3 ms·

> Video gaming is the mess that it is in 2025 Is it though? IMO video gaming is fine, in a great spot, even. Consumer prices have stayed (unreasonably!) cheap

> Video gaming is the mess that it is in 2025 Is it though? IMO video gaming is fine, in a great spot, even. Consumer prices have stayed (unreasonably!) cheap for decades and especially the indie market is thriving right now. I remember paying more for games 15 years ago than I do now. But I primarily play indie titles on Steam (currently Silksong), so that might warp my perspective. Regarding commoditized nostalgia: I don't think pricing is that unreasonable. For instance, I'm pretty happy with the current state of Age of Empires 2.

kbolino 1y ago
> For instance, I'm pretty happy with the current state of Age of Empires 2. Terrible example IMO. Microsoft has both disabled new purchases of "traditional" Age of Empires 2 on Steam and also spitefully patched out offline LAN play. So when I can get enough people together about once a year to have a LAN party and we want to play AoE2 it's either everybody pays $35 each for the "definitive" edition, so we can play for just a couple hours, or else we just don't play it at all because not everybody even has a Steam account never mind their own gaming computer. And Steam also nuked the ability to buy multiple copies of a game when it's on sale and keep them to give as gifts later. To compound this, because I only own the old edition (that nobody can buy anymore) and not the new one, I can't even leave a negative review (where it will actually be seen) warning people of Microsoft's shitty behavior.
- knowitnone3 1y ago
  I'm sure there's a torrent for that
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
lenerdenator 1y ago
Indie's great. It's what things should be. But the things that put bread on tables for the industry as a whole, that's just monetized to all hell at this point. I'd argue that recreational products (which video games very much are) should remain unreasonably cheap. I get screwed on every other aspect of existence, the thing that I use for an escape shouldn't replicate this.

kbolino 1y ago

> For instance, I'm pretty happy with the current state of Age of Empires 2. Terrible example IMO. Microsoft has both disabled new purchases of "traditional" Age of Empires 2 on Steam and also spitefully patched out offline LAN play. So when I can get enough people together about once a year to have a LAN party and we want to play AoE2 it's either everybody pays $35 each for the "definitive" edition, so we can play for just a couple hours, or else we just don't play it at all because not everybody even has a Steam account never mind their own gaming computer. And Steam also nuked the ability to buy multiple copies of a game when it's on sale and keep them to give as gifts later. To compound this, because I only own the old edition (that nobody can buy anymore) and not the new one, I can't even leave a negative review (where it will actually be seen) warning people of Microsoft's shitty behavior.

knowitnone3 1y ago
I'm sure there's a torrent for that
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

lenerdenator 1y ago

Indie's great. It's what things should be. But the things that put bread on tables for the industry as a whole, that's just monetized to all hell at this point. I'd argue that recreational products (which video games very much are) should remain unreasonably cheap. I get screwed on every other aspect of existence, the thing that I use for an escape shouldn't replicate this.