Walk Away

[Methpoodle]

I think walking away is the wrong approach (Unless short term peace of mind is your goal)

We seem to look at games like Fallout 76 and BFV etc, as diseases in their own right. I think though, they are just symptoms of a greater epidemic that plagues the industry. This epidemic being greed and apathy.
Compare these symptoms to those of real life conditions, and the idea of "walking away" soon loses it's merit. When the doctor gives you 6 months of chemotherapy, you don't just simply do the first month then stop, hoping the cancer will simply correct itself. The treatment is harsh, long and painful, but at the end of the day it's necessary for change.
I really do look at the current corporate culture of AAA gaming as a festering abscess that needs lancing before it turns the whole industry septic from top to bottom.

While I hate to log onto youtube everyday and see negative video after negative video pointing out the glaring faults of my once loved developers. For those of us that call this our passion, I think its not only our responsibility to watch and stay informed, but to respect and commend those willing to put their necks out, and say the harsh things that get them blacklisted by the big publishers. I can't speak for these content creators but I'd imagine they love this industry even more than most of us as they are literally devoting their time and money to making it their life and income.

I think this current glut of shame and negative press (especially by youtube creators) is the counterpoint to the relentless hype train of the marketing departments belonging to these publishers.
Were we to complain once then move on, these departments would continue to pump out hype and bullshit PR, (as they do) without any real opposition.
The hype would rapidly overwhelm any negative press over poor design choices, anti consumer business practices etc. We would have massively skewed expectations and assumptions. We would be no different from those in other institutions trapped by ridiculous tradition and dogma.

Given the scale of what I think we are trying to fight. Simply letting go or walking away isn't good enough. People DO forget. There's the saying "History repeats itself". Sure, people might avoid the next Bethesda title because of what happened with 76, but what about the next one? Without those who DID get burned reminding the rest of us, people won't give two shits. It's just not how society works. Look all over the world and see how fast we are to fall into the same traps over and over again.

I think the answers simple though the path it leads isn't easy. Fight tooth and nail for what you want and believe in. Or you have the right to ask for nothing.

[TelperionST]

But the thing is that in the games I play things like micro-transactions, loot boxes and other predatory business practices are practically nonexistent. You are saying that the entire industry is knee deep in the same shit, but from my perspective it's just a small portion of the entire industry that's headed in that direction. If you look at the number of games published by these big companies we are talking about a handful each year. Yes, that handful draws in the vast majority of revenue, but that doesn't meant that they are the only things that exist.

I'm really tired of listening to YouTube content creators who make video after video about negative topics. It creates this illusion that that's all there is out there, but in reality there are a ton of good games without a hint of predatory practices. These smaller games just don't get nearly as much coverage, so you have to make a small effort to find them on your own. Cultivating YouTube content creators who pay attention to Indie developers helps a lot.

[Methpoodle]

Hmm, I think you're right to a degree. My perspective lacks the nuance to take into account the smaller devs who haven't been sucked into corrupt ideology that is AAA gaming.
However, I think my opinion still stands as yes, the micro-transaction, loot box slinging AAA tiles make up a small percentage of released games. BUT that small percentage contains most of the player base. I think a good analogy is the Pareto principle, the idea that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. AAA publishers being that infamous 20%. Remember, these are industry leaders and the precedents they set eventually trickle down the food chain.
I can respect that the games you play are free of these issues, but the games we're talking in this topic are riddled with disgraceful practices.

For the record, I'm tired as hell of watching my favorite youtubers make negative video after negative video. And shit I'm tired of posting gloomy comments in threads. But I really do believe we are at a crossroads in the industry right now, and I really think if we don't make our voice heard (and I mean really heard). The thing we love will ghost of what we once had.

Fuck me, even I hate what I'm saying, but I think it's the truth and it is fun to debate it.

[TelperionST]

Well that's the thing: I don't mind, if that 20% of the industry burns down in a horrible dumpster fire of their own making. It would make gaming less accessible to the general public, which would make it far less profitable. We could pretty much say goodbye to places like Steam and GoG, which are dependent on those massively successful titles raking in hundreds upon hundreds of millions to stay viable. However, having lived as long as I have, I know that there was gaming before these current platforms rose to prominence. I could see the return of dedicated servers. A lot of big companies pour massive amounts of money into keeping entire server farms running, so that we can keep spending money on the software that's running on those servers. That's probably only a small fraction of why a lot of games are so expensive these days, but I pay ~10 USD every month for a private server running on a French server farm. Every little bit counts, if we want to make something awesome happen. I could host all sorts of games on it, if I was given the tools to do so - and so could a ton of other people. All that we need is a change in the industry, which forces the big boys to give us the tools to easily setup dedicated servers for the games that we love. Dedicated servers are just one small step, but take enough small steps and we could make something really cool all by ourselves. It's not going to happen until that dumpster fire is burning really hot and spreading all over the place, but...in the meanwhile...I have other games to play.

[Animusisters]

Laughing at the failure of big companies is now a fundamental pillar of the video games industry and it is something you can get for free.

[Methpoodle]

Watch out, Activision will start charging us $1.00 per giggle.

[Dub-Z]

Good perspective.

[TelperionST]

Give it a decade or two. It gets pretty boring to laugh at the same thing.

[LeonardDikema]

Monster Hunter has been my favorite game series for a LONG TIME now, but I've lived to see the slow and painful demise of a few series that I used to love. The first console I ever bought was an original PlayStation and the game I specifically bought it for was The Need for Speed. Sadly, that series ended up slowly going into the shitter, but as it was, Burnout was on the rise and that took its place. As for Burnout, well, it never really got terrible, though Paradise wasn't as good as the previous iterations, but it just ceased to be (I'm completely convinced that EA shelved it for no other reason than they didn't want their own product competing with Need for Speed) - That's where Monster Hunter came in!

Why I mention it, even when its best title to date just came out (Monster Hunter World), I still see the clock ticking down to when Capcom messes it all up. Still, you gotta' give them credit so far - They've let it be its own thing, and the devs know what the audience wants, so it sells amazingly well despite not having microtransactions (well, beyond emotes, which does not bother me). I still have always said, though - I'd happily fork over additional money for a true expansion, and though the free monsters in World have been great, I'd break out my wallet if they said they were releasing something with a couple new zones and some more monsters. I'm just not looking forward to when they add microtransactions that lets you buy advantages, and thus encourages the devs to mess with the RNG to make things that those microtransactions can help with more of a grind.

[Cantis]

I am also in the walk away camp. I don't need Episode IX, I have the original trilogy and I enjoy original smaller movies like Upgrade last year or Ex Mechina a few years ago. I don't need Fallout/Elder Scrolls and I don't need to bombard them with my frustrations. I'll give my money to something like The Outer World, and have been very happy with my Kickstarter investments in things like Wasteland 2, and Divinity Original Sin. Admittedly, I've had some bombs in crowdfunding as well, but overall, I've been happy giving smaller projects the opportunity to make something out of passion while talking and playing with their communities.
I vote with my wallet, games that make me happy, I'll buy multiple times, I probably bought 10 copies of Minecraft (admittedly, I got on that train when Notch was selling it for $5).
A friend of mine is an executive at a retail company and he has said many times, I am the kind of customer they fear the most, the one that just quietly walks away. From their point of view a customer who is vocal and complaining is still a customer and they can still expect revenue from that person. They also seem to still believe (I can't understand why) the idea that there is no such thing as bad publicity, as long as people are talking about them, they are still relevant.