What's your pet peeve of each generation

[soera]

I think the gimmicks are getting old. This generation was the motion control. I assumed it would be a couple of games but basically every game on the Wii and then Sony/Microshaft jumped on the boat with move/kinect.

Gamers want ... games. Most gamers dont want to stand up and dance.

[htimreimer]

if stuff like this continues in the 8th we will see another crash

If anything leads to another crash, it's going to be the fact that game budgets are getting bigger and bigger, thus publishers are less likely to try something creative.  We've been seeing games become more and more 'safe' this past generation and there's less things to differentiate one game from another.  Big franchises will be like COD, just cranking out yearly sequels to the point where people just stop caring anymore.

Devs and publishers seem to be dropping left and right recently (THQ, Atari, Atlus, etc.), so we're heading for a future where everything is going to be made by EA, Activision and Ubisoft.

and what you said there is just one of the many things  that is making another crash in the industry more of a reality
also is just me or is this gaming on smartphones and smartphones platforms sounding more and more like this generations pong console

[haloofthesun]

if stuff like this continues in the 8th we will see another crash

If anything leads to another crash, it's going to be the fact that game budgets are getting bigger and bigger, thus publishers are less likely to try something creative.  We've been seeing games become more and more 'safe' this past generation and there's less things to differentiate one game from another.  Big franchises will be like COD, just cranking out yearly sequels to the point where people just stop caring anymore.

Devs and publishers seem to be dropping left and right recently (THQ, Atari, Atlus, etc.), so we're heading for a future where everything is going to be made by EA, Activision and Ubisoft.

Also games with huge budgets are becoming no longer profitable. It's silly when a game sells millions of copies but is considered a failure by the publisher because they spent so much money on it that it's impossible for them to make any money back. Publishers like EA are a HUGE reason that 7th and 8th generation has been increasingly bad.

(And just to clear up, Atlus didn't really go under like the others, their parent company did. They will be bought on Sunday)

[burningdoom]

if stuff like this continues in the 8th we will see another crash

If anything leads to another crash, it's going to be the fact that game budgets are getting bigger and bigger, thus publishers are less likely to try something creative.  We've been seeing games become more and more 'safe' this past generation and there's less things to differentiate one game from another.  Big franchises will be like COD, just cranking out yearly sequels to the point where people just stop caring anymore.

Devs and publishers seem to be dropping left and right recently (THQ, Atari, Atlus, etc.), so we're heading for a future where everything is going to be made by EA, Activision and Ubisoft.

Nah. We gaming collectors may not be exactly happy with the way the gaming industry is going. But your typtical "bro" gamer and casual gamers will give the industry plenty of their money to keep it afloat and heading in a direction we don't like.

[blipcs76]

Really, if you sell over 3 million copies of your game and it's considered a failure, your game cost way too much to make.

The game industry needs to do what the film industry needs to do with M Night Shalyaman.  Strip away the big budgets and make them focus on the core of the product first and add visual bells and whistles later, if the product even needs them.

[soera]

(And just to clear up, Atlus didn't really go under like the others, their parent company did. They will be bought on Sunday)

Wonder who is going to pick it up. I think if Nintendo themselves get it, that would certainly help sell their systems with exclusive games. As long as they dont censor them all.

[haloofthesun]

Given that Nintendo donated money to Atlus' parent company recently and the very good relationship they have, and the fact that Etrian Odyssey: Millennium Girl and SMT X Fire Emblem are both being released in the "near" future, and the fact that Atlus says that them being sold isn't going to do anything to keep those games being made and being released as Nintendo exclusives, it seems Nintendo is far and away the most likely buyer. Other than that it will probably be a third party company. A lot of people are saying they think it will be Sony, but that seems like more wishful thinking than anything.

[insektmute]

Looking back, I don't have any huge, lingering gripes about past generations, other than disliking the N64 controller so much that it put me off Nintendo entirely for several years.

As for the current gen...
- Overreliance on stupid gimmicks.
- The non-stop circle-jerk over innovation.
- So-called "art games" and everyone associated with them.
- Launch DLC, overpriced DLC, excessive amounts of DLC, pre-order exclusive DLC... you get the idea.
- $59.99+ for new games... and they wonder why sales aren't higher during those crucial opening weeks???
- Oversaturation of the market. The "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach is doing lasting damage.
- PSN/XBLA-only games, especially in cases where Asia and Japan *did* receive a physical release.
- Microsoft's nickel and diming the living shit out of people, and massively overcharging for things like hard drive upgrades and USB ethernet adapters.
- Blind brand allegiance. As if Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo give a fuck about your adoration?
- Yearly sequels. I'd rather drop a series entirely than be treated like an ATM by corporate goons.

Unfortunately, I suspect that as time goes on, the douchebros and corporate execs have killed all that was once good. This coming gen looks good, but Microsoft in particular gave us a glimpse of things to come, and I am not optimistic about what I saw.

[soera]

- So-called "art games" and everyone associated with them.

Its about time someone else mentions this. I thought I was the only person alive who hated crap like Journey and Flower.

[sin2beta]

- So-called "art games" and everyone associated with them.

Its about time someone else mentions this. I thought I was the only person alive who hated crap like Journey and Flower.

Big Dumb Shooters are Better Than Art Games:

[insektmute]

- So-called "art games" and everyone associated with them.

Its about time someone else mentions this. I thought I was the only person alive who hated crap like Journey and Flower.

You should've heard my ranting when I saw a video awhile back with Jason Rohrer and John Romero. I still can't figure out what the fuck a guy who had never even shipped a game up to that point (and arguably still hasn't) was doing next to an industry legend.

I have a similar reaction when I see people talking smack about someone like Keiji Inafune, then turning around to praise some "art" game that doesn't even qualify as a game.

PS: I know Romero's a contentious figure in some circles, but you cannot dismiss the mountain of great contributions he's made to the industry, regardless of when they were made. Anyone interested in shooters, and 3D graphics in general, owes a massive debt of gratitude to Romero and Carmack. This is not a matter of opinion.

[disgaeniac]

Can't think of much that hasn't been said already...

[theflea]

I'm gonna look at this as a collector/gamer of today on most of these.

Generation 1  - To many pong systems, while i collect pong units I don't go crazy finding every version just because most of
                                   them don't age well and have issues working today.

Generation 2  - While yes there's a ton of crappy games for this generation, My biggest peeve back in the day and today
                                    was the Atari 5200 Controllers breaking or not working. I loved my 5200 back in the day and it frustrated
                                     me how the controllers never worked.

Generation 3  - Biggest peeve is how crazy NES prices have gone up in the last couple years. And how anyone thinks the
                                   NES and ALL it's games are worth tons of money.

Generation 4  - While SNES is now starting to have the same issue that NES has with over pricing, my biggest peeve is
                                    this generation gave birth to the fanboy. Where people argued that SNES or Genesis was better. And
                                    after this every generation had obnoxious fanboys. Before this how offen did you hear people argue
                                    about the Atari vs. Intellivision? or NES vs. the SMS?

Generation 5  - The birth of unreliable game systems, The Playstation was great, but I had to replace it three times when
                                    it was out. I even remember having to turn it upside down to get it to play. lol It seems after this
                                    generation we gamers have to repair or replace our systems if you use it a lot. And yet my original Atari,
                                    NES, SNES, Genesis all still work great. This issue still goes on today, Xbox 360 anyone? Also as a side
                                    note, this generations ugly early polygon graphics don't age well when playing them today.

Generation 6  -  The only peeve I can think off for this generation is how Sega was pretty much bullied out of the console
                                    market out by Microsoft, I'm not a fanboy of Sega but I do miss Sega's Consoles. This was also the birth
                                    of online gaming and dealing with idiots online.

Generation 7  - Oh boy where to start. lol. While I can pick several peeves of todays Generation I'll stick with the one that
                                   I think most of us hate the most. Game companies having locked content that's on the disc that you payed
                                   $60 for and have to spend more money to unlock. Its one thing if you could open it for free If you worked 
                                   at playing the game, beating it in every mode to open it and if your lazy and want it now to pay a
                                   fee to open it, ya go for it. It basically tells me they finish the game then the publisher walks in and
                                   says "lets see, let make em pay for this, this and this. and now we get an extra $30 for each game sold.
                                   Another Peeve for me is how Nintendo Wii turned into a gimmicky kids system.   
                                     
Generation 8  - Hard to say with PS4 and XBone still to come out, But it seems that Game companies are trying to so hard
                                   to make games have so many restrictions where If your not online you can't play the game. The Ouya is
                                   trying this with many of it's games and the system pretty much a fail at launch. XBone tried this and they
                                   got so much flack for us that they had to change it (thank god) But it doesn't mean down the road they
                                   won't change it on us. I know I'm going to investigate every system update before excepting it. If DMR
                                   becomes the future, Then I'm not going to be a part of that Generation.

[burningdoom]

Generation 4  - While SNES is now starting to have the same issue that NES has with over pricing, my biggest peeve is
                                    this generation gave birth to the fanboy. Where people argued that SNES or Genesis was better. And
                                    after this every generation had obnoxious fanboys. Before this how offen did you hear people argue
                                    about the Atari vs. Intellivision? or NES vs. the SMS?

Generation 6  -  The only peeve I can think off for this generation is how Sega was pretty much bullied out of the console
                                    market out by Microsoft, I'm not a fanboy of Sega but I do miss Sega's Consoles. This was also the birth
                                    of online gaming and dealing with idiots online.

Yeah, people argued what was better. The companies perpetuated it then, just like they do now, too. Intellivision would have ads showing how much better their graphics were. Atari would have ads boasting about how large their game library was in comparison. And the gamers had their own opinions about it, as well. The NES/Master System/7800 generation, not so much, because Nintendo was the CLEAR leader in that generation.

As for Sega being "bullied" out of the console market...no such thing happened. Sega shot themselves in the foot. They lost consumer confidence before the Dreamcast, and they overspent. I agree that it sucks they aren't in race anymore, but Microsoft didn't do anything to cause that.

[insektmute]

I just remembered one BIG pet peeve... even if it will probably get me labelled a conspiracy theorist.

The loss of confidence among Japanese developers.

I'm inclined to place most of the blame for this on American gaming sites, particularly since a lot of gamers (and especially newer gamers) tend to parrot what these sites promote. I remember seeing signs of anti-Japanese sentiment creep up toward the latter half of the last generation, with games like God Hand being horribly misinterpreted and misrepresented, but it's only magnified since the start of this gen.

Part of it stems from the open opportunity presented, in that every time a new generation rolls around, the first wave of games is always the among the worst. Graphics are a bit rough, mechanics are a bit rough because developers were focused on just getting shit to work at all and under a tight deadline, and so on. Since Japanese studios typically have less money to throw around, it often takes longer for them to hit their stride. Others, like Atlus, take over a year to really find a comfortable point, as they're still transitioning from their release schedule of stuff for the previous systems.

As US studios hit that stride much earlier, the American media seized on the Japanese. JRPGs were all suddenly not "fresh" enough and were almost guaranteed to hit around a 5-6.5 review score, shmups were suddenly "dated" and "too easy" because they weren't all made by Treasure, and the rare oddity like Dead Rising was considered a fluke of sorts.

That pessimism eventually translated to poor sales figures, and suddenly everyone - including Japanese publishers and developers - decided that the whole industry over there was dead in the water. It suddenly stopped being OK to make Japanese-style games, and it became some kind of ridiculous mandate that if a Japanese game is ever going to succeed, it has to appeal to Western tastes... nevermind that not so long ago, games like Final Fantasy VII and Persona 3 appealed just fine to "Western tastes." So studios started farming work out to non-Japanese studios, and - surprise! - the results were often far worse than anyone anticipated (and we all have examples of this, I'm sure), which just further reinforced the image that Japanese studios are clueless and have nothing to offer.

I'm not saying that the JP games out this gen are the best ever, and there are obviously exceptions (Dark Souls, Catherine, etc) but there is a massive disparity between how Western and Eastern games are being scored, marketed, and distributed, and it's fucked up when pretty damn enjoyable JP games are getting marked at a 5 for not being "innovative" or flashy enough, even though most of us could likely point to dozens of US-developed games that are horribly half-assed and unoriginal, yet continue to garner at least an 8.0, if not higher.