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title
The world around us evolves constantly, and gaming
is no exception to this change. Both us as gamers and the industry need to accept it and move
with it, rather than try to resist change.
Many trends come and go, but if
you’ve been gaming for a long time, we’re sure you can find something that has died,
or is currently dying in gaming that you wish the industry would bring back. We thought of ten such
things, and today we will present them to you.
I’m Josh, Welcome to HotFix Gaming, Today we are
talking about 10 trends in gaming that are dying, or have already died!
10.
Movie tie-ins – Dead
In the early 2000s, it seemed like almost
every movie that came out had a video game tie-in. Think of The Incredibles, Spider-Man
2, King Kong: The Official Game of the movie, and of course, the very popular Golden Eye007.
Sure, not all these video games had the same qualities, and oftentimes they were quick
cash-grabs that took advantage of the hype surrounding the latest films, but some of
them were incredible titles that are still worth playing today and have dedicated fanbases!
One day, they just stopped making such games.
No one knows exactly why, but many gamers believe
that it has to do with sales and, the amount of time it took to create such a game. Plus, looking
at the current costs of making a game in 2024, a movie tie-in could easily rival the movie
budget, and that’s just something developers are not willing to risk.
9. In-game unlockable items/characters – Slowly Dying
With the rise of in-game purchases and downloadable content (DLC), the way additional
content is delivered has changed drastically, leading to unlockables being thing of the past.
Nowadays, instead of unlocking a new skin, item, or a character, when you complete a mission you
get an achievement/trophy and that’s it. If you want a particular item, it’s usually locked behind
a paywall, so you have to reach for your wallet.
The unlockable items we used to see in gaming
in the early 2000s were mostly cosmetic, but somewhere down the line companies have
realized that if gamers wouldn’t be able to get them for free, some would actually be willing to
pay for it, and that’s how paid add-ons started.
If you have an itch for free
unlockables, don’t worry, there are still a few games where you can unlock
items for free.
Mortal Kombat 11, for example, has the towers and other game modes where you can
unlock stuff for free. Bayonetta 3 has weapons, accessories and even two characters that you can
unlock while playing the game. Warframe is another game that doesn’t even need completion to unlock
over 40 characters and hundreds of weapons!
8. Couch Co-ops – Dying
Online gaming is a lot of fun and has its own set of advantages, but nothing can beat sitting next
to your friend and together mowing down hordes of zombies in Left 4 Dead, or doing the campaigns
in Gears of War from the comfort of your couch.
Lately it seems that even franchises that used to
have a couch co-op option are ditching it in their newer games in favour of online gaming. A recent
example is Halo Infinite, which doesn’t have couch co-op, despite its predecessors offering it. It
feels like companies forgot that there could be more than one gamer in a household. Or did they?
Like many decisions nowadays that developers need to make, couch co-op has become heavily influenced
by money. With significant advances in graphics, framerates, it’s more challenging to deliver
the fast-paced action gamers expect while rendering all screens at the same graphical
fidelity.
Unfortunately, it’s not cheap to develop video games. When that money and
staffing could be better spent on building an online multiplayer campaign, it just makes
sense to leave the local co-op in the dust.
7. Physical disk copies – Dying
Ubisoft has spoken about this trend before, saying that there will always be a market for physical
games, no matter how small that market becomes. But, unfortunately, we cannot deny the fact that
the sales of physical copies are declining at quite a fast rate. It has been claimed that as
much as 90% of game sales made throughout 2022 alone were digital.
(but mobile games are included
in that figure too, so take that with a grain of salt) Just like everything we’ve mentioned so far
in this video, physical disk copies of video games are yet another way for companies to cut some
of the costs of making a game. With technology evolving and becoming more costly, having a disk
version just makes everything that much more expensive, unfortunately we could see the prices
of physical games going up in the near future!
6. Motion controls – Dying
Motion controls were supposed to be the next big step in gaming
evolution, but instead gamers got goofy sports and dancing games, and a bunch
of other titles that barely even worked!
Nintendo’s Wii had massive success at producing
games that were perfect for motion controls, and seeing that both Microsoft and Sony tried to
replicate the success with their own Kinect and Move, but we all know how that turned out.
Nowadays even Nintendo has all but abandoned motion controls in favour of mobile gaming
(the Switch), while Kinect is a piece of Microsoft history that they’re probably
hoping we’ll just all forget about!
5.
Cheat Codes – Dying
Believe it or not, cheat codes were originally put in games back
in the day for ease of development, not for the end consumer. Cheat codes were there so that
developers could give themselves invulnerability, infinite ammo, extra lives and what-not while
they were testing certain aspects of the game, without having to start levels over and over
again. Then, once the game was finished, the developers would leave these cheat codes in it.
Nowadays, with the tools developers have at their disposal, cheat codes are
slowly becoming a thing of the past, as games are far more robust and allow devs
to run tests easier.
So any code you may find in newer games are more or less either Easter
eggs or actual features for the consumer.
4. E3 – Dead
E3, once the largest video game trade show in the industry and the biggest video
game showcase event of the year, is gone for good, after multiple years of cancellations. One
of the reasons why this event got cancelled for good was actually hinted by none other than
Stanley Pierre-Louis, the CEO of Entertainment Software Association (the organization that
ran E3): more and more game developers and publishers have started in recent years to move
away from the event and organize their own ones, which are less costly and are usually targeted
directly to players, rather than industry insiders and journalists, like E3 used to.
Even before Covid-19, we had Nintendo Direct, Xbox Games Showcase and Sony’s State of
Play to look forward to and even rival E3.
While E3 being cancelled might not come as
a surprise, it will still be missed by many.
3. Official Magazines – Dead
Not so long ago the video game magazine section in newsagents was filled with 10+
quality magazines, from multiformat publications such as GamesMaster, CVG, and GamesTM to
classy platform specific magazines such as Official PlayStation Magazine, 360 Gamer, and
Official Nintendo Magazine. Nowadays though the choice is down to just two magazines: Play,
which is a PlayStation magazine, and Edge.
Some people would just say: why not read online?
That’s where everything is moving nowadays anyway! Sure, gaming websites are fine for news,
previews and reviews, but they really cannot excite in the same way magazines used to!
Many gamers remember fondly of the days when they’d do a newsagents run in
order to get their gaming news, and some even talk about these magazines coming
with floppy disks/CDs containing playable demos, or freebies such as coasters or keychains.
Sometimes is not just about getting your information, it’s about turning it all into
an enjoyable and exciting experience!
2.
Midnight Launches – Dead
Just less than a decade ago even a medium-sized video game would get a
midnight launch event, but nowadays such things don’t happen anymore, not even for AAA titles.
We could speculate that the rise of digital gaming is what has put midnight launches to a halt,
but in recent years we’ve seen massive titles, like God of War: Ragnarok and Elden Ring
get released without getting a big launch anymore. And these titles have sold a lot of
physical copies, on top of the digital ones!
The reason why such events were so loved
by many was because they helped foster that feeling that you belonged to a certain
community. Nowadays we do have the internet to keep us connected, but that feeling
of belonging, unfortunately, is gone.
Before we move to the number 1 thing that many
gamers miss, let’s do an honourable mention: cloud services – slowly dying. And no,
there is no chance of cloud gaming ever taking over from consoles! Think about
it: this type of service relies solely on how strong your internet connection is.
But
it’s not just the quality of your internet connection that affect gameplay.
No matter how good your Wi-Fi is, you can still expect high latency and lag
in cloud gaming. This type of service is one that no matter how good people’s internet
connection gets, it’s not going to catch on.
And now, it is time for our number one
spot, the most missed aspect of gaming:
1. Video Game manuals – Dead (unfortunately)
Retro gamers, who used to play on consoles like the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis,
handheld consoles & older consoles, all know the feeling of opening a new
game box and discovering a small booklet.
Little did we know that this little thing we
took for granted might disappear one day! These manuals are now not just extremely rare, but
they also cost a lot of money to buy! These little video game manuals contained precious
information about the game, its controls and sometimes even cool backstory to help players
enjoy the game even more. Nowadays, new titles let you discover these things by yourself, through
trial and error, which can be quite frustrating for many gamers, especially new ones!
What do you think of the things we’ve mentioned in this video? If you could bring back
one thing from our list, which one would it be? Let us know in the comment section below!
And if you want more gaming content, make sure to check our top 10 PS3 games
with graphics that still hold video, or our top 10 Video game franchises with no
bad games! Both videos and linked on screen!
