What's the worst thing to happen to gaming?

[jardantuan]

There are so many choices - terrible games (ET, Superman 64), bad consoles (Virtual Boy, Nokia N-Gage) and cringeworthy presentations at E3.

But I think the absolute worst thing that I've ever had to bear witness to is the announcement that Bayonetta 2 would be a Wii U exclusive. First and foremost, you'd think that'd be great news. A game that had a lot of fans has been revived by Nintendo, meaning that they'd have a chance to play a sequel to it!

Yet the backlash that followed is amongst the most despicable behaviour I've ever seen from anybody, not just gamers. You're perfectly entitled to be disappointed. Imagine Ubisoft decided that they'd do a ZombiU sequel, but on the PS4 instead of Wii U. We'd be upset, right? But there's absolutely no grounds for death threats to the developers, the very people that are giving you the opportunity to play another game in a series you care about enough to make death threats in the first place.

Honorable mentions of course to people being killed over video games (it sometimes happens at midnight launches for big-name games), EA and their horrible practices (yearly instalments, DLC beyond belief and microtransactions), and 12 year olds being able to use Xbox Live.

 

[crunchyg]

In my memory, three horrible things have happened to gaming.

1) Loading times. The worst part of going from cartridge to disc was the introduction of loading times. Saturn, PSX, PS2, and Dreamcast were all among the early offenders. I remember trying to play Madden 2001 when PS2 launched and thinking, "Wow, this is not fun at all." Loading times are so common today that people consider them the norm. But many people who started gaming in the cartridge era still can't stand loading times.

By the way, Nintendo is excellent at hiding loading times or making them appear shorter than what they really are. Super Smash Bros Melee was a great example of loading times that are barely noticeable to the end user.

2) DLC. No matter how the publishers spin it, releasing DLC has one goal in mind: taking more money out of your pocket on top of the $60 plus tax you have already paid. I don't care how "valuable" the DLC is made to look by the publisher, it is plain wrong to milk customers for money for an extra set of costumes or a level pack that was likely designed together with the rest of the game.

3) Having to install games to a hard drive. The beauty of consoles was their speed and ease of use. What's happening with PS4 now is another step in the wrong direction. Waiting to play the game while something is being downloaded or installed and then having to manage the hard drive space it's taking up is completely unappealing.

Ironically, PCs are getting easier to use with tablet-like apps and games that require zero maintenance, while consoles are getting less and less user-friendly.

 

[Esperahol]

This is more a rebuttal then anything else, but:

1. In terms of death threats to developers - this is nothing new. People have done this for years, and it's part of the reason why we've lost so many great designers in recent years. That said the worst thing about this kind of thing is the ME3 nonsense - people literally said they felt as though their daughter/son died and ... no. This is why video gamers get such an ugly stigma attached to them as the perpetual loser who doesn't really understand how reality works.

2. There is nothing wrong with DLC - it is not a mandatory purchase, and consider the length of time and the amount of effort... I doubt it was built before hand and just magically hidden. I honestly have never understood the complete hatred of DLC - particularly from those who seem to have a compulsive need to purchase them. Then again I neither feel the need to buy them nor do I have a problem waiting for GOTY editions that come with all the DLC.

3. BS divisions: casuals v. "hardcore", PC v. Console, Microsoft v. Sony v. Nintendo - it is all completely pointless and leads to unnecessary strife while covering up real issues like the crap Microsoft tried to pull earlier in the Xbone release cycle.

 

[NintendoCosmos]

The reason Nintendo has revived Bayonetta 2 is because no other publisher would buy the rights. So Nintendo bought the rights to the game. that's like microsoft getting the rights to Banjo & Kazooie and Conker, Nintendo didn't buy Rareware, So Microsoft bought them.

 

[Damien Lee]

Gaming seriously started to suck around the 7th generation. The minute they started turning consoles into PCs, console gaming has just been going downhill. Nintendo have sort of escaped this by not losing touch of how a console should be like. DLC, patches and hard drive installations are all ruining gaming. Console gaming peaked around the 32-bit and Dreamcast/PS2 eras, it was a great time to be a gamer. That's why I'm an ardent retro gamer and don't get terribly excited about the latest consoles.

 

[GunGunW]

Good question. I guess unethical business practices, and it's not just EA; Capcom, Konami, and Ubisoft are offenders as well.

I'm in the middle on DLC. I don't think it's a bad thing at all, and even early DLC can be fine as long as it's not overpriced and something they could have easily put in the game. For example, the From Ashes DLC pack was not only a day one DLC pack but it costed ten dollars and it's definitely something that should have been included in the game and you can even tell it was something that may have been a part of the main game because unlike Kasumi and Zaeed from Mass Effect 2, Javik just feels like a natural part of the game. Luckily for that, my two copies of Mass Effect 3 came included with it. Anyway, I think the reason for DLC is that games cost way too much to make and to make a profit a lot of times publishers have to have a lot of DLC to make up for the games only being sixty dollars. That's not to say it's not ever just out of greed, or that it doesn't stink, but I can understand to an extent.

Another thing is the console wars can be really terrible. I wasn't really around during the time of Super Nintendo vs. Genesis but from what I see all over the internet I don't think it was as bad as Xbox vs. PlayStation. Then again, the internet has many problems in of itself.

My last thought is that the worst thing to happen to gaming is that we all grew up. Now that we're adults, we're more likely to take issue with things a lot more than when we were just kids and enjoyed everything.

 

[Y0shiM0n]

The worst thing that could EVER happen to gaming is that Nintendo closes down. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!