, and it HAS to have some RPG elements, and it HAS to have one million side things to do in the game, along with a thrilling main quest. This has caused many series to be clones of each other, just with different skins and a handful of different mechanics. Assassins creed is now an RPG with stats, exp, skill trees, the works. This series was once a cinematic, story driven game with fun combat, characters, historical settings, and a distinct parkour element that set it apart from the crowd. Now, its just the Witcher but set in our history, with some parkour elements. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst just had to have an open world, Pokemon just has to have an open world. Everyone wants to copy Bethesda with the success of Skyrim and Fallout, instead of being distinct and playing to their own strengths.

Quantity over quality has some similarities to the topic above, instead of making distinct games that are different from what is already on the market, everyone wants to play to one demographic. More so than that though I mean the fact that so many people measure a game by how many hours they’re going to get out of it. Obviously we don’t want to pay $60 for a thirty minute experience but the problem that arises is that games become too big for the quality to be across the board on the content. Instead of having a concise, quality experience, everyone wants a million side quests, four hundred thousand collectibles, a sixty hour main quest, and across all of this people expect quality across the board. Games are becoming too broad. Games shouldn’t have four hundred side quests for the sake of having that number, they should have a select number of side quests that the studio works their asses off for and it really shows. The side effect of this is that games are becoming the show you put on just to have something on in the background. You just play the game because it is something to play. There is just so much of it that you purchase the game because it will keep you busy for long enough until the next binge comes around. Games aren’t games anymore. Games are just T.V. shows that require you to press buttons to advance the plot.

Now what does all of this mean? In my mind if these trends keep occurring, things will only get worse, and eventually people will have enough. Just in my own head I can see Indie games taking off even more than they already have. Case in point the best selling game of all time was an Indie game: Minecraft. Hopefully it won’t take that big of a shift in the industry for people to get their shit together but I don’t know. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.