Video games have become a massive industry with immense popularity. Every year there are thousands of games being released from large publishers and small independent developers. With the current lockdown many people have decided to spend some of their newfound free time by digging out their consoles and PCs to get back to playing some games. If you are one of those people you might be wondering what you should be playing. To help with that decision I conducted a survey to see what games people play, and also what games they would suggest you don’t play.
To begin people were asked what their favorite genre of games is. 88% of respondents have said that their favorite genre is Adventure, followed by Open-World, and Action in second and third place respectively. If these are the genres that are the most enjoyed by people, then those might be ones that you could look into. I think that this comes from the fact that these genres are usually tied to games with rich stories and worlds that can really immerse the player, allowing them to escape into another realm. This is also evidenced by the responses given when asked what genres they enjoy the least. The bottom genres in this case were Sports, Racing, and Simulation.
What genre of games do you enjoy the most?
What genre of games do you enjoy the least?
If you are looking for more concrete game recommendations instead of just genres to guide you, then you might want to look at the respondents’ favorite games of all time. Now, the sample size of this survey was fairly small, and this question is an extremely subjective one, thus almost every single answer to this question differed from person to person. However, there was one series of games that was mentioned more than once. The Uncharted series was the only game series that was mentioned by multiple participants. Uncharted was developed by Naughty Dog, interestingly they also have another game that is in this list of favorites – The Last of Us. The fact that they are the only developer that is featured multiple times in this list probably says something about the quality of their games.
What is your favourite video game of all time?
Despite this, we cannot ignore the other games that are mentioned here as they each are iconic in their own way. Minecraft has become the best-selling video game of all time with its procedurally generated worlds and intuitive gameplay. Mario is potentially one of the most recognizable video game characters of all time and has defined platformers since his debut in 1981. I would say that every single game listed here is worth checking out.
On the other hand, there are some games that you may have heard about, but they could have been disappointing and lead to less than enjoyable experiences. Whilst I think that everyone should be free to play and enjoy whatever they want, when asked about games that they think are overrated and should be avoided, there was a much more unified opinion among the respondents. Despite its massive popularity, Fortnite was the game with the highest amount of people suggesting it be avoided, followed by Fifa, and League of Legends.
What game would you tell people to avoid?
Looking at the previous responses regarding genre it makes sense that FIFA is among this list, as it is a sport simulation game. When looking at the favorite genres however, it is surprising to see Fortnite and League of Legends on this list, as they are both very popular action games. However, the respondents said that they don’t recommend these games because they are overrated. For League of Legends, they also mentioned the idea of toxicity and how terrible the player community is.
Ultimately, the decision about what to play is your own. Some of the participants seem to agree with this sentiment, as 10% of them did not list any game to avoid, and instead wrote that games are about fun, and that everyone should be able to make their own choice.