One of the reasons I like the PS4 as much as I do is that it embodies a specific focus. It’s very much a machine designed to play games, with very little extraneous stuff bolted on. It’s a refreshing sip of nostalgia to see that sort of thing in today’s gaming environment. I believe that games – and the consoles they’re played on – are straying too far from themselves. While that may sound like new-age psycho-babble, it’s the best way I can think of to describe the general malaise that’s descended over my beloved hobby.

Let me explain.

Driveclub was meant to be a PS4 launch title, but it was delayed indefinitely shortly before the console was released. At the time, we didn’t know until when or why the delay had happened, with Sony and the developers simply saying they needed more time to polish the game. In the last couple of days, it has emerged that the game is due for release in October; the reason for the delay? Fucking social integration.

I mean, I don’t suppose I should really be surprised: half of the game’s title is inherently a social descriptor. But delaying a launch title for over half a year? I could understand if it was a case of the gameplay being bad somehow, but we’re talking about integration with Facebook and mobile / tablet apps here. I don’t know about anyone else, but if Need for Speed Network (EA’s answer to social buggering about) suddenly ceased to exist, I wouldn’t shed a bloody tear. It feels incredibly tacked on and I can only assume that, no matter what the developers try, Driveclub’s experience is going to be equally dismal.

I am not an overly-social person. I have spoken about this before; single player beats multiplayer every damned time. What we’re talking about here isn’t even multiplayer: it’s METAplayer. Invite your friends to view your fastest lap! Invite your friends to join your race! Invite your friends to invite your other friends! Be sure to like the inviting of your friends on the iOS and Android apps, then invite your friends to like it, too!

Piss off.

But that’s not the only symptom of this wider disease. If it was just the social aspect of things, you could put it down to me being a miserly shut-in and that’d be that. Sadly, we still have the spectre of VR hanging over our heads.

Some people are going absolutely batshit over the Oculus Rift. Facebook is high among them, because they went and spent far too much money on buying the entire bloody company behind the fancy goggles. I wish every single one of them would just take a step back and think about this sort of thing sensibly for a second. Does anyone remember what happened when 3D came onto the scene a few years back? Anyone notice any similarities to what’s happening now? Turns out that 3D was (and is) a giant waste of everyone’s time and money. From what I can gather, the folks at Oculus are saying “No but wait guys, this isn’t shit.”

Are you sure? I mean, I’m certainly not, because I’ve never tried the Rift, but I can make some guesses. I imagine that it’s going to be exactly like having a couple of screens directly in front of your eyes, trying to trick your brain into seeing something that’s not actually there. The rest of the world is shut out entirely and you’re suddenly immersed! Except, you know… you still have to control things using a keyboard and mouse or a controller. Or a Leap Motion. Or a Virtuix Omni. But hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they could work a way of using Kinect at some point, despite not being able to even see the damned thing.

I predicted that 3D would be crap and maintained that stance for the entire duration of me being right; an era that we still currently live in. I’ll withhold final judgement on the Oculus Rift (and its ilk) until I actually get to strap one on and see for myself, but VR is just another pustulous sore among many that make up the greater problem.

So what is this problem I keep talking about? It all comes back to the issue of focus. Instead of focusing on making awesome games, developers are increasingly pissing about with this peripheral crap. How cool would Titanfall have been if it had a solid, non-shit single player? We’ll never know, because multiplayer-only is apparently a thing now. One of the biggest culprits, Microsoft, still refuse to admit that their Kinect is a vaguely rectangular waste of £80 – the money that potential buyers could save by getting an Xbone without that stupid bloody camera. Motion control was on the scene before even 3D and despite supposed advances between the first and second generation Kinect sensors, all Microsoft have managed to accomplish is to be increasingly disappointing.

Some companies, however, are starting to wise up. Sony found out the hard way that their whole Move endeavour was crap and have now basically abandoned the entire concept. They’re still playing about with AR via the completely optional PS4 Camera and some apps on the Vita, but nothing serious. Square-Enix also recently had an epiphany that should have come as no surprise: their fans prefer the sort of awesome, focused JRPGs (like Bravely Default, pictured above) that the company was founded on, instead of crap like Dungeon Siege III or Hitman: Whateverthehell.

Yet for every company that comes around, there are others that simply dive deeper. Rovio and its faltering profits, who will soon go the way of Zynga and (hopefully) King: into obscurity and bankruptcy and administration, with not a single tear shed by anyone. Microsoft and its dogged persistence that their vision of gaming is somehow analogous with the masses, who by and large either despise them or dislike their stupid, stupid Kinect. I could go on, but I believe the ratio of actual content to swear words in this article has reached a tipping point.

The sooner that games go back to consisting more of actual gaming content than social / 3D / VR / AR / micro-transaction / free-to-play shit, the better.

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