Your best, worst, and most disappointing gaming trend of the 2010s

Aeander

What would you consider to be the best, worst, and most disappointing gaming trends of the decade.

The best trend is a trend that has positively impacted the industry. 

The worst trend is one that has negatively impacted the industry.

The most disappointing trend is one that had the potential to be overwhelmingly positive, but typically or always fails to live up to that potential (or has even become a negative trend). 

My best trend is the integration of RPG mechanics into other genres

Just about every genre of game can be greatly improved with some degree of skill trees, customization, moral choices, and/or gear. 

My worst trend is survival mechanics.

Hunger and thirst meters are not fun. Weapon degradation is not fun. Stamina bars are not fun. Non-consensual PvP and griefing are not fun. Punching trees for crafting materials is not fun. Obligatory crafting is not fun.

Survival games are not fun. 

My most disappointing trend is "open world."

Open worlds are exciting on paper. Think of all of the freedom and endless possibilities! And in the best examples, like The Witcher 3, they can be used to amazing effect.

In practice, however, open worlds are typically nothing more than repetitive, soul-less, copy-paste tripe devoid of all narrative, purpose, depth, and replayability. 

At worst, open worlds actively dilute and ruin existing game franchises. For example:

Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda lost the RPG magic and story consequences of their predecessors due in large part to scope creep and a change in focus to exploration. 

Dynasty Warriors appeals to a small crowd of dedicated weirdos, myself included. Dynasty Warriors 9 appeals to no one. 

There is no such thing as "everything you loved about Guild Wars in an open world." Everything that people liked about Guild Wars is only possible in a fully instanced world.

Amathe

Best:  growing interest in "old school" and "classic" style games.

Worst: vaporware cash shops.

Most disappointing:  a lack of new AAA mmorpg titles

lahnmir

Best trend:

Expanding on survival mechanics. Conan Exiles is great, New World was a step in the right direction. Can’t wait where it is going.

Worst trend:

Fake deadlines. Knowing you aren’t going to make it but still give a “beta in 1 year” time line so people spend money on your soon to be project.

Most disappointing:

Indeed open world games, or, Ubisoft syndrome, or, checklist with fancy window dressing. We could have had worlds, we got errand boys as gameplay.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

kitarad

I think the action oriented games from Korea and such. Too hard for me to play. Don't like those at all.

I like the old games coming back. Like classic WoW and the opening of new servers for P99.

NorseGod

Amathe said:

Best:  growing interest in "old school" and "classic" style games.

Worst: vaporware cash shops.

Most disappointing:  a lack of new AAA mmorpg titles

Can't find a better reply than this. /thread

Aeander

Amathe said:

Best:  growing interest in "old school" and "classic" style games.

Worst: vaporware cash shops.

Most disappointing:  a lack of new AAA mmorpg titles

I avoided cash shops and microtransactions because they were low hanging fruit, and thus would certainly be talked about by someone else.

Gutlard

Best: Remaking great games with updated graphics/mechanics 

Worst: Remaking old games, get new ideas already 

Most Disappointing: My lack of time to play all the games I want/NEED to play 

Gut Out!

Azaron_Nightblade

Aeander said:

What would you consider to be the best, worst, and most disappointing gaming trends of the decade.

The best trend is a trend that has positively impacted the industry. 

The worst trend is one that has negatively impacted the industry.

The most disappointing trend is one that had the potential to be overwhelmingly positive, but typically or always fails to live up to that potential (or has even become a negative trend). 

My best trend is the integration of RPG mechanics into other genres

Just about every genre of game can be greatly improved with some degree of skill trees, customization, moral choices, and/or gear. 

My worst trend is survival mechanics.

Hunger and thirst meters are not fun. Weapon degradation is not fun. Stamina bars are not fun. Non-consensual PvP and griefing are not fun. Punching trees for crafting materials is not fun. Obligatory crafting is not fun.

Survival games are not fun. 

My most disappointing trend is "open world."

Open worlds are exciting on paper. Think of all of the freedom and endless possibilities! And in the best examples, like The Witcher 3, they can be used to amazing effect.

In practice, however, open worlds are typically nothing more than repetitive, soul-less, copy-paste tripe devoid of all narrative, purpose, depth, and replayability. 

At worst, open worlds actively dilute and ruin existing game franchises. For example:

Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect Andromeda lost the RPG magic and story consequences of their predecessors due in large part to scope creep and a change in focus to exploration. 

I think you mean Dragon Age Inquisition. Since Origins was the progenitor of the Dragon Age franchise. So no predecessors there.

rodarin

hmm no mention of 'mobile' gaming which could be on opposing lists depending on how people viewed it.

Aeander

Azaron_Nightblade said:

Aeander said:

What would you consider to be the best, worst, and most disappointing gaming trends of the decade.

The best trend is a trend that has positively impacted the industry. 

The worst trend is one that has negatively impacted the industry.

The most disappointing trend is one that had the potential to be overwhelmingly positive, but typically or always fails to live up to that potential (or has even become a negative trend). 

My best trend is the integration of RPG mechanics into other genres

Just about every genre of game can be greatly improved with some degree of skill trees, customization, moral choices, and/or gear. 

My worst trend is survival mechanics.

Hunger and thirst meters are not fun. Weapon degradation is not fun. Stamina bars are not fun. Non-consensual PvP and griefing are not fun. Punching trees for crafting materials is not fun. Obligatory crafting is not fun.

Survival games are not fun. 

My most disappointing trend is "open world."

Open worlds are exciting on paper. Think of all of the freedom and endless possibilities! And in the best examples, like The Witcher 3, they can be used to amazing effect.

In practice, however, open worlds are typically nothing more than repetitive, soul-less, copy-paste tripe devoid of all narrative, purpose, depth, and replayability. 

At worst, open worlds actively dilute and ruin existing game franchises. For example:

Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect Andromeda lost the RPG magic and story consequences of their predecessors due in large part to scope creep and a change in focus to exploration. 

I think you mean Dragon Age Inquisition. Since Origins was the progenitor of the Dragon Age franchise. So no predecessors there.

I did mean Inquisition.

rodarin said:

hmm no mention of 'mobile' gaming which could be on opposing lists depending on how people viewed it.

One could even make an argument as to how that might be a positive. The rise of mobile gaming means that most of the worst shite has essentially segregated itself onto one platform.

For example, we rarely get bad movie tie-in games anymore, because movie tie-ins have largely shifted to mobile.

Shaigh

Best trend was kickstarter starting an rpg revival
worst trend was gaas monetization
most disappointing trend is the endless development of kickstarter mmorpg.

Copperfield

worst trend.. the many survival games and BR games.

best trend.. BDO next gen visual mmorpg.. altho i dont like the pvp in that game.. visually its a masterpiece

Phaserlight

rodarin said:

hmm no mention of 'mobile' gaming which could be on opposing lists depending on how people viewed it.

So, two horizon-expanding developments which occurred within the last decade count as "best" for me:

2011 - Mobile-PC cross-platform integration: playing a PC MMORPG on a mobile phone with 8 years of progress stored across all my characters.  Potential play locations went from "my desk at home" to "anywhere".  It was a third-eye moment.

2016 - Affordable virtual reality.  I didn't expect the inner-ear physical sensations when wearing a stereoscopic, orientation-sensitive, head-mounted display; it's a testament to immersion and I love being able to "see into" an extensive, digital 3D space.

These are both ground breaking trends despite the flak they take here, and I hope to see them continue to flourish and be developed into the 2020s.

Worst trend: micro(/macro)transactions.

Biggest disappointment: the Ouya.

cameltosis

Best Trend - Resurgence of strategy / sim games. I'm thinking planet coaster, planet zoo, cities skylines, two point hospital and others. I felt like the last decade took some of the cool / deep micromanagement of older strategy games, then added a boat load of creative options on top of them. I once spent 6 hours simply designing a new map in Cities: Skylines before I even began to build my city. Love this creativity on top of such amazing deep and complex systems.

Worst Trend - Monetisation. I hate F2P, I hate cash shops, and I hate what those monetisation strategies have done to games design. Whilst I can (and do) avoid those games, it does mean there is substantially less choice for me, especially in the MMO space.

Most Disappointing Trend - Western devs leaving the MMO market. We started the decade with the end of the "boom" in MMOs, but western devs have almost completely left the market. AAA devs have completely given up, our last few big games were wildstar, eso and gw2.....all many years ago. Indie devs are trying to fill the gap, but havent succeeded (yet....).

I was tempted to say VR as most disappointing trend, but the instant the oculus, vive etc were announced, it was clear they were going to a gimmick with minimal impact on the gaming world. I seem to have been proved right so far. Was also tempted to say the lack of quality in asian imported MMOs, I did have high hopes when more and more started making their way over to us, filling the gap left behind by western devs. I was certainly disappointed in the way they are designed, totally not my style at all, but at least they're trying and have found some sort of market, even if im not part of that market.

Wizardry

Best trend and worst perhaps was survival games.
They gave us something more than regular mmorpg's gave us and really it should be the other way around.However where survival games shine is about the only thing they do so it leaves us with a boat load of half assed games across all genres.

Can we get mmorpg's to add in survival modes/building/crafting ships,sailing etc etc/pet breeding FREE mounts not crap we see in cash shops.

Worst gimmick,the same one that rolls around every 10 years....VR,complete waste of time and money,no dev on this planet is going to spend the time to make a HQ VR game.

Worst new idea....crowd funding games.All they really are is easy money to exploit with zero risk and nothing but promises.Crowd funded games are like double dipping on cash shops.First you give them money for nothing,then later they sell you cash shop items to get 2x the money out of you.