The gaming industry has made many leaps and bounds in the past few years. With the growth in technology comes new tools to create better games. Economically, the industry itself has grown more than anyone could've anticipated. With literally millions of dollars given to game companies as a budget to make new games, it is clear that the industry is being taken very seriously. There are even annually host gaming tournaments, often with representatives from different countries going against each other with thousands, sometimes millions, of dollars in prizes for the winners. There are hosted awards for video games in different categories as well as the company or the director behind them, and there are conventions held annually in order to celebrate games. And from here on out, gaming will only continue to grow.

   However, amidst all the growth, video games themselves continue to suffer from the same problems. Problems that those who buy the games, the consumers, shouldn't have to be experience. The problems range from small things to large one and can affect different aspects of not just the game but everything connected to it.

   For the purpose of comparison, I will use games which I deem appropriate as good examples to show how things should be.

• Story and Time

  A majority of games are often single player titles. While some primary single player games have a multiplayer aspect, or vice versa, some consumers buy the games for the story. With games costing as much as at least Sixty Dollars ($60), the consumers deserve to get their moneys worth. Unfortunately some companies skimp out on the core story in their single player games, giving rather shallow stories or boring repetitive and predictable ones. The result is a game lasting about 5 to 6 hours with no memorable story, which might be enough for some who simply play as a means of entertainment, but not for others who came for a deeper experience. A good example of a game with an amazing focus on the story is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt" Player Reviews. A role-playing game which has you play as two different characters, Geralt and Ciri, the main characters in the story driven game based off a best-selling polish book of the same name, (albeit in Polish). It tell's the story of the two characters in its main story campaign, with every single quest feeling very different from the last. The story was engaging and it almost felt like watching a really good movie, but one where you could participate in and decide what you want the hero to do and how the story should end. In addition, they also had numerous side quests in the game, each fully voiced. While some were at their base practically the same formula, they each had a different unique story tied to them. With all these features combined, on could spend over 200 hours in the base game itself, and that's not counting its two DLC expansions which add a minimum of 30 hours combined.

• Stability and Bugs

  Many games as of late have a poor habit of being released too early. Making a good game takes time, sometimes even years, but a rushed game or a game released to early before it's fully completed causes a lot of issues. For one, the game itself may feel shallow and the uncompleted aspects show. This isn't the fault of the game developers themselves, but rather the companies for which they work for. The companies force them to release the game at a certain date to reach a deadline, leaving the developers without anytime to complete everything. This then forces the consumers who bought or pre-ordered the game to have to deal with various game-breaking bugs and glitches, sometimes leaving the game in a purely unplayable state. A recent example of this would be Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed: Unity. The game was so clearly unfinished that the company was ridiculed for it's failed release and obvious lack of care as the company's "Assassin's Creed" series is one of their most famous and popular games. The game required numerous patches and updates to bring it to a stable and playable state, but by then many had either stopped playing the game or just didn't care anymore.

• Cost and Additional Content

  Originally video games used to cost about $20 or so. Now they've climbed to such a rate that the standard for your average game is $60. This itself can be a problem as since $60 is now a norm, some people buy games and end up with the mindset that they don't feel it was worth the money spent. As of now there's nothing to be done with that as it's not a huge issue. The larger problem is the additional content added in games in the form of DLC (Downloadable Content). More dominant in multiplayer games, the comapnies in charge release adittional content for the game in forms of new maps, story, or in game items. A good example would be EA's Battlefield series. They release new dlc for the game months after its orginal release and charge players for it. While they are optional, some consumers will miss out on some content that they would rather have, so they must fork over however much money is needed to buy the dlc. In the case of EA's Battlefield 4, each of the main dlc cost about $15 each for all 5 of them, making the grand total $50, a mere $10 away from the original game.

There are many problems with gaming and the industry, but if more of these issues were dealt with, they could see many positive sides such as profit as more consumers would be entitled to buy the offered product. It's only a matter of the companies putting personal gain behind and the customers first and giving them what they ask for.