Competing with the movie and television industries, the video game industry is one of the largest and most profitable entertainment industries in the United States and other highly developed countries. In order to continue increasing revenue, triple-A (the highest budget tier of games) game developers and publishers are beginning to pursue tactics that involuntarily degrade the quality of their products.
The first strategy I will be discussing is one that we see on many of our phone applications: microtransactions. These consist of purchases within an application or game that "add" to the enjoyment of the content, such as in-game currency, the removal of advertisements, or extra levels to play. It is most common to find microtransactions in "free to play" games such as Candy Crush Saga, Clash of Clans, or Team Fortress 2. In these games, you have a set level of content available for free, but can purchase additional items that ease progression or give you an advantage over other players. These microtransactions are a large source of profit due to the tendency of players to impulse purchase in-game items in order to pass a level or children buying things in an app that the parents do not know of.
A second strategy that affects a smaller, yet more enthusiastic group of gamers is the addition of a "season pass" that grants the player all of a game's DLC, or downloadable content, for a reduced price. The issue with this lies in the premise that game developers are releasing games with paid additional content that in many cases could have been included with the base game, effectively increasing the base price of the game. In the case of Call of Duty, one of the highest selling game franchises, the season passes released with recent iterations nearly double the price of the game while only adding minor expansions to the multiplayer aspect of the game.
Despite the major use of DLC for profit, some developers are providing quality additional content. Examples of this include the massively popular "Ballad of Gay Tony" DLC for Grand Theft Auto 4, the numerous expansions to the Borderlands franchise (albeit using a season pass system), the Left Behind story expansion to the Last of Us, and the 16 DLC packages that will be free to owners of the Witcher 3.
Going hand in hand with the issue of day-one paid DLC, many developers are releasing unfinished or non-working games, a relatively new issue in the gaming world. Before the introduction of downloadable "patches" that fix technical problems of games post-release, games were unable to be released without being completely finished and thoroughly tested. Now, developers are pushing games out in order to meet earlier release dates, effectively sacrificing quality for speed. Recent examples of this include Battlefield 4, Assassin's Creed: Unity, and a number of games on Steam (yes, yes, I understand the term "early access," but this is getting quite ridiculous). All of these games suffer(ed) extreme technical issues that demolish immersion or render the game unplayable.
Gamers often talk about these issues but do not attempt to fix the problem. Many gamers still hash out their money to developers on release day in order to get their hands on the product that has been hyped to them for months or even years (I'm looking at you, Watch Dogs), fueling developer greed. Some of the greatest have fallen to this greed: EA, the ungodly number of mobile developers, and now Ubisoft. It is a shame that much of blockbuster gaming has fallen to such a low place, yet we still keep our heads up knowing that the good ones are still out there.
This is so true it's painful. For developers, it's becoming more about profit than making a good game. I realize that profit is the number one motivator to make a game, but as you said, "this is getting quite ridiculous". EA in particular is a company I follow, since I've been an avid FIFA player for three years and counting, and with their buggy, microtransaction ridden games, it's no wonder they've won two "Golden Poo" awards for being voted the worst company in America. When games start to make you rage more than you enjoy yourself, and drain your wallet in the process, it might be a sign that the gaming industry is slowly atrophying.
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