Comment by selfhoster11
3 years ago
I'm saying that in the past (before the microtransaction era) the parameters of capitalism in the gaming industry were tuned such that it was commercially viable (and most importantly, normal) to release a nice, toxicity-free game and sell it for a reasonable one-time fee that the customer pays once, and is then free to enjoy without an ongoing commercial (or otherwise) relationship with the publisher.
If you could somehow turn back the clock, you could go back to this tolerable trade-off, but you never twice step into the same river. The only options available now are to either find another set of parameters of capitalism enabling this trade-off, or to avoid most mainstream gaming.
games market was much smaller back then. why are you certain that the market has solutions for growing the game industry beyond its current size without these tactics. and why resign to minor reforms of a system you don’t like the results of
vv bingo
Please don't completely edit your comment after someone replies, it makes it hard to keep track of the discussion.
I am far from advocating for a minor reform. MTX, subscriptions, and basically anything designed to extract money from a customer's pocket after a one-time initial purchase should be very heavily restricted. "Compulsion loops" and dirty tricks used to create artificial addiction should be made outright illegal. In effect, companies that rely on these techniques to survive would struggle, but IMO nothing of value would be lost. Short of establishing a parallel system of funding video game development (such as patronage), that's all we can do.
And yes, the games market was smaller back then. Yet, it still produced quality games. So we need to cut back those actors who grew big by employing toxic product techniques, not "solutions for growing the game industry beyond its current size".
>Short of establishing a parallel system of funding video game development (such as patronage), that's all we can do.
exactly (tho I wouldn't say in parallel)
>Please don't completely edit your comment after someone replies, it makes it hard to keep track of the discussion.
HN disables replies, or I expanded what I wrote as you were writing yours - I'll just disengage instead, bye