The Average Gamer

Anyone who knows me is aware of the fact that I spend a lot of my free time playing video games. Video games have been a huge part of my life for a long time and I have spent countless hours enjoying them. I can still remember my parents gifting me Medal of Honor: Frontline on Playstation 2 for my ninth birthday. I credit that game for turning me into a true gamer. I probably replayed that game more than 50 times over the course of the following year. It has been a long time since I’ve played that game but it will always be one of my most fun memories of gaming.

I have a lot of fun and happy memories centered around gaming. Most of them are centered around the days of the XBox 360, which launched in November 2005. It was the must-have console in the video game world. Everyone was asking their parents to get them one for Christmas, including me. My parents told me if I wanted one that I needed to get to work earning money to buy it. This was not the answer I was hoping to hear. It took me almost two years to finally save up the money to buy one. I will admit that it only took so long because I blew through my cash on candy and toys at every opportunity I could, but after a while I finally did it. In hindsight I am glad that my parents made me buy it with my own money, it taught me the value of hard work and made me appreciate the fact that I finally had an Xbox much more. That era of gaming had some of the most fun game titles I have ever played.

Lately I have been thinking back to those days of gaming. These days there is an almost endless catalog of good games available to play but few games have been able to replicate the fun and excitement of the 360 days. I started to wonder if maybe I’m just not as into gaming as I used to be. I decided that maybe it was time to go back to some of the older games and see if they were still great games or if I was just looking back at my childhood nostalgically. What I discovered was that games used to just be more fun. Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of new games out there that have given me hours of enjoyment, but at their core games now aren’t strictly built around the idea of fun.

The video game industry has consistently grown over the years and with that growth there has been a shift from making games fun to finding new ways to make more money off of them. One of the largest controversies has been the rise of microtransactions. Those are items in games that the player must spend additional money to unlock. Most microtransactions are strictly cosmetic items such as costumes to change the player’s appearance. Other times games will add microtransactions that give a player a boost making the game easier. I won’t lie to you and say I have never purchased a microtransaction, cause I have. What I can say, though, is I have never purchased a microtransaction that made a game easier.

The vast majority of older games didn’t include microtransactions. The general idea used to be that if you made a fun game that sold well you could release a sequel a few years later. This was the industry standard for many years but as the cost to make games has risen many companies have shifted to finding ways to bring in more money with microtransactions. It is fairly common for gamers to have to wait five-plus years before they see a sequel to their favorite games.

Some video game franchises have found ways to still consistently release sequels. Call of Duty is easily one of the most popular video game franchises and has been for years. The first Call of Duty released in 2003 and with the exception of 2004 a new Call of Duty has been released every year since. The series has changed very little since its 2007 release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The game set the standard for online first-person shooter video games with its customization of weapons and fun gameplay. The series did try new things with the inclusion of jetpacks and parkour in some of the franchise's titles but found out quickly this wasn’t the direction fans had hoped to see the franchise develop.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was released in 2019 to fan and critical acclaim. The game was a reboot of the original Modern Warfare series featuring fan favorite characters, a new story and a classic multiplayer experience. When I first played the game it reminded me of the Xbox 360 days. The game series took a step back and looked at what had made it so popular in the first place and tried to replicate that experience. Many fans, including myself, will tell you that they succeeded. The newest release in the series is Modern Warfare II and again this was a game that reminded me of the Xbox 360 days. Call of Duty is one of the few franchises that has taken a step back and tried to replicate the experience of gaming 10-15 years ago with great success. The games still offer dozens of microtransactions but at its core it’s still fun even if you choose not to spend extra money on the game.

Games have become a lot more complicated since the days of the Xbox 360. Sometimes that's been for the better and other times not so much. Regardless of whether a game is complicated or not, one thing a game should always be is fun. Many series have lost sight of that, replacing the fun that used to be present with ways for the game to generate more money for their developer and publishing company. Some series like Call of Duty have found ways to maintain the sense of fun while still finding new ways to make additional revenue. My hope is that more games return to their roots and rediscover what made them so fun. I understand that at the end of the day these companies' biggest concern is their bottom dollar but that still isn’t an excuse for selling me an experience that isn’t fun.

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