We’re currently in a technological revolution where each game that comes out breaks the benchmark graphics of the previous game. Whether that’s significant or not is up to who you ask, but with each climb in graphical fidelity, I fear that we may slowly be losing player customization. Where we now have player nameplates and little title tags, we used to have completely customizable player icons and little decals we could put on our character to fully cement that it is our version of the character. Although from the outside it looks like nothing but nitpicking, I think it’s at least important to acknowledge the slow decline of customization mode.
Self-Expression
If you ever got really into the Team Fortress 2 community, you would know that hats and custom cosmetics are a big part of the game. For a while, these silly hats were just fun little ways to deck out your character and make them seem more unique, but over time, they’ve grown into more of a brand. Famous YouTubers like Muselk, SaltyPhish, and Uncle Dane had their own cosmetic loadout that defined their entire brand, even going so far as people “cosplaying” these stars in-game. Even I had a phase where I wanted to be identified as the player wearing a specific set of cosmetics, but that never really caught on.
This phenomenon with Team Fortress 2 and hats is one of the many examples of why I believe in-game cosmetics are important, because they have such a wide range of self-expression. The way you design your character, your base, or even the vehicle you ride in says a lot about you and is meant to make players feel more connected to their character.
That meme of having your absolutely messed-up player character customization seems lost in most of the games you’d expect it from these days, and that saddens me. Thankfully, games like Pokemon and Elden Ring keep that tradition of customization alive, but I also think a game like Borderlands should already have this.
Lack of Modularity
If you’re an old head like me and still remember how much freedom we had with Tekken Tag Tournament 2, then you’d be looking at the latest entry in the Tekken series and think…this is it? Fighting games in general are some of the greatest offenders when it comes to the removal of modularity, and it’s something that I miss every time I try to customize my character.
Every skin that comes out these days comes as a full-body custom mesh that the designers have already tailored for you. Street Fighter doesn’t even have a proper way to customize fighters, only more ways to customize the original fighter used in the story. But I can’t complain, the skins in Street Fighter have been some of the best in the series, but I just wish it had more freedom. After all, it's the man who makes the clothes and never the other way around.
Sadly, that lack of freedom might be the player’s fault. I can’t remember how many times I’ve seen the decal system of something like Call of Duty or Tekken Tag Tournament 2 abused to create obscene markings on guns, characters, or other objects. We don’t even have to go that far back into the past; Tekken 8 already has some pretty harmful imagery created by players, and I just mentioned that their customization mode isn’t as flexible. Allowing for that much freedom in customization, especially in games that are meant to be competitive, requires strict moderation and guidelines to say which customs are and aren’t allowed in competitive play. But sadly, that’s just effort that I don’t see devs putting into their game.
The Money Problem
Cosmetics are important not only for player expression, but for the game’s longevity. A game could be running completely free for years, supported only by the cosmetic items that players can throw their money at. With this support, games that already cost a fortune to make can continue to earn money and support their community for years to come. Which is why I am dumbfounded that, since Street Fighter 6’s release, we’ve only ever seen a few alternate costumes from the main roster. Although the costumes are few, all of them do look worth the wait and the price tag.
But then there’s the other side of the extreme, where cosmetics are horrendously overpriced to the point where no amount of quality can justify it. Riot may be one of the biggest offenders in this case, putting skins worth 10 games just because they released their game for free. These overpriced cosmetics aren’t only restricting player expression and creativity, but they’re also obviously building this sense of FOMO. The same type of FOMO that slowly convinces you that those obscenely priced skins are worth it, but that’s for another article.
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