The video game industry is a different landscape from the one we knew in the 2000s. The growth of powerful consoles has inducted a daring new generation of games. And yet, there has been a blossoming of flaws among many recent releases -- plus the predominance of glitches and paid DLC (downloadable content) has grown to epic proportions.

DLC is extra in-game content such as story extensions and side quests. Too bad you have to pay extra for it. And misleading marketing has crippled the integrity of the gaming industry.

Let’s take a moment to reminisce about the days when games weren’t chopped up into DLC packs and microtransactions. Back when game-breaking glitches didn’t linger on release, and companies didn’t bait you into pre-ordering a broken game.

Or at least, they didn’t do it as often as they do now. I don't remember game developers being nearly as unfaithful as they are today. Yes, there were boring games and buggy games in the past, but they usually weren’t Triple-A games and weren’t marketed to the moon and back. They were made by small studios and should be given some slack. In comparison, games with tens of millions of dollars as a starting budget should be held accountable for meeting the quality shown in their marketing pitches.

I don't know about other gamers, but I don't want to pay $60 for a game that doesn’t play as advertised. Just think about it: before the game comes out, all you have to go off of are the trailers and demos. You spend all that time getting excited for the game, only for it to come out with a lackluster narrative and stiff gameplay mechanics. Better hope you didn’t waste money pre-ordering it.

Releases like No Man’s Sky and Fallout 76 became notorious for their exceptional marketing but horribly underwhelming delivery. The former pledged to bring a large and immersive world but failed to mention that the world was empty and boring. The latter built off a well-loved series but was full of game-breaking bugs and inconsistencies.

And to top off the cake of gamer discontent, many developers have turned towards DLC and microtransactions to make up for the underwhelming initial release.

Developers like CD Projekt Red and Ubisoft have the audacity to release DLC trailers before the actual game is released. I can’t believe these studios are spending time and energy making DLC while the base game is full of bugs and doesn’t meet basic expectations. That is some next-level arrogance on their part. 

Okay, enough ranting. I don't believe video games today are inherently worse than ones released 15+ years ago. There are many ingenious 2010s games that I thoroughly enjoyed. Hades, God of War (2018), and Disco Elysium are a few examples. However, the trust I used to place in my favorite developers is waning due to the current landscape of game development.