Top 10 game industry mistakes of this past decade

With this decade coming to a close, we’ve decided to take a look at some of the biggest mistakes within the gaming industry over this past 10 years; some humorous, others dire.

1. For gamers, by gamers
The tag line of choice for many an upcoming site, blog or game show. We'd have no problem with this title, if it wasn't used so often. A quick google search will give you close to 8 million results. If you're looking for a tag line for your new project, this is probably the best tag line to glaze over and ignore.

2. Charts: Copies shipped, not copies sold
Around mid 2007, some gaming news sites started posting pie charts showing shipped console comparisons. Although, this may have been the only information that companies gave them, gamers soon cottoned on and realised that copies shipped did not mean a system or game was selling well.


3. Game launch that’s really a beta test
In this new digital age, where a game company can update a game if there’s something amiss, some game development companies have done the dodgy and released bug ridden games onto the unsuspecting public. One of the best known examples of this is Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, which had no collision detection and rival AI that just wasn’t there.

4. Girl gamer appeal
Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that the divide between male and female gamers is slowly whithering away, but I can’t help but feel sick to the stomach when I see girl gamers sexualised in a way where they’re tarted up and made out to be a rare occurrence. This is definitely not the right way to create perceived equality between the genders in regards to gaming. Not forgetting, sexual harassment in online gaming; not on, guys & girls.

5. Unintentional news leaks
You have to wonder if a string of news leaks before a press conference is unintentional or a hype machine waiting to gather viewers and attendees. Then again, in these modern times, the internet may play a big part in video game news espionage. Cue mental image of David Hayter sneaking into Sony and stealing Intel.


6. Download Content
With this current generation of video game consoles and digitally distributed PC games, a large number of developers have taken to releasing download content as a way of increasing their game’s lifespan. The downside to this is when game companies do this with content that would have been packaged with the game as a bonus feature or an unlock in the previous generation. The sad part is that sometimes the DLC is actually ON the disc!

7. Second Life
The media glorified the free-roaming digital world of Second Life into the ground, promising a flourishing economy, cyber celebrities and a way to escape from daily life. In actual fact, it was a den for sexual predators and deviants, not very good to look at and a financial risk to buy into. Gamers saw past the hype very quickly.


8. “WoW Killers”
To this day, we’ve seen so many games attempt to cash in on the World of Warcraft’s success and even be touted as World of Warcraft killers, that I can no longer count them on my hands. Gamers, journalists and some developers are starting to view this marketing and development approach as virtual suicide for a game.

9. The media fueld rise of Fanboyism
In the lead up to the current generation of video game consoles, gamers on the internet started voicing their opinions of their dream future console to the point where some forums and communities were torn apart by flame wars and brand segregation. While system bashing had always been around since early TV adverts, the internet gave gamers an easier way to make them heard under the guise of anonymity. While not as bad today, you can still find social scarring within game communities from time to time.

10. 20 years in development
Duke Nukem: Forever being the best example of this, some games under-go so many development, licensing and company changes, that it takes them up to a decade to actually get a release. This builds up so much hype and anticipation that the games just don’t live up to expectations.

Honourable mention
The N-gage
This was Nokia’s attempt at the hand-held console market by merging a hand-held gaming system with a cell phone. The only problem was the fact that to use the telephone functionality, you had to hold it sideways, looking like a real fool. It also had a pretty lousy library of watered down ports, among other things.