I’m sure for many of you who click on this article and are thinking, “Oh God, what does this unc of the gaming world want to say is wrong with modern gaming?”. Or others will probably think that this is some boomer who grew up playing Tetris and Space Invaders here to have a moan about why he hates modern games.
Well, sorry to disappoint some of you, but I am only 28 years old, and I live near the bright lights of glitzy London.
Now that I have got the formalities out of the way, I will be highlighting the four major reasons why I think modern gaming is so much worse than when I was growing up on the likes of the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360.
The Death of the High Street Game Shop
This might show my age a little bit as my first real memories of heading into my local game store was a Gamestation shop that was almost across the road from primary school. Every Friday after school, my mum would take me and £3 pocket money, and I would pick a game to rent for the weekend.
Yes, this concept is almost like the Blockbuster for games, but it was one of the best parts of my week as I could either pick up the game that I started the week before or I could try something new. For a period of a couple of months, I think, it would almost always be The Simpsons: Hit & Run, but it did get me to try games I would never have tried before.
This makes it sound like I never bought a game myself, when actuality, every birthday or Christmas I would get the next Pro Evolution Soccer, or one year I was lucky enough to get a Tekken game, even though I was way too young (thanks to the spin I gave my parents that it was a martial arts game). It was the act of going into that Gamestation near primary school or the one in the heart of Enfield Town (name drop-if you know, you know), or if I couldn’t find what I wanted there, going to the Game inside our, even then, bleak shopping precinct and getting the latest release.
This act became even more fun when I got the Xbox 360, and my pocket money had increased from £3 to £10 a week. I will never forget the excitement I had when I bought Batman: Arkham City on release from my local Game and reading every inch of the box and manual on the bus ride home.
Even as I got older and went to University up in Derby (Derbados), my friends and I would still go to the Game in town and pick up a release that we were all excited to play.
Now, even though I am still an advocate for physical media, my only option for getting something on release is taking a punt that the Game, which is now inside a Sports Direct in town, might stock a new release (more often than not, it doesn’t), or I would travel about 10 miles down the road to an HMV of all places that also stocks the bigger releases.
I can still get my fix for getting physical media by ordering from Amazon or sites like The Game Collection or ShopTo, but then it relies on the rather unreliable Royal Mail to deliver, which can be any time from 10:00 AM to around 7:00 PM. This means that the days of taking a day off from work to play something I have been dying to play are pretty much gone as there’s no point in doing that if the game doesn’t arrive until dinner time.
Digital Downturn
Speaking of physical media, when did the world become obsessed with downloading everything? Even when you do buy the physical disc, you have to wait between 10-30 minutes as the content on the disc is downloaded to your console of choice.
Back in the days of the Xbox 360, you bought a game, took it home, placed the disc in and boom, you were away. At worst, you would have an update that would take a minute or two, depending on connection speed, and that’s it.
Even in the media, there was a period where journalists such as myself were sent copies of new games with maybe a little something extra as a thank you from the developer/publisher. Now, all we receive are digital codes. While I am forever grateful for any game I am reviewing, it does take away from the fun of opening that press pack.
I do get it, by pushing users to a more digital experience, it reduces the carbon footprint, it saves on packaging, etc., etc. However, if we move to a solely digital way of playing games, then we essentially allow Sony or Microsoft or whoever to charge us what they like for games, and we have to pay it.
Let me give you an example of the illogical nature of physical v.s. digital media. Resident Evil Requiem on the PS5, which came out on both physical and digital storefronts on 28th February. You can pick up a brand-new copy for around £58-60, depending on your shop of choice. For that, you get a nice box, the disc and maybe if you’re lucky, the shop offers the pre-order bonus anyway. Now, when you log onto the PS Store, it costs £64.99, and for that, you get just the game downloaded to your console, and that is it. Why, for arguably less tangible assets, are you paying £5 more? Is it convenient that you don’t have to go to a shop or wait for the postman? Also, with the physical copy, you have the opportunity to take it to your local CEX or sell it online and recoup some of the money you spent once you complete it, something that is not possible with the PS Store version.
Shipping Incomplete
One of, I think, the biggest pet peeves of modern gaming is that developers are releasing games that are just not finished in order to meet deadlines.
How many times will you download the latest release and see a massive day-one patch added to the download queue? In any other job, this would not be acceptable or even possible. As a journalist, I can’t exactly upload a separate file to fix spelling errors or grammatical errors to a piece of work, so why do we allow developers to do just that?
Before the Xbox 360/PS3 era, developers sent their games off with bugs and glitches included. This led to some of the best moments as you can see where a line of code went wrong, causing something to be impossibly hard or easy. Infamously in the 360 era, Aliens: Colonial Marines had a one-letter typo in its code, which led the AI being incredibly braindead, and when it was fixed, it actually made the game playable.
Now, we live in an era where there is a new update every 3-4 weeks for the bigger games, which could radically change how they play. The best examples are in EAFC titles. Every so often, EA releases a patch that changes how the game functions, and the community is always up in arms as it changes the meta of the game.
Midnight Mayhem
Lastly, and this possibly the weakest point, but I think it needs saying. I miss the hype of a midnight release. I think the last one I went to was at the Game inside the Intu shopping centre in Derby for Red Dead Redemption II. I remember it was the usual Thursday night curry club at The Standing Order, then onto Game in Town from about 10:00 PM.
The line was long, the shopping centre empty, but we were all there for one reason only, and that was to pick up a copy as soon as humanely possible. The walk back to our respective student houses was full of chat about what we expected from the game or the first thing we will try. Yes, the fun of waiting for that glacial Virgin Media internet to download the game was horrendous, but playing the game at around 2:00 AM was a joy, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
While I did not get to do the major midnight releases of the 2000s, like Halo 3 or Modern Warfare 2 (2009), it seemed a way for people to bond with complete strangers over a shared interest that just doesn’t happen anymore.
Modern gaming is brilliant for a number of reasons, with some incredible indie titles, graphics and gameplay being better than ever, but there are reasons to have some scepticism, as outlined in this mild rant feature.
Just remember to support physical media, keep holding developers accountable for unfinished games, and maybe one day we will see the resurgence of the high street game shop and the return of those fabled midnight release lines full of laughs and heart.
