AaltomiesStop being the cattle
With the upcoming release of Grand Theft Auto 6, we’re seeing the digital future people were selling to me twenty years ago. Instead of games getting cheaper now that the physical discs are slooooowly vanishing, we’re paying about a hundred bucks for ’em. GTA6 will still see a store release, with a code in a box. Publishers recognise people still want to walk into a store and buy (or order online) something that they can own, something that is theirs. Digital-only was supposed to remove brick stores from the equation.
Instead of publishers and developers aiming for optimised games that would properly pack files, we’re at a point where one game can take up an entire drive with its updates. Nobody cares about how well a game will run on your rig or console, as the industry is pushing homogenisation of Unreal as the standard engine. I don’t like Unreal Engine, as very few make enough modifications to it so that their games look anything different from the basic settings. The same issues pop up across almost every game that uses the engine. At least mods can help with these issues on PC; console gamers are in a worse position.
Alongside things going digital comes DRM that’s effectively malware. Denuvo already tanks the frame rate. GTA6 is coming with an additional DRM scheme that was described as Denuvo+ on top of Denuvo. You’re allowed to play the games you’re purchasing for those hundred bucks, but only at the good graces of the publisher. They won’t call it renting or subscribing to a limited-time service or anything similar, as those have heavily negative, temporary connotations over buying something to own. It’s the standard fucking with words, redefining them so both the legislative bodies and the customers are equally confused what the hell they mean. It all leads towards one goal: totalitarian control over your money and ownership.
Of course, 2K likes to nickel and dime. Basic game elements are now behind a paywall and the game will have microtransactions up the wazoo. GTA5 is still trucking along with those, so it’s a no-brainer that the sequel would be even worse in this regard. Ultimately, the game will end up costing you far more than its initial asking price. Some people will be willing to pay for it, painting it with whatever positive colours they can muster. You know that meme, where Mona Lisa has been cut into pieces to sell you the whole painting? That’s effectively a reality. Your burger now has just meat and lettuce. The rest of the ingredients are add-ons you can pay for a dollar or two a pop.
I was never deep into digital-only, and long-time readers know that I’ve beaten this dead horse a few times already, but goddamn I have to say people really were bamboozled by the promises full digitalisation of video and computer games would bring with it. Not only have all the promises for cheaper games been broken, now we don’t even have any sort of control over them. You get banned from online games for bullshit you probably didn’t even do. Companies are extending their reach outside the games’ sphere as well, as Blizzard at one point was looking at social media posts of their customers to determine whether or not any given player was a worthy enough person to play their mediocre games.
Every single person who called for digital-only games for these twenty plus years are cattle being led to slaughter. It’s the same ol’ song I’ve seen elsewhere; people are willingly letting go of responsibility for the sake of perceived convenience. These people would give away total control of their own lives to someone else if it meant everything was more convenient, easier, and without daily responsibilities. Every single time these people are surprised that the ramifications come without any lube.
Video and computer games have become commodified. Sure, they’ve always been entertainment for the masses and a common good, yet they were in a niche where everyone could and would consume them but also leave them be as a nerd’s hobby. It used to be reprehensible to consider anyone but recluse nerds who reeked would be playing video games to any significant extent. That reeking bit is still true when it comes to TCG and miniature nerds, go take shower. Hence why video games got called toys, something boys would do if they weren’t outside doing sports (the real games!) or the occasional fancy someone had if a game had merit outside gaming. Yet man is an active animal, and so electronic gaming had a hundred years to overcome passive media to become the top dog among it, film, and music. Another word for commodification would be enshittification.
Are modern games worth the money? After seeing the media circus that surrounded Starfield before its release and after playing it for free, I’m ready to say that modern games largely are disappointing trash. At least old games had soul and charm to them, even if the mechanics are sometimes unpolished and rigid. Nowadays you get the same soulless sludge with the exact same design sensibilities, with the exact same scalable UI elements and locations, with the exact same safe plotlines, with the exact same control scheme. Video games were great when they were daring and bold, when attempting something new could revolutionise how games were perceived or how genres were redefined. Now that everything has to be big guns and sell like hotcakes to appease the investors, games have gone to the shitter.
The industry itself can only blame themselves for how development costs have risen to high heaven. If you look outside the AAA and now the AAAA space, consumers are picking up cheaper games with better value. You don’t need tons of money to have great productions, just sensible ways to create value from what you’ve got. Big businesses can’t seemingly do this. Be it the bureaucracy slowing everything down, or the sheer amount of unnecessary middle management (these are the same thing, really), or just simple wasted money and time on doing something everyone knows is useless and won’t yield results, there’s no vision within big business. Even Nintendo, that one game company that usually gets applauded for its inventiveness and application of mature technology, is now running on an upgraded console with sequels and remakes galore. You can’t even own the games you buy on cards with Switch 2’s Game-key bullshit.
It’s no wonder people are still playing older games when the developers treat customers as though they are in some sort of abusive relationship, where they keep hitting the customers over and over.
#customerAndService #customerService #customers #electronicGames #entertainment #games #gaming #videoGames #videogames
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