One look at my entertainment center or my favorites in Firefox reveals that I am in love with video games. It’s really not that hard to hide. On top of being in love with the games themselves, though, I am also madly in love with the culture of gaming and the history behind it.
Looking forward to the future, I continually fall in love with this lifestyle even more. However, there are a few trends that are starting to emerge that I am simply not a fan of. While these ultimately won’t break gaming, they are definitely detrimental to the overall community. Here are 5 things that are currently wrong with the video game industry.
Continue reading 5 Things Hurting the Video Game Industry
With Nintendo currently dominating the console (and video game) market as a whole, it becomes no surprise that others, namely Microsoft and Sony, would want to follow suit. I mean, who’s not interested in making money hand over fist the way Nintendo is?
I’m a big fan of video game wallpapers. Really, I am. You should see the folder I’ve got, mostly full of some sweet MGS, Zelda, Halo, CSS and Mario backgrounds that I’ve got on my desktop. I rotate through these pretty regularly, and there’s nothing like painting your PC wallpaper with nostalgia-inducing pictures.
I know we’ve had a feature on this before, but yesterday I went on a wild video game binge. I pretty much spent the whole day playing either Call of Duty: World at War or Civilization Revolution. It’s been some time since I’ve done this, and man, is it ever relaxing. 
Yes. I’m going on the record. I’m apologizing to Treyarch. You see for the last year or so I’ve been on the bandwagon that Call of Duty: World at War wasn’t going to be very good, because it was made by Treyarch, and it was going to be set in World War II. I loved Call of Duty 4, so any departure from that game seemed to me to be a bad idea.
Well, talk about a bummer. While we’ve already lamented at the numerous (and now almost comical) delays of many high profile Japanese developers, it seems that more are in store for Square Enix. 
Really, Nintendo? I’m starting to get suspicious. Either you’re lacing your consoles with crack, or it’s full of hidden money, or maybe the Wii really is more than a fad. Whatever the case, the Big N is still smoking the competition month after month, and at this point it’s just getting shameful.
I heart me some Bioware, it’s official. Their new game Dragon Age: Origins is slated for later on in 2009, and I couldn’t be more excited about the awesome fantasy potential in the game. These are guys are master storytellers, and it seems like they’re ramping up to give us quite a treat.
Killzone 2 is coming out later this month, as many gamers are no doubt aware of. Reviews are already starting to pour in, most of them overwhelmingly positive, which is exciting for me, as I own a PS3. However, what is not as exciting to me is some of the rabid fanboyism that it is inspiring amongst the gaming populace, either for it or against it. 
As a storytelling medium, there is no doubt that gaming has come a long way. From the early years of navigating pixelated plumbers on to the revolutionary cut scenes of the late 90’s and finally to the high definition narratives of today, gaming is truly growing up in more ways than one. 
Wow. I am continually impressed with Valve. They bitch slap the competition when it comes to releasing great content digitally, and releasing quality content in general. And now, they have bitch slapped Microsoft’s “paid DLC no matter what” stance as well. 
If you weren’t aware, these fair United States are in a bit of an economic crunch at the moment. Heck, the whole world is, really. As a result, we’re seeing news of lay-offs and downsizing happening in nearly every industry, and unfortunately, video games have suffered their own casualties.