6 ms·

Vote with your wallet, there are thousands of games that don't do shady stuff.

by umvi 1y ago

elitepleb 1y ago
There's fewer games to vote on every year, as conglomerates like Microsoft out vote your wallet a billion times over every time they buy a game studio to embrace, extend and then extinguish.
- ysavir 1y ago
  If looking at AAA publishers, maybe. The indie game scene continues to pump out games, some good, some bad, at half or less of cost of the AAA games. They won't be as polished, but many still deliver an exceptional experience.
- mouse_ 1y ago
  there are more games than ever, it's just that microsoft, ubisoft, etc are spending billions on actual psychologists to ensure the populace remains apathetic towards them. I don't care how smart you are, how much self control you have, whatever, in the face of billions of dollars, voting with your wallet does not stand a chance. The house always wins.
  - throw10920 1y ago
    Huh, that's funny, I've never bought a Ubisoft game. I guess I'm the first person ever who's resistant to those psychologists.
    - thrance 1y ago
      Do you not understand that the people on HN, you and me included, are far from the average consumer? We care about things most people really don't.
      - throw10920 1y ago
        They said: > I don't care how smart you are, how much self control you have, whatever, in the face of billions of dollars, voting with your wallet does not stand a chance. The house always wins. Yes, you're totally right that HN users are far from the average consumer, but they weren't talking about the average consumer - they were making a categorical statement that all consumers have no self-agency and are mind-controlled by these companies, and I was pointing out how clearly insane that claim is.
        thrance 1y ago
        That's a ludicrously ungenerous interpretation of what they said. Of course they weren't making an ontological claim. And I'm sure you know that too.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
bluefirebrand 1y ago
Yup Something I am noticing more and more is how stagnant the North American game industry is. Meanwhile Europe and Japan are still killing it Larian with BG3 - Europe Cd Projekt with Witcher and Cyberpunk - Europe Nintendo rocking on as normal Monster hunter wilds and the RE remakes? Capcom, Japan Elden Ring and Nightreign. FromSoft, Japan Helldivers 2. Arrowhead Studios, Sweden Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. Warhorse Studios, Czech I cannot remember the last time I bought a new game and had a blast with it from a North American studio. Certainly not a AAA studio anyways
- phoronixrly 1y ago
  You mean you're not a fan of the latest reskin of CoD, or the latest reskin of CS with even more loot boxes?
- zamalek 1y ago
  > Certainly not a AAA studio anyways Almost every time I have spent more than $35 on a game in the past year I have wound up regretting it. It seems as though the quality of games typically increases til that point (exceptions exist, Terraria) and then declines sharply (again, exceptions exist). It has turned out to be a useful signal to be way more careful about a purchase for me.
  - DrillShopper 1y ago
    I refuse to buy any game, AAA studio or indie, that costs more than $25. I have shit to do and not a lot of time to game, so I can be patient for games to go on sale.
simion314 1y ago
>Vote with your wallet I bought Minecraft from Mojang, years later I am forced to setup a Microsoft account to play the game, or risk downloading a cracked version. They did not offer a refund. Minecraft is a video game where you need to login even if you do not play online. (maybe things changed , I think this MS account thing was a few years back, it worked for my account but I read of people having big issues because some MS assholes ahd to force the Java edition players to use an MS account) This behaviour should not be legal.
- rcxdude 1y ago
  Minecraft is at least reasonably easy to play offline, the account mostly only stores your skins. That said, it may require a third-party launcher now.
  - dragonmost 1y ago
    But you won't be able to access some public servers for a game you paid for without the account.
    - thunderfork 1y ago
      [dead]
- netr0ute 1y ago
  I don't remember this being the case, you could reuse your old MC purchase when they made the transition over.
  - areyourllySorry 1y ago
    the mojang to minecraft.net transition, yeah. the minecraft.net to microsoft transition, no. https://youtu.be/rUFDRAEducI https://youtu.be/rUFDRAEducI
- throw10920 1y ago
  I was forced to not only setup a Microsoft account, but hand over my phone number - after creating an account without a phone number and transferring my Minecraft license over, they immediately locked my account. Someone at Microsoft should go to jail for this.
willis936 1y ago
And people are. Games sales are slumping in response to a decade of predatory dark patterns and simply not giving the audience what they're asking for. Just keeping the games playable is a singular issue and in the noise. It's a good issue to single out for regulation.
josephg 1y ago
Its not always obvious when you buy them which games will still be around a few years later. Some singleplayer titles from just a few years ago are no longer playable. (Hello, Ubisoft). Meanwhile there are MMOs like guild wars 1, released 20 years ago, still playable today.
- ryukafalz 1y ago
  Right, exactly. Game companies don't advertise when you buy a game that its single-player features will only work as long as the servers stay up. I'm sure they don't want to. But if players aren't made aware of that fact then it's hard for them to make informed purchasing decisions.
- ghusto 1y ago
  It's obvious enough if you buy on Steam. Any game that says it needs it's own DRM or an account with the publisher is a nope.
yakattak 1y ago
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was such a breath of fresh air in this regard. If you just want a reasonably priced, good game with no shady stuff but still that AA (arguably AAA) experience I can’t recommend it enough.
perching_aix 1y ago
Or just sign the initiative, so that you maybe don't have to abstain to achieve this goal? I don't understand this mentality.
- thrance 1y ago
  Americans have been conditioned to blame individuals for everything wrong in society.
thrance 1y ago
Look where decades of "voting with our wallets" led us. How some people can still utter that sentence unironically is beyond me at this point.
- throw10920 1y ago
  Your claim that there has been "decades of voting with our wallets" is laughable. Nobody I know who plays games decides to buy them or not based on ideological reasons - they just buy the things that are popular or that their friends play. There's extremely little engagement on these issues.
  - skotobaza 1y ago
    But it's true. Most people pay for what's being currently promoted. So "voting with wallet" doesn't really work, because you will be outvoted by majority of people who don't know what they're getting into. That's why gacha games and other lootbox-heavy ones are most profitable. This is where "vote with your wallet" brought us.
    - drwiggly 1y ago
      Voting with your wallet does work, possibly others don't share in your tastes.
      - skotobaza 1y ago
        It would be fair, but when you go online, everyone (and I mean everyone) shares their distaste for modern gaming industry and its practices. Yet, those practices still bring the most money to this day. So does it mean that people go against their principles? Or is it just another "vocal minority" situation?
        throw10920 1y ago
        There's some evidence that it's a vocal minority. Taking a game made by a terrible company that has a lot of dark patterns, Call of Duty Black Ops 6 has sold at least 491 thousand units (https://steamdb.info/app/1938090/charts/ https://steamdb.info/app/1938090/charts/) (certainly far higher, but apparently they haven't published the sales figures, so this is the best lower bound that we get), yet you see far fewer than that number of Reddit posts and comments and upvotes, or upvotes on YouTube videos about these terrible practices. I suspect that the majority of those who play games would rather these mechanics not exist, but don't feel strongly enough about it to boycott those games. I don't have evidence for this beyond my interactions with personal friends and their "mild apathetic unhappiness" for lack of a better term. There's also definitely a number of people that are willing to accept some compromise to either play a very well-made game, or one that their friends are playing. I hate Epic Games and its practices, for instance, but I'm willing to play Fortnite with friends if they ask me, and I justify that by telling myself that I'm never going to buy anything with their premium currency.
aranelsurion 1y ago
> Vote with your wallet The ratio of me hearing this vs. seeing it actually affect change is maybe 10000:1 at this point. Why not just vote with your vote instead.
- DrillShopper 1y ago
  Anyone saying "vote with your wallet" is implicitly saying billionaires deserve more say in the world than you do since they have so much more in their wallet. Tell them to fuck off.
sdiupIGPWEfh 1y ago
Everywhere, license agreements that can be changed by the company at any time, pretty much for every game developer that can afford a lawyer to write up said license agreement. They could all start doing shady stuff at any time. Might still leave thousands of games, but they add up to a drop in the bucket of the overall market.

Vote with your wallet, there are thousands of games that don't do shady stuff.

by umvi 1y ago

Vote with your wallet, there are thousands of games that don't do shady stuff.

There's fewer games to vote on every year, as conglomerates like Microsoft out vote your wallet a billion times over every time they buy a game studio to embrace, extend and then extinguish.

ysavir 1y ago
If looking at AAA publishers, maybe. The indie game scene continues to pump out games, some good, some bad, at half or less of cost of the AAA games. They won't be as polished, but many still deliver an exceptional experience.
mouse_ 1y ago
there are more games than ever, it's just that microsoft, ubisoft, etc are spending billions on actual psychologists to ensure the populace remains apathetic towards them. I don't care how smart you are, how much self control you have, whatever, in the face of billions of dollars, voting with your wallet does not stand a chance. The house always wins.
- throw10920 1y ago
  Huh, that's funny, I've never bought a Ubisoft game. I guess I'm the first person ever who's resistant to those psychologists.
  - thrance 1y ago
    Do you not understand that the people on HN, you and me included, are far from the average consumer? We care about things most people really don't.
    - throw10920 1y ago
      They said: > I don't care how smart you are, how much self control you have, whatever, in the face of billions of dollars, voting with your wallet does not stand a chance. The house always wins. Yes, you're totally right that HN users are far from the average consumer, but they weren't talking about the average consumer - they were making a categorical statement that all consumers have no self-agency and are mind-controlled by these companies, and I was pointing out how clearly insane that claim is.
      - thrance 1y ago
        That's a ludicrously ungenerous interpretation of what they said. Of course they weren't making an ontological claim. And I'm sure you know that too.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]

bluefirebrand 1y ago

Yup Something I am noticing more and more is how stagnant the North American game industry is. Meanwhile Europe and Japan are still killing it Larian with BG3 - Europe Cd Projekt with Witcher and Cyberpunk - Europe Nintendo rocking on as normal Monster hunter wilds and the RE remakes? Capcom, Japan Elden Ring and Nightreign. FromSoft, Japan Helldivers 2. Arrowhead Studios, Sweden Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. Warhorse Studios, Czech I cannot remember the last time I bought a new game and had a blast with it from a North American studio. Certainly not a AAA studio anyways

phoronixrly 1y ago
You mean you're not a fan of the latest reskin of CoD, or the latest reskin of CS with even more loot boxes?
zamalek 1y ago
> Certainly not a AAA studio anyways Almost every time I have spent more than $35 on a game in the past year I have wound up regretting it. It seems as though the quality of games typically increases til that point (exceptions exist, Terraria) and then declines sharply (again, exceptions exist). It has turned out to be a useful signal to be way more careful about a purchase for me.
- DrillShopper 1y ago
  I refuse to buy any game, AAA studio or indie, that costs more than $25. I have shit to do and not a lot of time to game, so I can be patient for games to go on sale.

simion314 1y ago

>Vote with your wallet I bought Minecraft from Mojang, years later I am forced to setup a Microsoft account to play the game, or risk downloading a cracked version. They did not offer a refund. Minecraft is a video game where you need to login even if you do not play online. (maybe things changed , I think this MS account thing was a few years back, it worked for my account but I read of people having big issues because some MS assholes ahd to force the Java edition players to use an MS account) This behaviour should not be legal.

rcxdude 1y ago
Minecraft is at least reasonably easy to play offline, the account mostly only stores your skins. That said, it may require a third-party launcher now.
- dragonmost 1y ago
  But you won't be able to access some public servers for a game you paid for without the account.
  - thunderfork 1y ago
    [dead]
netr0ute 1y ago
I don't remember this being the case, you could reuse your old MC purchase when they made the transition over.
- areyourllySorry 1y ago
  the mojang to minecraft.net transition, yeah. the minecraft.net to microsoft transition, no. https://youtu.be/rUFDRAEducI https://youtu.be/rUFDRAEducI
throw10920 1y ago
I was forced to not only setup a Microsoft account, but hand over my phone number - after creating an account without a phone number and transferring my Minecraft license over, they immediately locked my account. Someone at Microsoft should go to jail for this.

willis936 1y ago

And people are. Games sales are slumping in response to a decade of predatory dark patterns and simply not giving the audience what they're asking for. Just keeping the games playable is a singular issue and in the noise. It's a good issue to single out for regulation.

josephg 1y ago

Its not always obvious when you buy them which games will still be around a few years later. Some singleplayer titles from just a few years ago are no longer playable. (Hello, Ubisoft). Meanwhile there are MMOs like guild wars 1, released 20 years ago, still playable today.

ryukafalz 1y ago
Right, exactly. Game companies don't advertise when you buy a game that its single-player features will only work as long as the servers stay up. I'm sure they don't want to. But if players aren't made aware of that fact then it's hard for them to make informed purchasing decisions.
ghusto 1y ago
It's obvious enough if you buy on Steam. Any game that says it needs it's own DRM or an account with the publisher is a nope.

yakattak 1y ago

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was such a breath of fresh air in this regard. If you just want a reasonably priced, good game with no shady stuff but still that AA (arguably AAA) experience I can’t recommend it enough.

perching_aix 1y ago

Or just sign the initiative, so that you maybe don't have to abstain to achieve this goal? I don't understand this mentality.

thrance 1y ago
Americans have been conditioned to blame individuals for everything wrong in society.

thrance 1y ago

Look where decades of "voting with our wallets" led us. How some people can still utter that sentence unironically is beyond me at this point.

throw10920 1y ago
Your claim that there has been "decades of voting with our wallets" is laughable. Nobody I know who plays games decides to buy them or not based on ideological reasons - they just buy the things that are popular or that their friends play. There's extremely little engagement on these issues.
- skotobaza 1y ago
  But it's true. Most people pay for what's being currently promoted. So "voting with wallet" doesn't really work, because you will be outvoted by majority of people who don't know what they're getting into. That's why gacha games and other lootbox-heavy ones are most profitable. This is where "vote with your wallet" brought us.
  - drwiggly 1y ago
    Voting with your wallet does work, possibly others don't share in your tastes.
    - skotobaza 1y ago
      It would be fair, but when you go online, everyone (and I mean everyone) shares their distaste for modern gaming industry and its practices. Yet, those practices still bring the most money to this day. So does it mean that people go against their principles? Or is it just another "vocal minority" situation?
      - throw10920 1y ago
        There's some evidence that it's a vocal minority. Taking a game made by a terrible company that has a lot of dark patterns, Call of Duty Black Ops 6 has sold at least 491 thousand units (https://steamdb.info/app/1938090/charts/ https://steamdb.info/app/1938090/charts/) (certainly far higher, but apparently they haven't published the sales figures, so this is the best lower bound that we get), yet you see far fewer than that number of Reddit posts and comments and upvotes, or upvotes on YouTube videos about these terrible practices. I suspect that the majority of those who play games would rather these mechanics not exist, but don't feel strongly enough about it to boycott those games. I don't have evidence for this beyond my interactions with personal friends and their "mild apathetic unhappiness" for lack of a better term. There's also definitely a number of people that are willing to accept some compromise to either play a very well-made game, or one that their friends are playing. I hate Epic Games and its practices, for instance, but I'm willing to play Fortnite with friends if they ask me, and I justify that by telling myself that I'm never going to buy anything with their premium currency.

aranelsurion 1y ago

> Vote with your wallet The ratio of me hearing this vs. seeing it actually affect change is maybe 10000:1 at this point. Why not just vote with your vote instead.

DrillShopper 1y ago
Anyone saying "vote with your wallet" is implicitly saying billionaires deserve more say in the world than you do since they have so much more in their wallet. Tell them to fuck off.

sdiupIGPWEfh 1y ago

Everywhere, license agreements that can be changed by the company at any time, pretty much for every game developer that can afford a lawyer to write up said license agreement. They could all start doing shady stuff at any time. Might still leave thousands of games, but they add up to a drop in the bucket of the overall market.