3. Homogenization
Remember when I talked about how
Call of Duty has negatively influenced not only the games of its genre, but others outside of it? Well, this can be applied to the entirety of the video game industry. As publishers continue to have more control over the development of video games, they look at the success of
Call of Duty and want to replicate that success. How do they go about doing this? By making every game the same of course! The video game industry is slowly being homogenized in its attempt to remain safe and familiar. There are many current examples of this. I remember playing the original
Dead Space, and it was a dark, claustrophobic survival horror game. Moving on to
Dead Space 2, I could see how it increased the action quota, but it still retained the feel of dread of the original. By the time I saw the demo of
Dead Space 3, it was abundantly clear that EA wished to appeal to a broader demographic, and to do this, they of course had to make it more
Call of Duty-esque, upping the explosion quota and implementing a partner system, ala
Resident Evil 5 and
6. Speaking of
Resident Evil, that too has been transformed in its attempt to appeal beyond the fans of survival horror. Even
Splinter Cell, which started out as a stealth game, became more straight forward with
Splinter Cell: Conviction. Publishers dont want to take risks, especially when, as previously mentioned, they spend so much money on games. Modern gaming, at least among the big franchises and their publishers, is almost exclusively comprised of action and explosions in order to attract as broad an audience as possible, and its a shame.