Falling from Grace

I’ve been playing video games since I was around 5 years old, and I can still recall with vivid clarity all the great new and original games that were coming out in the first decade of the 21st Century. Granted, I was young, and possessed no critical thinking skills to speak of, however it’s now with the power of hindsight (and being much older and wiser), that I’m able to look back and visualize how gaming has fallen from grace, especially over the last decade.

As you can probably tell from the title, insatiable greed on the part of developers and publishers plays a huge part in this tragedy. However, greed is manifested in many different forms, and in this post, I’m going to briefly take you through just a few of them.

Bug-Riddled and Barely Functional

Just a cursory glance at games released in recent years should tell you that something isn’t right. From Mass Effect: Andromeda to Cyberpunk 2077, and to the monument to all our sins that was the Master Chief Collection, it’s become crystal clear that developers simply don’t care about releasing working, fully functioning products.

This is a nefarious mindset that has developed alongside the rise of digital distribution. If a company can release a busted product now and fix it later, then why should they care — especially if they’re in line to make a ton of cash, like in the case of CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077? Back in my day, this wasn’t the case, and developers would sacrifice their own health to ensure their fans got the highest quality product possible.

Flashback to 2004 and ask Bungie during Halo 2’s nightmarish 10-month development if they would have liked to release what they had now, and fix all the issues later. For better or for worse, Bungie didn’t have that option at the time, so they were forced to make the best product they possibly could in the time they had. The result was Halo 2, a game that while undeniably flawed in some areas, is widely thought to be one of the greatest games of all time.

An Obsession with Remakes and Remasters

Recently it feels like developers aren’t capable, or more likely, aren’t willing to do anything but sell you their old games with a new shiny coat of paint.

Remakes and remasters are certainly not always a bad thing, and they can do wonders for a game’s accessibility by updating it for modern hardware. Halo 2, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, and even SpongeBob, among others, all received remasters that are generally considered to be fantastic. Just to be clear, I consider a good remaster or remake to be one that keeps the spirit of the original intact while having a slick modern look and feel. This is not easy to do, and it’s partly why plenty of these remakes and remasters are pathetically bad. The other reason is laziness mixed with a healthy dose of greed.

What’s happening is that developers seem keen to sell you their old games, some (like the ones displayed here) that are nearly identical to their original versions, instead of actually making new ones.

Complacency

Will Bethesda ever stop releasing Skyrim? Will Rockstar ever make Grand Theft Auto VI? These are valid questions, seeing as both of companies have gained notoriety for simply refusing to leave their nearly decade-old games (Skyrim actually IS a decade old) in the past, and move on to new things.

As much as it might be slightly hard to admit, we as consumers have to acknowledge our roles in this complacency that has festered within the biggest names in the industry. As Todd Howard, director of Bethesda Softworks, said in an interview with gamesindustry.biz, just stop buying this trash and they’ll stop releasing it. We as consumers are absolutely enablers for this type of behavior.

Kyle Michaud

Kyle is an aspiring writer at Algonquin College’s Professional Writing Program. Bad (but great) at Halo, comedian, and plays guitar sometimes.