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> This trend is unethical and everyone involved in allowing this to continue is no better than the sacklers. This is one of the reasons I dropped out of the gaming market almost entirely. The way I see it, 'gamers' are some of the least savvy consumers on the planet. They continue to buy games from companies they know have burned them numerous times. In some markets, consumers are known for holding decades long grudges against companies that have wronged consumers, but not gamers. Gamers seem to be exceptionally forgiving and naive in this regard, and that lets games companies walk all over them. Invasive rootkit DRM, games broken on launch, games broken forever with the expectation that community modders will donate their labor to fix it for free, games that don't facilitate community servers, games that are split in two before launch with half the game being labeled "DLC", thinly veiled skinner boxes designed like slot machines designed to encourage binge-play ("grinding for rare loot") and sometimes designed to extract even more money from players who've already purchased the game ("lootcrates".) A DRM company, widely beloved by gamers, being forced by the courts to revise their abhorrent returns policy (https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/23/valve-steam-fined-2-mill...) Shit, I've had 'gamers' get fuming mad at me before for not worshiping at the altar of Valve, as though it were religious heresy for me to criticize a for-profit American corporation. Even when the 'gamer community' recognizes something as broken, they seem to forget by the time the next game comes around. Just look at the history of Bethesda releases. Morrowind was broken but somewhat novel. Oblivion was again broken, though perhaps with some of the edges rounded over. Next was Fallout 3, which was still broken. Skyrim was very broken, at this point the pattern should have been obvious to everybody paying attention, and to be fair to the gamers the brokenness of Bethesda games was becoming a meme at this point. Fallout 4 comes around and it's their most nerfed game yet, but still broken as fuck. How could anybody be surprised at this point? Yet people still bought that, and they even bought the next game, Fallout 76, which was the most egregiously Bethesda broken game yet. Currently the 'gamer community' recognizes Fallout 76 and Bethesda as dumpster fires, but will they buy the next Bethesda game? I'd bet on it. When it comes time to vote with their wallets, I wager they'll be compliant consumers and do as the marketing tells them to. Even when they learn, they don't learn. The lesson doesn't set in, a new game is released, and the cycle continues. |
A straight up and down company like IBM or Ford would not dominate in the games industry. Valve, ea, bethseda are leaders in play. They give you the opportunity to play religious heresy, or witness a fallout 76 firestorm. Where else do you get to play with a billion dollar company?