This article is not intended to offend, single out or attack anyone. It is simply meant to inform people of the issues the gaming community faces and takes the side of the hardcore gamer as we are losing the battle between story-driven and party games.
Written by: Mike Angileri
There are many issues facing the video game industry today that not only threaten its existence, but also the health of some adults and our younger generations as well. With the rise of party games and the introduction of a new reward system, the gaming industry has created a potentially hazardous environment. From new collectible trophies to lack of good parenting, many factors are to blame for where video games are heading and the mental and physical issues we could potentially be a part of; if we do not act fast and recognize the problems facing our community, the gaming industry and possibly our future will be in jeopardy. Games have come a long way from their introduction many decades ago and I aim to enlighten newer audiences to understand where games came from and to refocus our attention on artistic productions and deeper and engaging stories.
As an avid gamer I have grown up with the best of the best; my Atari never let me down and our Commodore 128 is burnt out from excess usage. I still remember the Christmas I opened my first NES with my brother and then the day he came home with a brand new SNES for us, the night I got my Playstation, when I bought my Playstation 2 at the mall, getting my Xbox 360 for my 23rd birthday, when I threw down for my Playstation 3 and a Wii, and all of the handhelds you could imagine to top it all off. I have digital blood in plastic-coated veins. Ever since childhood I have been good at gaming – it came very naturally to me and made me feel good; with the good also came some of the most infuriating moments, but alas when you are passionate about something you put a lot of emotion into it. Of the twenty-six years I have been alive I have been a self-proclaimed ‘gamer’ for twenty-one of them. From my experience I have seen and enjoyed phenomenal and revolutionary changes (as there are with any form of technology) and some of the most memorable moments in my life come from playing games and hanging out with my friends all day and night on summer vacation. Together we would read about upcoming titles and what we would play, then every five-or-so years we would be in line for the next big thing whether it was the N64 or the Playstation 2. The excitement of up-and-coming games was a feeling I will never forget because I could share those feelings with my brother and my friends.
No one quite understands it; my parents would have preferred I had been more “productive” as a child by playing outside – and in all respects I did, just not as much; I attempted sports when I was 6 and that was laughable at best. I did however have a life outside video games and do to this day, it is all about balance. My wife, while she loves me, cannot fathom why I choose to play games as much as I do (when I finish housework) and why I care so much about them. To be honest I have always felt that gaming is the one thing I do well –exceedingly well and I have always strived to do the best I can; in the days of Atari I would feel the urge to defeat my friends (as there were few games that had more to do than just move around and shoot–I’m looking at you, “Combat”). As time progressed and more intriguing games were developed such as Zelda, Super Mario and Mega Man, I made a significant effort to find all of the secrets and power-ups because I felt good about knowing it all. It was a satisfying feeling knowing I had uncovered everything there was hidden in the depths of the pixelated worlds and as gaming continues to progress, more and more games have become dependent on a little thing called “replay value.”
Achievements offer just that- replay value- and are the newest form of gaming; I call it this simply because although finding everything in a game is rewarding and fun, I believe that achievements have created a potentially negative environment for the gaming community as a whole; while some play for fun, others have let it become an addiction which takes the fun out of the game and turns it into a dangerous beast. A large amount of this generation’s young population has already been thrown into disarray from kids spending all day on games with their parents using the consoles as stand-in babysitters which in turn has led to a drastic increase in obesity and when you add achievements to an already toxic situation like that, people are sucked even deeper into an obsession to fight for the highest Gamer-Score by unlocking these achievements with little-to-no compensation or motivation to do so other than a given individual’s psychological urge. Described, achievements are collectable trophies that gamers get for completing random tasks in a game, i.e. progressing through the game itself and/or finding extra items and secrets; each has its own point value that adds to the player’s Gamer-Score. As someone who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder I can see how achievements are feeding the compulsion in younger audiences or those who cannot manage their obsessive nature to collect and spend countless hours playing. For myself and many others I know, achievements are a new way of tracking progress throughout the games we choose to play because in the past players had to resort to telling their friends what they had accomplished, then save functions (Nintendo) and memory cards (Playstation) came into play where you could physically show them a saved file. Now the achievements are tracked and are able to be viewed online by all of your friends and others alike. Part of me wishes achievements had come around sooner for the good reasons because beating “Contra: Shattered Soldier” on the PS2 was no easy task, let alone doing it without dying once and I unfortunately cannot prove it to anyone outside my group of friends, but I did – I promise you that.
My concerns of obsession and obesity come from the growing number of players who talk of nothing else but achievements and graphics. There is a large population of gamers that judge games based solely on these factors and I believe that takes away from the overall experience and also lends the possibility of addiction. I have seen and know people who are “achievement whores,” people who do nothing but boost their score by playing any and every game, even those created for children. The problem I have with achievements is that I think they threaten the harmless joy that most people who grew up in the 80’s, 90’s and even the early 2000’s had with gaming; granted, video games are a completely different giant than they were thirty years ago, but the idea of playing a game is for fun and replay value which is essentially what makes the game enjoyable. Unfortunately the people who genuinely enjoy a game for what it is rather than just to get more achievements are a dying breed.
To touch on the ‘graphics’ part of that above statement is that over the years people have become more and more obsessed with games based solely on how they look rather than actual content. Take the ‘Call of Duty’ series for example: while it is a fun game to play, in terms of actual mechanics it is almost exactly like every other FPS title out there with very little extra to offer, but because it looks pretty it sells record-breaking amounts with only the promise of new maps to play (and new achievements of course). As stated previously, growing up and watching the evolution of games was exciting and new and I was (and am) astounded by the improvements with every system, but I do not judge a game’s worth on graphics or digital trophies because I appreciate the games that started the avalanche of digital entertainment we have today and that paved the way for the industry to continue the way it has. If you show someone who is from a group of people that I call “Playstation Children,” (people who started gaming when 3D games became prevalent) anything from previous systems, they almost always recoil in disgust from the unappealing graphics or the fact that it “isn’t 3D.” Now some may say I am being harsh, but I would not claim to know what I am talking about if I had not experienced it many different times with multiple individuals. It is the lack of respect and appreciation for where we came from that will be the death of the industry.
Do not take me the wrong way because while I appreciate where games come from and firmly believe that the classics continue to influence new games, I am not blind to the new masterpieces. There are many games nowadays that are very artistic and influential and should get special consideration. The words ‘classic’ and ‘masterpiece’ should not be thrown around the way they are however, they should be reserved for truly unique games that push the envelope and offer a truly memorable experience. More recent titles such as “Limbo,” “Little Big Planet,” and “Castlevania: Lords of Shadow” are three games that offer amazing and intuitive gameplay. For example, “Limbo” is a relatively short endeavor, but its artistic film noir presentation and ingenious puzzle-solving nature makes it one of the best games I have played recently. “Castlevania: Lords of Shadow” is interesting because there are a lot of games that came before it that are basically the same thing, however ‘Lords of Shadow’ takes many contemporary gameplay formulas and mechanics and fuses them together with a solid story, memorable characters, beautiful scenery, excellent voice acting and a musical score that rivals that of Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, making it a truly unique, fun and enthralling experience. “Little Big Planet” brings multiplayer into the mix by using it in a fun and engaging way with puzzles and simultaneous gameplay with your friends. It also is a very artistic game with many vibrant colors and textures. Multiplayer is not its only strong suit though as “Little Big Planet” gives players the developer’s chair with an in-depth level/game creator. I could go into detail, but there is so much to mention.
The reason I bring this up is to prove that there is more to gaming than achievements and I honestly believe that people are forgetting that. I am no exception to enjoying achievements no matter how much I denounce their impact in this article. Before I owned an Xbox 360 I thought achievements were interesting and I heard people were competing to have the highest score, which I thought was a fun idea until I saw what many people had turned into. When I purchased my 360 I did put effort into unlocking achievements because of my previous statements of joy from completing games I really enjoy, however over a small period of time I did get this weird feeling of necessity out of it and that scared me. The ability to recognize what was going on is something I am thankful for. Ask any of my friends, the games I own are almost all completed and the ones that are not are multiplayer-based, so I do put a genuine effort into unlocking achievements for the games I play. Keep in mind that the games I own are games that I know I’ll love to play and games that I want to complete –not for achievements, but for the joy of doing like I always have. The achievements I acquire are a way for me to keep track of what is left to do in the games I play, nothing more. I do not care about my score because there is no point in it; there is very little incentive to strive for a high Gamer-Score (Microsoft has recently implemented a small rewards system, and Gamer-Score still has not been confirmed to be a part of it).
Another threat posed against the hardcore gaming community is the sudden rush of casual games that the Wii opened the gates for in ’06. While I own both the Wii and the Kinect for when I have parties, they do not overshadow my catalogue of non-party games – nor will I let them. Although the Wii has some titles that do not cater to the party and minigame formulas, they are few. Kinect has yet to release any deeply involved titles, but Microsoft promises to deliver soon and until then we can only speculate on how the Kinect will respond to story driven games. On the flipside of the Kinect and Wii, they force people to get off the couch and into the action by moving around which begins to help some of the obesity issues and for that they should be credited. Until these systems begin to create real in-depth games, their luster will burn out quickly with the over-saturation of party and fitness games. There has to be an equal amount of hardcore games to party games for these motion-based systems to keep not just casual gamers interested, but to save the hardcore community as it faces impending doom. Video games are now becoming more geared towards our parents than us.
If you pull anything from this article it should be that we have to recognize the problems that face our gaming community. With the rise of family-friendly games from systems like the Xbox’s Kinect system, the Wii and even the less-impressive Playstation Move, the hardcore gaming community is already in jeopardy and if it continues to play games only for the satisfaction of digital trophies rather than actual love for the game, it is doomed from the inside out by giving developers an excuse to shovel out poorly crafted titles with less and less recourse. While the family-friendly and motion games are fun for everyone, their increasing popularity threatens focus on actual in-depth gaming and I fear will take over digital entertainment within a decade if not integrated correctly into actual story-driven games. There has to be direction and there has to be use of this technology in games to keep the hardcore gamers around and also keep our younger generations healthier at the same time. So the question is this: do you still want to continue playing games that have quality production, substance and gameplay or do you want to focus on achievements that do nothing but feed an obsession and risk the involvement you once had forever? Recognize the problems and preserve the future of what you love to do.
