The next three months are going to be crazy for gaming this year. Gears of War 3, Call of Duty MW3, and Battlefield 3 are all coming out within 3 months of each other (Wow that’s a lot of 3’s!). While all of these games vary within their own genre, to me they seem to have 3 things in common that are currently ruining the gaming industry. All of them are violent and cater the 16 year old side of us, they’re all sequels, and they all come out in a yearly cycle at around the same time. I’m spending crazy amounts of money on these games. If the current behavior aforementioned begins to spread to other game franchises than the gaming industry is going to die for sure or at least on consoles. Who wants to play rehashed games for the rest of their lives? These games have turned me off more than ever from console gaming and are making me want to play PC games with a little more variety than gun porn.
Gears of War has always been a violent game. It has always touted its violence with pride. Beefy muscular guys blowing the crap out of each other are an easy way to sell violence. Battlefiled has violence with a realistic twist, so you can have fun fragging your friends by blowing up the buildings around them or while in vehicles. Call of Duy is an arcade’y twist filled with plenty of guns, perks, attachments, leveling, and violence. The best frags are given to those with the best build and skill. Highly addictive and probably what all of your friends are going to be playing this year.
Violence is catering to the younger side in all of us. It is extremely effective. I want to go play some Call of Duty right now, and even though I realize I’m playing into their hand, I can’t stop. All my friends are going to be paying it, all of your friends will, it’s a vicious cycle. The kicker is that once I buy Call of Duty, the map packs, and now the subscription fee, I’m going to be so in the red I don’t know if I will be able to buy any of the new video games that I want to play. THIS is why i think its ruining the gaming industry. People usually can’t go and spend $500, so most will settle with Call of Duty, and keep feeding the beast year, after year, after year.
Thanks for reading, but before you leave angry comments about how I’m a Battlefield of Gears of War fan boy, I just want to say they are just as bad, but are not as heavy offenders as Call of Duty.
Below we have a discussion that me and some of my friends had about the topic of this article. Please give it a listen. If you like what you hear, than please go subscribe, and watch our videos.
[embed:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGnrNTutSps ]