Remember the days when graphics didn’t matter as much as they did today? Times when creative gameplay and/or an excellent storyline alone was all it took to make a good videogame? That was a long time ago… I remember everything changed when the Playstation made its debut. Now, all that was needed for a game to succeed was good graphics and cool cutscenes. The change was even more drastic for RPG’s, when Final Fantasy VII came along. It was a cool game, but it lacked the “feeling” old school RPG’s had.

Since then it is my belief that in terms of quality content the gaming industry has been going downhill. Money hungry video game companies insist on feeding the masses with graphically superior titles, but with sucky ass, repetitive gameplay and with little or no storyline whatsoever. In recent years, this hunger has gotten worse and as an example we have EA and their stupid microtransactions or Half Life 2 and its episodic content. Why in hell should anyone pay 40 bucks for a title that has as much content as 1/8 of a full game? Yes, that’s right, it sounds unconceivable, but that’s the video gaming industry’s reality.

The deal with microtransactions is just that. You pay the price of a full game and get minimal content. If you wish to get the full content and maybe even content necessary to be able to complete the game, you have to buy small pieces of the game, separately and of course at a relatively hefty price. That way you end up spending ridiculous amounts of money for the “whole” game. Take the Gran Turismo game that is been released for the PS3 for instance. When you buy the game it comes with like one or two tracks and one or two cars. If you want more cars and tracks they’ll cost you around $0.75 per car and around $1.25 per tracks. It was estimated that if you wanted all the tracks and cars available for the game you would end up spending more than $1000.00 (a thousand bucks). That has got to be the most expensive games of all times. Is it worth it? Of course not.

Other examples of the video gaming industry decay is the PC realm and too early releases. Companies like EA rush video game launches, not caring for some sort of quality assurance or anything, releasing buggy games that require a patch as soon as you take them out of the box. They just don’t care about things like this. They know the game will sell anyways. The consumers are left in a bad position because, well, that’s the quality standard found almost everywhere today, and which means there aren’t really many options. That’s the problem when things become just too commercial. It’s the same thing that happened to soccer. There was a time when soccer players played with passion, maybe even for honor. All that has been lost. Soccer players now play for the money, not caring about anything else.

The future of video gaming seems bleak, for the gaming industry produces all these commercial crap and the masses happily accept that crap. But as I’ve said, the consumers maybe don’t know better, this is what they are used to. I must say I really hate to see this happening to video games. But every once in a while though, there are still rays of hope, exceptions to what is almost a rule nowadays: crappy content at a high price. One of this early exceptions in my opinion came ironically from Square itself: Final Fantasy Tactics. Along with Xenogears, these games showed that not everything is about graphics. In my long history with video gaming, which is nearing 20 years now, I must say these two titles have one of the best storylines and gameplays of all times.

That’s why when I heard Final Fantasy Tactics was been remade for the PSP I just couldn’t help but smile. Like with the DS and the Wii, this is yet another chance to show a new generation of video gamers that what should really matter is content and that not all is just about graphics. Check it out!

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