In the often boring, sexist, shallow world of video games and video game culture –"a fantasy realm where nerds rule!"– franchises are the only safe bets. Who wouldn't bankroll a new Mario game? Which executive wouldn't give the go-ahead to a new multiplayer FPS? Everyone can see the dollar signs when World of Warcraft comes up - so lets make everything an MMO from now on. Many franchises stem from much-beloved games from the comparative stone age of video gaming. No, not the 70s - my bad. To be clear: the copper age of video gaming, the 1990s. It is an era which is reviled by the current generation of gamers, and old gamers who enjoy modern games (AKA: stunted adults), as the era of 'rose-tinted glasses'.
Age of Empires, Call of Duty, Sim City, Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft, Command & Conquer, Doom, Quake, Half-Life, Mario 64, TLoZ: Ocarina of Time, System Shock, Civilization, Aliens vs. Marines, Gran Turismo, Need for Speed, Mortal Kombat... the list goes on, but the point stands: the 90s produced an overwhelming amount of remarkable computer games which were part of or formed the basis for highly profitable franchises. Eventually all of these were bought up by a couple now-monolithic publishers and developers. To put this in perspective, imagine all the mortgages that were packaged into junk bonds in the Financial Crisis of 2008 were sound before they were bought, gutted, and packaged into toxic assets by the monolithic banks and sold to incredibly loyal and gullible customers. This is essentially what happened to most beloved video game franchises in the last ten or fifteen years.
The specifics are open to debate, the pillaging of each franchise is also arguable, but in the contemporary scene all you really get is cutting-edge graphics, a semblance of a story, and shallow treadmill mechanics that dare you to find a reason to play for more than a month. You get quality without substance. Games with the addictive potential of crack cocaine and with exactly the same intoxication profile, creating users and addicts that are indistinguishable from the real thing in their disgusting, annoying race to the bottom. World of Warcraft, it's your move.
All of this is old news, however. I want to focus on one game which was recently released to great fanfare after building up a considerable amount of hype. It is the newest entry in a venerable franchise which was begun in 1989 - Sim City 5. If you haven't heard of it you pay no attention to video games at all because it is the biggest story of the year. Unfortunately, it is a story that has become far too common. But enough words, allow a picture to do the talking:
Metacritic never lies, but as an aggregate it can blur the truth. Video game journalism is instrumental in the downfall of gaming. Even nixing all the outliers (too positive or negative), critical response is completely away in fantasy land compared to user reviews (people who have paid to play the game and were not paid to review a potentially free copy). If you ever want to see what happened, simply compare a modern video game magazine (like PC Gamer for instance) to an issue from ten or more years ago. Not only is there less content than ever, but there are more ads, weaker reviews, and a typical lack of insight. All journalism falls down from time to time, but in a less critical market like Video Game Culture Magazines you can see how far it can fall.
Nintendo Power is over, though. This is the era of Sim City 5000, by EA Interactive. The game that arrived amidst thunderous applause and then faced an immediate backlash over: always-online gameplay, resulting server overload, dumb simulation design, and bugs. Lots of bugs. The game looks really pretty and that's the nicest thing you can honestly say about it. I feel bad for the people who made this game. It seems like they didn't have enough time to finish making it. But it looks really good, and the marketing was top notch.
Sim City 5 lacks many features people took for granted in earlier games in the series, and the features it has substituted for them don't work well or don't work at all. Sim City 4 was doing the same thing but managed to work as a game that people liked. Sim City 3 even ditched some of Sim City 2000's best concepts - the series peaked in the mid 90's and almost twenty years later: here we are. Well, I don't know why games are getting worse and dumber every year, and I don't think it matters, so I'll leave that to the experts. Games were never smart, but god damn remember how Duke Nukem used to be fun? Remember the wide variety of games that used to exist? Remember how they took a long time to master? I don't hate casual gaming and I don't hate modern gaming (per-se) I just want to point out some other, more successful, notorious sequels:
Heroes 4: it was a great design decision to drop everything that made a Heroes game a Heroes game and borrow heavily from other turn based strategy games. It looks and plays like a shitty version of Age of Wonders 2, except it doesn't even have hexes, which makes it so unbearable that even longtime defenders of the series say 'It's an interesting take on the genre.' The series (5 and 6!) is now a graphical powerhouse with dumbed down everything and it holds your hand while you play, making cooing noises to sooth your mind.
Call of Duty 4?5?/Modern Warfare/Black Ops: It's always cool to play games online where you shoot other players while the world goes to shit around you. Single player games in this era should be expected to complete themselves and introduce core concepts so that gamers can move into multiplayer.
Battlefield: The good ol' days of 1942 are gone, and in its place are dozens of futuristic mechanics lifted from the Call of Duty series! It's really cool to play with 12 year olds and shoot guns, guys! It's still cool! Adults do it, so don't feel bad about yourself! Graphics are really good. Sound is good. Talk about smoking weed while shooting people on the internet!
Diablo 3: The mother of all hack 'n slash gets overdeveloped. Plays smooth, looks really good, professional and it works. Gameplay and story that hold your hand and never let you go, like helicopter parents, except worse. Story literally gets in the way of gameplay. Takes away player agency and control with 'fear' mobs - multi-million dollar design at work. Revolutionary skill system is boring, advantageous skills are patched into the ground, play for 30 hours to get to the endgame, which is doing the same thing over and over. Campy, dumb bosses from hell. Always online. Play with friends (but no more than three at a time with no significant interaction). Good equipment has to be bought and sold for maximum profit on an auction house that should but doesn't form a community. Drop rates are worse than Vegas. Items are boring: required level 52 for a ring that has a socket in it and nothing else. Stats and crits and nothing else. There is nothing else. Soulless, hackneyed, cliched cash-in that manages to make its hackneyed cash-in older brothers look like cool adults. People who defend this game are the same people who have ruined gaming - they are responsible for Sim City 5. Real Money Auction House! Brilliant! 'Blizzard, O Blizzard, what has become of ye? I remember ye best in 2001, after nearly a decade of fun.'
Skyrim/Oblivion: Super-duper graphics, uninspiring story that holds you by the hand, bland gameplay. Hack, slash, loot for unexciting items. Monsters level with you. No learning curve. Typos, bad writing. Less skills, less uncertainty, less quests, less fun - more scripted events, more voice actors, more polygons, more limits. Doing less with more. Inventory systems so terrible that playing is never not a chore. No reason to follow series after Morrowind: which was a chore to play but somehow a worthy chore. Rest in boring, complacent success The Elder Scrolls.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: A game that is relentless about never letting the player think or reason a solution. Holds your hands to the Nth degree. Emblematic of modern video games: no player agency, nothing is open: products for children that assume a level of stupidity that manages even to annoy children. Hold my hand, railroad design, pop up messages every minute.
Duke Nukem Forever: Boring, plastic, lifeless... there's a joke in there somewhere - and that's just the game! Emblematic of what happens to every franchise in this brave new world.
There are many more senile series out there. I don't know if developers are getting lazy, or if they actually think they're doing anything more than sober, diligent, professional work. Probably they don't care: get your paycheque, do your work, keep your head down, follow the money. Creativity is being starved out of the industry, and indie games are not going to save the day. Well, whatever, I suppose it was time for me to grow up anyway, and put away such childish, M-rated things.
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