I’m back to talk more about gaming. Here’s my last post in which I just meandered all over the place, but I did manage to talk about Sarah Bond and how she “resigned” to be with her family and pursue other oppportunities. I believe it even less today than I did yesterday. All the things the Xbox execs are saying are just noise. I. Don’t. Believe. Them. Period. I just fucking do not.
I’m old. I’m tired. I’m mad. I ain’t got time for this shit. Do not fucking tell me that the sky is green and expect me to believe it. I have included a video from Paul Tassi below. He’s solid, and I trust his reporting. He mentions the same The Verge article that I cited in the post yesterday. Again, I don’t have a sub, so I’m relying on what others have said about it.
I’m pretty anti-capitalism to begin with. I mean, as much as I can be in a very pro-capitalism world. Specifically in the gaming world, I don’t buy games on release day for the most part unless it’s a FromSoft game on PC (BIG sigh over The Duskbloods being a Switch 2 exclusive, but also, mixed feelings on the nature of the game).
I haven’t been happy with the gaming industry in general for the whole time I’ve participated in it, and I’m thinking it might be time to bow out. I have never considered myself a gamer beacuse I have never felt welcome in the community. I mean, let’s face it. It’s a community of mostly cishet dudes in their twenties. Not exactlyy my people.
For the most part, I didn’t care. I mostly play games by myself, so it didn’t really matter if I was part of a community or not. However. I hate what’s going on in the gaming industry in general, and I’m not sure I feel comfort supporting it. At least the AAA developers.
I always separate indie devs from the rest of the gaming industry because it’s a whole different situtaion. Well, we need to get even more granular than that. When I say indie, there are different levels. Anything less than twenty people is a small indie dev to me. Twenty-one to fifty is medium. Fifty-one to a hundred is larrge. I just added the last category right now. I’ll be honest. A hundred-person company is too big to be indie to me. Wait. Larian Studios. They have over 400 employees, but they self-published. They are considered an indie studio, but some people don’t really consider them indie.
Do I? Huh. I’m not sure. I mean, they do self-publish, but they are gigantic. I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it more and deal with it later. It’s not really relevant to what I’m trying to talk about in this post, so I’ll let it go for now.
For the most part, I play games that are made by truly indie teams. We’re talking ten or less people. My favorite game last year was made by a studio (Promise Mascot Agency, Kaizen Game Works) that has 3 fulltime employees. They do use contractors, but still. My favorite game so far this year (The Spirit Lift, prettysmart games) has two people on the team. They also have other people they use, but the team itself has two people.
Of course, my favorite game developer is FromSoft. How long will that last? I don’t know. As I have mentioned before, I don’t think I’ll be able to play their games for much longer. I have accepted it, and I’m ready. Don’t get me wrong. I love their games, and I always pre-order them. The only developer I do that for. Anything they put out, I buy. If I can.
But.
I feel almost guilty saying this, but I did not like their last two games I played. That would be Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon and Elden Ring: Nightreign. We don’t know that their next single player game is going to be, and I’m not as excited for it as I would have been before this spat of whatever they’re doing.
Here’s the thing. I want them to try out new things, even if they’re not for me. But I also want them to do the kind of games I like. Otherwise, why would I buy their games? Yes, I really appreciate Miyazaki’s vision, but at the end of the day, it’s still a transactional relationship. If it comes to the point where I can no longer play the games or no longer enjoy them, then I will not buy them any longer. Regretfully and with pain in my heart, yes, but I can and will walk away.
Back to the industry. Because it’s AI-obsessed and live service-obsessed, it’s utter shit right now. I’m not saying there aren’t good games being produced–there are. I’m saying the whole industry is beginning to rot, and I’m not sure I want to be a part of it any longer.
I’m a weirdo in that I can walk away from shit and just be done with it. Well, maybe not weird, but very neuroatypical in that I get obsessed with something for a length of time, and then I’m just done with it. Granted, it’s usually not years, but I’m getting the feeling that I’m at the back end of my time in gaming.
I’m not sad about it, mind. I’ve had a good time with games, but I’m tired. Tired of the industry. Tired of how toxic it is. Tired of greedy corpos milking every cent they can. Tired of the prices of the games climbing at an astronomical pace. I mean, not for me because I rarely buy games at full price. And if I do, it’s only the indie games for less than twenty. I may go up to thirty if an indie game goes extra, but that’s pushing it for me.
Side note: Steam has so many sales, I can often get half-a-dozen games for thirty bucks or less. I will admit if I spend a buck or two for a game, I’m much more likely to be lenient on it than if I spent seventy bucks.
Hm. I don’t think I’ve ever spent seventy on a game. The closest would be whatever I spent on Elden Ring when I pre-ordered it. Probably $59.99 (it was). People are speculating that GTA 6 might cost a hundred dollars. A hundred dollars! And people would happily buy it. Or rather, buy it while grumbling, but still buy it, anyway.
That’s the problem. Whatever the industry does wrong, most people won’t care. If the games go up, people will complain about it, but still buy them. That’s capitalism at it’s finest (worst). Is there a limit to the ceiling? I honestly don’t know. I’ll suppose we’ll find out.