7 Things That Won't Stop Next Gen

With the next generation just around the corner we are due for many new gaming developments, below are some of the less futuristic things we will still have to deal with.

Discs + Offline Usage

Consoles being made for offline use and not ‘online-only’.

Many places in the world are still without the internet and others have only slow infrastructure. I have a friend in Africa who only has access to mobile internet but frequently plays videogames. Downloading games can be inconvenient, even with a fast connection, because you will likely have to wait for hours for the transfer. 

The world isn’t ready for online-only gaming just yet and besides, who wants a game collection that they can’t touch. 

The other side of Internet-age gaming is streaming, with services such as Playcast and Gaikai, which is now owned by Sony and is expected to be used in the Playstation 4. Currently, this technology is pleasing and impressive but still has some caveats: response times for controller input are, due to current infrastructure standards, noticeably slow and game selection is middling from a lack of publisher support due to a weak consumer base. Game streaming from the cloud isn’t going to be taking over anytime soon. All major next-gen consoles will be usable offline.

Copy-Paste Sequels

The latest release from a franchise is essentially the same as the last, with minor changes to the user-interface and, if we’re lucky, one or two new mechanics..

Many years ago, I stopped keeping up to date with my preferred sports games because I realised that they were all the same; nearly every FIFA or 2K is a little too much like its last edition. Companies release newer versions of successful products as often as reasonable, Call of Duty had 4 iterations that were essentially the same game yet the infamous franchise kept on growing. 

Unoriginal sequels aren’t all bad; some titles deserve to have extensions with only slight, positive changes because they give gamers what they want: up-to-date revisions of great titles. Others don’t, no fan asks for sequels that are vastly inferior; not serving as worthy replacements for their franchise’s highly-regarded initial release, featuring stories that are simpler and less meaningful and game aims that are less original. Unfortunately for us, with business in mind: if a product release is a success, another iteration is due regardless of whether or not any valuable improvements are in place.

RFI-Room For Improvement

The act of a publisher releasing a product that is far less than optimal so that there is an easily implementable list of improvements for later versions.

An age-old principle of business and production: products need to be improvable to aid company growth. Every iteration of Apple’s iPhone has had capabilities absent that its competitors had included as mandatory such as memory card slots and media support. Every seasoned gamer knows that Nintendo will release a superior version of their handheld portable console, with a bigger screen, but they still sell the inferior initial unit. In the next generation it will be possible for games to have photorealistic graphics but once that goal is hit, there may not be many other improvements possible.

Ensuring that they have room for improvement, game developers will only use a fraction of a home console’s power in the first few years of its generational cycle. It is an amicable aim for any console manufacturer to guarantee the satisfaction felt by consumers when they see their 5 year old, beaten and scarred machine producing visuals and gameplay that surpasses anything they've seen previously. 

Shovelware

The garbage getting made simply because it has consumers buy it; bane of game catalogues.

This annoying genre of release will always exist because it makes money that helps the industry to grow. It also provides a starting point for new-gamers who will play Barbie’s Treehouse 2 and then want to move onto a superior, similarly themed title such as Epic Mickey, developing a taste for quality while purchasing more games. 

If a customer is unsatisfied with a non-refundable product, more money will be spent as an additional replacement product is bought. As backwards as it may sound: bad product means good business. Most of the worst and most uninspiring games released each year are built for licenses, poorly produced regardless of you consistently not buying them. You can ensure you don’t purchase oversimplistic cheapies or merchandising in the form of videogames but their creation will always be reasonable and financially viable.

Copycat Clones

Publishers releasing products that are carbon copies of other, more successful games

This has been a practice for decades throughout all forms of production, companies sell what sells and consumers continue to buy clones. It is often easier and cheaper to copy instead of create something new and unfortunately, not everything can be original. The much appreciated Call of Duty series arguably wouldn't exist without the 1990's Doom and Medal of Honor on the PSX, Angry Birds is a clone of the little known Crush the Castle. 

Paying consumers deserve to have the option to freely choose between similar products to find the best one. The very best might not be the very first, a clone is often an enhanced version of an original. As a gamer, I don’t feel that the practice of copycat clones is an issue; it's good for consumers but bad for original creative types.

Short-Story Modes

Games released with barebones single-player campaigns that only last for 4 hours.

A short story campaign can be present due to many reasons including artistic liberty, RFI, sheer compositional weakness or, in Dishonored and Journey's case, game design; some games are made like small meals, made as such for every bite to be savoured and not rushed through. 

We will likely see smaller, shorter single player campaigns produced more often in the future, especially with AAA titles, as game development costs continue to rise and demands become more expensive to meet. 

Beginning at the dawn of online gaming in the late 1990’s and mirroring the competition-centric ways of Beat-Em Ups, multiplayer gaming has become much more of a focus because more people are spending more time gaming online. Short story modes are now expected in games that have multiplayer as the main focus, so it is unfair to be disappointed by a simplistic effort, yet some multiplayer focused games such as Black Ops II have impressively extensive single player campaigns. There will be still be numerous long story modes in the next gen but the focus shift to multiplayer gaming as primary has undoubtedly occurred.

DLC-Downloadable Content

The parts of a game that should be in the initial release but are held back so that companies can make extra money and expansions to a game that are unimportant (such as costumes and challenge maps).

DLC is also used as a deterrent for piracy and an incentive for consumers to lionize a particular console or service. 

It's introduction last-gen was arguably introduced as a solution to rising development costs and the economic recession. 

DLC’s inclusion into a business plan raises expected profit margins resulting in a higher budget making a better game. Every game now seems to have downloadable content, from the major to the indie's, ensuring that gamers can only get the complete game experiences by paying extra money. Missions are absent and available weaponry is limited. 

New multiplayer maps are always nice to play with, but not so much when only just 3 can cost the price of another game. Many titles such as Killing Floor or the free2play Blacklight have provided their new levels for free and frequently. Big companies like Activision and Ubisoft don’t want to lose out on extra revenue so, despite the honourable practices of other companies, we will not soon see the end of games that are sold incomplete without DLC. 

Despite all of these everlasting detractors, the next generation of gaming is always an exciting prospect that is due to please and surprise.