I’ve loved video games for as long as I can remember. I grew up in the 2000s and 2010s, and the number of video game memories I have is abundant. I adore this medium — flaws and all. I’ve seen it stumble, stagnate and grow. Many would argue that gaming is the best it’s ever been. Graphics and fidelity have been the highest they have ever been. Sales have been at an all-time high for various game series. Hype and excitement have become their own culture for gaming as well. On the surface, it seems like gaming has never been better. So why can’t I help but feel like modern video games lack much of the soul that their ancestors had and, in turn, seem lesser?

A problem I have with many modern video games is their lack of charm and goofiness. Resident Evil (RE) is one of my favorite video games. It’s a horror series, with some games leaning more toward action and others leaning more toward survival horror. The first three games came out in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The vibes of these first four games, while scary, were incredibly cheesy and campy. This writing style started to die out as the game series went on. When you look at the later games in the series, though, many of them take the goofy side of these games away and lean into a grittier, darker tone.

At the end of the day, this is a very subjective stance, but it affects the game’s overall tone. The classic RE games were much more enjoyable due to the fact that they did not take themselves as seriously as the later games. This is common for many modern games. So many games are focused on being cinematic and movie-like that they take themselves too seriously. They forget to have fun with the fact that they are video games. This trend of more serious-toned stories — while they certainly sell well — feels a lot more homogenized.

Another thing that reduces my love for modern games is the homogeneity of the controls. It’s hard to explain without playing them. The player controls their character with their controller, whether it’s on Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo or one of the many other platforms. If you played games during the 2000s, there weren’t many games that played similarly. Every game had a unique control style and feel to it. This sounds pretty expected, but it was a great design choice. Video games are incredible due to how they let you control the character of the story. If you’re playing as Spider-Man in one game and a demon in the other, it makes sense for them to play and control differently.

Now, however, in many modern games, the controls are the same. The same button always jumps, the same button always runs, the same button is always used to interact, etc. It’s understandable why modern design trends have led to games having similar controls. It makes it easier to design the smaller things, so more manpower and time can be put into bigger parts of the game, like graphics and story. This trend, however, makes many games feel uniform and, therefore, less unique and enjoyable. I grew up playing games where everyone was unique. Now, they don’t feel nearly as creative.

Lastly, the gaming industry is infested with greed due to modern technology. When a game is released now, many of them will have what’s known as “downloadable content,” or DLC, along with various microtransactions. These are extra ways for developers to make money off their customers, and unfortunately, most of the time, they’re grossly misused. Lazy developers will release a game at full price and sell cosmetic items like skins for a selected price. Yes, they charge money for things like different colors and models. Who would spend their money on this, you ask?

That’s a great question — and many do. FIFA, the most popular sports game, made a collective $7.6 billion in the last three years. Did they sell billions of copies? No, they made so much money because FIFA has a ton of microtransactions that sell things like famous soccer players. This is just one example, but microtransactions of this type are so widespread. This number proves just how obscene this trend is. Microtransactions let developers blatantly take advantage of their audience, enabling greedy behavior. Back in the early days of gaming, microtransactions weren’t possible due to a lack of internet.

Games were released, and that was it. The next time you’d play a game like it was when the sequel was released. It’s truly a shame that, with advances in technology, certain industry leaders use them with greedy intentions instead of trying to make the industry better. Back in the 90s and 2000s, these trends did not exist. This is straight-up because they just weren’t able to. It’s a shame that modern games have exacerbated these issues, but the future of gaming isn’t completely dark. Many developers and games have found ways to keep their unique identity and stay away from predatory practices. Here’s hoping that these outliers will eventually become role models for the industry.

Nicolas Scagnelli is a senior majoring in English.