9. Remember, Developers Only Really Care About Your Money
When a developer makes a great game, it's easy to grow loyal to them and lap up pretty much anything they release, but never forget that, above all else, they're a business, and they don't really care about your enjoyment: they want your money at all costs. Now, we're not being cynical enough to say that developers don't want you to have fun, because their ideal is to print money and bring joy to millions, but it's always healthy to approach new titles with a degree of skepticism, because time and time again, developers have proven that they'll promote a game to be one thing, and the end result might be something else. Take Watch Dogs, shown off at E3 2012 with incredible graphics that suggested a game-changing sci-fi actioner. The end result? An enjoyable if repetitive title with downgraded graphics. And what about Destiny? An epic MMO shooter combining Halo with World of Warcraft, which actually turned out to be a relatively unimaginative, woefully repetitive shoot 'em up. After all, if integrity took precedent over money, we probably wouldn't have had the insulting 70-minute glorified demo that was Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. Sure, the price was "only" £25, but for such a short game (even if the extra missions brought it up to about 3 hours of play), it still reeks of a lame cash grab, as though The Phantom Pain won't already make Hideo Kojima a truckload of money. What we're saying is this: there's nothing wrong with having a favourite game developer, but just don't expect them to conjure miracles or do it for the sheer pleasure: if something doesn't make business sense, it won't happen, and if they can milk your wallet, most of them will (especially if they're in bed with EA).