I don't think gaming has entered a Dark Age, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't hate some of the trends that have becoming more common in the industry.

 

In theory, DLC sounds like a fantastic idea on paper, adding longevity to a game that might have lose it's luster after a few months for a few dollars sounds pretty great. Unfortunately since it's debut, DLC has been the subject of some of the most disgusting practices in the game industry, from main story DLC(Mass Effect), to selling fucking endings to games as DLC(FFXIII-2, Asura's Wrath) to On-Disc DLC(Capcom). It's even more insulting when people find out about the On-Disc and blasted Capcom, yet they still had the balls to charge for it(let alone charge $20)

 

Speaking of Capcom, I don't know what the hell has happened, but a lot of great companies, particularly, Japanese companies like Capcom, Square, Konami, and to a lesser extent Sega, have gone completely down the shitter. Capcom has a stable of IPs that would give Nintendo a run for their money, yet they have pretty much abandoned anything that isn't Street Fighter or Resident Evil, and if the haven't abandoned it, then they're shitting all over them(see their treatment of Megaman), all while rehashing several versions of Street Fighter IV and underwhelming RE games, at this point the only thing keeping me from abandoning Capcom completely is the Ace Attorney series. Square has pretty much become the Japanese equivalent of Crytek, with their games all about looking good but no real game to it. Konami seems to be on the same boat as Capcom, I can't recall a game they've made in a long time that didn't have Metal Gear, Castlevania, Silent Hill or PES in the title, which is a shame because they have a lot of great titles that I have fond memories of, like Bomberman and Contra. Hell Suikoden is a pretty awesome game from what I've tried, and I'd love to see more of it. Sega's on a completely different boat, as they actually keep making awesome games.....that are never released outside of Japan, there's such a high demand for games like Yakuza, PSO2, Valkyria Chronicles 3, and countless other titles that people will most likely not get a chance to play because Sega sucks with localization, and prefer releasing countless Sonic games. I get that people love Sonic and he is just as loved as Mario, but there's more to Sega than just Sonic.

 

And then there's the triforce of evil, namely Ubisoft, Activision, and EA, all of which has been responsible for some of the horrible trends that have become more normal these days.

 

DRM is a particular practice that I despise, and thankfully one that seems to be appearing less. First there was Ubisoft who were really anal with DRM for their PC releases, then there was Diablo, which blew up in Activision's face, then there was Sim City, which blew up in EA's face, and lastly there was the Xbox One, which pretty much nuked Microsoft in the face(thankfully they listened to the criticism and reversed all of the horrible decisions

 

Then a few instances of releasing demos as priced games, there was Dead Rising 2(which admittedly wasn't too bad, since it was only $5), but then there was Gran Turismo 5 Prologue and more notoriously Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes(which Kojima even admitted he didn't want to do it), both of which retailed far more than they should have

 

And then there's the AAA gaming industry, which is probably one of the things I've disliked the most out of the last gen. AAA games have caused a trend where they are trying to make games to be too much like movies(and this is coming from an MGS fan). I'm sick of all of this "we want to make a cinematic experience!", I don't want a cinematic experience, I want a fucking video game, that's why I play video games. It's fine if you want to make an epic and grand story, but the gameplay should always be a priority, and should never have to suffer just because you decided to make a movie while you were trying to make a game

 

Another thing that AAA gaming suffers from is the fact that they usually suffer from too much hype. If you asked me which what are the most hyped games this year, I'd say Destiny, Titanfall, Watch Dogs, and Super Smash Bros 4. If you asked me which ones actually lived up to their hype however, Super Smash Bros would be my only answer. These days most of the AAA have been hyped up by gaming media and the developers as if they're God's gift to gaming, only to ultimately get "Ok to good" reception. And in all honestly, it makes me happy when I see games like Bayonetta 2 and Sunset Overdrive get much stronger reception than games like the aformented 3 above

 

And lastly, AAA games have been the subject of some of the most notorious uses of DLC. The fact that they were already advertising Destiny's DLC in the game's release with it's not-so-good reception especially in regards to the story is leading me to believe that they cut content in order to release it as DLC later...oh wait, they actually fucking did, now that everyone knows that there is content already on the game that can only be accessed through future DLC. Oh AAA gaming strikes again!

 

Then there you have it, my post on the subject matter that evolved into a rather lengthy rant, and I still have yet to touch on subjects like retailer exclusive bonus DLC, microtransactions, many Japanese publishers trying to hard to appeal to Western gamers, and copy-and-paste bullshit that's common among sports games, especially after some of the stunts EA pulled with the last gen iterations. And it's not like things are all bad, Indie games are experiencing quite a boom, I can still trust companies like Nintendo, Atlus, Namco, Valve, Rockstar, and 2K, but even with that all said and done, it's difficult not to notice that thing a sucking. While I don't think we're in a Dark Age of Gaming(the only true Dark Age is the '83 Gaming Crash), I do think there's a lot of changes that need to be made for things to get better

Source: The Dark Age of Video Games