What would you like to see more of in video games?

What would you like to see more of?

Personally, I'd like games to go back to pixels. I absolutely love pixel games.
And I'd love to see more queer representation, of course!

i have so many opinions about what needs to be in modern video games oh my god- forgive the oncoming special interest rant-

So, before I delve into this, let me start by explaining a sort of trend regarding why games are made throughout history. In the arcade days, video games were made to be difficult so that people would spend more money playing them. They were very for-profit in that regard, but quality effort had to be put into them in order to make them into the game that arcade-goers would choose to spend their quarters on. However, once consoles were becoming more popular, games had to be more innovative and quality to be purchased. As a result, it was a much more consumer friendly market. Make a good game with passion and heart, people should buy it! Unfortunately as we know, this trend didn't last forever, because now we live in a world where most popular games are chock full of anti-consumer and for-profit practices. Microtransactions, gambling using real money or currency that costs real money, games released in early access that shouldn't be (early access is a useful tool for testing games, but many exploit the label to release an unfinished and buggy mess), games just straight-up being released in horrible states (*cough cough, Fallout 76), etc. Despite this, indie games have been becoming more and more popular (slowly, but surely), which will hopefully signify a return to consumer-friendly practices (we can only hope!).

These anti-consumer practices aren't the only issue though. The game industry is very quantity-over-quality due to the for-profit ideas it follows as of current. I am very tired of seeing generic gritty manly war shooter games. Don't get me wrong, shooter games can be done great, even in a grittier or darker setting! However it feels like a lot of games are what could be called COD-clones or Battlefield-clones. There is a similar thing with games like Fortnite too, a lot of battle-royales simply copy and paste the same formula over and over. I'm not upset that games have similar styles or gameplay, I'm upset that many of them don't strive to be original or try something new. They do the same thing and increase quantity, quantity, quantity! I go into a game store or look at a digital game store and I barely see much that sticks out. 

Another point of interest is that many games, because they want to make profit, won't try anything new or unique. Most companies don't want to experiment because that could be potential revenue lost. This contributes to the quantity issue as they keep producing the same sludge, because they think the same people will keep on buying it. Overall, all of this has made me depressed and somewhat disillusioned with the game industry. Video games are a comfort to me as they are my special interest and it sucks to see that a lot of the passion and soul has been drained from the industry. Companies are always going to want profit, but I'd at least like for them to go back to the days of making some zany stuff because the idea might be weird enough to sell. Most interesting games I see release nowadays are sequels to already existing games (but even those have been decreasing in quality), remakes, and indie games. That's because they either run with a pre-existing weird concept they tried a long time ago, or because they're making a new concept, or because they're doing an interesting take on an old one.



All of this rambling has been to say: I want to see experimentation. I want to see passion. I want to see people make some weird little goofy game idea because they think it'll be fun, or because it's their passion project, or just because! I'm going to explode if I keep seeing the same types of games with the same trends and aesthetics over and over. I miss when you'd get a real random or wacky idea like Katamari Damacy and even if it doesn't get big, it still gets a cult following. I have a lot of fun ideas I want to try, but I gotta work at them slowly and bit-by-bit. I want to encourage others interested in game development to try whatever wild little ideas they have.

If you have a game idea: Make it! The greater game industry at large may never do that.

I want more single player horror games. There is a current trend to try and make every horror franchise into some kind of multiplayer horror. I liked Dead by Daylight, but now there's going to be a Texas Chainsaw Massacre multiplayer game, and a Killer Klownz from Outer Space multiplayer, and there's all your Phasmophobias and such. Spookiness is enhanced by isolation and I want horror games that are played alone.

Also I am old and I miss games in which additional content is earned through in-game challenges, not by paying for DLC. New characters, new clothes, weird cheats, it should all be in the game already.

I would like to see more re-thinking of video game accessibility. there's been some genuinely fantastic progress in accessibility options in video games as well as developer attitudes towards it, however I think there's this prevailing idea that accessibility is a two-point scale between "not accessible" and "fully accessible".

for example a lot of modern UIs are designed to be neat and tidy, with simple fonts so that they are more "easily readable". that's a great option to have for people who struggle with visual overload or complex fonts, but that isn't "more accessible" than a stylized UI, it is just differently accessible. I personally find it harder to visually parse "tidy" UIs at a glance, and I find stylized fonts easier to read than a lot of simple fonts because it's harder for me to mistake one character for another. one person's access is another person's barrier!

Totel wrote:

What would you like to see more of?

Personally, I'd like games to go back to pixels. I absolutely love pixel games.
And I'd love to see more queer representation, of course!

God same I love 2d and pixel games. I do like some 3d games and I don't wanna just hate on them but it is frustrating how so many ppl view like 2d games to 3d as a progression. They feel like different genres! I like a lot of 3d titles but I miss the 2d platformers and pokemon games...

@fera that point about how different people have different access needs is so on point- its so frustrating to talk to ppl who assume there is like 1 thing that is inherently more 'accessible' when something that is helpful for one person will be inaccessible for another...its why I like games that have options you can turn on and off for different settings and style.

@MumiMoondrops loved reading through your comments and I basically agree with all your points. It really is frustrating to see how the artistry of video games gets constantly restrained by anti consumer practices...

I'd love to see games care less about being able to render every sweat drop and lip hair on every character's skin and more about being visually distinct with a strong style identity.

I greatly prefer older games because I genuinely believe they look better than the newer hyper-realistic ones, i feel like they were so much better at portraying atmosphere.
It's so rare that I see a modern game whose visual design wows me as much and makes me yearn to play video games as much as one single gif from a 1996 FromSoftware game did with its vibes alone.

Sorry to evoke the name again but for a long time Harry Potter 2 for PC was the game that came to mind when I have to name my favourite-looking game, because its stylized character models, lighting and ambient were so on point.

Spoiler:

Now that I started playing Morrowind, this game is definitely also up there with my favourites.

Spoiler:

And honestly, when speaking of creating magic with major medium limitations, how can I not mention Mata Nui Online Game, a free online flash point-and-click adventure game which was designed with such a strong aesthetic vision that almost every screen could be a desktop background

Spoiler:

I think that the graphic limitations that the games used to have required the game devs to more carefully consider the aesthetic direction of their game. You couldn't do everything, so you had to pick more carefully, and so what remained, in the end, was truly the core - the heart - of the artist's vision.
Where the models lacked, the atmosphere worked in an overdrive.

Harry Potter 1 and 2 are thus amazing at conveying the atmosphere, air and temperature of their locations largely through colour and music. I was always able to extremely vividly feel the ambients in this game because the colour direction was just exaggerated enough to enhance those feelings for me. The music also can't be understated.

Morrowind has a great weather and night-day cycle that paints the same (and very diverse) locations in so many different lights and colours during different times of the day that you completely forget how primitive the graphics are. The areas feel real, but not in a realistic movie-esque experience. It's not trying to fool me into thinking I'm looking at the real world. I am embraced by the world in a video game on its own terms.

MNOG utilized ambient to its absolute fullest and delivered beautiful cutscenes using only strong colours and music, with extremely limited animation and no spoken dialogue. The fact that so much of the game is completely silent with only slight natural sounds of the sea or the wind in the distance adds to the feeling of longing and unease that can be sensed throughout the island of Mata Nui.

Old pixel games look so good because they also had limited colour, resolution, and file sizes.
When those games used magenta it was one of the few times in the history of this world that magenta looked good.

I genuinely think the visual aesthetic of games went downwards when technology reached the point where game designers didn't have to be limited anymore. If I look at a game and I feel like I'm looking at a movie.. I'd honestly just prefer to watch a movie.

I miss when the entire wall and floor were just textures.
I miss when the sky was one huge stretched-out png and the fire burning on a torch in the wall was a gif.

@neonUFO (tiredsleepy) holy shit, that mata nui game is incredible looking. like it's absolutely gorgeous to look at it.

Totel wrote:

@neonUFO (tiredsleepy) holy shit, that mata nui game is incredible looking. like it's absolutely gorgeous to look at it.

it IS and i am very happy to share a few more screencaps from my collection;

Spoiler:

i definitely need to replay it and grab some more screencaps tbh.
also worth noting is that MOST of these locations have no music, only ambiental natural sounds like wind and ocean.

for most of the game you travel between the villages in complete loneliness, and the game REALLY leans into that melancholy.

I pretty much agree with everything that's been said. I've been leaning more towards remakes, indie games, and smaller framchises for the most part. There are exceptions but lots of triple A games don't do it for me. I haven't even gotten a PS5 yet because I didn't see any games on there that I really wanted to play yet that I couldn't play on the PS4 or Switch.

I'd like to see more:

- variety in visual art style. Too many games are hyper realistic. It doesn't necessarily have to be pixels, but games like Okami, Spyro, Child of Light, and various indies have very visually interesting 3D graphics. It really helps in creating a distinct atmosphere, too.

- I personally prefer 3D to 2D most of the time, but more 2D options would also be nice for variety.

- compact maps. Other than a veeeery few exceptions, I'm getting tired of action-adventure and rpg's (my main genres) going open world. I felt areas were more interesting and less empty when they weren't giant open spaces. Earlier this year I played Kena: Bridge of Spirits and I loved the level design both visually and game-play wise. Same with Stray. The side content felt more integrated too, rather than yet another marker on your to do list. Those giant maps feel like padding most of the time.

- games that are actually finished and not buggy messes upon release. Oh and actually having a complete game and not story-essential content locked behind DLC. I'm fine with DLC being extra, but I can name multiple examples where that wasn't the case.

- New ideas and franchises. Though I appreciate some remakes, especially of games that are no longer easily accessible, a lot seems to be a remake or a sequel (that's not as good as the first).