General statement since I'm no good at regular posting, in case anyone gets curious.
I believe that the gaming community as a whole is missing the mark in several respects. This is just one of them, please excuse my horrible ADD ramblings and tangents.
Anyone who considers themselves a gamer should be prepared for one thing only upon taking up a new title; "The Challenge"
This is what games are ultimately meant to provide, a set of establishing rules to define a base level of capability for the players interaction. From there the 'good game' will add layers of difficulty at an increasing pace in order to challenge the player's capability to understand and utilize these rules to their advantage.
Bad games either don't do this enough, don't lay out the rules properly or clearly from the onset, or layer on too much difficulty at once, essentially putting the player off from an otherwise entertaining experience.
Bad developers will try to hide this with collectables, unlockables, easter eggs, flashy graphics, or redefining their own misgivings as a feature intended for the actual finished title. At other times this will be the ultimate goal for a developer releasing a, usually 'modern', title. In lieu of a challenge they will put out a lackluster title rife with the latest and greatest materials generation, engine physics, lighting management, or any other number of supposed experience enhancing features which merely attempt to cover up the failure of rising to an adequate sense of challenge.
Bad gamers will eat this stuff up without voicing their frustrations, or defend the title that fell short out of some obtuse devotion to the intellectual property, or the studio that produced it. They will slog through hour after frustrating hour of gameplay in hopes that the title will plateau or even possibly pull out of the nosedive it takes after the establishing structure is put in place (IE Character abilities, introduction, plot, etc.)
My biggest frustration with the popular, commercial gaming industry as a whole, however, would be the constant drive of production to ship out unfinished titles quickly, both due to the schemes of retail sales and the impatience of gamers in general. Development companies want to bring a finished and polished product to the table, I hope, and production companies, distributors, PR firms, and whatever else that has any financial stake in the product will be hounding them from essentially day one to make sure that product, in any state of being, is out the door and on shelves by a specific time of year.
Gamers gobble this up, and then pan the title for flaws of, unfortunately, their own creation. The companies involved do this for fear that a delayed release will garner poor publicity, or lack of interest upon the actual release, and that this would be more detrimental than alienating those who are out for a real experience which remains static through an entire game. Not repetition, not level design that breaks down half way through, exposing render glitches and shoddy ledge detection, poorly implemented enemy or NPC AI
My biggest frustration with gamers in general is complacency, the inevitable shrugs and 'oh wells' which come as a title fails to rise to the hype, and the lack of true communication about where, exactly, did things go wrong. Not 'ZOMG THIS IS FAIL!" that doesn't help anyone, not even "Don't buy this crap" without ever saying why. If you play games then you should know at least a little about what could go wrong, what you've seen happen, and developers need to know that, as much as production companies, PR firms, and any other related facets of the industry need to realize that games aren't about putting out a lackluster 'experiential' piece of garbage, they need polish, and they need testing, and the devs need all the time they can get to make sure that gets done right. Its up to gamers to exercise patience, publicly at that, in waiting for the 'good games' instead of shoveling through piles and piles of the bad. Gamers need to tell the community as a whole what they would like to see in the future, even if its as general as 'something new' if you're tired of seeing the world end, or saving it from certain oblivion like me, or you want more exploration or less jiggle physics or whatever, that needs to get out there, as fast and as much as you or anyone else can manage.
