Friday, March 29, 2024

7 Sins of Modern Video Game Design

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There is no doubt that gaming has evolved with technology.

The accessibility of games has caused a massive shift in the gaming industry, with revenues rising higher each year. Currently, the global PC gaming market is around $37 billion, the mobile gaming industry is estimated at around $77 billion, and with 112 million PS4 being sold in 2020 alone, even with shouts for a PS5. Surely, gaming has evolved but with all the benefits of technological evolution, do modern games are really better than the older games?

With the growth of gaming technology, so have many flaws arisen. These flaws or bugs can frustrate your gaming experience. In this post, we will examine the greatest sins of modern video games.

Modern Games vs Old Games: The Difference in Virtue.

Honestly, we don’t think there is a clear answer to which is better. While we won’t give a straight answer as we don’t feel we have the right, we will list the differences between new and old games. Some of the differences are;

Graphics. The modern game graphics use computer-generated imagery that is more cinematic, unlike the 8-bit graphics of old games, which allowed us to use our imagination more. Interestingly though, these new life-like graphics contribute to the increase of bugs.

Plot and Story Telling. With the advanced graphics, game storytelling has become more immersive and, even in some cases, better than movies. Red Dead Redemption comes to mind. For the older games, the storytelling was achieved by level design. You learned about the game world by exploring it.

Ease of Play. Of course, games of all time present a wide range of challenges to the player. This is the point of gaming after all. The difference though, that now you can save your game at any given moment. While in older games death meant that you had to restart the playthrough from the very beginning.

Accessibility. Undoubtedly, there isn’t much difference. Then and now, video games are costly, and they will be costlier with the improvement of technology.

As we said, there is no clear answer, but the underlying virtue of entertainment, immersion and the concept of challenging gamers is still present both in old and new games. 

The 7 Sins of Modern Video Game Design.

  1. The Sin of Hollywood

Modern games have gotten the Hollywood fever. They strive for perfection so much that they want everything to be like a movie. Game designers are now competing with the creatives at Hollywood by providing more cinematic experience in the game through cut scenes. Now, you might spend the first 10 minutes of the game watching a film about the game. The movie part makes the games much more impressive. But you can’t deny that the efforts to create it could’ve been spent on better gameplay and level design.

  •  The Sin of Copypasta

New games come out every month. But they are not entirely “new”. You see, it is much safer to copy and embellish someone else’s work rather than risk promoting a new idea. Big companies can’t afford to take risks. It threatens them with income loss, reputation damage, and so on. That’s why we observe constant produce of similar-looking games that deviate only a bit from the original concept. If you look more carefully at the history of these concepts you will find a peculiar thing. It was the enthusiasts with no budget who created the most innovative game conceptions, like Minecraft or DotA. They simply wanted to make a new game that will be interesting to play.

  • The Sin of Sloth

Lazy level design is a trademark of today’s game development. Such games like Dark Souls 1 had their story driven almost entirely by environmental storytelling. And in this aspect, it might belong more to older types of games that challenged you with its level design. While today millions are spent to make a pretty picture and effects. Modern games feel more like a rollercoaster than a playground. It has less creativity and more show. Fewer things to do and more things to look at.

  • The Sin of Greed: The Sequel Race

Game designers have taken their competition with Hollywood to the next level. They now make the same game all over again without much change in the gaming mechanics. The older generation saw a new game in the series only after a considerable technological advancement. Take, for example, the Half-Life series. Today, game devs don’t do much thinking on the sequel. They don’t improve the gameplay or give you new stuff. Instead of having different exciting games to play, you play the same type of game over and over again. In the name of a new number near the game’s title.

  • The Sin of Simplicity

This sin concerns not only modern video games but also other media, like movies and literature. The stories we are told are simply too blank. Why did Tanos decimate the universe? Why did the Harbingers in Mass Effect do the same? To make everyone happier by killing them? You see, the developers simply fail to elaborate on a complex matter. Consider the story of The Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind. The false gods are ruling a nation with failing power while their ancient foe is coming back to tell the player that not everything in life is black and white. The fans are still having philosophical debates over the subject of this plotline. While modern stories feel more like an excuse for more explosions and drama than something that can feed your mind.

  • The Sin of Hastiness

Again, developers strive to hit certain marketing goals by spitting new game titles as soon as possible. In many cases that means releasing an unfinished product ripe with glitches. Yes, some companies make sure to follow up with patches and apologies. But the trend is clear nowadays, we get a half-baked game that can ruin our gaming experience. While at the same time we are expected to pay a full price for it.

  • The Sin of Handholding

There were once games that weren’t afraid of giving you a meaningful choice. Your actions could’ve dramatically changed the way of the main plotline. Today we don’t usually see this. The same reason – money and practicality – prevent game developers from doing additional chunks of content that could be optional and avoided by the player. Why spend resources on something that the player can choose to not even see? Well, there are reasons. When you follow a straight path you can’t help but notice that you don’t relate to the actions of your protagonist. No matter how effective they are.

Conclusion

So, here you go. The seven sins of modern video game design. Of course, these points are very subjective. But we hope they’ll inspire you to come up with your own answers and ideas for the evolution of video game design. Maybe you will be the one who’ll give us the seven virtues of modern video games!

Bio line:

Leon Collier is a blogger and academic writer from the UK. Leon has vast experience working with write my dissertation enthusiasts. He loves to take on every challenge thrown at him and has the ability to deliver outstanding work regularly. When he’s not busy writing, he loves reading books and playing tabletop games with his friends. Follow him on Twitter @LeonCollier12.

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