I haven’t played a Blizzard game in something like 10 years. Whether they manipulate their customers has zero impact on the games I play, so I’m basically in a completely different pool from them. The way I see it, there are lots of different pools, such as:
F2P games - has always been a cesspool, and always will be
online multiplayer - recently turning into a cesspool
big budget single player - generally good, though “early access” (pay extra to pay a few days really) isn’t great, but I avoid new releases generally because they’re so consistently buggy, so it’s not an issue
indie/AA - generally great, and this is where I spend most of my time and money
I almost never play F2P or competitive online multiplayer games, so they’re essentially a completely separate pool from the games I play, which are largely single player games from smaller studios (and a few big budget single player games).
So no, it’s not one big pool, there are clear separations.
The issue is that there is only 1 industry. And the end goal of ALL developers and companies is making money. The more the better. When other pools start seeing that pissong in the pool leaves them more money, than they ALL will start designing their games around this. It is this design choice that will infect pretty much all other games. The precedent it sets affects the whole industry.
And like you said before, the only way this is not an issue is if it does not generate additional money for them so that no other pools try to imitate. And this will only happen if nobody buys them. And this post is trying to dissuade those buyers so that this does not become rampart and then all games have it.
But it’s not just one industry, unless you overly generalize.
The motivations that lead someone to buy indie games are much different than someone who mostly plays F2P competitive games, which is much different than the group that buys top end AAA games. So the marketing and profit model will be different for each. I think there are at least these logical segments:
mobile gaming
casual gaming (i.e. Switch)
F2P gaming/eSports
AAA gaming
indie/small studio gaming
Each of those has different target demographics, and thus different “pools.”
No, it’s not.
I haven’t played a Blizzard game in something like 10 years. Whether they manipulate their customers has zero impact on the games I play, so I’m basically in a completely different pool from them. The way I see it, there are lots of different pools, such as:
I almost never play F2P or competitive online multiplayer games, so they’re essentially a completely separate pool from the games I play, which are largely single player games from smaller studios (and a few big budget single player games).
So no, it’s not one big pool, there are clear separations.
The issue is that there is only 1 industry. And the end goal of ALL developers and companies is making money. The more the better. When other pools start seeing that pissong in the pool leaves them more money, than they ALL will start designing their games around this. It is this design choice that will infect pretty much all other games. The precedent it sets affects the whole industry.
And like you said before, the only way this is not an issue is if it does not generate additional money for them so that no other pools try to imitate. And this will only happen if nobody buys them. And this post is trying to dissuade those buyers so that this does not become rampart and then all games have it.
But it’s not just one industry, unless you overly generalize.
The motivations that lead someone to buy indie games are much different than someone who mostly plays F2P competitive games, which is much different than the group that buys top end AAA games. So the marketing and profit model will be different for each. I think there are at least these logical segments:
Each of those has different target demographics, and thus different “pools.”