Here are some of the most common complaints from players across various video games, based on general gaming community discussions:
Top 10 Video Game Complaints of All Time!
1.Microtransactions and Loot Boxes - Players often criticize games for including pay-to-win mechanics or offering essential content only through microtransactions. These elements can feel like they encourage spending real money beyond the game's purchase price.
2.Grind - Excessive grinding to progress, unlock content, or improve characters can be a significant point of frustration, especially when it feels like a time sink designed to push players towards microtransactions.
3.Balance Issues - Whether it's overpowered weapons, characters, or strategies that dominate gameplay, balance issues can skew competition and reduce fun for those not using the meta.
4.Bugs and Glitches - From minor visual bugs to game-breaking glitches, these can severely impact gameplay, immersion, and player enjoyment.
5.Lack of Content or Replayability - Games that feel too short or lack depth for repeat play can lead to complaints about value for money or time spent.
6.Poor Performance - This includes frame rate drops, long loading times, or crashes, particularly in games that require a smooth experience for enjoyment.
7.DLC (Downloadable Content) Practices - Players sometimes feel that content is withheld from the main game to be sold later as DLC, or they find the pricing for additional content to be excessive.
8.Server Issues - For online games, server downtime, lag, or connectivity issues can ruin multiplayer experiences.
9.Story and Character Development - Poor writing, unlikable characters, or a lack of engaging narrative can detract from the gaming experience, especially in story-driven games.
10.In-Game Communication and Toxicity - Issues with in-game chat or the community toxicity, including harassment or cheating, can make the gaming environment unpleasant.
These complaints are not exhaustive but reflect common themes across gaming forums, reviews, and social media. Different genres might emphasize some issues more than others, and individual tolerance for these problems varies. Remember, gaming communities are diverse, and while these are general grievances, each game has its unique set of player feedback.
Relevent Web Resources:
1. Microtransaction - Wikipedia
In the span of three weeks, the children kept spending money on packs, eventually spending £550 ($709.91) altogether, completely emptying their parents' bank account, but never receiving one of the best players in the game as well as the children's favorite player: Lionel Messi. The children apologized to their parents and explained that at the time they did not understand how much they were impacting the family's financial situation. There have been other situations where UK children spent £700 ($903.53), £1,000 ($1290.75), £2,000 ($2581.50), and even £3,160 ($4078.77) on microtransactions in various mobile games, usually as a result of them getting tricked by the game to pay for something in-game or just not understanding that real money was being taken out of their, or their parents', bank accounts when they bought items in-game.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtransaction
2. Capitalism Is Ruining Video Games – Mother Jones
Convincing someone to shell out $60, or even $20, for a game is hard—on mobile it’s near impossible. So the companies, particularly in the mobile realm, decided to make money instead by nudging players to buy in-game items week after week and month after month. The problem for many players—including yours truly—is that microtransactions shatter the notion of fair play. After all, the idea that every player who hits “start” gets an equal shake is precisely what made video games so pleasingly different from real life.
3. The role of microtransactions in Internet Gaming Disorder and Gambling Disorder: A preregistered systematic review - PMC
We conclude that there is a need to develop consistent methods for assessing IGD and microtransaction engagement in future research. Implications for policy-makers and future research are discussed. Electronic gaming has become extremely prevalent in the modern world. According to recent large-scale studies, around 65% of American adults and 66% of Australians play video games, with 90% of Australian households having at least one device dedicated to playing video games (Brand et al., 2019, Entertainment Software Association, 2019).
