7 Deadly Sins of the Game Industry

Crossposted from the GoodGalGames blog

Hello my friends,

Today I want to talk about some serious business! There are too many evil companies in the gaming industry. Let’s look at a few of them.

Sloth

Too many companies are too lazy or scared to be innovative. All they do is make the same game each year. Publishers are too risk-averse to do anything, and many engines are not flexible enough. Too many physics-based games feel exactly the same, and often feel too floaty. Often, games based on movies are sold to customers unaware of their crappiness.  Sometimes, the users are required to create the content. But users are terrible at creating content (looking at LittleBigPlanet and other games), so it is just a way for developers to be lazy and claim that their game has value.

Sinners: Valve, Blizzard, EA

Wrath

Why are so many games angry?! God of War is about a constantly angry man that only wants violence. Perhaps this is a reflection of the many wrathful companies, implementing restrictive (and useless) DRM as a reaction to “rampant” piracy. Constraining your paying customers and not allowing for resale of the products they bought are other examples.

Sinners: Sony, Take2, id

Greed

A lot of companies are greedy. Big surprise right? Companies are supposed to make money, I know. I really miss the old days. When EA stood for Electronic Arts, and they asked if a computer could make you cry. When games were supposed to be art, and a big budget was not needed for any games. Independent studios might be able to fight this, but it is the consumer who makes the final decision. I am really sad to read that EA was voted America’s worst company in 2012.

Sinners: EA, and many, many more.

Pride

The Japanese game industry is stagnating, both creatively and financially. Inafune, creator of MegaMan, is especially angry with this. But the JRPG genre is stuck with the notion that they can create the best story experience. This was true before, but other genres got better stories, and JRPGs were stuck with their stupid gameplay and ridiculous stories. Another prideful company is the Apple App store. Their restrictive policies choke creativity for making games on their platform.

Sinners: Square Enix, Apple

Lust

 Do I really have to spell this out? Look at all the female characters. They are dressed like strippers, not adventurers. A recent example is the game Tera. While it might be a fun game, it reinforces a unrealistic body ideal, that will take an even stronger hold in people’s mind. And who can forget the ad campaign for Evony?

Sinners: Bluehole Studios, Evony

Envy

So many big companies love to take someone elses idea and try to make their own. EA creating Origin and removing their games from Steam, making the experience worse for all their consumers. As if by chance, this happened when Battlefield 3 was released.  Zynga wholesale copying Tiny Tower is yet another example of an envious company taking an original idea. It even seems to be their policy! 6waves copied the game Triple Town to create their Yeti Town. They did not even try to change everything (except making it uglier)

Envy: EA,  Zynga, 6waves

Gluttony

Speaking of Zynga, my sworn enemy. As soon as a company makes it big on Facebook or on the App Store, they are bought up by Zynga. It seems studios can’t develop their original idea further without getting bought out and forced to work on sequels and ripoffs.

Sinners: Zynga

This must stop! Perhaps worst of all, not much have changed. Is this how the industry is supposed to be like? Is it really what we want? But what can be done? I guess you can always vote with your money. Support companies that are ethical and do not give your money to companies that lie, steal and don’t listen to their customers. Evil must be defeated! A hero doesn’t run away from her destiny.

//Emma