Well, the fact that Australia still pays almost double for its games than anywhere else in the world. I don't know why it's an issue; the discs and such are being manufactured in China, which is supposed to be one of our biggest trading partners. It's like, the history of Australia paying more has stuck because it's just that: history.
However, there are things that bother me more about gaming than the industry-aligned stuff; namely, the attitude of 12 to 18-year-old gamers. I'm 17, and I'm ashamed of how my peers act when they're online. Insults, excuses for dying, stupid arguments; it's all just absolutely pathetic. On the off chance that there's actually a majority of people with a microphone in a (console) gaming lobby these days, the talk is usually either about how awesome somebody is because they can quicksnipe, or some other asinine thing, or just involves the aforementioned insults, excuses for dying, and stupid arguments.
No offense, but the only people that I see online who are trash-talking, and acting like morons are Americans. When I'm in a lobby with Australians (which is a fortunately often occurence when playing MW2), the banter is humorous, and the conversation is good-natured and funny. I'm not going to go into specifics of why this is, for fear of alienating and offending certain people, but I feel that the majority of shit-talking online stems from 12-18 year-old Americans.
Finally, just quickly jumping back to industry-based points (because I forgot to mention this before), I'm sick of derivative games simply trying to copy COD. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy a bit of COD, though not to the point of Prestige or anything like that, but I don't enjoy a bit of COD in the majority of AAA titles that are being released at the moment. Just recently, I picked up Far Cry 2, and I'm enjoying far more than most other FPSs I've played lately, just because of the fact that it approaches the concepts of a free-roam world and a shooter so differently to things that have been done before. The preceeding title aside, I don't think anything like that has been done before. The way it plays, and the way that you need to formulate strategies on-the-fly to ensure your survival is really something that I'd be interested in seeing in other games.
Centrally, I think it all boils down to the fact that videogames are becoming a big entertainment medium. As they've gained their popularity (which I think may have peaked), videogames have essentially been whored out to the masses, no longer to deliver creative, innovative play, but to give a quick-fix of entertainment and to make money. As the market levels out, and the hype over videogames settles down, I can see the return to truly innovative and interesting concepts coming out of AAA developers.
