The video game industry in 2023 is not what it was when I was growing up. Microtransactions, high prices, patches, and long installation times are unfortunate aspects of modern gaming.
Back in the early 2000s, gaming was a simpler hobby than it is now. When I was a kid, my parents would simply buy the game and I was able to play it right away.
Nowadays I must think twice about buying a video game when it comes out. As a passionate gamer, it saddens me to see how much the industry is driven by capitalism.
Greed is a common factor in the entertainment business. Microtransactions and high pricing have become the new norm to bring in more profit. Microtransactions involve purchases made within a game after it is already bought and paid for by a customer. They are also used for free-to-play games.
I understand people want to make money to support themselves, but these types of decisions can hurt their businesses in the long run. Video games went from costing $60 to $70 in the last couple of years. From a consumer standpoint, I find it a ridiculous idea to ask consumers to pay even more money for a product that they purchased at full price.
Students at CLC might potentially sacrifice enjoying their favorite hobby to save money. Juggling college and work is stressful as it is. It would be a huge relief if gaming companies would be more consumer-friendly with their pricing.
One of the most anticipated games of 2023 was Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the sequel to 2019’s successful Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Star Wars is a very popular franchise, so expectations were very high for this title.
However, things quickly took a turn for the worse when the title was released in April. Even though the game was delayed to be polished up more, it was released with all sorts of bugs and issues.
The worst issues included the game crashing, not having stable performance, and having input lag. Input lag occurs when the actions in a video game do not properly correspond with the controller buttons when they are pressed. For example, pressing “X” on a controller would make a character jump 1 second after that command input instead of under 40 milliseconds.
To fix these issues, the developers started releasing “patches” for Star Wars: Jedi Survivor throughout the summer. A patch involves changes made to a game to make it perform better after it has been released.
However, it was like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was only 90 percent completed at launch and given the next 10 percent after being patched. Clearly, this was wrong.
Even though I was given the game back in May for my birthday, I just started playing the game a few weeks ago. This is because I waited until the game was patched up enough for me to have a decent playthrough with it.
I should not have had to wait that long to play a game that came out almost 5 months ago. This is a ridiculous trend in modern gaming that needs to stop immediately.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor ended up one of the best games of 2023. Spectacular products like this are continuously hindered by unnecessary issues in modern gaming.
Even though I ended up enjoying the game, I did not enjoy the 2 hours it took for the 150 gigabytes to be installed on my PlayStation 5.
Video games are only going to get bigger as time goes on and software becomes more capable of handling them. Long installation times are bothersome but ultimately unavoidable.
In my opinion, the video game industry has so much more to give to the world. I hope that people involved in the industry can help maximize its potential in the future.
