The Biggest Joke in Gaming

[ERaptor]

Mh, theres a lot to choose from. Personally, Im gonna take the whole Phil Fish-Drama.

If you didnt play FEZ and if you dont care if FEZ 2 is made or not, the whole argument with that Beer-guy, the Twitter Flamewar and his general comments and actions around the industry were pretty funny. As someone who wasnt involved at all it was like standing on the shore, watching the S/S Asshole firing its sh*t in all directions, until finally sinking into the ocean when Fish announced that FEZ 2 was cancelled.

Honorable mention to Adam Orth (Who worked at Microsoft at the time) who made a comment about allways online DRM, the shitstorm that ensued afterwards made him loose his carrier and prompted him to move with his family. I found that stuff hillarious, sad but hillarious.

 

[Corven]

The fact that square enix is still trying to tell us that we should like final fantasy 13 and the main character lightning. I mean they're scraping the bottom of the barrel now since all they have left to entice us to play the next game is "look at all the silly costumes you can make her wear!"

 

[Vausch]

Square Enix's release ethics.

"FFXIII Versus next year!" *1 year later* "NEXT year!".

Announce a half dozen games every year and we're lucky for ONE to be made, and it turns out that the recent ones have been those awful FFXIII sequels. Seriously, let that game die.

 

[tabristhegreat]

wrestling games season passes

Its not a massive issue but its one that goes mostly unnoticed.... they announce pretty much an entire year of dlc with pictures for new characters to be added...which to me means they have all this content made and rather then just be cool and include it in the game they sprinkle it out for 80 microsoft point a character (with of course, the occasional "free"character if you pay for the season pass)

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Biggest joke in gaming...the AAA development model, followed closely by the obsession with MMSs. I'm hopeful that at some point, publishers will wake up and rethink how they do things for the first, and for the second, that people stop buying the bloody things and maybe let some innovation back into the industry.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

How early access and pre-alpha releases are so abundant nowadays. It just baffles me how people accept to pay for these unfinished products. I get that smaller studios don't have the budget of the big companies and can't pay for the same kind of testers, but come on. We're not only helping them make the game, but we're also paying for that privilege?

 

[Sight Unseen]

How early access and pre-alpha releases are so abundant nowadays. It just baffles me how people accept to pay for these unfinished products. I get that smaller studios don't have the budget of the big companies and can't pay for the same kind of testers, but come on. We're not only helping them make the game, but we're also paying for that privilege?

I disagree with you on this one. As someone who has taken part in a number of early access titles (Minecraft (before early access was cool ), Project Zomboid, Gnomoria, DayZ, Sir, You Are Being Hunted, Dota 2, Magicka: Wizard Wars(they gave me this one for free though) etc) some of the games are still undoubtedly fun even though they are still unfinished products. It gives the devs valuable insight into where their game should be heading, as well as the early funds to sustain development until it hits full release.

It's also really fun watching a game evolve over time and get better and better (hopefully)

Finally, they usually let you into the early access for significantly cheaper than they anticipate their final retail price to be. I got into Minecraft for $10 and now it's $20 I think. I got Project Zomboid for $8 before their Early Access, now it's $15 for early access, and will probably be ~$20 for their full release. So you get better value and usually lifetime licenses and free updates for life.

I like seeing the potential of a good game come to life and be able to play it from its early days and evolve into a better and better product

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

How early access and pre-alpha releases are so abundant nowadays. It just baffles me how people accept to pay for these unfinished products. I get that smaller studios don't have the budget of the big companies and can't pay for the same kind of testers, but come on. We're not only helping them make the game, but we're also paying for that privilege?

I disagree with you on this one. As someone who has taken part in a number of early access titles (Minecraft (before early access was cool ), Project Zomboid, Gnomoria, DayZ, Sir, You Are Being Hunted, Dota 2, Magicka: Wizard Wars(they gave me this one for free though) etc) some of the games are still undoubtedly fun even though they are still unfinished products. It gives the devs valuable insight into where their game should be heading, as well as the early funds to sustain development until it hits full release.

It's also really fun watching a game evolve over time and get better and better (hopefully)

Finally, they usually let you into the early access for significantly cheaper than they anticipate their final retail price to be. I got into Minecraft for $10 and now it's $20 I think. I got Project Zomboid for $8 before their Early Access, now it's $15 for early access, and will probably be ~$20 for their full release. So you get better value and usually lifetime licenses and free updates for life.

I like seeing the potential of a good game come to life and be able to play it from its early days and evolve into a better and better product

See that's the thing. It works for some (Minecraft is a good example). For most, it not only piss people off because it's too expensive (like Planetary Annihilation, which cost about 100 quids for early access, although the price has come down, it's still more expensive than a full freaking game) but also because the product is in such a messy state that it's basically unplayable (a friend of mine tried StarForge, and got sick of all the problems and lack of features, especially since there hasn't been any progress on it since). The biggest problem I have with this is the fact it's become the standard now to have people pay to do the jobs of testers, and I find that unacceptable.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Sup.
Sup who?

Spoiler

Super Mario Brothers.

[http://s680.photobucket.com/user/Sqwalish/media/OMGLOOKATLEMEMESHUEHUEHUE_7760dbd2bb3c0b02eb9dd95138a154d7_zpsfe0de452.jpg.html]

 

[uncle_yuri]

The singleplayer of every CoD since Black Ops.
Hold X to open door.
Hurry and shoot this guy! Don't worry, we'll make it slow motion for you.
Hold X to walk through door.
Hold X to gaze longingly out the window.
Obviously I exaggerate for effect. But still, the amount of contextual button presses that led to uncontrolled pre-animated things was honestly annoying for me. I thus nominate CoD.

 

[Piorn]

When people, and especially retro indie devs confuse "retro" with "looks like shit".
Sure back in the day, we knew each of our pixels by their first name, but we tried to make the most of them.
Now, people use the "retro" excuse to use placeholder textures or sprites instead of hiring an artist.
Sure, the point of indie is to make the most with the least money, but that doesn't mean you should stop trying, or justify the game looking aggressively bad.


Oh and "Most Anticipated Game Award" is just unprofessional.

 

[feauxx]

Gone Home and The Stanley Parable.

You don't like these games because they're 'smart', and you're smart for playing them. You like them because they make you feel smart.

Gone Home didn't make me feel smart, it made me feel emotionally connected to a game like never before.

 

[Racecarlock]

Mafia II, a sandbox game with no freedom. A crime game with no fun. You even have to follow traffic laws and get fuel. And then it makes you clean toilets and sell cigarettes and chaperon drunk friends around and slowly carry crates to trucks, not in that order.

I guess it's okay if you're into narrative, but why have the open world if that's what they were going for anyways?

Mafia 2 isnt a sandbox game, its a linear game that happens to use an open map since you travel in a lot of places the size of a city. They could have made it all corridors for driving and such but making just one big map is a lot easier.

Just think about the fact that the main story is entirely composed of levels where you are never out of one, in actual sandbox games you usually are out of missions until you accept one but in Mafia 1 and 2 you are always inside them.

Even judging it by that standard, I still had to carry a crate, clean toilets, chaperone drunk people with the radio stuck on one station, and sell cigarettes literally by pressing a button near the correct color. I mean, when other games offer so much more, why the hell did this game decide that my free time I'm trying to use to have fun would be better spent doing chores? I mean, they might as well have made me do math homework as well.

 

[Edl01]

PC gaming is dying!!! My Xbox One runs better than any PC because Microsoft said so!!!

 

[gavinmcinns]

Ubisoft. Square Enix. EA. Activision. The people who continue to buy whatever they deign to pinch out. We need adults buying games, not stunted man children. This is who these companies cater to now. You can add Capcom to that list.

 

[KazeAizen]

The number of multiplayer maps a AAA game comes with: they expect you to buy map packs, so they release like 8 maps (way less than Halo 2, for example), then charge you $3.33 per map and don't let you play certain game modes unless you've bought them.

On both the EA and Activision grey warshoot updates from last year the season passes cost just as much as the fuckin game. Shit's crazy. I second this.

Actually, just season passes and DLC tactics in general. I can't even remember the last time I bought a game and felt like I was getting the complete experience.

Season passes can actually be used for sensible things. I believe I got a season pass for Ultimate NInja Storm 3 which the only DLC for it are a shit ton of alternate costumes that now I don't have to pay over $15 for since that is what my season pass cost. I think I'd be paying an additional $60 if I didn't and I wanted all the costumes. The best part is the DLC for that game is it really is all just costumes.

 

[KazeAizen]

Ubisoft. Square Enix. EA. Activision. The people who continue to buy whatever they deign to pinch out. We need adults buying games, not stunted man children. This is who these companies cater to now. You can add Capcom to that list.

eh I wouldn't put Square in that list anymore. Something seems to have happened with them and they are actually getting shit done now. Also don't you mean we need kids buying games? Like legit under 13 year old kids?

 

[Battenberg]

So many choices, I don't know where to begin. CoD's got to be quite high up there, the franchise is the epitomy of just about every issue currently in AAA gaming and could even be considered partly responsible for the spread of the grey-brown, bland, spunkgargleweewee, shooty mess that's becoming ever more predominant in modern gaming. Then there's IGN's comically high review scores for just about all AAA games, I don't know what their average score is these days but I'd be shocked if it was lower than 7, sadly it's put me off using them pretty much permanently. Or perhaps the entire next console generation which, between the Wii U (the most pointlessly gimmicky of the three with the fewest worthwhile games), the XBone, and the PS4 (as much for lack of backwards compatibility as anything else) is the least excited I've been about new consoles since I started gaming. Or you could go with the general attitude devs/ producers seem to take to AAA gaming now where they have virtually unlimited budgets leading to price increases for the consumer that just aren't in line with the quality increase (excluding graphics but there's certainly more to gaming than that). Or the shortest joke of them all: EA.

Basically the whole AAA industry has become something of a joke in my opinion, putting cash before customers far too often to the point that a small part of me actually wants to see another gaming crash, just so the industry actually learns something.

 

[The Night Shade]

Mafia II, a sandbox game with no freedom. A crime game with no fun. You even have to follow traffic laws and get fuel. And then it makes you clean toilets and sell cigarettes and chaperon drunk friends around and slowly carry crates to trucks, not in that order.

I guess it's okay if you're into narrative, but why have the open world if that's what they were going for anyways?

Mafia 2 isnt a sandbox game, its a linear game that happens to use an open map since you travel in a lot of places the size of a city. They could have made it all corridors for driving and such but making just one big map is a lot easier.

Just think about the fact that the main story is entirely composed of levels where you are never out of one, in actual sandbox games you usually are out of missions until you accept one but in Mafia 1 and 2 you are always inside them.

Even judging it by that standard, I still had to carry a crate, clean toilets, chaperone drunk people with the radio stuck on one station, and sell cigarettes literally by pressing a button near the correct color. I mean, when other games offer so much more, why the hell did this game decide that my free time I'm trying to use to have fun would be better spent doing chores? I mean, they might as well have made me do math homework as well.

Even with all these flaws that you mention i still like the game it has a specific narrative and style,it mimics a lot of mafia movies and i think thats the whole appeal of the game,to live a gangster life the way it would really be,at first it's fun but then kinda boring and sometimes there are moments of action and danger.
To be honest i think the game is worth playing at least once just for the experience.