Poll: The Greatest Threat to Gaming

[Phoenix Arrow]

I don't know. I've never dated anyone who doesn't like video games. By total coincidence, I didn't use them to bond with them before hand or anything, it was just like when we were going out and we just happened to like video games, and the same genres too.
Either way, I'm not that much of an addict that I would neglect someone I genuinely want to be with in order to play video games. If I didn't really like them that much, I'd still make the effort. But I guess this hasn't ever really been an issue.

 

[Crunchy English]

I think I'll just give this thread an offical "close" now, as it's done everything it was supposed to.

EA topped our poll, just nosing out Uninformed Journalists. Imagine that, the two I spelt wrong won out. A huge slew of other options were presented though as well as a few "stop being paranoid"s just to keep things honest. Oh, and lot of people got mad at me for not liking MMO's, and admittedly being a jerk about it, which was colourful.

I think we all see a dark side to our favourite hobby, and for at least one of us our soul-crushing addiction, but I think the tone of this thread was surprisingly optomistic. Thanks guys (/thread)

 

[Digitalpotato]

Are we sure the UK isn't banning games just because they suck? Is it possible someone over there is that on the ball? Manhunt 2 was awful, and Frontlines was... well it wasn't Manhunt bad, but there wasn't anything about it I would describe as "good".

If they banned games because they suck, then EA would have been ran out of business by now.

 

[XzarTheMad]

A combination of zelous christian-conservatives, uninformed journalism and monopoly from big corps like EA. On one hand you have people who will stop at nothing to destroy what they see as "immoral" and "wrong" and they will gladly pull politics into it. On the other hand you have sensationalists who earn big bucks by telling people that their children will kill them if they play with anything but play-doh. And on the third hand (or the first foot?) you have people spamming games with a so-and-so gameplay and a cheaper cost 'cause they own so many small companies that there's no real competition within the fields they operate.

Oh, and graphics-whores. A game can be great without good graphics. Like Cave Wars for MSDOS. Best turn-based strategy game ever made, and its graphics suck.

 

[gooneybird71]

Biggest threat to gaming is the ridiculous player expectations and outrageous budgets required to be considered AAA, the average triple "A" costs millions, takes literally years to create and upon delivery will have a better than average chance of being panned by fans and gaming press.

Next biggest threat to PC gaming is a perceived dependence on retail outlets.

Both items cause the big publishers and retailers to homogenize their products into a sort of McDonalds-esque generic "Entertainment Quantity", this is why most console games, MMOs, and FPS's are simply variations on a theme and why we see franchise emphasis over true innovation (CoD56, Halo12, Diablo23). Of course theres exceptions, but considering the total development budget of the industry they are truly exceptions (Sins of a Solar Empire).

When was the last time someone made a really fun, accessible survey flight-sim, like European Air War or Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, or the Aces series? Or a really good turn-based tactical game like X-Com?

People have become so accustomed to ever increasing complexity and visuals that they have forgotten what it was that got them into gaming in the first place. It was the fun.

-Gooney

 

[Lemony]

The thing with people like Fox News and CNN and all that BS stations is that they *technically* own the information and since there is no real other station international that they can BEND the information or even change it so that IT SELLS! That's the only reason why they do it. Period. Since also there is no other station doing the same thing people are *in a way* forced to watch it because there is nothing else to watch for news. They make the news sound as real as possible but for things about video games, how much do you want to bet that those 50 year old hags at Fox & CNN don't give a **** about Video Game's? *Only fools and idiots watch/read the news.*

 

[vxicepickxv]

None of the listed options seem like a threat to gaming at all IMHO.
Personally I feel that the rising development costs for games is what hurts the industry most.

You mean having to spend millions of dollars in add revenue to hype a game for the purpose of trying to sell it after spending 10s of millions of dollars to make it, and hope, pray, and pay for a good review so that it sells well enough to more than recoup losses? Yeah, it's bad, but I don't play all AAA games all the time so it is a bit stupid.

I also think it's stupid for WoW to advertise their new expansion anywhere that's not in their game, because more level grinding won't bring players back.

 

[Aeviv]

I dont mind fanboys, your always going to find them- look at dedication to football teams for instance. Id consider myself a fanboy of many things (metal gear, Star wars) but i still have the sense of mind to know they arnt perfect. I think the biggest threat is the media, which is far too ready to brand a game as evil, or some form of anti-gaming missile

 

[WazzizFace]

I think the hardcore Nintendo players have suffered on the Wii because of the casual gamer and Nintendo focusing its attention on a specific market.

 

[Reep]

I dont know, it might be a typo or it might be correct but it that UNIformed journos or UNINformed?

EDIT: Previous post by Crunchy English cleared it up