15. Pre-order Incentives
In order to convince more gamers to pre-order their games ahead of time, retailers such as Gamestop began offering pre-order incentives, and the practice has continued to be implemented to this day. These incentives tend to be things like extra missions, weapons, or costumes. While there are some perks to offering such content, this practice is annoying because of the way it segregates content between gamers.
Mortal Kombat 2011 is a great example of this. Depending on what retailer you preorder it at, you’d get an extra costume and fatality for a certain character. Those who preordered at Gamestop got the original Scorpion costume and fatality, while those who preordered at Best Buy got the original Sub-Zero costume and fatality. And those who preordered at Amazon got the original Reptile costume and fatality. There were more, but I can’t be bothered to remember. There was so much preorder content that people actually started auctioning them off on Ebay to those fans who wanted them all.
I, and many others, complain about this practice because certain gamers are being denied content based on who they purchase the game from. It makes the simple act of buying a video game a game itself where you have to actually give thought to who you want to give your money to. It may be a somewhat trivial thing to complain about, but it is without a doubt an annoyance.
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10 Comments
i aggre compleatly but you forgot on thing bugs ps2 never came accross a bug in my life first ps3 game i played i came accros a bug that got me traped in a wall
You know what? I would rather play a Sega Mega Drive all day long with games such as Sonic, Flicky and Golden Axe than Xbox 360 and PS3.
Games back then were FUN!!!!! That’s all they cared about, not graphics, story etc, just for players to have fun.
Now it tries too hard on online, graphics, story, characters, voice acting, trophies, modes etc,
I play games for fun, I never get frustrated playing Streets of Rage yet I get pissed off playing Call of Duty.
So I agree with your article
Liam, there seems to be a bug with your PC where all punctuation is erased, probably need a patch.
Seriously though, achievements are one of my biggest bugbears that everyone else seems to love. They just attempt to arbitrarily increase the lifespan of a game through repetitive, mundane tasks. Collecting 100 feathers in AC2? No thanks, got better things to do. Like getting into my games backlog.
I know someone who has got the level 100 on GOW3, taken a year. That game is not good enough to justify a years play.
Great article. While some of your points don’t bother me as much, I REALLY agree with you on some others. The splitscreen multiplayer is an aspect I truly miss. A lot of my best memories of videogaming was me and friends yelling at each other while playing a splitscreen game. Companies seem to think that gamers refuse to leave their house to play games with each other. Now we are stuck getting yelled at by foul mouthed 10 year olds who do nothing BUT play these games online.
I think achievements and trophies are nice because, for some, it adds that extra replay-ability that most games would not have otherwise. Games are still fun today, and you’re supposed to play games for what they are intended. To escape the stresses of everyday life and have fun. Having engaging stories and stunning graphics is awesome and helps that fact. Online gaming is also a great addition, adding competitive gaming to the next level and also adding the fun of not having someone screen hopping. But it also adds the extra anonymity but those people are easily block-able/mutable in-game. One bad thing about Call of Duty is it’s become a Madden. Release a new one every year with a tweaked mechanic and engine. But hey, it’s a business, and it makes money. Plus, as repetitive as it is, playing games with friends is always fun. Digital distribution is awesome, specially with steam. I can buy a game and have it there forever rather than worrying about the safe keeping and organization of discs. Some people are physical people, and have to have something tangible, that’s okay, but with digital downloads, I can also game when I’m traveling. Again, not having to worry about discs getting scratched, etc. I agree with you however on motion controls. While they seem like a good idea, they aren’t very practical when I get bored of standing and just flick my wrist and accomplish the same thing as running in place. While game prices are still soaring, you see these indie developers release games and make it all the time. Look at Borderlands. Game companies aren’t losing money, they are just getting greedy. You can play any game casually. By this maybe you mean the mobile gaming craze, or web gaming. To each their own I say. People like it, why are you condemning them for playing a game? While I don’t agree on taking away used games, I do agree on how the companies feel about it.. They make significantly less from a game when it gets sold used rather than brand new, which is why the whole key to play online came to play. So companies can still make the money they deserve. As far as the internet connection goes to play, the companies, like Ubisoft, have taken away this functionality all together and are funding other ways to prevent piracy. I enjoyed your article, but it just seems like a lot of these are just you having a single bad experience. Gaming is still fun today as it was then. It’s all about quality of time, if you don’t like a game don’t play it.
A rare beast, a WhatCulture list I agree with entirely, particularly regarding split screen gaming. I have no interest in playing against thousands of spotty little geeks in their parents basements who take the whole thing too seriously and haven’t learned how to communicate with wider society, I want to play against my FRIENDS!
Games like Mario Kart, Goldeneye, Fifa, Worms, Street Fighter, Streets of Rage etc etc etc, are what local multiplayer is all about, and WAY too rare these days.
Spot on with the article! Almost everything is right there. I want to be able to play my SP games, I PAID for, privately without worrying how long it will be before it`s whipped away from me.
I ABSOLUTELY agree on all points. Especially the DLC one.
Why should I pay for something extra when it should have been in the game from start?
These rotting pests of capitalistic bastards, like EA, need a violent convincing in my opinion.
I agree with everything. There are still some decent games every year, but its becoming rare to find a new really good game, especially with all the review websites like IGN praising games like CoD with scores like 9/10.
I don’t think it’s gonna change anymore, the new generation is taking over, they only know these dumbed down games and are blindly following it and giving the companies money to continue with it.
This is the truest thing I have read since ever, I miss the days where playing a game required you to think and had awesome music and it was fun, Back then my parents used to say games are for kids, I used to fire back saying If I’m happy playing them and its not harming anyone leave me alone but the thing is, TODAY’S GAMES LITERALLY ARE FOR KIDS, I swear I have almost every emulator on the planet on my desktop computer just so I can play the old classics such as Sonic, Mario, Those old wrestling games etc because I am absolutely disgusted with the direction modern gaming has gone
RIP good games 1980 – 2005, Go to hell modern gen.