A global marketplace has surveyed gamers to find out their thoughts on how video games have changed in the last 10 years. A fifth (21%) of gamers stated that video games are less enjoyable to play than ever, with half also stating they dislike the increased integration of political or social narratives and separately the increased emphasis on microtransactions.
The world’s fastest-growing marketplace surveyed 2,120 members of the public that regularly play video games to get some consumer insight on how they feel games have changed between 2010 and 2020.
The online marketplace that conducted the survey, OnBuy.com, discovered that a fifth of gamers (21%) now find games less enjoyable than ever and more than half of gamers dislike the integration of political and social narratives in games.
When asked if games had become more enjoyable to play over the past 10 years, less than half (47%) of gamers agreed, while a fifth (21%) believe games have become less fun to play and the remaining third (32%) felt that games had remained the same.
Improved graphics was selected as the most obvious improvement in video games over the past 10 years (85% selected this option), followed by general gameplay (72%) and online connectivity (56%).
It was when gamers were asked what had changed for the worst that revealed more varied responses. The most popular criticism of modern video games was an increased integration of real world political or social narratives (54%). This was followed by the increased prevalence of microtransactions (52%) and more games being released unfinished (49%).
The 5 best changes
- Graphics
- General gameplay
- Online capabilities
- Female representation
- Increased scale of games
The 5 worst changes
- Integration of social and political narratives
- Microtransactions and loot boxes
- Games being released unfinished
- Less content within games
- Game size and update size is now too big
To view the full survey results and see a list of games associated with the most and least enjoyable changes of the past 10 years visit:
https://www.onbuy.com/gb/movies-video-games-and-music/blog/the-best-and-worst-changes-to-video-games-in-the-last-10-years~a234/
Those surveyed were asked to give examples to support each of the reasons they selected.
- In terms of graphical improvements, Red Dead Redemption II was selected as the game with the best graphics, followed by The Witcher 3 and The Last of Us Part II.
- Battle Royale games were most frequently mentioned as evidence of improved online capabilities. Call of Duty: Warzone got the most mentions followed by Fortnite.
- On the negative side Borderlands 3 was the most popular example for shoehorning in a social or political narrative, closely followed by The Last of Us Part II, despite only being released on 19th
- Star Wars Battlefront 2 received the most nominations for the negative impact of microtransactions, where players could initially pay real money for virtual loot crates for a chance to unlock hero characters such as Luke Skywalker.
Following the release of The Last of Us Part 2 on 19th June, OnBuy also asked gamers who had played The Last of Us Part 2 if they had finished the game yet, a quarter (26%) had finished, while more than half (56%) said they have stopped playing at the point when the game shifts to playing as a different character half way through.
OnBuy.com is a UK-founded online marketplace offering competitive prices on millions of products supplied by thousands of online retailers. From household names to independent sellers, OnBuy offers products from a range of categories, such as electricals, baby and toddler, home and garden and cars and automotive.
Cas Paton, founder and CEO of OnBuy, said,
“Video games are big business and with the new Xbox and PlayStation being released later this year, it’s set to become an even bigger industry – I can’t wait to see what this new generation of gaming has in store.
“The majority of gamers don’t seem to be thrilled about the inclusion of social and political narratives, which could be due to gaming historically being used as a form of escapism. However, it is great to see the increased diversity in games and I hope this is a trend that continues, because as the industry gets bigger and bigger, so will its cultural impact.”
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