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Things I Wish Game Devs Would Stop Doing

I definitely didn’t rip this from my writer’s notebook.

Heaven's Gate
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Photo Credit: Hartwig HKD via Compfight

Let’s skip the witty remarks, hooks, and all those formalities, and just let me say that game devs do some pretty stupid things. Some things are lazy, others greedy, but they’re all terrible.

First off, some people put no effort into the settings for a game, especially PC games. Unlike consoles, PCs aren’t all identical clones of each other, so you need to be able to adjust the graphical settings depending on how strong or weak your computer is. Additionally, some people may not like the way you’ve decided to map the controls for the game or don’t have a qwerty keyboard, so you should be able to rebind them to suit your needs.

Secondly, we have something I’ve already brushed on: DRM. Eh— looking back, I realise I never told you what DRM actually was, so let me elaborate for those of you that were confused by my first post. DRM  is basically anti-piracy software for electronic files. Sounds great, right? I know, it should be great, but it rarely ever is. That’s because nobody (except for Valve) seems to have figured out how to do it right, so it often ends up irritating paying customers by denying them the ability to play.

Next up is something that I’m surprised I haven’t brushed on, making highly iterative sequels. Each Call of duty game is pretty much the same thing with a shinier coat of paint, and it starts to get irritating after a while. I mean, if you have a great idea for a video game, that’s wonderful. Just don’t make it twenty bloody times and try to pass each new one off as a new and improved sequel.

Finally, we have microtransactions. If you play lots of iOS games you probably know them better as in-app purchases. Either way, they ruin games. Unless you’re Valve, you’ll probably end up using microtransactions to slow down the game, and force players to pay up in order to get it back up to normal speed. Yes, I’m talking to you, Dungeon Keeper developers. You might also use them to give people to give people an unfair advantage, again forcing them to pay in order to be competitive. This concept is aptly titled pay to win. Microtransactions are pretty much the plague of the gaming industry at the moment, and most people would actually rather just pay a set price for the game.

That pretty much wraps up this somewhat long list, and I can’t thing of anymore to say, so those are the things I wish game devs would stop doing.

Please, stop doing these things.