1) Call of Duty’s stranglehold is slipping

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare was released to disappointing pre-order figures (around 50% of the previous title, Ghosts, until very close to release) and sales figures 25% lower than previous years. While Call of Duty’s yearly releases have dominated the games industry since the release of 2007’s incredible Modern Warfare, evidence is beginning to suggest that its time on top is coming to an end – and it will be interesting to see if someone can pick up the pieces next year.

2) £15 is the new £50

Over the last few years, indie games have gradually been picking up steam (no pun intended), buoyed along by digital distribution stores like GOG and Steam. But it was 2014 where titles like Screencheat, Five Nights At Freddy’s and This War Of Mine proved they were able to compete, utilising their lower price as a point in their favour, being seen as a smaller investment than dropping £50 on a brand new AAA title.

3) Mainstream horror is dead

In between the mediocre reception of The Evil Within, and the delay to Atari’s new Alone in the Dark title, there wasn’t much for horror fans to get excited about in the AAA space in 2014. The year’s best offerings – such as Five Nights At Freddy’s (+ sequel) and Alien: Isolation – all came at a lower price, proving that the niche – and talent – for horror is still there… it just takes a little bit more effort to find it out.

4) Companies are finally learning how to use DLC

When Nintendo, a famously internet-averse company, announced there would be free DLC for Mario Kart, people were skeptical. (The fact it was Mercedes-Benz branded didn’t help, of course). But Nintendo knocked it out of the park, providing two full DLC tournaments and three new characters at a reasonable price – and this lead is being taken up, including, bizarrely enough, for Postal 2. A move towards fairer DLC that is better value for money can only be a good thing.

5) Publishers are getting called out on their shit

Ubisoft and SEGA both tried to pull a fast one on consumers and journalists alike by setting review embargoes after copies of their games had gone on sale. But unlike in previous years – when the expectation would have been that journalists and consumers just accepted it – this has not happened now, with Kotaku announcing they would not accept any more post-day 1 embargoes, and popular Youtuber TotalBiscuit following suit. There may yet be hope.

6) Livestreaming is big business

In a year where Twitch was sold for $1bn, this would scarcely need to be said, but it does bear reminding that this year began with the glory that was Twitch Plays Pokemon and ended with Desert Bus For Hope, both livestreamed events and both among the best things the gaming community has done. And given that the infamous Shadows of Mordor brand deal included a request for livestreams with “calls to action”, publishers have started to notice, too.

Still not my thing, though.

7) Sales! Sales everywhere!

Again, this is hardly new, but 2014 took the art of sales to a new level, with the expansion of the Humble Store, GOG introducing innovative new sales (including their Mutator Sale, which I felt I should have participated in more) and Steam having just launched their “holiday auction”. Certainly I find it difficult to imagine myself paying full price for a game any more – which I find somewhat disconcerting, but good for consumers.

8) Gaming is now a full-on cultural battleground

2014 was the year that critical discussions of video games stopped being a niche matter and started taking place in the public eye. When the American Enterprise Institute offers up a (terrible) video about sexism in video games, in a way it’s a compliment – if they didn’t acknowledge that video games had any cultural impact, the video wouldn’t exist.

This continued with the emergence of #Gamergate. If you follow me on Twitter, you’re probably already aware of my stance on this (And if you don’t follow me on Twitter, you should). In short: #Gamergate is to gaming what PETA is to vegetarians – a group of self-important tossers who don’t know what “ethical” means and are an embarrassment to the public image.

However, #Gamergate’s existence is in itself interesting, because it shows that games are being taken seriously. If not, nobody would fight as hard as they do.

9) …And attempts to silence only make the targets more popular

Anita Sarkeesian made it onto The Colbert Report.

Of course, this goes both ways – I certainly feel attempting to silence Brad Wardell, or the developers of Hatred, has only the opposite effect – but it’s an important step: gaming is a cultural medium, with cultural critics and developers, and attempting to silence them only makes them more determined. And that is a very good thing indeed.

10) Choosing a “best game” is tougher than ever.

I won’t be offering a GOTY list, mainly because I have not had time to play enough new releases to really keep up – but, unlike last year (where the stand-out contenders quickly became The Last of Us and GTA V) this year has been far more diverse in terms of both quality and style of game. PC releases have ranged from experimental text adventures to survival games set in wartime, consoles have seen shooters compete with party titles, and Nintendo are quietly doing their own thing with the latest Mario Kart and Smash Bros. Gaming in 2014 is a far broader and bigger medium than it’s ever been. Here’s hoping 2015 is even better in that regard.