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> But games were different. They were, and I wonder why. If you run some open source 16-bit gaming console emulator, you also know that there won't be in-game
by hjek 5y ago
> But games were different.
They were, and I wonder why. If you run some open source 16-bit gaming console emulator, you also know that there won't be in-game purchases, because it just wasn't a possibility. Perhaps it was a technological sweet spot that limited capitalist exploitation within video games?
The games still had ethical issues then, like, it's actually difficult to find non-violent games. Even Zelda is addictive in its immersiveness and the game mechanics rely a lot on assaulting baddies.
> The first game I remember being extremely addicting was World of Warcraft. It became a habit to simply click the icon as soon as the desktop loaded,
This is interesting to read, that you as a ex-gameaholic disagree with this law. I wonder whether it could really be the forces that are moving game development (as in money, as in capitalism) that are the real problem because they profit from creating addiction, rather than computer games as such. One can only wonder what computer games would look like in a world not dominated by neoliberalism, and whether a healthier game development model is possible?
I am reminded of this longer comment that was removed from the Godot source code recently:
> A capitalist oligarchy runs the world and forces us to consume in order to keep the
gears of this rotten society on track. As such, the biggest market for
video game consumption today is the mobile one. It is a market of poor
souls forced to compulsively consume digital content in order to forget
the misery of their everyday life, commute, or just any other brief
free moment they have that they are not using to produce goods or
services for the ruling class.
From https://github.com/godotengine/godot-docs/commit/b872229427dddb9b749f46af597e85e25cf2955a https://github.com/godotengine/godot-docs/commit/b872229427d...
- pitaj 5y agoA few possible causes: - Game prices have not kept up with inflation. - Games are more expensive than ever before. - More games now have online multiplayer, requiring constant funding.
- honkycat 5y agoI have family and friends who work in the game industry, and I can tell you it is none of the above. Here is the answer: Crappy gatcha games and skinner boxes branded with a popular IP marketed towards kids are: 1. Much easier to make 2. Makes A TON MORE MONEY. A gatcha game is basically a slot machine, which is basically a website with a fancy front-end. This means you can shovel out these games with low-skill labor, make your money, and then re-skin the same website with another property. A lot of the gaming companies that used to be owned by a visionary leader are now owned by VC firms that don't give a shit about games, they give a shit about the money machine. So they produce the same crap over and over again, employing behavioral psychologists to develop the most addicting loop possible.
- machiaweliczny 5y agoShould we ban this?
- honkycat 5y agoI don't think it is realistic to ban, honestly. I think there is probably some precedent from gambling laws we could apply to protect minors from predatory behaviour.
- mehlmao 5y agoGames are more expensive to make and prices have not kept up with inflation, but units sold are at least two orders of magnitude than they were twenty years ago, and individual free-to-play titles have playercounts that dwarf the total userbase of all games at the turn of the millennium. Multiplayer does not require constant funding, unless you want to lock the game down so you can sell microtransactions. I can fire up the original Quake or UT99, pick a server, and play online; it doesn't cost id a cent. On the other hand, I recently tried playing Splinter Cell: Blacklist again, a game released in 2013, and their centralized online services don't work. Developers have made an effort to keep players from hosting their own servers, which has introducing many new problems. For example, the lack of community moderation / 'toxicity', homogenization of gameplay options within a title to support a matchmaking pool, and stagnation due to lack of new maps, modes, and mods that used to be created by the community.