• mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    Right: nothing inside a video game should cost real money.

    If we allow that to continue, there will be nothing else.

    • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.com
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      7 months ago

      I feel like this is much too rare of a statement. No idea why people dont get this. It’s like talking to children sometimes.

      • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        Especially with the counter arguments.

        ‘Just don’t buy it!’ I’m not, and yet: it keeps getting worse. It’s half the industry by revenue. And growing.

        ‘You just don’t like it!’ It monetizes human misery… inside entertainment. It makes gaming objectively worse.

        ‘Don’t legislate content!’ This is about the bus-i-ness mod-el. Sell whatever sex and violence you want. Just sell it.

        ‘There’s no exploitation here!’ Games make you value arbitrary worthless goals. That’s what makes them games.

        One genius argued ‘other studios make several games over the decade these wallet-siphons have been dragged out, so they’d have to cost hundreds of dollars on release!’ Or. And this is just wild speculation about the cutting edge of computer science. Or they could make several games? Over time? And sell them for normal prices, less than a decade apart?

        These people act like the just-sell-games model is unproven and hypothetical, in the same breath they insist it’s unaffected by this alternative of tricking people into tolerating endless fees. They’re not arguing. They’re just shuffling cards.

        • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.com
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          7 months ago

          I agree fully. Its disgusting. People literally drinking the cool aid. Can I ask you something weird? I feel like making a counterweight (like political movements, eg the fedipact) would actually help.

          Like a movement with a name and a written agenda so we dont have to repeat ourselves all the time. The idea is that we identify games with exploitative mechanics, dont buy them and call out the makers.

          Its incredibly easy to put a link in a comment under a post hyping such a game to counter it. The more we push this, the more people will follow. We could then start sending open letters (per email) to game studios where people sign this.

          We might he able to change this shit. Would you like to help? I‘d draft up something and we can make posts to gather an initial group of people.

          Those are just ideas but it works wonders in other topics so why not try? Feel free to dm me if you want to discuss this.

    • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      there will be nothing else

      That’s putting it a bit strongly. But it does induce people to spend money. Personally I don’t spend extra money on games. I can go to Vegas if I want to gamble for money.

      • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        It started in “free” mobile trash and is now in $70 single-player games. This shit costs almost nothing to add. The backlash doesn’t outweigh the extra money squeezed out. This is the dominant strategy. It is half the industry’s revenue. What else needs to happen, to tell you everything else is in trouble?