By Alexander R. Tipton
Console games have been around for decades. From the earliest days of pong to the Atari and Nintendo Entertainment system, to the days of the Xbox and Play Station, console games have come a long way. As technology has improved and games have become more sophisticated, such systems have only become more popular. As with any technology, industry, or pop culture fad, everything sees its rise and fall. When it comes to console games, this writer believes that they have seen their high-point and believes the fall has already begun.
In the interest of time, I’ll cut to the chase. The last generation of consoles (Xbox 360, PS3 etc.) was the high-point I speak of. If that is all you came here to read, then by all means move on, but I will explain why the most recent generation of consoles and games have taken a fall from their former grace and slowly began the decline of console gaming.
The Death of Split-Screen and Couch Play
No one can argue that technology and capability has not increased. That much is obvious to anyone who has played consoles of recent. However, it is impossible to argue that many features of the previous generation that worked well have all but disappeared.
One of the most controversial and best-known issues in this area is split-screen.
Introduced years ago, split-screen was a standard feature on nearly all multiplayer games (both online and couch) by the time the Xbox 360 and PS3 became popular . Today, split-screen capability is almost non-existent, and absent entirely from popular games where it was once used with regularity such as first-person shooters.
Developers claim the elimination of split-screen came out of computing necessity. They stated, for instance, that they wanted to put all the console’s processing speed onto the main player, which sacrifices game play to split it among two, three or four players. The question, however, shouldn’t players have the option? The proponents of the end of split-screen argue that they hate sharing their screen and prefer having their own. Most serious gamers can agree to that, but what about families? What about roommates? What about hanging at a buddy’s house for some gaming? Once upon a time, in each of those situations everyone could grab a controller and play together. Today each person must take turns. That isn’t what multiplayer is all about.
The last draw for many gamers was the loss of the ability to co-op the Halo 5 campaign from the couch. 343 industries admitted in an open letter that they received so many complaints from angry customers that they would have to find a way to incorporate a split-screen option back into any future Halo games, but the problem has only gotten worse and many popular games that offered the ability for friends, roommates, or family members to play through a campaign together or even against one another has all but disappeared.
Even in this writer’s own household, we have resorted to purchasing a second Xbox One to play games together; something no one would have dreamed of with earlier consoles.
Speed and Ease versus New and High Quality
Some features that have changed are not as obvious as split screen, and thus I will give an example:
This writer played a lot of First Person Shooters (FPS) between the years 2007 and 2010. Most commonly, Halo 3, Modern Warfare 2 (MW2), MW3, and Black Ops 1 (BO1). The best FPS games will not be topped anytime soon. All those games were standard with split-screen, but besides that well-made point, there were other features that set them apart from the games of today that made them quite simply, more fun to play.
Some of the most obvious were the way in which games were set up. Matchmaking searches took thirty seconds or less, instantly dropping a player into a game lobby. Players on both teams could communicate via mic. This left room for making friends, talking strategy, or trash talk. If someone was annoying, a quick menu and mute followed.
Games started quickly, usually within thirty seconds to a minute. Time between games was only one minute and players could quickly leave a started game and take a loss. Maps had variety, requiring players to have varying strategies for position and weapon combinations for each. Players could come and go at will and quickly. It was easy to invite friends or previous players to games and partying up was optional, but not necessary so long as you remained in the same lobby. Such games even offered the chance to be matched with one’s friends on the other team, making for some fun gamesmanship.
Today, it is a MUCH different experience.
Lobbies take forever to load: usually two to three minutes and game load times have increased. Players can no longer easily communicate with other players in the lobby. One often must form a party to do this. Additionally, players are no longer able to talk to the opposing team’s players. This issue eliminates a solid amount of ease and fun from the game. Then the game loads, which takes longer than previous generation games; usually two or more minutes.
If a player must quit or exit before the game ends, there is usually a waiting period, or loadout, or a greater penalty than a loss. On a previous generation platform a player could start a new game within seconds. This aspect takes much longer to do with the current games on the market. Parties, teaming up, and team chat have all become an enormous mess. Smooth transition is all but absent.
This problem doesn’t even touch on the lack of variety in maps/gaming environments. The detail and visual effects have improved, but the structure of the maps is most often all the same. Modern gamers often describe maps as “a long hallway with choke points that everyone camps behind.” In previous generations, maps had more variety, size, and strategy aspects.
There is another area that sets aside the current systems from those that came before them.
Downloads and Updates
These annoying aspects of the game provide an improved gaming experience (adjusting for game issues, adding content), but sacrifice TIME. When a player buys a new game, brings it home and loads it up, they first face a “Downloading game content” screen. They now must wait to play. Some of these downloads take more than an hour. In an age of midnight releases and gaming parties, waiting an hour just to download the content (followed by any number of updates released since the game was sent to the store) makes for a lot of waiting and not much playing.
With previous generation consoles, a player would throw the game in and go. With MW3 a player could have been online and shooting at another player within two to three minutes of unwrapping the game from the packaging. Call of Duty WW2 took players an average of 1.5 hours to get from game in hand, to playing online. That is not to mention the sheer loss of all the other aspects already previously discussed.
Last and certainly least,
DLC, Pay to Play, and Loot Boxes
These are easily the most annoying to outright betrayal to gamers on this list (besides maybe split-screen).
Developers have realized that making and selling a game, taking feedback and making another game to then sell and repeat, is no longer the best way to make money. They instead have moved to a strategy of selling “content,” “game advantages” or “memberships.” These aspects are nothing but a money grab and even gamers who are die-hard fans of the current generation of games will admit that.
One of the most obvious and most popular examples of this comes with Bungie’s mega game, Destiny. Designed to be a spectacular open world space fantasy, Destiny combined magic and FPS aspects in a Halo meets Diablo atmosphere. However, developers decided at the onset to break up the game and sell it in pieces as Downloadable content (DLC). This process forces players to buy an incomplete game, and then pay again for the updates and additional content. Players who refuse to pay are locked out of multiplayer, events, and most current game content after updates are released. This rather smart money grab strategy forces players to purchase DLC regularly (usually every three to four months), thus creating a limitless income stream for the developers.
Other developers have since picked up this strategy and it is becoming commonplace.
Game passes are another form of this. Players must buy a membership in addition to memberships they purchased to play, such as Xbox gold, or PS Network.
Lastly, Loot boxes has created a separation between gamers who like to play and gamers who like to pay. By paying a set or rotating fee, players can gain loot boxes for a variety of games which gives them instant items, weapons, currency, or other advantages in the game that other players who did not pay will not have access to. This very concept alone creates a class system within an online game. Something that was once free and pure as virtual reality where a player can be anything has been separated (just like in the real world) by how much money they can afford to pay.
This concept is nothing short of taking something pure and natural and polluting it with greed and materialism.
Conclusions and Thoughts
To summarize; games have become much less about fun and a lot more about money. Ease of access, efficiency, fun factor, convenience, and fair playing field (i.e. income level) have all been removed from modern console gaming. While content and graphic design has increased, all other aspects are seemingly on the decline. This writer has seen it, as have many others who have experienced the collapse from what was once fun and enjoyable into what has become a mess of greed and control.
So, what can be done? This writer highly doubts any time-tested fans of gaming are simply going to stop playing games. An answer to that question might be simpler than many may realize. There are a multitude of games that already exist that are a lot of fun to play. There are over a dozen old and outdated console systems with hundreds of games available. The proof has already shown itself to be evident: the price of old games and systems are out pacing even brand-new games.
A 2016 copy of COD, Assassin’s Creed, or other big titles might cost 10 to 20 dollars on the used market… but a 1999 copy of Super Smash Bros, Golden eye, or even older games can run 50-60 dollars or more. It is proof that gamers are going back to their roots. They are choosing to play older games rather than buy brand new ones.
When this writer breaks out old games and old systems, starting campaigns and matches that have not been played in years, something amazing happens- gaming becomes fun again. As such, this writer will not be purchasing the next generation of games or consoles. I bid you to join me and demand that developers cease this path of greed and control which has all but destroyed this once golden industry. Demand that power be given back to the gamers- those who made them rich. Until such a time comes when games are fun, easy, quick, and affordable (all things that made them great in the first place), gamers must demand change, or face the continued decline of consoles.
