What Went Wrong with Gaming?

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Day 1 DLC
Microtransactions
Premium currency
Lootboxes
Battlepasses
Exclusive levels
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When did gaming become so predatory?
Join me as we dive back to the arcades, and journey through gaming history to identify the moments gaming went from being fun, to financial, and ask, what went wrong with gaming?
Special thanks to:
Callum Upton for the Assassins Creed 4 footage
and
DLOW1O for the Fifa footage ( / dlow1o )
Thank you to the supporters on Patreon, KZbin and Twitch who keep the channel alive and allow me to make independent videos like this one.

[@Gossendreck]

You forgot to mention/blame all the streamers/influencers who basically get paid for luring vulnerable viewers into this abusive monetisation/gambling systems by streaming them.

[@ghagzor]

Started way way before streamers.

[@SenpaiXcore]

@@ghagzor I remember the guys who acted like they bought items for CS:GO when they actually used a fake shop where their chances were incredibly high and people thought they could do that to, only to spent more money in the actual shop. It was there before but having people who get paid as actors doing this is far worse.

[@qu1253]

You forgot to mention/blame all the mindless consumers who make this slop so profitable in the first place.

[@lucianocortes8636]

Consumers are also to blame, I've never paid for any of the examples mentioned here, then again I've been playing since the 90s, when most games were of an acceptable quality and can easily discern today's mediocre quality games from the small quantity of acceptable games we get each year. However IMO since gaming began to appeal more to the masses, most consumers have lower standards for what they consider fun and are satisfied with a lesser quality product which allows for these kind of abuses to be perpetuated over time.

[@boobah5643]

@@qu1253 Which is one reason I almost never buy a 'new' game. See things like _Shadow of War_ where they built the game around a single player campaign... then made the last stage of the game an absurdly long grind... unless you paid them more money for the already full price game. Money that only went towards that individual play through; start over, and you had to pay again. Point is, the game doesn't really start making demands of the player's wallet until well after the player has had time to get invested in the game.

[@davidryker9442]

I honestly think this is the reason that indie games have become popular; indie games are more often passion projects than money grabs, and consumers recognize that. That's why we love them.

[@FauxRaidenator]

Indie games have become a shitshow over the past few years after Steam decided any game that had a working build could be released on their platform as 'early access'. Now the market is flooded with cheap garbage with creators dumping some garbage game out to key into an ongoing fad. Then they abandon the game as soon as they get their bag.

[@siph0r154]

Agree with both of you

[@jayhill2193]

@@FauxRaidenator in the past few years? They've been around for ages now too, I remember the early-access survival game craze in 2014 and despite how many of them were utter failures, it still produced genuinely amazing games with the likes of The Forest, Subnautica and Raft. Look out for the developers history and reputation and wait for some time to see where they take their concept, then you won't be dissappointed. The biggest marketing for these indie devs are gaming channels on YT, browsing thru their stuff until you find something for you doesn't cost you.

[@Crybaby-Media]

I think Stardew valley is one of the best games ever made . Released early 2016 and the lone developer is still developing content . For a 10 dollar game .

[@automatescellulaires8543]

@@Crybaby-Media factorio is good too. Also an indie game. With several time the team size of Stardew Valley, but still good.

[@weirdyoda04]

I find myself playing and wanting to play significantly fewer games than I used to. It's hard enough to find an offline single player game, much less one without predatory practices.

[@blairkowalski1180]

This was me for years. But very recently I started looking at older games I never played, never finished, or never owned the consoles for when I was younger. I’m about 40 hours into my first serious Dark Souls playthrough now, and I picked up a couple of PS1 Final Fantasy games to play next. I’m planning to pick up a PS2 and/or PS3 at some point because of all the cool games on those systems I never played.

[@kumikostan69]

Take a look at the indie scene, plenty of great games and they (mostly) aren't anti-consumer

[@RhelrahneTheIdiot]

Its not that hard, its easy if you know where to look and who to buy from. The majority of games I own are singleplayer or have multiplayer as a secondary option to play with friends.

[@trapper7954]

@@blairkowalski1180 Lol that is cool, I would recommend LOTR Return of the King (Playstation 2)

[@epicnessproductionsllc.7638]

​@@blairkowalski1180this is the way

[@TheCarPassionChannel]

This video makes me sad, but also helps explain why I'm so stuck on continuing to just play the games from growing up, rather than continuing into newer games. ~1987 through 2000 was the true golden era imo

[@BPond7]

You said it! Just last week, I finally completed my decades-long dream of having a water cooled PC. What’s the first game I played on this beast? F-Zero, on an SNES emulator! Games used to be made by gamers, for gamers. Those were better days.

[@sparkythespark2322]

I think many indie games are still worth playing. If you only play AAA games, then yeah, Aside from the occasional surprise, newer games suck.

[@felixk.7393]

Indie games it is today my brother

[@TheSpeedOfVideo]

Maybe I’m just a fanboy but the Metroid games are still very much worth playing, they don’t release games often but when they do there always high quality

[@francopanigaia2425]

ok boomer

[@scottwagner2566]

A retro game store opened in my town a few years ago. They've been so successful they opened a second location in a town an hour away this past month. Local news asked the owner (a young guy who opened the store when he was still in high school) why he thought there was a market for retro games. He said he wasn't sure, but he suspected that with older games, you didn't feel like you were getting nickled and dimed constantly.

[@Gatherway-Duo]

That could be part of it, but I suspect another major factor is that guys like me who grew up playing these games have become adults and gotten jobs and now have disposable income to burn building a collection of stuff they love.

[@ekki1993]

Arcade games were still made to take money out of the consumer. Making a level unfairly hard was a design decision made because of greed. It's an increase in profits fueled by making the experience worse. The bar is so low it's a tripping hazard in hell but people with rose tinted glasses are still a market that can and will be manipulated for profits.

[@scottwagner2566]

@@Gatherway-Duo oh absolutely. I’m one of those guys myself. I have no time for some of these new time wasting mechanics.

[@lordomacron3719]

@@Gatherway-Duo ah yes one of the nice things about getting older is Nostalgia only ever gets sweeter.

[@SuperFlamethrower]

There's plenty of newer games like the mentioned Elden Ring to name a recent example.

[@CZsWorld]

Not only have these practices ruined games, but they are leaking into other things as well. Professional software that used to be a one time purchase is now a monthly fee with micro transactions. Cars are locking things like heated seats and horsepower behind a paywall. Streaming services make you pay to use the service, pay again to remove ads, pay again to watch specific shows. Airlines deliver a framework for transportation and nickel and dime you for bags, seat choice, priority boarding, wi-fi, food and sometimes even drinks. Everything that was once a one time purchase is now a monthly fee, and they'll punish you for taking a break from the purchase by not allowing you to sign back up for a set period of time.

[@Horky_Porky]

That's capitalism. If they (=companies) can monetize something, they will.

[@mikewhitfield2994]

It's the Great Reset - you will own nothing, and you will be happy with your nothing, or else.

[@lance2580]

"We will kill them all." - Optimus Prime

[@IchiroSakamoto]

Some of the examples are a bit far fetched. Streaming services are not meant to be free, ads will always be there with or without the option to remove, premium shows will always be behind pay wall. Airliners you described are budget airlines with big discount tickets, if you fly with proper national airlines none of the micro-transactions happen. The thing for professional softwares is basically 'xxx as a service' which is the new 21st century meta, I'm not sure if it even originated from gaming but WoW was the first example I remember.

[@blackstallion7927]

@@Horky_Porky No thats crony capitalism and illegal Monopoly called corporatism.

[@_Kaurus]

It's interesting how the gaming industry went from, "do what you love, build games that you love" and as a result, money comes, into "build games you hate, because greed and money rules."

[@Jimraynor45]

Look at it this way. Would you rather be selling $1000 handbags to rich folks at a nice shop or selling 10$ handbags from the trunk of your car? This is the choice facing the game industry.

[@powerbeard5653]

@@Jimraynor45 No it's not. The industry made plenty of money before. Look at how successful World of Warcraft was at it's peak, BEFORE they added microtransactions and made it pay2win with wow token. Look at how successful Baldur's Gate 3, The Witcher series, Elden Ring, or Monster Hunter World were. Look at how the industry is making record profits EVERY YEAR but still lays of massive amounts of people on the regular just to be able to make that much more. Stop making excuses for greedy scumbags and idiot consumers.

[@miphisto56]

​@@Jimraynor45thats not how it is at all

[@margaret_adelle]

Gardenscapes has this feature that runs Monday to Wednesday where you can earn a chest full of boosters as you beat a certain amount of levels in a row. I got so good at the game that I knew I could easily play for hours every day of that period. But because it was only a three day period every week, I felt like I HAD to keep playing in that time frame. I would sit there wishing I was crocheting or reading or doing any of my other kajillion hobbies, but felt like I *had* to be playing, cuz it was only a limited time. By the time I finally deleted the game, I got to the point where I was actually relieved to lose a level and have the chest reset, cuz it meant I had a viable excuse to stop playing.

[@rykehuss3435]

I still remember when Horse Armor came out. It was mocked endlessly in /v/. Like "who the fuck would pay money for just a piece of cosmetic armor?"

[@Johnjon361]

Thems were those days

[@Vaz_G]

Why are you on /v/

[@henrik1743]

I listened to Todd on Lex Freidmans podcast and it was hilarious how he didn't want to acknowledge they wanted to have a monopoly on DLC and not have free mods

[@RiskOfBaer]

@@Vaz_G Because it's the best place to freely talk about video games with random internet strangers?

[@woodhawk109]

The sad things is nowaday if that exact DLC comes out, it'll be considered "one of the ok ones" Mainly because of its price (~$2). For comparison, most MMO cosmetics can run you up to 30-50 bucks. Fighting Games like Dead or Alive's DLCs cost total are in the thousands of dollars The standards for acceptable post-launch DLCs have gotten so low it's subterranean

[@delucain]

I used to build the website for the University of Texas' business school. They had a PhD program, and part of my job was maintaining the section of the site that they posted their doctoral theses on. There was a few years where every single PhD thesis was about how you could increase profits with microtransactions. Every thesis covered the psychological manipulation in depth, taking no care to hide the immorality of it all. They seemed to revel in it. One paper was entirely about how you could drive a certain type of person (they even used the term "whale") to bankruptcy using these methods and how fantastic that was for your business. I've never been so disgusted at work in my life.

[@alexs5394]

capitalism at work. "vote with your wallet" doesn't mean anything if a tiny minority of people spend their life savings on stupid crap.

[@somedudeontheinterwebs45]

@@alexs5394 voting with your wallet especially means nothing when you have millions less votes than mentally ill addicts.

[@amushyforyou6083]

@@alexs5394 the 4yo kid not know how capitalism works is so cute.

[@jadonguthrie453]

​@@amushyforyou6083 this is exactly how capitalism works. Businesses chase profits, and they're succeeding with this because THERE ARE people shell out money for this crud. These are business decisions made purely out of profit motive and not a love for the product. And as much as we hate it this is the favored outcome under capitalism.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@alexs5394 That is actually a good point. What use is there to not buying the stupid monetisation, when it's those 5% that spend multiple monthly wages on it.

[@TIMxisxHERE]

One thing I would add about Maplestory's Gachapon: It wasn't JUST the gambling, it was also that the BEST items in the game could be found there. Some of the most rare scrolls and absolutely ridiculously strong weapons (with often super random requirments stats, making them EVEN stronger) were all found in the Gachapon. Unlike something like Overwatch, where the lootboxes were purely cosmetic.

[@spritemon98]

You spend real money for those cosmetics. They should be completely free and be earned through *gameplay* and not your wallet

[@fuzzybanana0123]

Now in Overwatch 2, to play the new heroes they made, you literally had to unlock them in the battle pass lmao. Biggest F you to players ever.

[@TIMxisxHERE]

@@fuzzybanana0123 Yeah hated that too. I tried to give OW2 a chance but as soon as I saw that they were locking new heroes behind the battle pass, I was out... If I was ever really in, that is.

[@rafaelcoppe5900]

@@spritemon98 Have you ever played overwatch ? You would get a box every hour of gameplay, they had a great drop rate, and they would give you money to buy skins, even during events. I played something like 300 hours on the first game and i had at least 2 legendary skins for every character. You litteraly didn't have to pay for them, unlike many other games

[@pipedown7969]

@@fuzzybanana0123you literally don’t have to buy the battle pass tho to unlock the heroes? The battle pass has “free” items you get without paying for it which includes the new characters

[@TyLovePie]

This is the best explanation I've heard. I have never been more depressed about the state of gaming. If only indie devs had the budget to advertise like AAA studios.

[@iAnasazi]

You don't need ads to find out which games are worth it and which are not.

[@TyLovePie]

The majority of people will never find a good game if it is not advertised. If only a few people happen to find the good game, then the studio doesn't make enough money to support further development. Advertising is actually where most new developers are most likely to fail, and having low sales on your 1st game can quickly bankrupt a studio.

[@LucasGabriel-xz8nk]

@@TyLovePieyes, you are 100% correct

[@art-hx6hq]

Indie games are clunky, like Hero Siege interface. Grim Dawn and Dusk, Project Warlock are epic though. Too bad people talk about failed games instead of rising good ones.

[@csharp3884]

The problem is video games went from being mainly an art/hobby to becoming a business. The question is no longer “is this game fun for players?” But “how to get as much money as possible from these people?”

[@chrisxd146]

"Morality is a poor man's quality" is a statement that hits hard when looking at the current climate in the video game industry. Why hire a team of skilled writies, programmers, and artists when you can hire a team of marketers and psychologists that abuse manipulative and questionable practices?

[@reheyesd8666]

Games were just gamers trying to make a fun game for other gamers. Then when the businessmen noticed the money made after the imagine of gamers just being nerds, they wanted a piece of it.

[@MyHydralisk]

You can rephrase it "Why hire a team of skilled writies, programmers, and artists when @you actually can do it yourself with your small team - like Disco Elysium (for story) Factorio (for programming) or Cuphead (for art)"

[@thatwasntworthit]

Don't forget project managers

[@bricaaron3978]

@@MyHydralisk I'm sorry: You _can't_ do it yourself with a small team. Just because an automobile and a go-kart can both get you from one place to another doesn't mean that they're the same thing.

[@donaldcuck2265]

@Bric Aaron I mean, the go kart can get you there just slower... now the real comparison should be between a go kart and a car with missing parts because that is more accurate to what a AAA dev studio is like these days.. and of course the parts are missing because the owner of the car is selling parts of the car off as he goes along and replacing parts with pieces that don't even belong to the car, hell the wheels might even just be wheels of cheese at this point.

[@TheGreatRio]

One tiny correction, when talking about the advent of DLC, you cannot neglect to mention Mass Effect infamously starting the "Day One DLC" trend. Previously, people were willing to pay for DLC because it took months to make it after the game came out, but Mass Effect introduced the concept that you could cut off a part of the game and serve it as an additional slice to players rather than include it in the base game.

[@yewtewbstew547]

Mass Effect 2 you mean? The first Mass effect only had two DLCs and both were released over a year after the main game. Also I know Dragon Age: Origins had day one DLC a full year before Mass Effect 2, it even had an NPC in-game who advertised it to you lol. I think it's likely that EA did start that trend, though I haven't researched it, but Mass Effect wasn't the first game to do it.

[@wisnoskij]

I sort of buy their excuses for this tho. "we would of had to fire the artists a month before release when they finished their work, instead we had them making cosmetic packs"

[@TheGreatRio]

@@yewtewbstew547 Possibly, yes. My apologies, I didn't research it in detail, but I have a very vivid recollection of it happening. Either way, it was just another stepping stone into the nightmare we live in today.

[@Boomerangofjustice]

Theoretically it makes sense, there’s always time in between a game getting finished and the day when it hits shelves, but I 100% believe that day one DLC is usually just sectioned off for more money so the initial release sales figures look better

[@johnprager662]

I never played ME3 with Javik because it's absolutely ridiculous that such an important character would only be available if you drop extra money at release

[@drsteiner12]

This is why I don’t play games anymore lol. I just wasn’t having fun. Everytime I see something cool, they’re locked behind a paywall, for a game I ALREADY PAID FULL PRICE for. I’m gonna say that as time passes, more people will join me and and quit games all together, and go play offline/indie games from time to time

[@haveanotherpinacolada]

There are a lot of stupid people out there.

[@anthonyrosa4973]

I remember when games came complete and bug free once you paid for them. Those were the days 😊

[@amanormaybeadragon]

Thats never been a thing

[@Parisroam]

*cyberpunk has entered the chat*

[@frankgrimes7388]

@@amanormaybeadragonYes it was.

[@frankgrimes7388]

@@ParisroamYou completely missed the point there didn’t ya?

[@amanormaybeadragon]

@@frankgrimes7388 no, games were never bug free. Complete, yes I miss the days of complete games released once with no updates, but games were never bug free unless its simple shit like arcade classics.

[@vogonp4287]

This is why I usually stick with indie games. You can find a lot of high quality experiences that are not predatory in nature.

[@dronespace]

Thankfully there's loads of great indie games out there

[@aelix56]

Yeah am basically done with triple A, the fact that I also have a toaster pc and indies let me still enjoy em with the toastertron is also a sight of how much needless push for hardware there is.

[@viniciusschadeck4992]

In this christimas, my family give me some steam credits, i was looking for dwarf fortress, i will bought it early or late, but not know how long will take, already are playing another single player game, also, money wise not worth to put down that amount in new game. But with steam credits, i just bought and already play few hours, about 5 and was amazing, is one of those games i can play now and have a lot of fun, or wait for days, months or years to play, but still equals fun. I notice that gaming are getting really wrong much early in live, but I totally stop buying AAA few time ago, with cyberpunk 2077 actually, the game is there, no MTX, but abuses of other bad behaviour, lie to consumer... At least i never will pay for something that i can't check if it is what it told us it is... Borderlands 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 was both huge hits on my face, due to poor game quality over maketing... In that time i already not buy AAA games a long time, due to MTX on online shit and forcing us to play online where is not even a good choice to do so... I pass all possible games avoiding pay for unfair moneytization, mmo, free games cosmetics, pay to win and soo on, i drop mmo mostly due to this type of situation, even where it looks like not is it, as Albion, they force us to die and lost progress or be stock, with the need to join a guild and everyone is keepet at same low evel due to sheep and wolf theory, at a point they even need to open free players in, you can't make a game wolf-sheep drived and be a major success for long term.

[@Toastcat890]

Same here I buy mostly indes now and only buy AAA when they're heavily discounted

[@SimuLord]

Yep...haven't bought a AAA title since 2015. I'd have given up gaming entirely if not for indie games.

[@nokronis]

The interesting thing about the FOMO mechanic is that it encourages retention of players you already have, but discourages new players from joining because they think they have missed too much.

[@Slay1337pl]

Yup, experienced many such moments. Te introduction of seasons in games (think fortnite) kind of remedies that, since you can join at the beginning and everyone's new to the mechanics, but it's annoying for existing players. You learn something just for it to be invalidated in 4 months.

[@SuperKratosgamer]

@@Slay1337pl The problem with seasons, is that if you missed something from the last season, you can never get it back, there was a Predator Skin on previous seasons battlepass, i could never get that skin if a join after .

[@Zeppathy]

Final Fantasy Brave Exvius abuses this mechanic WEEKLY. Every week they have new, this week only, op asf characters that you will need for months after. Bur you only have a week to get them at a .035% chance to get one.

[@daben7145]

A game I played for a long time, ragnarok online, is dying because of this, at least the international server. It went gacha so hard that you literally need to spent hundreds to thousands of dollar to somewhat catch up to the remaining playerbase, but the game is 20 years old, has charming old school looks to some but to lots it just looks old, feels old, and its grind heavy as fuck, has been 20 years ago, its way worse now with relevant items costing billions and newbies lucky if they make 1-3m/h, which already requires you to farm some stuff before you reach these numbers. But instead of making the game more newbie-friendly, they go all in on the power creep and milk the remaining addicts that have spent too much to quit for as much as they can. Back in 2004 to idk 2008 maybe 2010 it was p2p, abonnement, then it went f2p, cashshop took over and thats it. Its sad and its exactly the shit we warned about 15 years+ ago when we said this shit will fuck over gaming as a whole. But sheeps gonna be sheeps, using brain hurts.

[@Slay1337pl]

@@daben7145 funnily enough, i feel like WoW resolved this, I played it first time after the big leveling change. The grindfest always put me off. Now it seems like the game is geared towards new players. The bad thing about it is thst old addon content looks and plays horrible in comparison.

[@m.furrier9141]

Gamer for roughly 25yrs. This was an important video. A lot of games are simply one-armed-bandits. The gambling psychology behind it is scary. That's why I love Horizon: Zero Dawn so much, which I started to play recently. Buy, enjoy, that's it.

[@rogerk6180]

Total buscuit was vocal about this a decade ago already. RIP.

[@xcorr77]

I cannot even possibly express the immense thankfulness I feel towards the independent development scene in the larger landscape of gaming. The massive boom of indie game devs releasing absolute banger titles while completely disregarding pandoras box is the thing that will keep gaming alive.

[@gamerdweebentertainment1616]

Issue is of course marketing :) Hope Dunkey will do his job great. Also most Indies a lot of reading needed... god I need practice it somehow so it wouldn't be exhausting.

[@muaywub4882]

U have examples?

[@madengineerkyouma]

And yet some indie games are also starting to use stuff like battle passes, such as the Pokemon clone "TemTem". I really hope games like that don't become the norm for indie games.

[@Soren59]

@@muaywub4882 Hollow Knight, Hades, Disco Elysium etc. You can find tons of good indie games on Steam

[@-tofte9530]

A notion I'm really hoping to be able to carry forward as well. Graduated from my 3D education recently, and my eye has been set on smaller scale indie work right away. Both to get away from the corporate nature of big games, but also just because the environment of a smaller studio allows everyone a voice in vision of a game. And it's a really nice environment to work in as well.

[@thickums5344]

Looking back at this chain of events is like watching a movie that goes over a dystopian future where businesses are doing absolutely vile things that make you say "Thank god that would never happen." But then I realised the reality of the situation.

[@victorhugocosta1127]

This or "Butterfly Effect". From harmless "horse armor" to paying to unlock gameplay is some absurd escalation

[@rhamlet5290]

@@victorhugocosta1127 I have no problem with expansion packs, from back in the day, when they added OPTIONAL EXTRAS to a game, almost always at a reasonable price.

[@lv99gamingwiz]

It's a sad state of affairs indeed; adding to the box that companies sell "player advantage" in preorders to unlock in-game items early which usually get power creeped or become worthless.

[@1crazypj]

@@lv99gamingwiz I've always thought of it as cheating when you buy up so I've NEVER done it and probably never will

[@1crazypj]

@@rhamlet5290 Yep, but 'expansion packs' stopped doing that by about 2008

[@ReiCaixa]

We really need the world governments to get together and put rules onto this. Especially US, Europe, AUS and BRICS.. 1. In-game coins can't be sold in packs, players should be able to buy whatever number of coins they desire. 2. Paid XP multipliers and battle passes banned, all players or no players deserve to get these awards for playing. 3. Items that aren't entirely cosmetics (new characters and vehicles) can't be bought. 4. etc

[@ganondorfchampin]

The only thing likely to be banned is gacha on the basis of being gambling. A much more fruitful endeavor would be forming a consumer advocacy network that warns people about dangerous practices and certifies games that don’t use them, and encourage people to only buy certified games.

[@kccreationsgaming]

Thank you for commenting on this topic. It tears my mind assunder, witnessing this slow decent into madness via overmonetization becoming the new standard. Modern AAA companies have been slowly chopping off good qualities that make games enjoyable, for _SURPLUS_ profit, on top of their already well off profit margines they would have made from simply making a good product. If I had to sum their behavior up briefly, I'd say they are noticeably diluting game experiences to appeal to larger demographics, so there are fewer _AMAZING_ games, and far more "meh, it's alright" experiences. Ironically, the AAA companies; the ones with the most money and resources, tend to be the laziest, rejecting innovation and creativity. This leaves creativity to the indie devs, who are often working a full time job, only making games in their free time. There are certainly a few disagreements I personally have with specific directions that Nintendo has taken, but one thing I praise Nintendo for, is that they are always reinvesting their profits back into their games, experimenting with innovated new ideas, which is more than I can say for many other big names like Activision, Blizzard, EA, Ubisoft, to name a few. Any time someone comments on this, they're always met with the ignorant response "Well, if you don't like it, then don't buy it!". The problem with that mentality, are the reprocussions we're witnessing today. By not demanding a certain level of standards as consumers, it invites all businesses to get lazier, overall, as they realize they can charge more while putting in less effort, knowing their consumers will not fight back. Please note, I am not anti-capitalism. I sincerely believe companies and individuals have a right to earn a "fair" profit for the products they create. What we are witnessing in modern gaming, far exceeds "fair" profit margines. Large businesses are actively performing psychological studies to determine the best way to manipulate their consumers, similar to what casinos have been doing for decades. The F2P model, for example, is advertised as this positive inclusive decision, yet it's entirely profit driven, at the considerable expense of the quality of the game. F2P appeals to the largest demographic, because what excuse do you have to not play the game if it's free, right? This model also reduces backlash towards poor design choices, as how can one complain when the game is free? The most noteable consequence of F2P, is the quite apparent increase in people ruining the gaming experience for others, via smurfing, unapproved modding, cheating, etc. These types of players suffer no consequence for their actions, as they can simply create a new account and continue hindering the intended experience for signifigant portions of the gaming community. You can observe this daily, in games like: Valorant Overwatch 2 Rocket League (after it was made F2P) This system pits the community against eachother, rather than directing that frustration towards the companies promoting this business model as the new standard, inevitably shortening the longevity and vitality of games. People eventually quit playing, because of the stresses F2P incurs quickly outweigh the entertaiment provided by the game.

[@electron_shell]

Shoutout to my "long, sincere comment way after upload" crew! We holdin' it down for the long-term conversation. Y'all my boys.

[@leargamma4912]

That fair price thing isn't anti capitalism. It's anti-monopoly

[@digitaladventurestime]

When thinking about how games have changed, I feel bad for kids growing up in this environment. Being an older gamer, we at least had a chance to know 'we don't have to participate', and still just game/grind while griping around how things used to be. Children today have no such chance, and may not even realize there is an alternative to the instant gratification to spending real money on endless micro-transactions. **Great video Josh, I would show it to my child if I had one, before letting them get into gaming.**

[@mikeclarke3990]

Buy your kids a Switch.

[@Centrioless]

You should only blame yourself as a parent if you allow that to happen

[@Buglin_Burger7878]

@@mikeclarke3990 They have MTX heavy games on there...

[@fawazgerhard2742]

For me, i don't feel bad fot children and teenagers in this gaming era, i felt bad for their parents wallets😂😂😂

[@ItsBoyRed]

Its also sad that there are kids who get bullied in their school, just because they dont have a skin in Fornite

[@TheLonelyGoomba]

Step 1: introduce an anti consumer system in a game. Step 2: get backlash Step 3: continue to do it anyway Step 4: wait for a new generation of gamers to join the market. They’ve never known games without this system so they accept it, and even defend it. “That’s just how it is”. This cycle happens every time. Most of the things people were outraged about are now considered the norm in games. All companies have to do is wait it out.

[@pauliusrimkus7241]

i hope that ''thats just how it is'' will become a ''thats just how it is and thats why i dont play videogames"

[@iesika7387]

@@pauliusrimkus7241 For me it's "Why I only buy indie games that don't do this shit." If a AAA game is good enough I feel like I really need to play it I will just wait until it drops a version with all the DLC included at less than half the original price. If we keep buying things the way they want, they will keep doing it. The one piece of power here is the ability to just...not buy the game.

[@voiceofreason1661]

whats funny is this same tactic is used in all areas of life by corporations and politicians and the ruling elite powers that be. There are countless things normalized and just accepted as "that's just how it is" by the youth that prior generations would have never stood for and actively resisted. It is insidious and we have failed our children and our youth by letting legitimate predators mind control our gullible children. We like to blame them, but no one was there to protect them from this. You can't expect them to know better and be able to protect themselves. Everyone just wants to blame the victim.

[@CTC77]

Makes me so angry

[@stolensentience]

Overwatch in a nutshell

[@AarPlays]

This video needs to be shown to every person who wants to go into game design. If we cant stop players from being psychological manipulated, maybe we can stop people from working on them.

[@thefaisman8956]

The developers are not making these decisions.

[@andipajeroking]

Players are not cattle, they can think for themselves. I don t know who holds the most blame, the business or the players?

[@qdakid7776]

If you want a business man to stop doing good profitable business then you have to stop giving them money their is literally no other way. All businesses try to “psychologically manipulate” which literally just means convincing with a negative connotation

[@sleazytactics3754]

​@@andipajeroking the players hold all the blame because we the players hold all the power if we want something we just need to stop giving them money and they will have no choice but to do what the players want otherwise they will go out of business but sadly people are either stupid or they just don't care and let themselves get manipulated

[@scrung]

@@andipajerokingyes they are. we can think for ourselves yet we still blow money on microtransactions for short bursts of dopamine. if we allowed things to go this far despite being able to think, what else are we but cattle?

[@sevennvd]

I want every gamer to watch and understand this video before they're allowed to defend their favorite game/gamestudio.

[@RasmusSchultz]

Wow. I never got the big picture of how abusive these systems really are. It's devious. It makes me think we need some sort of "fair game" certificate for games you can actually buy and play in full. 🤔

[@tseikkisnelkytkaks9013]

This would actually be a totally cool idea. As some collab of indie publishers etc., if I see that cert, I know it's full game and no microtransactions. I would be totally tempted to buy games with this on them. As long as it would be done fairly and given to any game that fills the requirements - ie. that this cert itself wouldn't become a cash cow - it'd be both in the interest of the customer and the studios making "fair" games. Should be relatively easy to implement too with binding contracts in the style of no microtransactions now or ever under this title or a certain penalty sum contractually agreed would need to be paid etc., so it couldn't be abused by getting the cert and then turning the game into something totally different in the next update.

[@jamescpalmer]

Actually a nice idea.

[@benathan6239]

Honestly, this is the exact use case for when governments need to step in. I struggle to imagine the market place correcting this issue. We would need unilateral power from a major government to level the playing field.

[@davidfletcher369]

Good idea.

[@korenn9381]

@@tseikkisnelkytkaks9013 There's no way companies will sign contracts to earn certifications, they'd just make up their own instead. A certification plan could work, but it would have to start with a group vetting games on their own initiative and handing them "fair" or "unfair" certificates depending on the game. But because of the nature of the industry, those would have to be revisited regularly when companies inevitably try to abuse it.

[@JamesGorman]

It's so sad that when a big game is announced my thoughts have gone from 'how fun it'll be to play 'to 'how much of a monetary drain will that game try to be'.

[@scull0234]

For me it's usually "I hope the game will be finished on release" or "I hope there won't be massive bugs or garbage performance". Kinda nervous about the new Fire Emblem game, hope it runs fine.

[@namelessliberty9869]

Yes. I'm excited for Tekken 8 but I'm also very worried about which old characters they're inevitably gonna take hostage to release as "DLC" later and how much bs is gonna be behind a handful of season passes like they did with 7.

[@jokuihmehyyppa]

Honestly, idgaf about the monetizatiob of a game unless it's actually p2w. Ppl cry about the Crown store in ESO but I couldn't care less as I'm not gonna buy an outift. Ppl cry about battlepasses but for as long as they don't give op weapons idgaf as I'm not unterested in dumbass skins and backgrounds. You wanna waste your money? Well you do you. A fool and his money, eh?

[@truecrimelover2022]

@@jokuihmehyyppa agreed but it seems to be more and more p2w or you have to pay to unlock levels if i bought the game i bought it i should be able to go to any zone and play any character now skins and shit idc about because you can decide it looks cool or that you want to support the game i don't but it's a choice i make

[@testname4464]

@@scull0234 Don't worry, it's gonna be shit like all of them

[@scubasteve2189]

I complain about it a lot, but this makes me even more grateful for one of my favorite games, No Mans Sky. It’s been going strong for 7 years, had multiple BIG updates, and still has many more coming, and they have NEVER charged extra for any of it. 😳

[@apollo4950]

@@user-eo2wl4ku5v Bedrock's microtransactions don't actually paywall anything other than emotes. You can still play the entire game and with any maps, skins, or addons you can find online and have the exact same experience as someone who bought content on the marketplace.

[@andrewryan2417]

Great video, didn't know this channel before but I'm glad that it contains a rather balanced and explanatory approach to the topic, not overloading it with internet memes or senseless raging. I acutally have the impression to have learned something about the origins of monetarization in video games

[@silmarr]

Besides a few exceptions I stopped playing AAA games in recent years and mostly spend my time playing indies, someone who will put passion and dedication behind a great idea will always win in my book

[@TheCrepusculum]

I'm completely with you. It's not an indigame but I've bought rdr2 now. Feel free to laugh at me because it's so late, but originally I'm not really interested in westerns. I think I'll look at all the old games again. "Soldiers-heros of WW2" is very old but also very nice.

[@poika22]

The last AAA game I played was Witcher 3. I still play games every day.

[@cxngo8124]

@@TheCrepusculum I prefer to play games after their life cycle has ended. The games are cheaper, and cosmetics or anything like that don't matter anymore. I just recently played RDR2. I don't want to be a part of their system.

[@TheCrepusculum]

@@cxngo8124 I am not alone? I always felt I'm the only one waiting... originally because of complete packages with dlcs - they don't have that kind of error because they DON´T quite fit together (bought separately). thx

[@michimatsch5862]

​@@TheCrepusculum Nah. I originally did it like this because I didn't have much money in highschool and a gold edition with everything would come out anyway soon but the habit stuck and I always feel like I am winning. No frustration, no broken games. More content.

[@itsjimmm]

It would be really cool having a second video showing how those things are starting to leak outside games, like cars locking some features behind some monthly fee

[@MazeeKasurame]

Like the 19$/mo seatwarmer thing from BMW?

[@jayplay8140]

and software too. "we will own nothing and rent everything"

[@kenshinhimura9387]

Stupid people ruin everything for the rest of us.

[@tippyc2]

@@MazeeKasurame latest one i heard about: Mercedes now wants $100 per month if you expect to use the full power output of the engine.

[@MazeeKasurame]

@@tippyc2 This is getting from kinda funny to kinda depressing real fast.

[@Imufur]

the obsession with realism and being cinematic is what killed most of gaming to me

[@nickthompson1812]

Wayyy too focused on graphics these days. You’re totally right. No good reason to abandon story, character development, etc in favor of layering 10 textures over a trash can.

[@VoidDweller086]

​@@nickthompson1812 What objectively needs to be understood is That Graphics exclusively DOES NOT make a Good Video Game at all. 4 Very Important Qualities That make a Good to Excellent Quality Video Game are Compelling Factor, Captivating Factor, Amazing Imagination and Fantastic Quality, Period Dot Dash. I am 37 years old by the way, Black American male.

[@alessandrobaggi6129]

​@@VoidDweller086You could be a little green alien and you'd be right all the same. 😎🤟

[@falconrvn7018]

Story and gameplay…if those sucks then your game just suck.

[@MagitekBahamuto]

@Imufur oh the Playstation exclusive Syndrome: Realism, Cinematic, must appeal to everyone, over the shoulder cam.

[@DavePoint84]

And this is why I find myself turning to indie games more often these days. That and I find more interesting relatable stories being told in that space.

[@TheParadiseParadox]

It's interesting to hear the parallels with gambling and gambling addiction. Especially around 15:10 talking about the proprietary currency. There was a saying when I used to play cards... "The man who invented gambling was smart. The man who invented chips was a genius." When the money doesn't look like money, people will quite literally throw it away

[@BOBXFILES2374a]

Gambling is random reinforcement. Do it with a pigeon and it will hit the bar until it dies of hunger...."Next time!"

[@kripticlunar8198]

exactly or how they have the packs that “cost little” and you think oh it’s only $5 same thing with gambling people think oh i only have to put in 20 and i can win big, just think about all of those “oh it’s just $5” combined then it’s not just $5

[@ganondorfchampin]

Gaming addiction and gambling addiction are psychologically identical, people just try to argue they are different to evade regulation.

[@TheClintonio]

I worked with a games psychologist in 2014 when I worked for a very famous mobile game and he was utterly evil and psychopathic. I felt gross working with him when he was telling me how he was trying to trick kids into using their parent's credit card to buy expensive things in the game, and we're talking £50 here. Oh and I discovered a bug that meant sometimes players wouldn't receive their items so I asked for time to fix it from the project owners and they said it didn't matter as the players would likely just try again and double spend. I left the games industry after that.

[@StarboyXL9]

I wonder what his Early Life section looks like... 🤔

[@michaelhutchings8599]

@@StarboyXL9 Classic Sociopath... That's a psychologist. Terrible mix. Now wonder he ended up in the job he did.

[@AveCruxSpesUnica]

@@StarboyXL9 oy vey

[@CaptainMcAwesomepan]

@@anonymouscheese2095 I feel like mobile gaming came into existence with "The Box" already taking up 75% of production.

[@CoralCopperHead]

I have no objective to business practices that explicitly target stupid people.

[@TheRealChemo18]

Thanks for this! As someone who’s been playing video games since the Atari but haven’t kept up with the gaming community closely, it was confusing to me why EA games and most games in general took a steep nosedive in story and playability. This makes so much sense, but is so sad. I’m wondering if this is why we don’t see games comparable to Bioshock or the Batman Arkham series anymore.🤷🏼‍♂️

[@emmamcgorrin2478]

This is a great video and sums it up perfectly I only do sim racing now but even racing games are doing it with track packs and cars etc

[@LittleBallOfPurr]

Shoutout to all those amazing dev teams who still just make good games that you buy and get everything, not only that, they continue to feed free DLC, sometimes asking a small and fair amount for significant DLC expansions. The Long Dark comes to mind.

[@KirikkSiSq]

In Geometry Dash, full game sales make nothing compared to ad money from mobile Lite and DLCs. Plus, Russian kids actively pirate full game, and their amount is so big they sometimes cause game servers to work slow despite not paying the game. If RobTop releases those mobile versions on PC, he either loses most money, or he will have to make up some unfair ad schemes, which will be eventually negated by the same Russians who will just hack the games and delete ads

[@calebwright3543]

I'm also a TLD fan and I definitely agree with you it's pretty much the opposite of everything mentioned in this video

[@pepman423]

Stardew Valley : )

[@WizzyTheDizzy]

Really prefer the play station games recently. Console games are so much less of a toxicity money lure. You pay, you get. It's fair. Unlike how all these FOMO model based game that push u into gambling and paying a massive amount of money just to get anything.

[@XDRosenheim]

Terraria is a fantastic game, and if you have not played it, I feel bad for you. Noita is a fantastic game, and if you have not played it, I feel bad for you. Factorio is a fantastic game, and if you have not played it, I feel bad for you. Enter the Gungeon, you get the idea. Stardew Valley. Ultrakill. Trackmania (Not the 2020 version, fuck that) Undermine. Dwarf fucking Fortress.

[@toxiczombeez5332]

I find more and more beautiful, well put together Indie games on steam everyday. Those people actually put their hearts into a game.

[@alvallac2171]

*every day (means daily) everyday = adjective meaning typical/ordinary/average

[@theamericankaiser4549]

The people in the major development teams (343, Bunjie, Activision, Capcom, etc) do put their hearts and souls in them as well. The issue their having is the balance of doing what they want but fulfilling their agreements with the corporate overlord to insure the product is worth something. The dev group can only so much when it comes to sales, they can only affect the product. The corporate master (Microsoft for example) maimyk sets the terms and deadlines for the development. Plus they can even outright change the deadlines willingly to get earlier to cash grabs or save money when the time is needed. That's why a lot of new games feel unfinished most of the time, they usually need somewhere like an extra year or such before their actual release. Instead of blaming the company for not allowing the devs to finish their work we are putting the blame on the devs without realizing this issue. Why you may ask? Cause the company makes sure the marketing teams put the devs label on the adds cause "they made it!" so if the game bombs or complaints occurs the company can cheat the devs out of their contractual bonus pay or just get rid of them for free without repercussions and copyright all their work

[@jase276]

@@theamericankaiser4549 I also have to make the argument that back in the day it was more gamers making games for gamers. Nowadays, many gaming studios are full of people who not only hate making games but hate games in general. Why they still do it is beyond me. Also, people get hired not based on skill or talent anymore. That being said, I rarely see anyone blaming devs. usually it's the companies altogether that get vitriol

[@GavinPetty]

@@jase276 Because the companies the make all the decisions.

[@fireblo33om]

Indie games are the future of gaming, in my opinion. Ofcourse, the quadbillion dollar studios will never die, but it will be the Indie developers that push the medium forward and make better and more interesting games

[@nrrork]

SSX 3 was my favorite of the series. I loved the way you could play on one continuous mountain. And it had Kick Doubt, which for some reason is my favorite name for a course. I sucked at the freestyle courses, I was always into the racing more, but I loved that name.

[@BoundingBeast]

I blame EA. They may not have been the first to monetize, but they have always been the most agressive in my experience. I still remember the first time I found a single-use code in one of their physical games and realized "this game is never going to be sold used because of this code." They're the literal worst and I try desperately never to give them any of my money.

[@haveanotherpinacolada]

Blame the people who pay for this junk.

[@metallichurch]

The fact that microtransactions in Genshin Impact, Diablo Immortal, and FIFA beat out Elden Ring's sales is soul crushing. The pinnacle of Fromsoft development released after they defined a genre can't beat digital heroine.

[@warmtoiletseat5596]

Genshin Impact is good though. I can 36 star the abyss easy with a completely free to play account. Top tier soundtrack and VAs. Think of resource management as part of the game.

[@youtubedeletedmyaccountlma2263]

@@warmtoiletseat5596 nah genshin impact is just feels like another jrpg. Try hyperdimension neptunia

[@nekoschar6170]

@@warmtoiletseat5596 genshin is a gacha game aka a litteral slot machine

[@metallichurch]

@mattriones3057 1st thing, reading comprehension needs some work. 2nd thing, where do you think "souls-like" comes from?

[@markwatson8714]

It's not exactly surprising. Elden Ring has thus far sold 18 million copies, which is pretty respectable for a niche game (comparable to Monster Hunter for example). Genshin Impact on the other hand has 60 million monthly players. There's no figures for Ultimate Team as such, since EA combine the revenue across the three franchises it's present in, but those franchises are some of it's biggest games (FIFA for example has 111 million sales across the series). So I'd expect the revenue for microtransactions in those games to be higher than Elden Ring's sales, for much the same reason I'd expect McDonald's to make more on sales of diet cola alone than my local burger joint's entire annual revenue - one's a global franchise with 70 million daily customers; the other is a small takeaway that can barely handle 70 orders per day.

[@ianemory5800]

Weirdly the "Recurrent monetization" has really changed the way I play games. I play way more indie and AA games now. Like most of my "Most Anticipated" game of any new year has become a lot of smaller seemingly more heartfelt projects. My favorite game this year was Roadwarden. A text based RPG. It's kind of sad, but at the same time there are still so many great games coming out every year even if it's not a title I would've expected at the beginning of the year.

[@grumbledore424]

I played Ara Fell this year and it felt like a spiritual successor to games like Chrono Trigger and Earthbound. It was clearly a labor of love for the team at Stegosoft Games. It had a bunch of self aware jokes but they knew exactly what the game should be for a classic 16b rpg.

[@tippyc2]

I think a lot of us have moved that way. But i gotta say, i sure do miss AAA graphics.

[@Mueslinator]

Same here. I play for relaxation and immersion; games with a "buy once, you're good" model are my happy place. Predatory monetization, otoh, makes games completely unpalatable to me. As such, I do hope that smaller games can carve out a consistent niche for fair pricing. Looking at my purchases this year, there is scant outside of indies and AA I found worth my money.

[@Shrow88]

oh good recommendation, i'l keep an eye on that game. I mostly play indie games too now, I don't touch most triple A games except for elden ring and nintendo.

[@IEatYourSandwiches]

i feel like even indie games are getting worse. the ones that get all the spotlight are gimmicky meme games with no actual substance like stray and then all the actual interesting stuff either gets left in the dust or doesn't do well enough for the studio to grow. this isn't even saying anything about all the survivalcraft genre clones trying to chase market trends instead of the devs making something worthwhile they're passionate about

[@HRHooChicken]

Oblivion got DLC right. The game was huge and felt complete, and the two main DLC’s were bolt on additions made after the main game (you can even hear the voice actors having different sounding voices; Wes Johnson had a cold during the DLC voicing sessions). The horse armour was always a funny joke back in the day, little did we know what a Pandora’s box it turned out to be

[@kerianhalcyon2769]

Honestly the worst part about all of these systems that you've mentioned in this video is not only do publishers and players know about this, they do it anyway. Famously a few years ago there was a major announcement about an abusive DLC patch for a game (I can't remember which one, might have been CoD or it might have been something else) which was followed with outrage. Then a leaked document from the dev team got out. The dev team were having meetings with the marketers and the marketers assured them "if you put up with it long enough, eventually it will go away, and people will still buy and nobody will care." And they were right. We now have to convince addicts (and I'm certain are paid plants who stand in to encourage the addicts) that what they're doing is addicting and needs to stop. Like telling a drugged up homeless man that his life will improve significantly if he quits the drug he's on. He knows it, we know it. But it feels good, and his friends tell him it feels good, and his fake friends who don't actually take the drug but get a substantial bonus from their dealer for pretending to be his friend says it's really good. So we get ignored. We need to actually and actively act if we want these things to change because until the drug gets taken off the streets nobody's safe, the drug dealer just keeps raking dough.

[@ritaress9910]

This. Addiction. The many people who commented that the players are supporting the system and can just stop doing it don't factor that in. Gaming disorder is now a recognized illness. Reminds me of the opioid epidemic.

[@skunkwerkz777]

it has to come down to using your money wisely, dont spend it with people who dont align with your culture. hopefully these aggressive companies will outrage the public enough during one or more moments to convince others to vote with their wallets

[@kerianhalcyon2769]

@@skunkwerkz777 I personally wouldn't hold my breath with that, more than likely public outrage will focus on something that just happens to include gaming as part of the greater whole, but as it stands gaming is lowest on the totem pole right now. We've got to deal with a ton of other social problems first before gaming can even remotely be factored in...hopefully the backlash and after effects of those problems being taken care of will trickle down to gaming in due time.

[@joshl8897]

This video is a perfect example of why it's so important to support small independent game developers. In a lot of ways Indie developers today resemble what gaming studios looked like in the 90s and 2000s. The success of these studios is critical to preventing short-sighted tactics like this from completely taking over.

[@koloth5139]

For now. Until the indie devs start to see dollar signs too. And start using these same tactics. Some won't of course. Some will believe in the artistic vision and simply want to deliver a good game, the kind of game they want to play. Others will follow the money, because there is a lot of it to be made unfortunately.

[@Solisus]

Nah, i don't like that stupid notion of supporting someone just because they are small. Support GOOD games. 99.9% of indie games on steam are shit.

[@pirilon78]

​​@@koloth5139 you completely misunderstand how this market works. Luckily, indie devs can't afford to be greedy like this at all because people can easily just ignore their shitty product. Triple A companies have the resources and influence to shove these tactics down the general public's throats

[@zerg6001]

@@Solisus💯 im so tired of the people who say “just play indie games” like they are at all comparable to AA or AAA games.

[@LutraLovegood]

Mobile games and "micro" transactions have already won, they're the biggest share of the pie, we need more governments to ban gambling in general.

[@ApothercyCold]

Imagine the game studio execs watching this and furiously taking notes in case there's something they didn't already consider.

[@emulation2369]

And furiously master bating 😂

[@DarthRadical]

Lol - I sort of feel that way when my job gives me anti-fraud training. Sometimes I'm thinking "Yeah - I could make that work without getting caught..."

[@ArDeeMee]

Thanks for saying execs instead of devs. Too many people blame the devs for these mechanics in big games, but the devs hate them just as much as we do. The EXECS love it and force it into every aspect of a game…

[@vallejomach6721]

Imagine the fiendish scams and immoral schemes they have already cooked up but not yet unleashed...

[@aelix56]

They all share their insights in gamedev conferences lol Dunno if you watched it but there was a really disgusting talk about whales and how to exploit em in your game in some gamedev conference.

[@hawkeyestiguy]

NAILED IT!!! Best video I've ever seen on this topic, especially the influence & impact of FB games like Farmville.

[@thex2thaz]

Great video and well said. I still play an Online game from 2002 specfically for these reasons. Haven't looked back.

[@slightcurve98]

This is why indie games have been on the rise and I hope they g get bigger and I hope these big companies see how much people love them and change a bit

[@HellyeahRook]

@Kevin Morris that board of people usually with ties to EA

[@M.L.official]

Nah they eventually become that evil.

[@dynamicsushy]

It’s fine that they don’t change. Because we live in a world where indie games can coexist along with mainstream games.

[@VegetoStevieD]

The problem, in a way, is the gamer state of mind. Gamers will do everything they can to max out their abilities. It's called min-maxing. When game developers run a business like a gamer, they do everything to min-max their profits, including using exploits.

[@TheMeanArena]

Indie games may be on the rise but the success of them is at an all time low. Blame Steam for that.

[@Mightydoggo]

A good friend of mine worked for a big publisher (no name dropping as they´re all doing it anyway) and at one point, they sat in a room with a bunch of psychologists and designers, "theorizing" about how they could redesign certain game mechanics, *specially* for people with compulsive spending habits, like ppl with ADHD for example. He left the room being so disgusted that he gave up the job and started working with an indie dev team instead. lol It´s disgusting to see that they not only ignore, but *willingly abuse* people with mental health issues (like gambling addiction) to make more money.

[@WeAreChecking]

Companies are essentially massive entities with the singular goal of "make more money, no matter what". Can you really blame them? It's naive to think they'll ever change on their own volition

[@Mightydoggo]

@@WeAreChecking Yes. Nobody said anything about them changeing on their own. Why would they? Just hold them accountable for the damages they´re directly and indirectly causing and they will have to change or get bankrupt.

[@cruelchris3099]

@@Mightydoggo While I agree with this, I have one problem with it. How do WE hold them accountable? Once some accountability for video game developers comes into the law scene, I would expect some rulings would happen that could snowball into laws being made. I don't want the government involved more than they have to or we will see some anti gamer laws. Hillary Clinton should be noted here as she was pushing to ban GTA back when San Andreas was the latest one out. Or we could just not buy the games that have these predatory practices. My vote for a game anyone should try out is A Hat In Time. Yes they did have 2 expansion packs, but the packs there are have a lot of content, almost as if it was a whole other game. Almost like HL2:E2.

[@edelleaa]

@@WeAreChecking yes we can and should blame them. they often value short term profits now over long term value and ruin franchises over plain greed when they can still be making millions/billions and keep beloved franchises successful for years and years instead of just.. well be greedy and ruin the reputation of everyone over some quick bucks. is it really so much to ask for people to give a shit about the product they make and not JUST about the money?

[@edelleaa]

it's actually very disgusting and sad when you realize there's actual psychologists involved... just makes it so much worse

[@Joppi1992]

This video is exactly what Steve Jobs talked about, in that interview when he mentioned product people and marketing people, and which of them ends up running companies that makes too much money. This video breaks it all down very nicely into detailed specifics of how it's done and the history behind it, but it's essentially exactly what Steve Jobs talked about back in the day.

[@Cray2TheZ]

At the end, when you were listing all the culprits, I believe you should've concluded that we, the players, are to blame for allowing this to happen and to still, so many years later, continue to strongly signal game companies that they are right for making the box grow more and more and more over time. Thanks for the great video!

[@Jallenbah]

The biggest horror which I feel is the final message that should have been on the end of this video is that there is no light at the end of the tunnel. There is currently no reason that this will reduce or stop. This is it now. Things are not going to improve.

[@mohandasjung]

Just don't give them your money, there are lots of onde stuff you can look up.

[@RiskOfBaer]

Why would anybody want them to improve? Just go play games made by companies or solo devs who want to make good games, who cares about companies like Blizzard or EA anymore? I haven't touched the western side of "AAA games" in almost a decade now (or rather I've barely touched it), and there was not a single year in which I didn't have enough great games to play in my free time. I do not understand any of this doom and gloom people keep bringing up...

[@nortyfiner]

The good news is that some legal authorities like the EU are starting to recognize that loot boxes are gambling and taking action accordingly. That's a start, but it needs to go much farther. I'm hoping game companies see how Epic just got hammered over Fortnite and start reconsidering their direction, but I'm not holding my breath.

[@Jallenbah]

​@@mohandasjung I think not paying for mtx is the right thing to do to try to not encourage these practices, however the majority of people won't even think about whether it's an immoral business model, so it will continue to be very profitable. I don't think that consumers can solve this problem.

[@RiskOfBaer]

@@Jallenbah You as a consumer can solve this problem immediately (for yourself) by not engaging with the system and playing games that do not feature microtransactions.

[@NaughtWalter]

I actually used to be in a game development program at a university, and I dropped out because I thought it was so miserable. It wasn't cause the workload was so bad, but because even when I did get projects successfully completed I never enjoyed making them, or got any satisfaction out of the finished product, just relief that I didn't have to work on it anymore. Thank you for making this, because I could never really explain why until I saw this video - basically all they teach you in the classes is rapid iterative prototyping and shit from that pandora's box, or at least similar mechanics designed to induce a (monetizable) dopamine rush. It's never about what the developers actually want to make, it's all about what the shareholders or investors think will be most profitable.

[@aaronjennings8385]

Pandoras box. Yes.

[@kushnoj9015]

Don't sweat it, my best friend recently cashed out of the company he founded mainly for the same reasons. While true that money cannot buy you happiness, yet allows you to buy everything else and chase happiness afterwards, it's still not worth it if you are creating products which do not align with your own core principles, values and aspirations, or even worse are in contrast to them.

[@slightcurve98]

This is why indie games have been on the rise. The people make beautiful games for the love of it instead of for money

[@Roxor128]

I ditched a game development subject at uni, but in my case it was because the guy teaching it did a lousy job of organising it. Also, it was just one subject as part of a computer science degree, so there were plenty of other subjects to take up instead. Still got the textbook, though.

[@ionseven]

Scams are lucrative. Sadly lawmakers dont understand how deceptive game-ified shops are and ignore it. Honestly dont even see the attraction to those scams since I can get a good dopamine berry from 10k other things in life. But I suppose I'm not the target. Kids are and normally they "gotta have it right now".

[@SekiberiusWelkesh]

When EA said it was for a sense of pride and accomplishment, it wasn't just them slapping the players in the face, they spit in their face and shat in their breakfast. I still can't believe someone actually wrote and were given the okay to publish that, what'd they think was going to happen.

[@Shmuklidooha]

They thought that the feeling of pride was going to be the same as when you finish a good game. However that doesn't translate well to that star wars game since you're not beating a challenge but rather a 40-hour grind (or opening your wallet).

[@bjornberkers1622]

This is why I bought the mini classic super nintendo. Good old games with no online dlc or anything. Its what I grew up with, and with a smile, going back there again 😊 If only DOS games were able to come back, sadly nearly impossible. PS5 will be my last console, also due to age. Wishing the younger community the best with the current gaming era 👍🏻

[@emilflarsen2]

I really like when games sell their soundtrack as the only DLC. You could easily just listen to the music on KZbin, but it's a neat way of supporting the team behind the game. I've done this with a few games and even though i don't use the Steam music player, i still appreciate that it's totally optional and doesn't affect the game one bit.

[@Destroyer_V0]

Yup. One of the most acceptable forms of DLC. You pay for a product, you recieve product, and no strings are attached. And the devs have already done the work to create this product so for them, it's a zero sum gain. (Best part about music sold on steam is being able to yank out the mp3 files, load em onto a usb, then listen to stuff while driving as well.)

[@IL_Bgentyl]

For me I like re colors. Leave the items unique and easy to tell what they are and allow re colors imo. I think the direction of game pass and so on will help the gaming market personally

[@winfehler]

Couldn’t agree more 👍

[@Andrew_Sword]

yeah for well made games thats the tip to the developers option. ill buy it for good indi games

[@Lodestone8]

Yeah, and then there's stuff like dead cells where it's just, want more game? You can buy more game.

[@nible8055]

28:38 “and when a marketing executive pictures you playing a game, you aren’t pictured smiling and laughing with friends ur pictured opening ur wallet and reaching for ur credit card” basically sums up the state of modern triple A games

[@reahreic7698]

And gamers are to blame. If we as a collective refused to spend billions a year on this crap, we'd see a different culture form.

[@infernec]

and... essentially every market in the world now. we can't do anything about it either. what a great time to be alive, right?

[@PokeBurnPlease]

@@reahreic7698 How do you think we should do that ? its simply not possible only way you could stop people from supporting this would be by laws and that would be pretty insane to do. Only thing i would agree with making laws against is that every game with real life money stuff thats locked behind a randoom system of for example opening boxes has to be rated R18. Fifa is still Rated 0 or 3 depending on countrys and i think this is insane.

[@sheogorathprinceofmadness2223]

@@PokeBurnPlease The Netherlands outlawed this kind of predatory business practice, and I think every country should. Then again, the U.S. is the only country where pharmaceutical drug ads are allowed. If it's not abundantly clear now that we should abandon our old ways of thinking and look for something more personally fulfilling, like actually bettering ourselves... Well it all comes down to money. Looks like we are doomed. :) Hilariously doomed!

[@PokeBurnPlease]

@@sheogorathprinceofmadness2223 Difference is the netherlands forbid it in general but i dont think there is any problem with it. If you are an adult you can decide yourselfe if you wanna pay for loot boxes but the games should not be allowed to be sold to minors like its currently with Fifa for example. You should be required to be 18 to buy such games.

[@legospacememe8468]

2:02 that turtles game is the first NES game which wasn't in arcades

[@EYEOFMADARA]

Great, sad but true video Josh! We can always say no to the box.

[@detectivecotton6824]

We need more people calling out all of the anti consumer and stingy things game companies do now. I hope everyone remembers Totalbiscuit who passed away in 2018, he was one of the first to call out these anti consumer methods used by these companies and fought for anyone who just wanted to play good games. I don’t think things will change anytime soon but I do hope more people will speak out. RIP to a great man

[@cupriferouscatalyst3708]

Ross Scott of AccursedFarms briefly had a campaign to make it illegal, although I forget the details.

[@AceHudx]

Had no idea he had passed away. What a shock.

[@cynthiahembree3957]

I what we need is for people to stop paying for these transactions. If you just don’t pay for it the company is forced to stop doing it. However a lot of people still buy these things

[@foxrobinson3582]

Just don't buy new releases. Try and convince friends to do so too. Spend 3 or so years playing older games or pursuing other hobbies. As soon as this stops being such a cash cow they will be forced to up quality.

[@AsteroSloth]

I mean… just play the good games then? There’s literally not enough time to play all the good games that came out THIS year.

[@CyhelM]

This video has perfectly explained that sinking gut feeling I have every time I see new game release and wonder how it will disappoint me this time.

[@Broockle]

sinking gut feeling is exactly how I feel about OW2 I didn't even realize until the other day that I haven't played it in weeks. Game just makes me sad everytime I open it now.

[@johndodo2062]

If it's online and has multilayer, SKIP IT. If certain publishers put it out, again, SKIP IT. It's not difficult to wait for use reviews. Anything beyond that is your fault

[@johndodo2062]

@@Broockle that game doesn't deserve the 2 in the title

[@geroffmilan3328]

Games like Elden Ring aren't common - especially at FromSoft's quality standard; nonetheless they are all I, or my kids or their friends, will buy.

[@pyropulseIXXI]

I was a huge gamer in my teens and haven't bought a new game since 2015

[@immitatedone1511]

Very well made video. Must watch category!

[@thiswebsitesucksTBH]

Thank you for making this Josh, this video has really made me have an introspective into whether or not i should continue even playing games anymore or cut my losses because the industry is so deep into this cesspool i dont see myself ever having fun within the space anymore

[@zerg6001]

Play ghost of Tsushima first if you haven’t already then give up. It’s a work of art. No in-game store, everything unlock-able in game.

[@TheStraightestWhitest]

@@zerg6001 Plenty of games like that. They're just rare.

[@nickthompson1812]

Kingdom Come is another good one. I’m right there with you man. Time to give up gaming and make life my game. I don’t like the real world but I’m starting to dislike gaming. As the narrator said, distance makes the heart finder. Maybe I’ll come back in a few years and find new joy.

[@Roachers]

I find it so interesting that game developers are secondary to making games these days and the business model is the primary concern. Clearly the gaming industry is changed forever, glad I was there for the glory days.

[@LordShrub]

Even when these live services will be unplugged and gone, the glory days will remain preserved so we can always go back to them.

[@MonstersNotUnderTheBed]

Hey! Cool it with the ANTI-SEMITIC remark!

[@MrJoeBlaze]

It hasn't changed FOREVER... We can fight back and make actual change, We don't deserve their bullshit...This is INSANE... Gaming should be about FUN.

[@heroicgoo915]

@@MonstersNotUnderTheBed Huh??? Ive gotta bite, just where is this remark?

[@sarahjessicafarter7383]

@@heroicgoo915 American neonazis pose online either as Jews or non-Jews concerned about antisemitism. They then make false antisemitism claims. Their hope being that people become disillusioned with the very concept of antisemitism in response to seeing unfair accusations. Widespread disillusionment or apathy with the concept of antisemitism would create a more favourable climate for neonazis to thrive in. Why do they bother with this clearly futile endeavour? American neonazis are almost exclusively low IQ men with a poor to non-existent social life and are neither in employment, education or training. Spending their time trying to troll on social media is a sort of bottom of the tank existence they've sunk down to. The above account is one of these little guys.

[@6dmiller]

I went "game amish" years ago for the sake of my kids. We simply don't consider games with transactions, or even requiring external identity validation. What I didn't expect was that, by eliminating time wasted on games that are a drag, it made games much more fun. At this point when I see some some of these mainstream games it's just repulsive to see all the shit people go through without even getting to play. Thank you genuinely for the effort put into this high-quality video.

[@Freddy-im2hd]

gamish haha

[@williamyoung9401]

Indeed. My one friend almost had a break down because of Soulcalibur IV. He loved Darth Vader, but was ticked you could only play him on the Playstation and he only had an Xbox and didn't want to play as Yoda, lol. (23:33)

[@pinobluevogel6458]

This the easiest and only solution to monetization madness. Simply buy stuff that it is worth its cost and stay away from all the crap that isn't. (or is simply a platform to sell you digital stuff that is essentially worthless) What I cannot truly understand is why a large portion of the population doesn't care and gladly spends all their money and time on these products. Not only do they spend way more than necessary, they also lack the wisdom to see what it does to gaming as a whole. I think it is ok to blame the industry, but the gamers themselves that vote with their wallets are keeping these practices around.

[@terrencebucker]

@@pinobluevogel6458 It's the same reason so many people joylessly play slot machines for hours and hours: addiction. Some people are just particularly prone to this kind of addition.

[@coderaven1107]

@@terrencebucker And it will only get worse in the future, as more techniques are prone to be found or engineered and added to the box.

[@jsharpvideos1861]

The most thorough analysis I’ve found on this subject

[@lilac404]

Thank you so much for this information. It makes me sad to see how game’s transformed into getting money from players. If you’re a game developer or hoping to go into that field help the gaming community by making better games for everyone.

[@HealingBlight]

As someone with a degree in programming and a masters in design, I see this video and my prospects in the modern game industry and I feel like a biochemist whose career was not in creating helpful drugs they aspired to but in finding more addictive ones.

[@Vomgnar.]

Good analogy. Even Bayer did one good thing though, aspirin. But also, heroine. Oops. I don't think the corporate gamer snakes have ever done one good thing though. :P

[@kamitorings]

@@Vomgnar. they brought enjoyment before, but now they showed their true face, sadly the popularity of gaming has people not giving a shit where they put their money, and alas gaming as a whole is pretty much over, has been since the early 2010 where you start seeing the problem get brought up to the surface more, time to find another hobby if you enjoy video games, unless you're a shill with no shame that feeds dogshit companies money for bad games, majority it seems.

[@Eddygeek18]

I've been developing games for 15 years and i'm lookingat the industry now wondering if i've made the right choice in career, i'm doing a data science degree now so can shift to machine learning or data management which is becoming more and mor elikely each year. I looked through Steam games this year and there wasn't a single game i wanted to play i can smell monetization a mile off and i guess i'm one of the few that these techniques don't have the same effect on. I don't mind a loot box or two with some cosmetics for a game that has been made well but start adding in battle passes, currency or energy and the game can go in the trash where it belongs.

[@goldengrill769]

@@Eddygeek18 Data science is pretty dope but you gotta admit you're basically responsible for ending humanity as we know it like with AI Art so maybe videogames microtransactions aren't...that bad?

[@Lol_Pig]

There's still a market for *good* games. Just do the opposite of what the big guys are doing and people will flock to you. I wish you great success!

[@merumeruYo]

After many years of enjoying online games, the modern monetization made me go back to single player games instead and now I have much more fun playing games than ever before. So thank you Farmville and Diablo Immortal.

[@gotdangedcommiesitellyahwa6298]

Completely understandable. What's stupid is the amount of single player games now that require internet access. I don't need a F'ing cloud to save my games, the damn computer has a hard drive!

[@A.D.D.O.C.D.T]

Try Farm Sim 22 ,no lie.

[@firstNamelastName-ho6lv]

Made me turn to indie games. Couldn't be happier.

[@ahuman32478]

Minecraft? Subnautica? Undertale?

[@Martin_Huetter]

Absolutely, for like 95% of games I think the fun is over, sometimes an honest game like Elden RIng peaks around the corner but that gets very rare now. I just picked up this old Tower Defense Game "Bloons" with the balloons and monkeys up for free on epic. I naively thought, ok thats a nostalgic throwback, lets play some. Within the first few minutes, I encountered an in-game instant upgrade for real money and my smile plummeted and I hit altf4 and uninstalled that shit... nothing is save.

[@JeffersKael]

Very interesting! Thank you!

[@fdfd4739]

I see it as an abusive relationship. I don't see a difference when people are manipulated into a hard-to-leave mental drain. Break it off because it's only more painful the longer you give in.

[@freecomkcf]

i play Dungeon Fighter Online a lot, but have no money to spend on it (nor wouldn't even if i did), and actually enjoy the core gameplay loop. apparently this is more and more of a minority opinion the more endgame you get, and have apparently become something of a minor meme in DFO's community because i do endgame just barely making DPS cutlines from event handouts instead of... well, paying to win. i don't give a fat flying fuck about keeping up with the Joneses, so the Joneses get offended that a poor guy is polluting their scenery.

[@testname4464]

Unfortunately breaking off an abusive relationship is hard. I know my dad is evil, I know he's a horrible person, and I know he's hurting my mother, but I need money and he has it

[@MadassSoerensen]

Some people might need help to break away from it, if it was so "easy" to break away from i guess it wouldn't be so profitable

[@mayconlcruz]

@@MadassSoerensen And the reason why this isn't easy is that, at the end of the day, gaming for many people isn't just a means of entertainment. Gaming is art, it's a form of expression, it's a part of many people's personalities and life experiencies. Saying that getting rid of something that formed you as a person is "easy" is an absurd lack of consideration. It's things like this that make us increasingly convinced that taking any form of art and expression and turning it into a profit-oriented machine, held hostage by large corporations in exchange for "more complex experiences" was too expensive of a price to be paid

[@yewtewbstew547]

The thing is there are great games that don't do this being made. Maybe not as regularly as I'd like, but they're there. So it's more like breaking off an abusive relationship with a 5 whilst at the same time you've a bunch of 10's DMing you nudes lol. That _should_ make it easier.

[@stevecarter8810]

The book 'evil by design' is a must read for any participant in gaming or social media. It talks about cow clicker which was built only to illustrate evil game design tricks, but then took Facebook by storm

[@monchete9934]

That feeling when your meta critic of evil game design turns into a saturated genre unabashedly using the same (or worse) strategies than the ones you were parodying. Gaming is a joke

[@MegaZeta]

What went wrong is when people started calling it "gaming" and themselves "gamers". "Gaming" was a euphemism for gambling, and "gamers" for gamblers, particularly those who kept coming back, and that was for a reason. Playing video games is a vice, like smoking or alcohol. It's a mostly harmless one. But make it your identity, elevate "gamer" above "drinker" or "smoker", and you paint *"CHUMP"* on your back.

[@tfwnoyandere]

@@MegaZeta ah yes a label is responsible for capitalism

[@SioxerNikita]

@@MegaZeta The crazy pills... This reads like moon landing conspiracy. You know that board games are also games and you could be a board gamer (or gamer for short), therefore board games have tons of monetization tricks, anti-consumer behaviors and deliberately frustrating game design to encourage the gamers to buy more for their board game? Oh wait... No... You saw a correlation (the word gamer) and created an entire fiction to tie that correlation to causation, while no such link exists. This is simply a few companies trying micro transactions and other companies seeing how successful it is and copying it... And now we have today...

[@antaresmaelstrom5365]

@@monchete9934 Feels like Monopoly all over.

[@RobFeldkamp]

Great video. Very well articulated. Concrete, clear and respectful. But let's be honest, the legendary uglynes of your Oblicion character takes the cake :)

[@Denzellol]

I love my present game deveoper pie charts, always nice to see they still put effort into magazine ads

[@voxisabot]

"Money is temporary, but doom is eternal"

[@fiece4767]

Life is 1 but CS is 1.6 😆

[@ManiacMonkboon]

I see what you did there. Well played, well played. 😁

[@tropicvibe]

Lol cause i was just thinking about the old days playing with 3.5 floppy disks...Doom was my 2nd pc game since i was introduced to Wolfenstein first. Holy cow i feel real old now

[@aussiehighlands2715]

Money is temporary, Mick Gordons Career Didnt deserve to be ruined by ID Software.

[@walidfakhfakh3660]

@@fiece4767 no

[@doctorgames101b]

Remember gamers...."You will own nothing and be happy." And if you apply that to today's gaming, it will get worse as time progresses by 2030 and beyond. Good video, Josh.

[@nostaligsoundtracker]

At Disney World you own nothing, and that's the happiest place in the world.

[@somerandomchannel382]

well thought video, lets hope it stays available to public and not being removed due to "angry business owners"

[@TheDisturbed0ne1]

Bad thing is I very rarely get excited for new games anymore, and haven't been for like the past 5 years. Good thing is my backlog with amazing games is larger than what I'll be able to finish during my lifetime! And if I for some reason would get locked out of my 1300 games steam account, I rest easy knowing most games are safely preserved on the high seas.

[@dtaylor7003]

WELL, I OWN GUNS....... AND THAT'LL DO! REMEMBER YUVAL NOAH HARARI AND KLAUS SCHWAB WANT YOU HOOKED ON COMPUTER GAMES SO YOU STAY A GOOD SLAVE!!

[@warlock_r]

​@@TheDisturbed0ne1 Fax. I thought I would always play the latest releases once I got off my potato PC. Now that I got a decent PC, there's little to no worthwhile AAA releases. I constantly find myself playing the older games I missed or those hidden indie gems.

[@StarlightNkyra]

Can we just agree that nearly no one really views anyone as human in these exchanges anymore? From the corporate side, we are just printers, where the higher ups have opened our lids to take out the paper. The developers working on the product are seeing their bosses filled with greed, monsters often forcing them to overwork themselves; They don’t look at the game and imagine the positive and fun impact it's going to make for consumers, they see them hunched over, falling for manipulation tactics, wallet out, feeding the monsterpeice the dev is being forced to make in order to make a living. From the consumer side, we start to see these companies we love shower us with crap for the money we pay them, and begin to despise them so much, once we see that they have a whole garbage bag full of these garbage bags. We don't act like they're human at all, and for the first time in many of our lives, we start to shun them, and go back inside. We turn to indie titles, made mostly by people who care about what they're making. If these companies ever want us to come back out, they need to stow away the garbage bags and bring out the detailed and delious cakes. This, of course is applicable to many industries currently, because for some reason everyone's sacrificing their customer respect, the companies soul, and long term profits for short term profits.

[@HunkMine]

You forgot another microtranstion. Timed exclusively, where you can buy a game a week before others if you pay another $30 like Starfield, 2k Basketball, or Diablo IV. They are often "premium edition" which used to come with cool toys, but not it's just early release and skins/microtranaction currency usually. You could even follow this up with very low amount of video game innovation in AAA games since they stick with sequels and microtransactions.

[@TheBigBoss117]

I’ve been playing video games since I was 3 years old, I am now 31. It’s truly a shame to see gaming transform throughout the years to what it is now due to these systems and tactics… I want to remind everyone of one thing that renders these systems obsolete, and that is choice. That is something you hold and can’t be taken from you.

[@someone-ji2zb]

Majority of people who play video games are fine with the monetization.

[@jeffperson244]

i agree and i would add that Collective power we have is a gaming community i mean we changed ea"s shity star wars game. It is my hope that we can protect gaming by putting pressure on these big companies

[@florent3723]

Yes and no. It's hard not to pay when they use everything to make you pay, including psychologie. Some players will not pay but there will always be some who get trapped.

[@DylanHart8]

@@florent3723 so don’t buy or support or even talk about (positively at least) any game that uses these predatory monetisation tactics, and encourage your friends and peers to do the same.

[@jordansherard1155]

Very poetic and true and very hard to do

[@UNJELL]

A new red flag to add will be a massive and sudden influencer support for a game, the strong deny of p2w mechanics, changing names or using lovely terms to describe loot boxes. I have being slowly moving to the indie scene because every new AAA game is following this trend. Great video, perfectly on target and I think voices the frustration many gamers have.

[@SimuLord]

Welcome to the indie space, all the cool kids are over here. Plus one grouchy old man in Seattle. But mostly the cool kids.

[@DumplingDoodle]

@@SimuLord it wouldn't be the same without him

[@mized4]

Lost ark pay 2 win deniers was hilarious

[@skywiseminecraft2629]

Stephany Sterling did a lot of coverage of this. One aspect your missing is the fact a lot of fantasy players played D&D and thatsd their model. Sell you the base game, then books to expand on it.

[@khalidbashir4017]

7:54 i like how you used Kratos’ Pandora’s Box 😆

[@thecomedian5933]

Dont forget that going to an arcade was a fun social experience in itself. Meeting new people and challenging them face to face at Street Fighter Alpha, or teaming up with a stranger to beat Time Crisis together, then becoming friends. You dont get that with online gaming (at least not in the same way anyways). And renting games was a reasonable thing. You paid a small amount and you got the entire game, not parts of a game. Sometimes you had to rent it multiple times, but it always felt worth it.

[@desmonddickerson4171]

I agree. I remember playing against/teaming up with random players in “Run n’ Gun 2,” Crusin World, and NBA Hangtime in the arcade. Or, sometimes, bringing my PS2 in the common room of the dorm, leaving my multi tap with 3 controllers, playing Balder’s Gate, and waiting to see who would come up to play with me. No frills. No “achievements.” Just fun gameplay with friends.

[@Marcara081]

And now we get banned for saying no-no words to people who don't care if we say them and use them themselves.

[@triadwarfare]

As an introvert... ew. Social stuff. I play alone.

[@dot620]

also, in arcades you were paying to play for longer, which is very different to paying to skip a timer, progress faster or to unlock a character otherwise locked behind dozens of hours of meaningless slog. the former case has you buying more time because it is fun to play, the latter cases hold as a prerequisite that you are willing to pay to spend less time because the game quite intentionally has become unbearably boring.

[@mark0183]

😢 god the nostalgia

[@joshuapatrick682]

I wouldn’t call this “bad” design but I would call it “Patently Evil” design.

[@techstuff9198]

If only it was actually patented, we'd be dealing with much less of it.

[@anti-ethniccleansing465]

I’m curious why this guy pretends as if home gaming consoles weren’t huge af in the 80s? Is he simply too young to remember (not be alive then, or was only a baby)?

[@vittocrazi]

@@anti-ethniccleansing465 or from a zone where console prices were prohibiting...

[@anti-ethniccleansing465]

@@vittocrazi Prohibiting? Huh? What do you mean? Even if his parents were poor, he’d know that _TONS_ of kids were gaming on Atari and then Nintendo in the 80s if he actually was alive during that decade. All my friends had Atari at least back then.

[@vittocrazi]

@@anti-ethniccleansing465 the definitivo of "poor" IS contextual. I live in a 3rd world country, and in the 90's, everything came súper late... At least 4 years lagging. It was specially true with technology, that was also way more expensive than in dólar price tag.

[@christopherrice6553]

love your work

[@philm94]

The only ray of light, is there's at least some push for legislation to erode the most predatory parts of this. Loot boxes (unknown rewards) and premium currency shenanigans are definitely on the table in a lot of countries. Governments are seeing the impacts - these games help create lifelong gamblers - so hopefully we're experiencing the worst of it right now.

[@daviddumon4020]

I have played elder scrolls online for two years, and the chapter about daily-habit-forming in this video is spot on. I thought the base game was very good and did not suffer from being bad or lacking when you did not buy cosmetic extras. In the end, after two years of feeling that daily urge to have to play to complete daily quests, daily crafting orders, daily dungeons and weekly sales, I decided to go cold turkey and just abruptly uninstalled it. It felt like getting rid of an addiction.

[@dakotahaithcock6676]

Congratulations sir. You're better off now and I'm proud of you

[@ephgm]

I did the same thing with World of Warcraft. I was a guild leader of one of the biggest guilds on a classic server, most recently. I went on a trip for a couple weeks, and never went back to the game. I still have an urge every now and then though. It really is like an addiction, from what I hear... Something like smoking cigarettes for years and stopping, every once in a while you still get an urge. I've never had any other addictions than gaming, personally.

[@HereticDuo]

Thats because you DID get rid of an addiction. Gaming addiction is just as real and addictive as smoking, it produces nerochemicals that you grow dependant on just like any drug, the only difference is its getting your body to produce them based on sensory stumli instead of chemical.

[@babayega1717]

That's how its done bro. BRAVO.

[@IL_Bgentyl]

For me personally I like dailys. They give me an easy goal to start the ball rolling. Don’t get me wrong they are typically bad but some games use it as a opportunity to catch up the casual player and working class which I respect. Much like rested xp.

[@TheMCCraftingTable]

Sadly younger gamers who never played games from "the golden age" will tend to have difficulties understanding just how bad things are now.

[@StandingUpForBetter]

Just introduce them to retro gaming.

[@Maeda_Toshiie]

@@StandingUpForBetter Unlikely to work except for the rare few who care about gameplay. Most will simply complain about the old graphics.

[@drunclecookie216]

it's the same with movies and shows

[@KirikkSiSq]

@@Maeda_Toshiie well, fun fact: my parents never liked video games, plus in 2011, when I went to school, I had no friends, so no one would learn me how to gaming. So, at first, I only knew about emulated J2ME, Flash and some browser games, the latter ones had microtransactions, where I couldn't pay 'cause I didn't know how. Then, on a licensed Ice Age 2 DVD, I found a link, which later allowed me to find a Eurocom game, which ultimately became my first real game. Years later, I understood those browser game were that microtransaction trash, and that's why mobile games are like this, because all those things came there from browser games

[@Valomek]

Or maybe older "gamers" have a hard time understanding that these old games were still shitty

[@jamesdean0885]

22:50 haha, I never knew. Figured it gave expansions when they came out. Glad I never got one. 😅

[@Entertained45]

the visualization adds so much to the magnitude of the situation.

[@Motyy]

Thats why you should start playing indie games. The developers of indie games put passion and ideas in their games to make the best experience for the players. They most of the time don´t care about battle passes and stuff like this. They just want the game to be fun.

[@johnthehumanist2333]

STATIONEERS!😄👍

[@goddessesstartrekonlinefle3061]

I did that with MineCraft. Notch is such a let down (but for a while there, it was amazing). I agree your position though, investing in the smaller gamer creators is important (just, their not magically above the same kinds of temptations of that box).

[@chrishansenisapatofile5746]

🤣🤣🤣

[@jimboTTT]

No bro, I want to play AAA games

[@BruceCichowlas]

As far as games with an original experience for me, the ones that worked out that way were 4 out of 5 indie games. Sure, some are a bit shallow or ill-conceived, but the real original gems are there. (And I say that as a gamemaker out of Spinnaker and Trillium, if any one remembers those, and with a few current titles of my own.)

[@Bamfhammer]

You need to include that the horse armor pack appeared to protect your horse and only after it was purchased was it found to not do so.

[@min24434]

Really? That's such a scummy move!

[@Milchjaeger]

@@min24434 afaik it was just called Horse armor and no description whatsoever

[@justinhammer3196]

It was a 1.50. Stop blaming Bethesda and MS for every evil in gaming.

[@Bamfhammer]

@@justinhammer3196 It might be 1.50 now, it wasn't then. And I bought it specifically so my horse would stop dying when it decided to join me in battle literally every time.

[@Zeppathy]

I mean, it's ARMOR. Protection is implied. Imagine if it had been armor for your player, and then was as useless as the armor for your horse. Everyone would have lost their shit.😂

[@tolgaakyay]

There was no feeling like finishing Final Fight with a single coin! We did it all beat"em up games in our arcade :)

[@lucianSom]

There's another technique that I thought you were gonna touch on. When you mentioned how the base game is now the framework and all the content of the game is sold through microtransactions. EA has improved that technique by changing the Sims 4 from a prices based game to a free base game because they know if we want to fully experience the Sims we would need to buy the dlc. So let people playing the base empty game for free and get hooked so they can buy the cash cow Dlc

[@fuchsfarben]

Indie developers are the only thing keeping my hope and trust in games and devs alive. No scummy shops, if you buy something you have it forever. Love indie games :)

[@Cankbruh]

99.9% of indie games are low effort trash

[@neek01]

There’s still a metric shit ton of indie devs who attempt this though. The difference is that they often don’t have the marketing behind it and just fail on arrival.

[@DayneofRamuh]

While indie games are good I fear that market saturation is going to cause another Video Game Crash. See Wikipedia re: Video Game Crash of 1983. Atari flooded the market and people stopped playing and buying videogames.

[@valenten89]

@@DayneofRamuh too many amazing games can be a bad thing indeed. only so much free time after all.

[@msolomonii9825]

Agree 100%