TinyPenguininja

A Rant About Video Games

I hate the state that the video games industry is in now. When I first started playing video games, a lot of them were made by 20 (or frequently much less) friends who just had a great idea and wanted to get it out there. The popularity of a game was usually based on how creative or unique it was. Now video game companies are massive machines jus pumping out shitty game after shitty game, and instead of marketing to the people who enjoy video games and want a fresh, new experience, they just put a fresh coat of paint on a game that sold millions of copies, because they know every kid with a console is going to have their parents buy it for them.

Psychonauts, a one-of-a-kind and very original game, has sold only 400,000 copies as of the beginning of this year. Modern Warfare 3, however, sold around 7,000,000 copies within it’s first day of release, despite being a copy of Modern Warfare 2 (Which was a copy of Modern Warfare). The best part? It has a campaign that is only a few hours long. I had a friend come over and beat the whole game in one sitting.

With success like this, companies are just churning out the same games over and over and over, and with a fresh coat of paint and a huge ad campaign manage to break sales records time and time again. It seems like the only games worth buying anymore are an ever-decreasing amount of big name titles and game from indie developers, the latter because these companies/developers usually consist of a small team of people with a clear vision and a great idea that they just want to get out there.

When I was at E3 last year, I had a guy tell me that indie games were killing the industry, but I’ve since realized that the industry died a few years ago. Games like Penumbra and companies like the folks at Humble Bundle are the ones trying to revive it while companies like EA and the mountains of best-selling shovelware dead check it time and time again.