Gaming is in a weird place right now; While the new ninth-generation consoles promise progress on a scale never seen before, the demand for the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 still far outstrips supply, meaning few gamers have access to the latest and greatest on the market. the field of console gaming.
But while it’s a frustrating trend, the supply shortage and scalper-plagued market that’s ensued isn’t the worst trend gamers have endured. From abhorrent microtransaction schemes to ridiculous NFT grifts, here are 10 horrible gaming trends that have either died out completely or are about to spill the beans.
10 Motion Control
While predecessors like Power Glove and Sega Activator set a precedent for motion controls in gaming, the seventh generation of consoles brought it about. Released in 2006, motion control was at the heart of Nintendo’s Wii console, and both Microsoft and Sony later followed suit with the release of the Xbox Kinect and the PlayStation Move, respectively.
While they were nice novelties, gamers quickly grew tired of the forced integration of motion controls, especially in third-party titles. As a result, when the eighth generation of consoles launched in 2013, Nintendo adopted a new gimmick for their Wii U, and Microsoft quickly discovered that gamers wouldn’t spend an extra $100 on an Xbox One bundled with Kinect.
9 Unnecessary multiplayer modes
While the franchise had already achieved a respectable player base in advance, 2007 was a turning point for Activision’s Duty franchisee. The hatching of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare made online multiplayer a must-have for console games, and dozens of competing franchises followed suit.
From BioShock until Mass effect, half-baked multiplayer modes were a big part of seventh-generation console gaming. While some of them turned out to be memorable, overall they were a waste of development time, and most of them are now completely unplayable as their player base doesn’t exist.
8 Excessive QTEs
A popular means of making long cutscenes more engaging, fast-paced events became a mainstay of games around the turn of the century, usually associated with the cult hit pseudo-life sim Shenmue. Unfortunately, some developers have come to rely on it a little too much, with some monumental moments in franchises as notable as Resident Evil and Duty fall victim to these basic button-mashing mechanics.
In the modern era, QTEs are not unheard of, but they certainly seem much rarer than they were two decades ago. The late 2000s trend of pairing QTEs and motion controls probably played a part in killing the concept.
7 Too many peripherals
From ROB the Robot to the SNES SuperScope, peripherals have been a part of video games since the rejuvenation of home console gaming in the mid-’80s. However, in the mid-2000s, it came to a head with the advent of popular rhythm games such as Guitar Hero and Rock band.
While phenomenal in their own right, there was a moment between 2006 and 2012 when gamers’ living rooms were filled with plastic drum kits, guitars and turntables. The trend collapsed in early 2010, but many gamers probably still have old plastic instruments collecting dust in their basements or attics.
6 Excessive bloom
Although Sony and Microsoft portrayed their seventh-generation consoles as marvels of hardware engineering, developers still had to rely on all sorts of tricks to distract from muddy textures, gnarly graphics, and other visual problems.
This often resulted in an over-reliance on “realistic” camera effects such as bloom, film grain, and lens flair. These additions allowed developers to bring out the realism of their titles while also covering up some decidedly unrealistic flaws. Fortunately, the computing power in modern times is so great that such techniques are no longer used, at least not excessively.
5 AAA games mobile ports
When smartphones entered the mainstream in the late 2000s, game publishers saw a great opportunity to port fan favorite game franchises to mobile devices. Unfortunately, the result of this was a slew of half-baked conversions that barely represented their console and PC counterparts. Check out the cross-dressing that was the mobile version of Resident Evil 4 to get a sense of how desperate these games often were.
Games like Plants vs Zombies and Cut the rope dominated this groundbreaking era, prompting industry leaders to follow suit, eventually discovering that microtransaction-packed free-to-play titles worked out much better in the mobile space.
4 Reminder Cards
Before the seventh generation of consoles, the ability to save a game was a luxury that every gamer had yet to get. Back in the 80’s and 90’s, most titles had annoying password systems to get around the lack of a battery backup, and many players who got their teeth into the first two PlayStation consoles can talk about the battle for a console for days on end. to leave a missing memory card.
Fortunately, those days are long gone, although this problem has resurrected in a slightly different form. As the download size increases, gamers look to external hard drives to make up for a lack of internal memory.
3 Microtransactions in AAA games
As microtransactions slowly swallowed the mobile game market, major publishers chose to integrate them into AAA experiences as well. The eighth generation of consoles has been plagued mainly by cosmetic bundles containing shoehorns and virtual currency, and major franchises such as Duty and Madden NFL especially bogged down in these predatory plans.
While still common in sports games, microtransactions in AAA games have largely disappeared in favor of battle pass systems. Though flawed, battle passes often give eager players the chance to earn more cosmetics for less money.
2 Lootbox Mechanics
Notoriously rebranded as “surprise mechanics” by an EA representative at a hearing in the UK Parliament, loot boxes were a horrific gaming trend that plagued console and mobile gaming in mid-to-late 2010. The zeal of some publishers to include these mechanics was such that long-awaited titles like Star Wars: Battlefront II and Middle Earth: Shadow of War anything but required.
Fortunately, the fan pushback was huge, and publishers were quick to kick back. Today, while loot boxes still exist, they’re not nearly as common as they once were and have mostly been relegated to live-service multiplayer titles.
1 NFTs
Cryptocurrencies and NFTs are all the rage among tech-savvy investors, but almost all gamers agree that they have no place in the gaming space. Still, some publishers seem eager to get involved in the next big thing and have chosen to implement NFTs in some of their games.
The most infamous example of this was Ubisofts Quartz initiative, which rolled out NFT cosmetics in the already unfavorably received Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. Backlash coupled with low sales prompted Ubisoft to turn back, and while publishers still threaten to integrate NFTs into their games, the window to widespread adoption of NFTs in gaming appears to have closed.
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