With next-gen games coming, it's time for actual dialogue to create realistic expectations.

A new generation of gaming is upon us, and a new level of consumer expectations is sure to follow the arrival of next-gen consoles.

In the world of video games, today’s gamer is still willing to part with their disposable income early and often, but only if the title dictates it. Information about every title is readily available to all who are interested, and early impressions and reviews are there to be consumed at the click of a button. This is good news for the gamer, potentially bad news for developers and publishers.

If you are an older gamer, than you most definitely remember the likes of the Commodore 64, Atari 2600, and the Intellivision Entertainment Computer System. The genesis of gaming was more than exciting, it was full of possibilities, imagination, limited expectations, and very few promises. That’s right, back in the day games were developed, distributed, and hit retail store shelves with very little fanfare, and even less media coverage. A games retail success relied heavily on word of mouth, a rare commercial, and an occasional article in a monthly publication.

This type of marketing is obviously considered by the industry to be archaic at best these days, and companies have turned to individual promotional events, online video ads, social media, and electronic shows to distribute information about upcoming titles. Unfortunately, the industry often uses unrealistic marketing and promises of genre altering gameplay and realism to sell their product, but rarely does a title of that type of quality actually come along.

This type of over the top marketing is nothing new. In today’s world of viral videos and scheduled announcements, the developers and publishers(mostly developers) really expose themselves to being held accountable. Sadly though, these are the types of cheap and underlying tactics that promote unrealistic expectations from the consumer, and in the end weakens and diminishes the foundation of trust between the gamer and the developer.

It is not that most gamers believe every game released should be bug free with no issues whatsoever, but that developers love to over promise and under deliver – and tend to slowly slip into the dark when it comes time to answer the tough questions about what went wrong. If you are looking for a single group to blame though, good luck -- you won’t find one.

Games are big business, which means dollars are the most important stat for companies.

The almighty dollar has had damaged the gaming industry on many levels, and that is not going to change. For the most part, developers are micro-managed, given stringent deadlines, and answer to multiple people while creating games – and it all revolves around the bottom-line.

Do we blame companies for looking out for their financial health? Of course we don’t, but there is difference between promoting your game, and promoting your game to be something it is not.

Even with all the issues on the current generation of consoles, the expectation of the gamer has never been higher as we approach the release of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. With the new generation of consoles, the consumer is expecting everything to be bigger, better, and faster -- and why shouldn’t they?

Sony has marketed the PS4 as “developer friendly” and promoted their efforts in involving developers in the creating of its newest system. In turn, certain developers have released their own videos describing how much easier the architecture is to create within, and how Sony delivered on everything they asked for.

So what do most consumers think when they here this type of rhetoric? They assume that games will be much easier to develop, less time consuming in their creation, and more time devoted to flushing out most of the problem plaguing bugs. In short: consumers expectations are raised.

More realistic dialogue would create a more favorable environment to develop and release games in.

Publishers’ and developers need to understand this, the current generation of gamers were not raised playing 8-bit console games, and have grown up listening to them promising the world, but rarely delivering upon said promises.

This much we know, our expectations as gamers are not going to lower. We also know there will never be true transparency between the consumer and developer. These two facts do not mean that there can’t be honest and open dialogue between the two, at least to a degree.

It’s a 'fun' little game being played right now in how games are developed, promoted, and how that information is relayed and absorbed. As I have said before, developers over promise, typically under deliver, we complain on message boards, and still buy the game en' masse. There obviously is something inherently wrong with this process, but yet both sides allow it to happen, and deal with the ramifications after the fact.

I am skeptical a new generation of consoles will mean a new generation of games which are going to be fully developed and tested. For me at least, my expectations have not changed with the new generation of games -- despite the rhetoric to the contrary from hardware giants and developers. My hope is simply that great titles are consistently released, and that the foundation of trust between developers and consumers, is rebuilt.

For now, the ball is truly in both developers' and consumers' court. Either we can continue this cat and mouse game, or both gamers, developers, and publishers can all get on the same page, and create an “everybody wins” scenario.

While it may be presumptuous to say that the upcoming generation of games could decide the fate of gaming as a whole, at the very least it’s going to go a long way in shaping the future of it. This next generation of gaming is promising to bring together all the features and expectations that we as gamers have built up and asked over the last decade, but will it really matter if the games are consistently sub-par?

The short answer is no, it will not - and hopefully developers and publishers understand this reality as the new generation launches in just under two months.