What do you hate about mainstream games?

[alexndr_prsper]

One thing I hate is that they're all the same type. Also, being a mobile gamer is even harder because people aren't creative—they just keep doing the same thing over and over.

Xal • Artist • Finnww​

 

[Romaki]

The one thing I hate is how they're impossible to play on low/mid specs. Why do they even bother with quality settings anymore...

 

[Moonlight.]

how money hungry everything is. $70 pricing for games is insane, $20+ for a skin is insane (especially in a game like overwatch where it's first person pov), subscriptions/fees to access free to play games (like wizard101, which ALSO offers microtransactions on top of that, i think i'd be okay with one or the other since it's free to play but having both is insane to me), etc.

i also like to think i have a decent pc rig but i swear half the time my friends and i are playing tech support trying to get a game to not run like garbage than actually playing the game itself.

 

[Bulbadragon]

Unfinished games being released. I want to play the completed game on release, not months or years later when they finish updates. It's especially annoying for games with storylines because by the time all the updates are out, I usually have to start over to truly enjoy the new content. I don't mind this if I'm specifically buying an early access game, or if extra content is added as a bonus (e.g., Stardew Valley). But I'm tired of having to wait months to play the full game that I already paid for.

 

[DarthGohan1]

So many bad things have been normalized in mainstream games in recent years, I don't even know where to start. But the worst one for me is:

Microtransactions and DLCs. For decades when you bought a console or handheld game, that was it. You got the whole game. All characters, levels, maps, accessories, outfits, collectibles, etc were all obtainable in the base game. Imagine playing Pokemon Red & Blue, beating the 8 gym leaders, then having to pay to battle the Elite 4 and go catch Mewtwo. It would have been unimaginable at the time. Now it's the norm in a lot of mainstream games. TBF Nintendo has been pretty good about this compared to most of the big publishers, but it's still everywhere now.

Honorable mention.... Nintendo games don't really go on sale ever, and when they do, it's a pretty weak sale. Nintendo is doing it because they've made good games and built up a very loyal following. Most of these were $20 or less when they were player's choice, not even a limited time sale. It was amazing!

 

[Dunquixote]

For me, it has to be games that should be single player introducing pvp and/or some form of multiplayer. I never liked pvp; I primarily enjoy games for the story and single player content. One game I liked introduced a multiplayer mode and I felt like all the resources that they invested in it could have been used to improve the single player and overall game since I found that game had a lot of things that left much to be desired. It wasn’t a bad game but was a bit disappointing and could have been better. I’ve found out fairly recently that originally the series when it was first being developed, was intended to be multiplayer. I’m glad that never went through since I feel like I never would have tried the game had it been a multiplayer game.

When games have pvp/multiplayer, I feel like they kinda force the player to do it even if they don’t want to. Like particularly gacha games, quite a few I tried require you to do a coop or pvp mode once to get all the dailies for all the rewards.

In spite my criticism of ZA, I’ve become a little more interested in trying it, but the thing that still turns me off is the locked content behind ranked battles (even if it is just one thing. I hate being forced to do a mode that I don’t like for something that is helpful not just in ranked battles but in the story. I have a lot of connection issues so I’m concerned too about the game thinking I rage quit in the event I dc like it does when I do raids in Pokemon Violet and dc.

 

[CovisGod]

These days mainstream games just lack polish. I find back in the day a game would come out and be perfect, no game breaking bugs, these days games come out half finished because they know they can fix things through updates,

Football Manager is a perfect example of this, they cancelled last years and still a year later it has been released unfinished which is terrible really!

 

[Grindellion]

File sizes! For someone who's used to older games and the 3DS, it was hard to imagine a game being even 10 GB... and then I bought GTA5. Which, to be fair, has so many things in it that it almost justifies the 100GB to me... almost. I can't imagine what havoc GTA6 will wreak on people's hard drives.

(Side note- why are Jackbox games usually at over a GB? It doesn't help that each pack has 1-2 good games at best, so you gotta have a bunch of 'em installed, which is around 10GB- it doesn't have to be this way! There's a megapicker, let people buy individual games! Or something! Eugh...)

 

[sourguppyworm]

games that on paper have tons of player customization options, but in reality they're all just palette swaps. i actually think nh handles this quite well in clothing, but pokemon sun/moon are pretty terrible for it. i'd much rather have fewer palette swaps of more unique clothing like x and y had.

in close second are games that had a ton of potential but were screwed over by either a lack of time/funding or the publishers not doing their jobs (for example slitterhead and hi-fi rush, respectively)

 

[DarthGohan1]

ok a couple more. not fun mandatory gameplay loops. crafting is the worst. it's just not fun.

and especially for nintendo games, making it way too easy. long tutorials before you get to the real game. no challenge.

 

[BakaRina]

That games are becoming 70 dollars and adding in deluxe editions and more expensive editions with stuff to get more money out of you

 

[Yanrima~]

Can I say that I don't like the open world-ification of modern Nintendo titles.

For modern Nintendo games, it's more of their current game "philosophy" that every game they made has to have an open world in some shape or form. Not everything has to have an open world option like Mario Kart for example.

Diddy Kong Racing on the N64 did the free roam hub world concept better than Mario Kart World and it's sad.

The problem with shoving the open world mode in every game series is that the map is empty and it's poorly done for the most part.

The open world should only be in some games that can work with that concept. Not everything has to have open world in order to make the game appealing.

 

[DarthGohan1]

Can I say that I don't like the open world-ification of modern Nintendo titles.

For modern Nintendo games, it's more of their current game "philosophy" that every game they made has to have an open world in some shape or form. Not everything has to have an open world option like Mario Kart for example.

Diddy Kong Racing on the N64 did the free roam hub world concept better than Mario Kart World and it's sad.

The problem with shoving the open world mode in every game series is that the map is empty and it's poorly done for the most part.

The open world should only be in some games that can work with that concept. Not everything has to have open world in order to make the game appealing.

Strong agree on this. Nintendo can make amazing games, if open world makes sense go for it, but feels like they're kind of forcing it in some games now

 

[Tude]

Zombies. Ugh.

 

[DarthGohan1]

Zombies. Ugh.

this feels oddly specific

 

[Tude]

this feels oddly specific

Lol I've just never gotten the hype

 

[DarthGohan1]

Lol I've just never gotten the hype

zombie games peaked with zombies ate my neighbors!

 

[Neb]

I could write a book on how much I hate the general direction the game industry has gone in over the last decade. But to name a handful of issues I have with mainstream games, they are:

- Major studios pushing for better and better graphics even though we're at a point where the leaps in tech are getting smaller every generation, at the cost of development time and budget. I'd rather get a dated PS4 looking game every 5 years than a game that looks marginally better than what released in 2020 every 15 years.

- Mandatory online for single player games.

- Microtransactions in full priced games.

- Generative AI for graphics (Game upscaling like DLSS is fine. I'm talking about using AI for the creative parts of game development)

- Games getting announced way too early in development and not hearing anything about them for years (I have been waiting nearly a decade for Dragon Quest XII now).

- Games being rushed incomplete

- Modern games being poorly optimized. I have a PC that is nearly 5 times the power of a base PS5 and it still struggles running some games decently. There is also no reason for any game released in this era to be 150 gigabytes unless it's a literal simulation game like Microsoft flight simulator or something. With PC parts and consoles skyrocketing in price I hope more developers will actually try to optimize again since most people will not be able to afford better tech anytime soon.

- The endless remasters and remakes. It's not quite as bad as modern Hollywood, but it's getting close. It feels like the majority of games released by major studios are rereleases from past generations. I'm all for bringing older titles to newer audiences (especially old console games that are stuck on old hardware), but some developers are having rereleases be nearly their entire lineup now.

 

[windloft]

I cannot stand aggressive anticheats for single player games or how poorly optimized and buggy a lot of games are at launch, but nothing bugs me more than releasing a game super barebones - not even early access - and then patching everything in over years. Maybe i'm old, and maybe i'm being a little unfair to how rough game development cycles are nowadays, but I don't really want to wait an additional 2+ years to see whether or not the game'll be truly good and live up to the hype the countless amounts of cinematic teasers and trailers show.