Ross is right, if you don't propose an alternative and don't actually try to do anything to bring that alternative to the public, why don't you just fuck off?
Wtf are you talking about? He specifically says that he wants to have a conversation with people that will give constructive criticism, not someone that’s just complaining and not giving any solutions or alternatives to solve the problem.
Alternatives would be boycotts directed at the worst offenders and a law that ensures service games are clearly labeled so consumers can make an informed choice instead of banned outright. I’m going to get downvoted and told to fuck off because I’m wrong regardless of what I say unless it’s “I 100% support this”.
Boycotts are fickle things, sometimes gathering a following big enough to make a corporation cave, but many other times, not getting any steam at all.
And even if a boycott is successful against one company, it doesn’t mean they won’t try the same thing again, or try their usual ‘do something extreme, then walk it back to where you originally wanted it’ two-step, which is generally very effective at getting what they want. They know how to manipulate the public to their desires, they have whole divisions dedicated to that (though sometimes even they get caught unawares). If we went this route, the issue is that this tactic is done frequently enough that people would likely get boycott fatigue. “Ugh, another campaign? Another publisher screwing us? I just can’t anymore.”
At least against corporations, actual consumer protection law is a much more reliable long-term solution to an enemy that will try every tactic to avoid real, effective change in favor of the consumer.
First off, thanks for a response that isn’t filled with hate! It’s been rare when I’ve made posts about this topic. I appreciate it!
If we went this route, the issue is that this tactic is done frequently enough that people would likely get boycott fatigue. “Ugh, another campaign? Another publisher screwing us? I just can’t anymore.”
Are there really that many companies screwing over consumers? I’d appreciate if Stop Killing Games actually kept a running list of which companies and which games are anti-consumer. They’ve got The Crew but what other games? If it’s really just The Crew then the issue is with Ubisoft, not the gaming industry. A big list would make it clear this is an industry wide issue that needs to be addressed.
I’m also not sold on the idea that a ban is the only way to protect consumers. Cigarettes literally kill consumers, but total bans on them are rare. Instead, consumers are given a very clear message when buying cigarettes. It’s up to the consumer to decide if they’re alright with it. Are service games worse than cigarettes?
Now a practice doesn’t need to kill people before a law bans it. Recently there have been laws enacted so that if a company sells a subscription online they must allow for cancellation of that subscription online. Frequently, companies would require people to call a customer service line to cancel a subscription, but that could be a huge hassle to do! It’s clear that companies do this only to try and screw over customers and there’s no reason it should exist as a practice, so banning it makes sense. Are live service games the same? They definitely could be, but I also think there are legitimate reasons to sell games as a service. Instead of banning it completely, why not just ensure service games come with a clear label like cigarettes. A note that access to the game is not permanent and the company can revoke it in the future. If someone doesn’t like that, they don’t need to play it.
Ive seen two arguments against “why not just let consumers decide for themselves?” The idea that consumers don’t have a choice. All companies will eventually sell their games in this way and consumers won’t be able to avoid it even if they wanted to. I would agree if the gaming industry was a monopoly and gamers really didn’t have any choice, but that’s not the case at all. Gaming is probably one of the most competitive industries in the modern world thanks to how easy it is for anyone to make a game and sell it worldwide. Gamers have enough choice that I don’t see the “monopoly” argument as persuasive as it is in something like the right to repair movement.
The other argument seems to be “games are art and must be protected” but that leaves the realm of consumer protection and enters philosophy. There aren’t laws mandating the protection of other forms of art so I’m doubtful any government would enact such a law. Also, personally have to disagree. I’m in favour of the Buddhist idea of impermanence. Everything is temporary and trying to make a game exist forever is as silly as trying to live forever. Focus on enjoying your life, as temporary as it is, instead of being down that it is temporary. I think games can be enjoyed in the same way. Of course, if a company is purposefully making it temporary to try and make a few extra bucks, that’s shitty and should be called out, but we’ve gone back to consumer protection instead of philosophy.
But the problem is usually much larger where a game requires you to login to play even the single player component but is unable to do so with entire services going down, such as gamespy or others, more on that here:
There’s quite a few others, but I do agree with the point that there should be an aggregate for all of these, that could be presented as a universal list that hopefully stops growing in the coming years.
There’s also the problem of “going digital”. Previously you’d have at least the physical disks/mediums of the game in your possession but with the ever growing digital only culture, the moment a game gets delisted and you can no longer download it, that is it. Cult classic or not.
P.S - Nintendo seems to have liked your Buddhist idea of impermanence and has done that to Super Mario 35, existed for a total of 6 months. Personally, I would’ve liked to at least try it seeing how it hasn’t been all that long ago.
Thanks for the lists! Delistedgames seems to focus more on games that aren’t sold anymore rather than shutdown. For example, they list Grand Theft Auto IV as a delisted game because they only sell Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition now.
Weird that TVTropes seems to have a better list of games that not only aren’t sold anymore but don’t work even if you bought them. It’s an interesting list. I feel bad for all the people who played Family Guy Online for the 8 months it existed in 2012!
The Kotaku list is nice too but they do note that some of the games are still playable single player. It’s only the online multiplayer that’s not going to work since the servers are shutting down. I’m not sure how I feel about that one. Is it still killing a game if single player modes still work?
Are there really that many companies screwing over consumers? I’d appreciate if Stop Killing Games actually kept a running list of which companies and which games are anti-consumer.
Before Ross started this campaign, he’d been steadily creating a video series dedicated to cataloging games that are killed for the past 8 years, called Dead Game News. Here’s a link to a playlist of the series, and you can see the titles of the games that have been killed in the title of the episodes. The Crew is certainly not alone, it was chosen to be a centerpiece of the campaign because it had so many people who owned it, having a fairly high profile shutdown, and being a super clear-cut example of a publisher actively disabling a game that clearly didn’t need to be.
I’m also not sold on the idea that a ban is the only way to protect consumers.
Instead of banning it completely,
I want to point out that outright banning live service games has never been suggested or wanted in this campaign. The proposed solution is to make it a legal requirement to have an end-of-life plan for live service games that are not subscription based. This would effectively mean the publisher/developer would need to account for the need to make the game playable after they decide to end support from the beginning of development, and make choices that would make that possible (choosing software and licenses that won’t conflict with an End-of-Life). Alternatively, they could either make it not require a central server at all, or make it subscription based.
While the game is supported, they would still be able to run it however they please, their profit model would not be banned, the only thing that changes is what happens when the game is no longer profitable enough to support.
I’m in favour of the Buddhist idea of impermanence. Everything is temporary and trying to make a game exist forever is as silly as trying to live forever.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but many people have the philosophy of preserving our history, so as to learn from it, and for future generations to experience. I personally am very grateful that I can read the thoughts of someone who lived a thousand years before me in a book, thanks to fanatical archivists who preserved it. It’s the closest any of us can come to experiencing a time machine, the very concept can fill one with awe. Nothing will last forever, but I and many others derive meaning and value from keeping history alive for future generations to learn from, to enjoy, to ponder. Us preserving things in our corner does not disturb someone else from living with impermanence, it is only there for those who wish to partake.
Unfortunately, boycotts and labels are not enough. I wish we didn’t have to involve the government in this, believe me. There are dozens of different dark patterns and malicious compliance that companies apply to trick customers into buying things. You might be someone informed enough that would not fall for those tricks, but there a lot of people that would benefit from a law that prevents companies from doing that in the first place (children, people with mental disorders like gambling addiction, etc).
I think the most realistic alternative is to just have an ‘earliest end-of-life date’ plainly visible at the time of purchase. Keeping these games online forever isn’t feasible, but shutting down something people paid for with the expectation of continuous service isn’t good either. Just make it clear how long the developers WILL support the game for, at the very minimum, and let people make their decision based on that. And mandate refunds for any live service game that doesn’t last as long as promised.
The “buy” button (or any similar verbiage) needs to go away (unless the provider intends for it to be available forever) and replaced with “rent for x years”.
The people that matter have gotten paid anyway, unless of course the publisher steal from them too, which happens from time to time, see Bethesda and Mick Gordon.
Thankfully the talent still exists, so they might move on to other places, do their own thing, or leave game dev altogether.
Gamedev is an extremely toxic career, and it has been for a very long time. I’m glad people are finally starting to at least somewhat care, if only for the studios themselves.
Damn, this video is garbage. Lots of yelling about smudging and “HOW COULD THEY?!” And then complains about how people aren’t implementing any effects like he says. And that part about “I told Epic Unreal 5.5 wasn’t ready!” Like he actually matters to Tim Sweeney.
Avoid the video. Nothing of substance or value is within.
He makes some fair points but I fully agree with your sentiment.
Had this man made a less confrontational and more educational video, he would be much more widely regarded as a fair source. Alas, he thinks the raging grants him clicks
ANYTHING that has a “lazy devs” narrative is shit and not worth your time. Because anyone with a modicum of intelligence about how games actually are made isn’t going to throw that shit can because they understand just what kinds of pressures development teams are under.
The reality is? Yeah. Some stuff very clearly has been under-focused on. Part of that MIGHT be related to the complete wasteland it is for funding for indie devs coupled with the mass layoffs amongst major publishers and platform holders but that would be completely insane to see any correlation between them.
The other is that we are more or less insisting devs support two completely orthogonal lighting systems this generation. Without raytracing? You need to really zhuzh up everything like in the old days. With raytracing? That all looks wrong and you need to change all the lighting to be hyperrealistic so that it looks the same (rather than what a dimly lit subway ACTUALLY would look like) without people realizing it. Once we reach the point of having one scheme (and DOOM The Dark Ages or whatever is targeting that), things get a lot simpler.
I found that channel a couple weeks ago and without having much insight into the development side of games myself, I just thought their videos couldn‘t look more shady if they tried. Especially the plugging of their own company (?) and call for donations among other things left a bad taste. They should work on their presentation IMO.
I appreciate you digging up the link and even timestamping the relevant area. Top class, thank you very much.
Also I forgot just how utterly massive of a cunt the Artesian CEO was. Man had significant Elon Musk vibes, Just didnt have the money or family money to stop his fall.
Yeah even in this video the guy was saying they used to be great, but after having like 3 motherboards fail prematurely and dealing with their crappy RMA process, I learned long ago that their reputation isn’t deserved. I did buy a couple of their routers which seems fine for now but I won’t be giving them more money in the future after watching this
Back in university at the turn of the millennia I was a front-line desktop support guy and the amount of Acer and Asus laptops that came in just completely falling apart was insane.
I was in college around the same time and recall doing my usual minimum research for a new system and still to this day think "acer's crap, right?" when someone mentions it, even though the memory of why is gone.
Acers would start with a QWERTY and after a few months would be down to Q–R-T. If you were lucky one of your USB ports hasn’t detached from the motherboard.
I don’t have experience with their systems, but I had to go back to the store twice for an Acer monitor. First monitor had a dead HDMI port, second had a gap in the chassis at the top. Don’t know why I didn’t just go with a different one after the second replacement; it would end up developing a line of shadowing after about 18 months.
Portal (1 and 2) and The Talos Principle are the only puzzle games I've played that not only had a story, but also managed to make the puzzle gameplay actually make sense within the story. Like, there is an in-universe explanation for why you are solving puzzles. I'm sure there are other games that do it, but those are the only ones I've played and they were fantastic. That's a hard thing to pull off -- how do you make a compelling narrative, complete with characters, around "moving some boxes?"
Looking forward to playing the sequel. Also, the original is $3 on Steam right now!
I don’t see how anyone can consider the sound puzzles in the jungle, the Tetris piece puzzles in the swamp and the color theory puzzles in the greenhouse the same kind of puzzle and be arguing in good faith.
The game has multiple “endings”. My only advice: Don’t start a second playthrough or browse any online communities until you’ve reached the credit scroll. I wish someone had told me that before I started…
Like, there is an in-universe explanation for why you are solving puzzles.
That observation actually made me go through my library looking for more examples and, yeah, it’s surprisingly few. There’s ‘The Entropy Centre’, which also falls into the “You’re a test subject” category. Other than that there’s the Zachtronics games, where the reason for puzzle-solving is because it’s your work.
In Zachtronics Infinifactory, the setting is that aliens have kidnapped you and force you to build things for them, in return for kibble and other things humans like, such as a little league third place trophy. Always enjoyed that.
I see the word EPIC in a gaming title and my brain immediately goes "OH NO, not them again. What fucked shit are they trying to convince everyone of now?"
It’s almost as if Epic actually does have developers’ and the industry’s best interests at heart despite the shit takes from the terminally-online Gamer™ crowd…
It’s not entirely against their own self-interest. More accessible engines on the market means more beginner devs who may graduate to Epic in a few years, and more products to sell on the EGS. Also more devs potentially means more asset store customers.
Regardless, it’s certainly more helpful to the industry than Unity at the moment.
Mozilla’s primary revenue is from Google, because Google doesn’t want Chrome to be broken up by the FTC. Same reason Microsoft kept Apple afloat in the dark times before Jobs returned.
I strongly disagree with the premise that there’s a “wrong” way to play retro games. Don’t gatekeep. Imagine if people told you not to listen to Pink Floyd unless it’s on vinyl. It would be lost media.
That said, CRTs present images fundamentally differently than LCD displays, and a lot of developers took advantage of those idiosyncrasies. There are scanlines everywhere. CRT phosphors aren’t square, and appear smaller when darker. Bright pixels can “bleed” into nearby pixels, particularly when using composite signals.
Before LCDs, many (not all) pixel artists used this to their advantage, basically harnessing the imperfections of analog TV to provide equivalents to anti-aliasing, bloom, extra color depth, and even transparency. Some particularly famous examples came from Sega Genesis games. This video goes into good depth on the whys and hows, and there are some solid examples of the outcomes here.
I’ve attached examples below (hopefully they upload). If you like the raw pixel art, then no harm done. Enjoy! But if you like the way CRTs interpreted and filtered those signals, you owe it to yourself to look up some shaders for your favorite emulator.
I strongly disagree with the premise that there’s a “wrong” way to play retro games.
I understand your sentiment here and you are right too. What I think is, that the wording on this title here is misunderstood. Emulating (old) games without Shaders is not faithful or accurate in the looks. It looks “vastly” different and thus means it looks “wrong”. I interpret the “wrong” in the title as “not faithful”, instead as “bad”, like this: You’re Probably Emulating Retro Games Not Faithful (you need CRT Shaders for the oldschool look)
I pretty much just assume “Free To Play” games are full of microtransactions, is that wrong?
E: to be clear, I don’t think microtransactions are an inherently bad thing. In fact, if people want to make games where other people with more money front the costs of development, I’m all about it.
What I hate is being reminded every 5 minutes that it has garbage skins that I can pay IRL money for.
Yes, there are good games that are just totally free. I’ve enjoyed the hell out of both ΔV: Rings of Saturn and South Scrimshaw lately. Both offer things you can purchase, but you get the full experience without them.
I thought I heard once that the demo is just the full version, but you can just also buy it to support the devs? That might be outdated or just wrong information though.
Also there are several really good open source games which are obviously microtransaction free. OpenTTD from this list is an example and Osu!lazer and SuperTuxKart also come to mind
I have like 1000 hours in Warframe and only spent like 20$ on it. Even that wasn’t really necessarily. You can farm shit and easily make enough of the in game money for what you need selling it to other players.
True, but there is nothing wrong with that really unless it’s a multiplayer game where you get unfair advantages. It’s hard to expect a f2p game to not have micro transactions.
I honestly thought of Mario first but yeah, Tetris, Mario, pacman and maybe space invaders would be instantly recognisable to everyone. If I was to show my non gamer dad a picture of Niko, CJ or Trevor/Michael/Franklin then he would have no idea who they were. Where as the other games he absolutely would recognise the characters or the names.
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