10 Gaming Cliches You Couldn't Live Without
5. Every Game Is Now An RPG
The Cliche: The last decade has seen a major increase in the focus on stats and incremental rewards, largely due to the success of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which introduced leveling up and an RPG-like progression system to the FPS genre.
Since then it's been adopted by almost every genre going, including racing, platformers and even sports games. It's all about keeping the player engaged by encouraging them to keep playing: every action is working towards another medal, rank or item unlock.
Why It's Awesome: Yes, it may be carrot-and-stick gaming at its finest, but there's a reason why it's been so ludicrously successful even while proving highly unimaginative: people like to feel like they're making good use of their time, and incessant stat-tracking basically takes care of that.