I think it's all about the money now. As an avid oldschool gamer I really hate the direction of the industry these days. Year by year I see how that appeal that videogames of the past had has been dissapearing. Today it's all about making sequel after sequel of the same crap and forcing the gamer to switch to the new thing to be "in" and buy DLC to be in par with evreyone else.

The worst thing is how much low creativity we are seeing day after day. As an artist, that's what hurts me the most... Terrible copy-paste titles like Call of Duty are one example of it. Seriously, shooters are a plague that need to be killed already. No shooter these days will ever compare to the shooters of the N64 and the PS1/2 era, and it's sad no one can see that. I've played or had many of the new FPS games and they have nothing against games like Perfect Dark, the first and second Medal of Honor or that jewel of a franchise known as Time Splitters. Just because it has new gen graphics and runs at 1080p(For me it's just like seeing a turd in high def), or that you can run around shooting swearing-redbull-drinking-hotheads from around the world doesn't mean it's better. And when something really good comes out, no one cares because they rather go shoot their friends in one of the above mentioned shooters. The sad thing is when great and unique games fall into the greed of their developers, releasing unnecessary sequels just for the money that ruin the unique experience of the original game.

But I think the worst thing than the lack of originality is the DLC situation. I'm slowly starting to see a trend here where developers start releasing half-baked games in purpose just to later on add highly priced content that was suppose to be there in the first place. So far some have kept the good old habit of putting all their effort in the game, but it feels like the only thing they earn with this is some respect from their followers. It's just time until they realize they can also start doing the DLC scam since the gamer won't have any choice.

The future of gaming is uncertain. I'm sure we are close to an era where you're just going to buy the installment data disc (if disc based software doesn't dissapear completely) and the whole game is going to be charged at you level by level, content by content. There will be a point where you'll have to buy ammo with real money. That day will be the day that gaming dies for me...

You're right. It is sadly all about money now. I know games are a business, but there really should be more. The worst part of it is the game publishers are making a series of just really stupid business decisions. To the point where it seems like they have no clue what they're doing and are just throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks.

I agree with you on the appeal of the old games. I would love for companies to just stop for a second, look at many of the old classics, and analyze what people liked about them and what they didn't like. Not all of the recent innovations are bad. The risk adversity is mostly due to the overinflated budgets. Barring that, there are very good lessons to be learned from this generation. I think the ideal would be to look at both generations and learn from them.

You will hear no arguments from me on the DLC point. I'm angry about the way DLC has gone. That's why I applaud people who do it right like post-Horse Armor Bethesda. I've already wrote a whole article on the DLC thing and I'm trying real hard not to go into full-on rant mode about that. (Grrrrrrrr!!!!)

I'm somewhat pessimistic. As I said, either they will learn and change or gaming will collapse again. Then, after a few years, another game corporation, like Nintendo of old, will resurrect the medium.
These things move in cycles, but they don't have too if we can learn from the past. Publishers: "Who are you that do not know your own history?"