Every Monday the LeftStickRight team will take on a different topic surrounding news or interesting topics about games or the gaming industry and open it up for discussion. Our three editors will give their perspective and you are welcome to give your own. Agree? Disagree?

The topic this week is: What component of today’s games is consistently the weakest and needs the most improving to validate the medium? What part of today’s games suck so much?

Ian Y’s Take

“Validating” could be interpreted in two ways: as a part of mainstream pop culture, or as a creative medium.

In terms of video games as part of modern, everyday culture it’s essentially there. In the last decade, games have already taken the necessary steps to break away from being exclusively the domain of “geeks and nerds”. Slick marketing and, primarily Nintendo’s, innovations in the area of intuitive controls have pushed games into new demographics. But the major factor, as I see it, is time. Games won’t be truly accepted across the board until this newest generation reaches early childhood. They’ll be the first to grow up with gamers for parents and grandparents. Imagine it, grandpa regales them with stories like, “Back in my day we didn’t have your new fancy motion-capture, virtual reality doodads. We had CONTROLLERS with BUTTONS! Held them in our HANDS! Made your thumbs hard, like steel!”

Tap A. Repeatedly. Don't stop. Never stop!

As far as games as a serious creative medium, the primary stumbling block is the writing and characterization. I won’t spend too much time on this point because I have a sneaking suspicion Ian H, may spend the bulk of his answer hammering away at this point. He hates video game stories, but for the most part he’s right. The characters and plot are consistently the weakest part of any game experience. As a result, games are often viewed as cheap and superficial entertainment. Unless developers are able to break this pattern, they’ll never be considered “fine art”. And honestly, I’m okay with that. I’m not entirely sure that’s where I want games to be.

Tims Take

I spent an entire week racking my brain trying to come up with some sort of element that is missing from any one game or genre on the market, and I just couldn’t do it. Yeah, boo, I know.

There’s plenty to complain about in terms of certain games or systems, that’s for sure, but in an overreaching sense? Chances are good that, whatever you’re looking for, there’s something out there that will satisfy you. All you need are defined goals and a good eye. …And lots of money.

Price is about the only broad concern I have. In a medium where material is increasingly released and updated digitally — often at cost — how much longer are we going to pay $50-$60 for what was never the intended full package? And don’t forget the growing size and number of peripherals and all the price tags attached to them.

We hope you have money, because you'll need it

Otherwise, we live in an era when anyone can be a Beatle and a woman can become a robot master. It’s a good time to play.

Ian H’s Take

While validity is a difficult thing to measure, I think there are two main factors that are holding games back from a stronger sense of legitimacy as a medium: technology and story. They are two driving forces for modern games that are in two different spots, in that the former is constantly being pushed to the forefront, and the latter seems to take a backseat more often than not. Technology is what drives the gaming industry, as the console manufacturers would like you to buy a stake in their technological brik-a-brak so that they can sell you software built on that platform. The software itself is a heated arms race of graphics, sound and feature-creep that is constantly pushing the envelope of what can be done given their limitations and breaking through those shortfalls to create greater expanses and open worlds. It is this constant drive that does not allow developers to sit still and focus on gameplay elements themselves, instead falling into the same tropes and control schemes that make up the standards for the genre. Meaning you end up with control mechanics across multiple pieces of software that are basically identical, sold on the back of small iterative gaming hooks and higher fidelity in their multimedia experience.

It's full of technology!

Resting in the background is the story elements, which often take a backseat to the driving force of the game (the actual playing of it) and for good reason. Still, because of the focus and drive towards bigger and better technology, the lore and story are another poignant distinguishable item for publishers to laud with their products. The issue is that while we accept that story is not the most important part of the experience, we allow for that item to be continually diluted and praise any semblance of continuity that arises. If the gameplay is hardly original and the technology is often at a dead heat, the story can be a deciding closer to tie the whole experience together, and we suffer mediocrity at best. There are so few good stories told through the medium of gaming, so few that are not torn from the headlines or some other form of media that it is startling to consider.