this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
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You don't think game development catered specifically for whales is a problem?
A problem? Yes. Not one worth legislating over, though.
The issue is, it will eventually kill mainstream gaming as an artform, and keep funneling our economy towards the enshittification of everything.
Maybe it isn't worth legislating over, but something should be done, lest humanity will lose most of what is dear to us, and everything will be just about money. I'm already uncomfortable enough with how commodified nearly everything in society is. The commodification of everything is very much not something we want. It's literally what the cyberpunk genre was warning about.
Not to even mention the sort of mentality such a consumerist culture instills on us, especially in regards to whales, and the sociological consequences of this.
oh boy, do I have some sad news for you
Yes, I am aware we are already basically there. At least in comparison to the past. But it can always get worse. Sure, indie games will stay (though likely still very much affected), but AAA games? Yeah.
True art has and will survive worse. Honestly, imo, nothing "mainstream" can really be considered an artform in any meaningful sense. Art can sneak through, but anything made with profit as the main motivator just isn't going to be pushing any envelopes.
I agree. And that's was also my point! I feel like older games were chasing that profit motive much less (well, at least some of the big ones, arcades used to be a thing after all). And you can often quickly see when every franchise started falling off a cliff once it was tried to capitalize on them.
It's exploitation for money. Of course it's worth legislating over.
This is a collective problem where abusive nonsense makes far more money than selling goods and services to allegedly rational consumers. All excuses have failed. It's not just in "free" games, it's not just in shovelware, it's not just "cosmetics," it's not-- it's fuckin' everywhere, okay? The quantities of money involved are obscene. No off-the-shelf game should be capable of taking thousands of actual dollars in one sitting.
Even if there's no dice being rolled - that is plainly the same manipulative valueless pit as gambling. Not even for a game part of the game. For hats. For a model that's already in the game you paid for, deliberately looking like a twenty-year-old ten-kilobyte file in a game you also already paid for.
This is a real problem.
There's only one real solution.
If someone can figure out a reasonable way to legislate against FOMO, then by all means, go for it. I already agreed it's a problem, but it's pretty much the base of capitalism - make something, put a price on it, and if someone deems it worth the price, they buy it. So aside from a complete restructuring of what at this point is the main economic system of the world, I'm not really expecting much to be done about expensive cosmetics in video games.
As if ending microtransactions means destroying capitalism. Jesus fucking Christ, do people get weird about this topic.
This business model did not exist fifteen years ago. Games did fine. What we can do about dumb shit in video games costing obscene amounts of real money for no reason, is... stop that.
It is that simple.
Yes, actually. Because there's nothing different about microtransactions than anything else being sold today, and realistically, microtransactions in video games are just about the least important problem with our economic system. We have much more serious problems that still can't get regulation. Nobody with an ounce of authority is gonna bother specifically with video game costumes.
So if you actually want government mandated change on this particular problem, the only real way that's happening is a wholesale revision or rejection of capitalism itself by the government, which, yeah, is pretty far fetched.
Our real options are just...not buying these things. Don't support it, ever, even for things that appeal to you. Advocate for others to reject it as well. It's probably not gonna work well or quickly, but it's gonna be the most effective thing we as consumers can actually do.
Oh cool, we'll just solve all other problems first, yeah? What's your timeline on that? A couple months? A year?
This is about money.
This is about a business model.
This is about a business model that's infecting a multi-billion-dollar industry. It's plenty important.
"Just don't buy it!" has done absolutely fucking nothing to stop this infection. I'm not-supporting-it as hard as I can, and hey guess what, systemic problems cannot be blamed on individual action. If only we had some mechanism for collectively handling those issues.
It's never gonna happen. That's my point. And where did I blame "individual action" here? I'm on your side on this one, bud. I'm just being realistic about it.
Fatalism is dull, and "just don't buy it" is individual action.
"Tough shit, nothing will happen" is not being on anyone's side. Empty pessimism is a waste of everyone's time.
That's not what Fatalism is, pointing out what can realistically be done isn't "blaming", and this is a Lemmy comment thread. All there is here is time wasting.
It's not realistic, it's not all that can be done, and insisting we're simply fucked is absogoddamnlutely what fatalism is.