to me live service games as the supposed way of the future are just indicative of a general trend towards exploitative business models that target player addiction and vulnerabilities. and that is one big reason why so many people who play games feel so negatively towards devs - right or wrong. - ThreadSky

ellaguro.bsky.social • 5 days ago

to me live service games as the supposed way of the future are just indicative of a general trend towards exploitative business models that target player addiction and vulnerabilities. and that is one big reason why so many people who play games feel so negatively towards devs - right or wrong.

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hollyphantpants.bsky.social•5 days ago

As a gamer, I just avoid those games. Dull.

hcmjmagic.com•5 days ago

Getting older is crazy because you spend your whole life watching the world slowly changing as people in the 18-25 demographic cycle daily. As soon as mega corp devs saw the potential money there was no question as to which direction to follow, and future gens won't know it was ever not this way

ellaguro.bsky.social•5 days ago

executives obviously don't care at all if they stir up negative feelings towards devs - it just makes devs more disposable and easier to throw under the bus. and it feels like things are going to keep moving further in this direction without broad unionization and much stronger consumer regulations

headfallsoff.com•5 days ago

the antagonistic relationship that every gacha audience has with its devs are always fascinating because they're negotiating over this weird line of the Correct Amount of Exploitation

ellaguro.bsky.social•5 days ago

yeah, that's the problem with things moving further and further in this direction. the more load-bearing pillars of the industry are tied up with these sorts of models, the more unstable everything is going to get

vickyacab.bsky.social•5 days ago

Exactly! it is actively advantageous to the studios for the devs to get blamed for everything, it turns the fans into volunteer pinkertons, labor enforcers

ellaguro.bsky.social•5 days ago

yep - and i def think this is one of the forces that drove gamergate that a lot of people don't really like to acknowledge as much. as the game industry moved towards exploitation and manipulation of users, uneducated fanbases were moved towards constant scapegoats to distract from the core problems

vickyacab.bsky.social•5 days ago

this is why it worked in Hollywood too (e.g Star Wars), where theoretically the workers are way more protected and the producers/companies more culturally secure. I wrote an article about this a while ago but the labor discipline aspect of reactionary fandoms is so important and always overlooked.

ellaguro.bsky.social•5 days ago

i think this is one of the big reasons why there is this narrative that "the indies will save us" even though that idea is not at all backed up by material reality. a lot of people are just so tired of being manipulated and nickel and dimed by the bigger games and romanticizing any alternative.

ellaguro.bsky.social•5 days ago

to put this another way: we can't have huge load-bearing pillars of the game industry being propped up by live service games. the more there are, the more unstable everything is going to get.

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