The Quality of Modern Gaming (SPOILER: Its Not So Great)

I grew up during the big boom of the home consoles. Arcades were getting the ax and a flower peddle covered carpet was being laid out for the heavy hitters like Sega and Nintendo. This generation of games hold some of our finest memories of the medium... and some of our worst. It is no secret that terrible games have existed since the Atari 2600. It isn't a perfect entertainment medium of course and the industry is prone to fall victim to the same idiocy of poor film production. "Shovelware" is not a new thing, but it seems in recent years that is becoming more and more prevalent.

A large majority of the games put out annually are what I would call "shovelware". Not the traditional definition of the word: Shovelware is a derogatory computer jargon term that refers to software noted more for the quantity of what is included than for the quality or usefulness.

When I say shovelware I mean really crappy games. Crappy games are usually created due to:

A. The developers are not being given the funds or time necessary to complete the game
B. Sticking with what "works" rather than what's unique (FPS's have an enormous problem with this... but we'll get to that in another blog)
C. Gimmicks meant to sell the game (Poor Wii)
D. Idiots made the game (I.E. Sonicteam...)

These days the western market is dominated by the developer gobbling EA who has bought out an enormous number of Western game devs in the last decade... this is a very very bad thing for gamers. Like any giant corporation EA is out to make money... now I can't hate a business because it intends to do what businesses are meant to do... that would be preposterous. I dislike EA not because of they greedy ways and their terrible handling of developers they own but because of the inadvertent effect it has on the industry's climate.
When every developer is owned by the same company the games are going to start looking like the same thing... over and over and over again. They are a business lead by businessmen... they do what works. In this case it takes advantage of the naivety and stupidity of the average gamer and keeps the industry from innovating and developing the way it should.

Well now that A and B are more or less covered I'll go right on ahead and jump into C. The Nintendo Wii... its been said many times by those who would refer to themselves as "hardcore gamers" as a toy for children. This is not the case. Nintendo has a brilliant marketing strategy and if anything they are doing wonders for the industry by introducing new people to gaming with easy to understand and interactive games. I myself do play any of these because I am already a gamer but its existence is a good thing. Now by the same token this shouldn't give Nintendo or its developers the excuse to make crappy games that rely on shaking a motion sensor controller around like an idiot. This fun little device is not a crutch in which you can milk the stupid masses for their sweet money... this embarrasses everyone that owns the Wii.And as for D... well EA has been know to ax good developers due to under performance by their insane standards. This is a sad trend recently and it makes me wonder how on Earth developers like Sonicteam are still around who has been embarrassing themselves and Sega for over a decade with their awful games. Please guys... juts cut it out.

Anyway guess I'm done for now. I'll whine about the First person Shooter epidemic and my next entry.

Peace.