I bought Minecraft from Mojang, years later I am forced to setup a Microsoft account to play the game, or risk downloading a cracked version. They did not offer a refund. Minecraft is a video game where you need to login even if you do not play online. (maybe things changed , I think this MS account thing was a few years back, it worked for my account but I read of people having big issues because some MS assholes ahd to force the Java edition players to use an MS account)
I was forced to not only setup a Microsoft account, but hand over my phone number - after creating an account without a phone number and transferring my Minecraft license over, they immediately locked my account.
Minecraft is at least reasonably easy to play offline, the account mostly only stores your skins. That said, it may require a third-party launcher now.
Its not always obvious when you buy them which games will still be around a few years later.
Some singleplayer titles from just a few years ago are no longer playable. (Hello, Ubisoft). Meanwhile there are MMOs like guild wars 1, released 20 years ago, still playable today.
Right, exactly. Game companies don't advertise when you buy a game that its single-player features will only work as long as the servers stay up. I'm sure they don't want to. But if players aren't made aware of that fact then it's hard for them to make informed purchasing decisions.
Almost every time I have spent more than $35 on a game in the past year I have wound up regretting it. It seems as though the quality of games typically increases til that point (exceptions exist, Terraria) and then declines sharply (again, exceptions exist). It has turned out to be a useful signal to be way more careful about a purchase for me.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was such a breath of fresh air in this regard. If you just want a reasonably priced, good game with no shady stuff but still that AA (arguably AAA) experience I can’t recommend it enough.
And people are. Games sales are slumping in response to a decade of predatory dark patterns and simply not giving the audience what they're asking for.
Just keeping the games playable is a singular issue and in the noise. It's a good issue to single out for regulation.
Everywhere, license agreements that can be changed by the company at any time, pretty much for every game developer that can afford a lawyer to write up said license agreement. They could all start doing shady stuff at any time. Might still leave thousands of games, but they add up to a drop in the bucket of the overall market.
There's fewer games to vote on every year, as conglomerates like Microsoft out vote your wallet a billion times over every time they buy a game studio to embrace, extend and then extinguish.
If looking at AAA publishers, maybe. The indie game scene continues to pump out games, some good, some bad, at half or less of cost of the AAA games. They won't be as polished, but many still deliver an exceptional experience.
there are more games than ever, it's just that microsoft, ubisoft, etc are spending billions on actual psychologists to ensure the populace remains apathetic towards them.
I don't care how smart you are, how much self control you have, whatever, in the face of billions of dollars, voting with your wallet does not stand a chance. The house always wins.
Anyone saying "vote with your wallet" is implicitly saying billionaires deserve more say in the world than you do since they have so much more in their wallet.
Your claim that there has been "decades of voting with our wallets" is laughable. Nobody I know who plays games decides to buy them or not based on ideological reasons - they just buy the things that are popular or that their friends play. There's extremely little engagement on these issues.
But it's true. Most people pay for what's being currently promoted. So "voting with wallet" doesn't really work, because you will be outvoted by majority of people who don't know what they're getting into. That's why gacha games and other lootbox-heavy ones are most profitable. This is where "vote with your wallet" brought us.
You proved my point: "voting with your wallet" will never work. DLCs, microtransactions, lootboxes... They all got normalized alarmingly quickly, despite numerous calls to "vote with your wallets" every single times. We need regulations, isolated individuals have no power against a system built to extract the most out of them.
>Vote with your wallet
I bought Minecraft from Mojang, years later I am forced to setup a Microsoft account to play the game, or risk downloading a cracked version. They did not offer a refund. Minecraft is a video game where you need to login even if you do not play online. (maybe things changed , I think this MS account thing was a few years back, it worked for my account but I read of people having big issues because some MS assholes ahd to force the Java edition players to use an MS account)
This behaviour should not be legal.
I was forced to not only setup a Microsoft account, but hand over my phone number - after creating an account without a phone number and transferring my Minecraft license over, they immediately locked my account.
Someone at Microsoft should go to jail for this.
Minecraft is at least reasonably easy to play offline, the account mostly only stores your skins. That said, it may require a third-party launcher now.
But you won't be able to access some public servers for a game you paid for without the account.
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I don't remember this being the case, you could reuse your old MC purchase when they made the transition over.
the mojang to minecraft.net transition, yeah. the minecraft.net to microsoft transition, no. https://youtu.be/rUFDRAEducI
Its not always obvious when you buy them which games will still be around a few years later.
Some singleplayer titles from just a few years ago are no longer playable. (Hello, Ubisoft). Meanwhile there are MMOs like guild wars 1, released 20 years ago, still playable today.
Right, exactly. Game companies don't advertise when you buy a game that its single-player features will only work as long as the servers stay up. I'm sure they don't want to. But if players aren't made aware of that fact then it's hard for them to make informed purchasing decisions.
It's obvious enough if you buy on Steam. Any game that says it needs it's own DRM or an account with the publisher is a nope.
Yup
Something I am noticing more and more is how stagnant the North American game industry is. Meanwhile Europe and Japan are still killing it
Larian with BG3 - Europe Cd Projekt with Witcher and Cyberpunk - Europe
Nintendo rocking on as normal Monster hunter wilds and the RE remakes? Capcom, Japan
Elden Ring and Nightreign. FromSoft, Japan
Helldivers 2. Arrowhead Studios, Sweden
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. Warhorse Studios, Czech
I cannot remember the last time I bought a new game and had a blast with it from a North American studio. Certainly not a AAA studio anyways
> Certainly not a AAA studio anyways
Almost every time I have spent more than $35 on a game in the past year I have wound up regretting it. It seems as though the quality of games typically increases til that point (exceptions exist, Terraria) and then declines sharply (again, exceptions exist). It has turned out to be a useful signal to be way more careful about a purchase for me.
I refuse to buy any game, AAA studio or indie, that costs more than $25.
I have shit to do and not a lot of time to game, so I can be patient for games to go on sale.
You mean you're not a fan of the latest reskin of CoD, or the latest reskin of CS with even more loot boxes?
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was such a breath of fresh air in this regard. If you just want a reasonably priced, good game with no shady stuff but still that AA (arguably AAA) experience I can’t recommend it enough.
And people are. Games sales are slumping in response to a decade of predatory dark patterns and simply not giving the audience what they're asking for.
Just keeping the games playable is a singular issue and in the noise. It's a good issue to single out for regulation.
Everywhere, license agreements that can be changed by the company at any time, pretty much for every game developer that can afford a lawyer to write up said license agreement. They could all start doing shady stuff at any time. Might still leave thousands of games, but they add up to a drop in the bucket of the overall market.
There's fewer games to vote on every year, as conglomerates like Microsoft out vote your wallet a billion times over every time they buy a game studio to embrace, extend and then extinguish.
If looking at AAA publishers, maybe. The indie game scene continues to pump out games, some good, some bad, at half or less of cost of the AAA games. They won't be as polished, but many still deliver an exceptional experience.
there are more games than ever, it's just that microsoft, ubisoft, etc are spending billions on actual psychologists to ensure the populace remains apathetic towards them.
I don't care how smart you are, how much self control you have, whatever, in the face of billions of dollars, voting with your wallet does not stand a chance. The house always wins.
Huh, that's funny, I've never bought a Ubisoft game. I guess I'm the first person ever who's resistant to those psychologists.
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Or just sign the initiative, so that you maybe don't have to abstain to achieve this goal? I don't understand this mentality.
Americans have been conditioned to blame individuals for everything wrong in society.
> Vote with your wallet
The ratio of me hearing this vs. seeing it actually affect change is maybe 10000:1 at this point.
Why not just vote with your vote instead.
Anyone saying "vote with your wallet" is implicitly saying billionaires deserve more say in the world than you do since they have so much more in their wallet.
Tell them to fuck off.
Look where decades of "voting with our wallets" led us. How some people can still utter that sentence unironically is beyond me at this point.
Your claim that there has been "decades of voting with our wallets" is laughable. Nobody I know who plays games decides to buy them or not based on ideological reasons - they just buy the things that are popular or that their friends play. There's extremely little engagement on these issues.
But it's true. Most people pay for what's being currently promoted. So "voting with wallet" doesn't really work, because you will be outvoted by majority of people who don't know what they're getting into. That's why gacha games and other lootbox-heavy ones are most profitable. This is where "vote with your wallet" brought us.
8 replies →
You proved my point: "voting with your wallet" will never work. DLCs, microtransactions, lootboxes... They all got normalized alarmingly quickly, despite numerous calls to "vote with your wallets" every single times. We need regulations, isolated individuals have no power against a system built to extract the most out of them.
3 replies →