News
Doing Less and Expecting More
Cordova, TN; August 31, in the year of our Lord 2015--Family
Friendly Gaming, the industry leader in covering the family
friendly video games is highlighting a problem that has been
getting worse in the video game industry. For many years now
companies have published smaller and smaller games in terms of
length of play. Back in the 8-bit era video games took forty to
sixty hours to complete. That eventually dropped to thirty
hours, then twenty hours, then fourteen hours, then ten hours,
and now games are in the single digits. Many of these games cost
the same price if not more - for a whole lot less content.
Companies are expecting more money for less effort on their
part. Why aren’t gamers doing something to correct this horrible
longstanding trend?
The whole Trine 3 scandal is a prime example of this. Frozenbyte
Inc recently released an apology video where they apologies for
not communicating their game Trine 3 took only three hours to
complete (they said they cut the game in half). They also
removed content from previous games to give Trine 3 even less
game play. I have a couple of thoughts on this. First, a three
hour game is not half of a game, it is more like ten percent of
a game. Secondly, where were all the gamer complaints all along
the years as games got smaller and smaller? Third, PR/Marketing
is only sorry they did not communicate the mini game they were
creating. Not that they were making a micro video game. Finally,
PR/Marketing show they take the easy way out until there is a
huge uproar. How many times has Family Friendly Gaming pointed
out these PR/Marketing have no honor, integrity, or credibility?
They take the cowards way out way too often.
Some of the things we have seen lately is astounding. Companies
sent out two sentences to relay one tiny piece of information
and they call it a press release. We are not publishing Twitter
length comments as full press releases. That is ridiculous. Or
there is an entire full length press release that announces they
have a new video on their Youtube channel. I love the companies
with billions in their bank accounts that want us to give them a
free advertisement to their Youtube channel. Even better yet is
the extremely wealthy companies that give us a link to their
Youtube video, and the video is of a commercial they paid
television channels to run. They expect us to do the same work
for free. What we are not good enough to be paid to run their
ads? What are we chopped liver? The funniest one was a company
that wanted complete control of our social media channels. Why?
They know we are so busy publishing stories that we do not have
time to read all of the garbage they send us, so they would help
us by posting all of their stories on our social media. That way
we were freed up to do other work. They can’t filter what they
send in email, why would I expect they would only post family
friendly content?
The disposable nature of downloadable only video games is part
of the problem. Physical copies of games almost always beat
disposable video games in terms of length. What was once
considered a demo is now being released as a full game. Games
are being split in two to make more profit. All in all the video
game industry is going in the wrong direction. I have done my
part by writing this article, and getting this important issue
out there. What are you going to do? What will you do and/or say
to try and correct this problem? You know the Edmund Burke
quote: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for
good men to do nothing." Are you doing nothing? Are you letting
evil win?
God bless,
Paul Bury
Family Friendly Gaming