10 Annoying Things That Are Ruining Video Games

by Robert Zak

1. Gamers

Say what you want about the tantalising advertising of games and how it's brainwashing us, bad habits in the games industry are allowed to continue because we keep buying the games that perpetuate them in the first place. Far more of us will complain about rather than compliment each Assassin's Creed, but as soon as we get a whiff that the next one will take place in Egypt, or Japan, or just down the road from where we live, we jump straight onboard again, because it's 'such a cool concept'.

We're seeing the same thing at this very moment with Far Cry Primal - the same old formula reskinned, stripped back, put in a pretty prehistoric package, and regurgitated back onto the market. And we buy into it.

Both on a small and large scale, us gamers are a vocal but mostly inactive demographic. When is the last time gamers got together to make a public boycott of a games company for bad practices? Will we make Konami suffer for their office malpractices, take a stand against Ubisoft's rinse-and-repeat game formulas, or against EA and Activision for spamming us with DLC and micro-transaction adverts in games we've already bought? Square Enix's recent u-turn on its cunning pre-order scheme for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and Microsoft's reversal on, erm, everything about the Xbox One shows that publishers will listen if we get mad enough. We just need to do it more coherently.

Now, excuse me as I go play Far Cry Primal. I heard it lets you ride mammoths instead of elephants...

What are the biggest gripes about the industry that really need to be aired more openly? Let us know in the comments!

Contributor
Contributor

Gamer, Researcher of strange things. I'm a writer-editor hybrid whose writings on video games, technology and movies can be found across the internet. I've even ventured into the realm of current affairs on occasion but, unable to face reality, have retreated into expatiating on things on screens instead.