Preface - It’s never cool to be mean to developers or the rando who is running an official social media account online. Be cool.
One thing I will never understand about gaming and gamers™® is that they always seems to justify their own poor treatment. Worse yet they attack others for pointing out the way they are mistreated. Whenever I see good honest players point out that a system is predatory or designed in a plainly unfair way, other gamers™® will undoubtedly come in and defend that bad thing. It’s so odd that gamers™® can min-max everything but can’t seem to factor in the fact they are getting less than they used to. It’s like digital inflation. Games are more costly in upfront costs, hardware cost, time costs, and yet are getting worse in general.
I’m very much anti-battle pass/anti-season pass/anti-microtransaction all that sort of stuff. I’m old-school, just want to buy a thing and have the thing and have the thing be whole and complete. That said there are semi-decent ways to implement a system that is profitable for the vampire executives and also don’t siphon every single coin players have. It’s so weird to me that gamers™® not only keep buying into these systems but seem to defend them so vigorously online.
From “Pay to Win” to weird obtuse purchasable currencies/resources to needlessly limited time rewards to create artificial scarcity (pre-order, in-game store “deals”, general fear of missing out practices), all dark patterns make games worse. Gamers™® defend these things saying “I DoN’T HaVe tHiS PrObLeM. iT MuSt bE A SkIlL IsSuE!” or whatever dumb shit. Every dark pattern in modern gaming is making the games people play worse intentionally. People talk about the enshittification of internet all the time but gaming as a medium/hobby has been enshittifiying since the advent of Xbox LIVE. The worst part about it to me is seeing such vocal defense for it online (social media at large, game forums, comment sections of gaming news/articles). It’s not just that sort of conceding “well what can’t ya do?”, it’s more so this spirited “This is good actually, and you’re not a REAL GAMER if you don’t like this.”
For example a decent battle-pass (regardless of the game/genre) usually rewards players with enough in-game premium currency to buy the next one and maybe have enough left over for an item or two. That way it keeps you locked for longer and feeds into the habit forming design dark pattern we all hate. You’re constantly having just enough premium currency to buy something, and topping off your balance is just a few extra coins if need be. Yes, people talk about the “whales” and “minnows” but even just the regular players and worse yet the gamers™® get a bad deal. Setting the fact this is a dark pattern aside (however I can’t stress enough how mobile gaming’s/casino gaming inspired dark patterns have made gaming worse), it’s bonkers to me that gamers™® just say “VoTe wItH YoUr wAlLeT BrO!”. They will say that or these sorts of things support the development of the game, knowing full well that that money isn’t recycled and invested into the betterment of the game.
It’s just so strange to me that gaming of all things has grown worse in just about every way since 2000’s and yet the online culture around it seems to take pride in it being so bad. It’s so strange that gamers™® can datamine the most Ph.D level mathematical optimal way to play through a game before it’s even released but can’t seem to parse that games should respect them. Games should treat them better. Games should be better.
: “Wow this system sucks. We should either get more rewards faster or things shouldn’t cost so much. I like this game but damn this system blows, and it probably doesn’t have to. The developers should be better to us.”
: “If you don’t like it don’t play it. If it were bad it wouldn’t be popular.”
My larger point is gamers™® are bad, gaming should be better, player != gamers™®.
good post 10/10
i would add that cosmetic microtransactions are also terrible
Agreed. I like alternate costumes, hell even joke costumes, but after a certain point the aesthetic falls apart in a noticeable way. Sometimes cosmetics feel really good and fit in the game world super well. Other times they just ugly, or overly designed, or worse yet confusing that doesn’t convey information properly to the player. In general, I don’t like having to open my wallet for these sorts of goodies either way. It should just be rewards for playing the game.
I rememeber when TF2 came out and they talked about how carefully crafted each character’s silhouette was to convey essential game information. Then… hats.
Now there are few games where you can tell what team a player is on if they don’t have an icon over their head.
I rememeber when TF2 came out and they talked about how carefully crafted each character’s silhouette was to convey essential game information. Then… hats.
Oh yeah, the general shape of each class was so clear and distinct. I don’t think hates were too much of a problem, I actually have more issue with some of the visual effects on the hats, cosmetic items, and some of the weapons. It’s so much visual “noise” in an already noisy game. Even as a player with ~500 hours in the game it’s a bit much to manage, not impossible but it’s just kinda over doing it these day. It wouldn’t be so bad if there were a way to disable it or something but it really creates a noticeable rift between the current game and the rather “old” (in relative gaming terms) game.
Maybe it’s a combo of me not bothering with most modern games and being a grumpus but I feel like after cosmetics became the norm “friendly fire” stopped being as ubiquitous in online team games.
NO we should stop being so negative and cease complaining! And buy the 37362637 Expansion Story sims Pack from EA for 40$ so you can send your child to school or something
If you don’t like predatory monetization then don’t buy it and never bring it up and just watch everyone else further normalize getting taken advantage of for more and more money for less and less in exchange, simple.
