FourPlay's Guide to Gaming Trends that should die- The 2015 Edition

There have only been 2 whole months of 2015, and already there are trends surfacing in video games that should just go away. So, here's a little FourPlay guide to what should stop in gaming.

White, bearded protagonists
To name but a few, in some of the biggest games in the past few years theres been one constant denominator. Having a white, bearded protagonist who usually wears some form of checkered shirt. The Last of Us' Joel, John Marston from Red Dead and Arno from Assassin's Creed Unity are some of the most recent ones. But in particular with Unity, you can play as four different characters through co-op. And they're all male with beards. And Ubisoft's explanation as to why they were no women in the main characters? Because women are too difficult to animate. Try telling that to Tomb Raider, guys.

Zombie/ Survival Games

With both a zombie game and a survival game of note being released within a month of one another, there is a serious problem with overpopulation in both instances. Dying Light is a bit different to other zombie games, because you can parkour everywhere! Now if thats enough difference for you then have at it. But I'm thinking flesh-eating beings need a break for a lil while. Just look on Steam, and you will find a flurry of survival games from The Forest where you're in a plane crash and land in a forest, to Stranded Deep where you're in a plane crash and land in the sea. So you basically get the same deal each time you spend a tenner.

Kickstarter Games disappearing

Donating money to games that just can't get the funding is a great way to open up the world of game developing. Unless someone gets $114,060 backing for a game about dinosaurs, then completely abandons the game. And the backers don't get their money back. (cough) Stomping Land. Alex Fundora to be precise. After promises weekly updates to the game, they never delivered. And now the game has been abandoned as no one can get in touch with Fundora. 

Lifestyle YouTubers turned Gamers

Here's looking at you Zoella. In September 2014 a weird phenomena occurred. Sims 4 was released, and this triggered a wave of vanilla lifestyle YouTubers making gaming channels. And they could not be more bland. There are the rare few like Dan & Phil Games that are actually funny. But having a whole channel filled with Sims 4 and Five Nights at Freddy's or Slenderman videos of girly screaming do not make for good entertainment. Stick to make-up or whatever, guys.

Swatting

Swatting is when swatter rings the police to send a swat team to stop a violent, but imaginary crime while someone is live streaming a video game on YouTube or Twitch. This came to light recently after a Runescape player was swatted while 60,000 people watched over Twitch. Then, a self-confessed swatter spoke up about his motivation to swat. This being that its fun being able to intimidate someone. He then went on to say that its the cost of being a YouTuber. 

"Once a month, are you gonna have to take 30 minutes out of a Saturday night to make sure your door's not getting kicked in? Sure. But that should be the cost of being a YouTuber."

Right, I'm calling it, there's no reason to accept Swatting for the price of anything. The only people who deserve it are people actually committing crimes. Not streamers who have a passion for gaming being subject to sadistic idiots over the internet who think it's fun to send a swat team round some defenceless persons house to have guns pointed at their heads and their doors kicked in. This shouldn't even be a trend, or even something that should exist in the first place.