I'm just curious. I can probably predict with some certainty what the general ones will be, but I'm interested in hearing, personally, which you hate and why you hate them so. What do you think?

The video game trend I despise the most is the running assumption in new video games that the younger generations can't enjoy slow paced games and that they must make them easier and faster to appeal to them. And one of the reasons I dislike it is because it is actually true but that only goes because we never challenge the younger generations.

Take someone born after 2000 or you could even push it down to someone born after 1995 (I myself am only a 1993 model) and you will have someone who has gone through gaming without ever failing at any task in any game because all of the games have been made to be beat at the first try effortlessly so that the audience won't feel discouraged and leave. And people of the younger generations will look at reading in a game as a chore, no matter the depth it may bring to the game. And the graphics must be as realistic as possible to a point where even artistic games that don't have the goal to be realistic like Okami get ignored.

Throw me another slow paced game where the power of your mind is valued more than the speed of your trigger finger. Make me have to drudge over a map peering into the landscape for landmarks so that I can find my way. Allow "monsters" to hold true to their title and make me fear encountering them, let me struggle to escape the nagas many armed grasp rather than have me swipe down 100 nagas at the touch of a button. Give me strategy game that are not "real time", ones where being able to calculate terrain speed and the difference in tiles and your speed over certain tiles is more important for your victory than being able to quickly command three seperate entities on the map at the same time to perform a flanking maneuver.

Make me think, not act, please!

Now when I try to introduce my brother born in 2000 to the kind of games I like he finds them boring because he loses and because he has to read and things go slowly. He doesn't want to spend time making sure his armor is up to shape or to stock up on some necessary supplies before heading carefully out of town. He wants to storm on a DLC mount with full armor and power given to him at the start of the game to the end boss and beat him on his first try after killing a thousand of his minions at the same time by himself. And then he wants the legendary weapon at the end of the game or the whole experience won't be worth it, despite the fact there is nothing to challenge him enough for him to actually need the legendary weapon.

So yes, this constant dumbing down content to sell things better is the trend I despise the most in the video game industry.

Adding on to Ellert, game content locked in the game disk that can only be activated after playing extra.

Four come to mind.

1. The trend of games relying on action sequences and explosions to make for an "exciting" end.
2. The trend of dumbing down games because we dont want the poor darling players to have to think things through and use their cognitive functions.
3. Day One DLC- you're charging people to pay more money for stuff they already have in their possession.
4. Charging for small, unimpressive DLC like extra maps, extra weapons etc.

Lack of an exploration aspect. Say what you will, but even shooters like Halo, Ratchet and Clank, and I think Max Payne had all of these nice little nooks for you to run off the beaten trail and explore. Most of the time it's just, "STRAIGHT HALLWAY, LETS GO AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH CANCER IN THE ASS!"

Graphics hype.
Sequelitis.
Game series with a major release every single year.
Absence of depth in most modern games.
Games that treat me like an idiot and pretty much tell me how to beat them.

One stands above all for me:

When did "Mash button [whatever] as fast as you can for several seconds" become an acceptable gameplay mechanic? How freakin' lazy can you be?

I'm not a fan of the "Simon Says" button dances, but at least that's got some reaction to it. But the stupid "hit it over & over and if you don't do it fast enough, you lose whatever cutscene/battle/hold/whatever you're doing" thing drives me nuts.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was one of the worst offenders. It almost ruined God of War III for me. An otherwise fun game, Mercenaries 2, was hampered by this during the hijacking sequences of the later vehicles. I think it was also in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance... I know I've ran across it other times, but those are the ones that come to mind.


Why the Hell should how fast I can hit a button over and over again determine whether or not I can play a game?

Unnecessary quick time events.
DLC released separately when the game's released or soon after.

Cutting content to sell overpriced DLC (I'm looking at you, Bioware).

A. Overpriced day one/locked content DLC, seriously, that's just being a complete [censored] to your userbase.
B. Making 2-3 seperate endings, a character upgrade system, and advertising it as an RPG.
C. The users who act like children and scream 'DIS GAEM NO CHALUNG! MAEK ET HURDUR!', then when they release a DLC that is challenging they whine it was either 'to hard', or say that a certain aspect svcked so they can try to hide the fact it was an actual challenge to them.
D. Developers who cater to the 'YOUR LAST GAME WAS TO COMPLICATED. SIMPLIFY IT', then the next game takes a backseat trip to derptard land.

(As you can see, 'Simplifying gameplay' is my berserk button >_> )

Digital distribution
Cloud gaming
Continuing a game's story via DLC (full fledged expansion packs are fine, bite size amounts content every month is annoying)
Gaming's legitimacy being dependant on how closely developers are able to mimick Hollywood

"Hey, lets release this game even if it's not finished! Patches'll take care of everything."
"Alright. Infinity Ward,Treyarch, Harmonix, Neversoft, Vicarious Visions, listen up. I want a new Guitar Hero/CoD game every year. Got it? I don't care how similar they are to each other. Just make it happen. Moneyyyzzzz, I wants."
"Alright, so Activison has this series called Guitar Hero that's pretty damn popular. Lets copy it and add some instruments."
"Hmmm... so Mass Effect was very well received. What do to for ME2. Oh, I know! Lets start by telling Bioware to get rid of 85% of the RPG mechanics. That'll make it better. And now on to the Dragon Age series..."
"So, Final Fantasy I-IX all had worlds our fans could adventure, towns they could discover, and secrets to be discovered. Lets get rid of that. Simpler. Our fans are dumb, remember? Oh and those Sakaguchi and Uematsu guys? Lets make sure they leave the company. Don't need 'em."

That about sums it up... Rushed products, cash grabs, lack of originality, publishers not letting developers do their thing, dumbing down games.

Edit: Oh and increasingly pointless "anti-piracy" measures that are typically broken within a week of the game's release. All they do is inconvenience those of us that actually buy the games. CD-keys are where it should've stopped, imo.

1) I hate exclusives: i hate games that are exclusive to one console for two reasons, one; they cut the possible popularity and thus prosperity of the developers by reducing the number of total possible buyers by a third. second; even if it is an awesome game if it is an exclusive and i don't have the console for it i will never buy that game, like little big planet, i know i would enjoy and play the hell out of that but i am never going to buy a ps3 so i will never play that game.

2) I hate exclusives: like content that you only get for preording a game at a certain store. I don't want to buy the buggy first release of a game just to get some cool armor then be stuck with the buggy version of the game [doesn't apply to PC games, also i don't have Xbox live so i can't DL patchs].

3) I hate realism: things like people saying a game is bad because it is not true to life enough, example; on these forums some one once complained that Oblvion was not realistic enough because you did not have to knock on peoples doors and then wait for them to answer before going into a house, ignoring the fact that tes is a game where you shoot fire from your hands.

also the constant demand for graphics to be "ultra" and the best, even though these same people will later talk about how aweful the graphics were to trash a game that when it was put out had the best graphics available [once again talking about oblivion] and the developers end up diverting an unneccesary and arguably redundant amount of the development budget on graphics rather than on content and game testing.

The trend that stands out for me as the worst is definitely the dumbing down of sequels to classic games. TES conforms to this in spades. Fallout had a very rough patch, but has definitely been improving. One of the few franchises I can think of off the top of my head that has actually made a sequel more complex then it was in the previous game is Grand Theft Auto.

To be fair, Sakaguchi left of his own accord on account of The Spirits Within sending the company to financial ruin. Uematsu, despite going freelance (as most well known Japanese game composers have), still works with Square on ocassion.

Their real blunder was trying to keep a creative leash on Yasumi Matsuno, forcing him to leave the company. Although Tetsuya Nomura isn't a bad game designer, Matsuno was just about their greatest asset.

Most of my complaints (and most of the above complaints) can be summed up with "Big Business." Difficulty reduced so as not to drive people away. Complexity reduced to increase accessibility. Content shaved away so that DLC can charge extra. Extreme focus on action to bait the largest demographic. Half-hearted sprinklings of other genres like RPG "elements" or strategy "elements" as a shallow "we're all you've got" way to dredge in fans of other genres. Games forced out too early because development is too expensive. Financial focus on insubstantial elements like graphics to catch the eye of customers. Games having bad controls or poor optimization because making them cross-platform is more important than making them complete. Squelching of creativity because it's too risky. Shunning of non-dominant genres because they're not the most profitable. Embracing new gimmicks so as not to look "old" instead of because they're good. Reviving old franchises with no intention of making them like the earlier games, because you can grab some old fans by slapping the old name on the same old omniproduct. Enforcing over-the-top DRM because the insubstantial possibility of More Money is more important than product quality.

It could go on. I wouldn't mind so much that these games were made, if they weren't almost entirely the only games being made. Anything else is either an underfunded mess because no publisher will back it, or an indie game, which is a quality grab-bag.

Wasn't aware of that. Still doesn't change my opinion of SE

Over hyping a game: This can really be annoying and a money waster...exsample:

1: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim-Don't get me wrong I love this game but when everything I hear is Skyrim this and Skyrim that, it got so annoying that I almost didn't bother buying it, but I bought it anyway because I love TES.

2: Alone in the Dark (360)-I curse the day I ever put this PoS in my 360, the people at Game Stop overhyped this game so {bleeping} much even I thought it was going to be worth getting....where's a DeLorian when you need it? The controls are some of the most horrible I've ever had to deal with....I'm glad my 360 scratched it .

About the "your last game was too hard make it easier thing"

I would he the guy who would just smile, as during the production of the sequel, inturned the difficulty dial up to 11.

Every gimmick incorporated by the Wii and Wii games. Don't get me wrong, I've played a few Wii games I really liked, but I hate having to shake the Wiimote all over the place like I'm...well...y'know. This also includes this new thing where people keep making games require me to stand up and dance around like the biggest moron in history. I want to sit my big butt in a chair, keep my hands on a controller or mouse/keyboard, and press buttons. Save this other nonsense for whenever full-on virtual reality is actually possible.

Definitely this. I also feel like the ability to lock content like that has never been incorporated to its potential. I've always thought it would be so amazing if a company released a game, waited a couple of months, and then unlocked some kind of alternate ending, or had the original ending end on a cliff-hanger, then a few months later unlock the rest of the story. It would be awesome if it was done right and with care.

this would irratate me, i don't want to wait months to get the rest of something i already paid for. i don't care if its for dramatic impact, after a few months i would no longer care.

I might be a unique case here, but when I was younger (13-16), I loved really deep, complex games that I could spend hours doing every task, and making sure that I achieved perfection. Morrowind comes to mind right now for a game like that. I loved searching high and low to find the best armour, that hidden cave for some obscure quest, and pretty much any part of the game I would eat up. I'm 19 now, and I just find I like a simple, fast game that I can bust a bit of stress on or just have a good time with. I don't find it fun searching for things, I want a map pointer and fast travel. I'm not sure if this is just a result of having less time or what, but I don't see every trend in this thread as a negative.

1. Why, why, why does everything have to have multiplayer?

2. Similarly, the attempts to blend "social media" into stuff. No, I don't want to chat with other people while playing. No, I don't want "friends list" popups distracting me. No, I don't want to click that button over there to update my game status on Facebook. Etc.

Carbon copies- Applies to shooters, mostly. When it gets to the point where you can't tell the difference between one game and another through screenshots (go on, go look at a comparison screenshot of Modern Warfare 2 and Modern Warfare 3 and tell me which is which. I dare you.), it's time to move on to new territory. Also, the flood of shooters in recent years that copy the COD formula is reaching levels of ridiculousness as well.

Executive meddling- See also: Dragon Age 2.

Locked-content DLC- Stop it. Just stop it. I shouldn't have to pay extra for content that's already on the [censored] disc I bought.

Intrusive DRM: The main reason I don't buy Ubisoft games on PC anymore. When I buy them on console I always buy used copies as well, if at all. Any company that insists on treating its playerbase like criminals doesn't deserve to see any of my money.

In-game DLC ads: One of the worst offenders was Dragon Age: Origins. All of the quest givers for the DLC quests were actually in the game and you could have the quest conversation with them, but if you tried to go to the area where the quest takes place or accept the quest, you'd get a message that basically says "LOL, pay us first! Trollface.jpg"

Apart from the obvious, such as day one extra content and QTE's, I really don't understand why people pay so much money for a game with seriously shiny graphics that only lasts 10 hours.
Future trends? I won't be buying ME3, that will hopefully (aw, who am I trying to kid, it'll sell in droves) go a tiny way toward ending this story mode-action mode stuff. Have the cajones to make one game, the game you want to. We can actually cope with a game with a story, not just one or the other.