The gameplay doesn’t look bad to me, I am interested into it. It has way bigger problems, like the unpopular character styles and looks. But what do you mean by “abusive industry practices”? I like the idea of paying upfront and getting the whole game, way better than a Free to play model to me. But I guess that approach isn’t working in today’s world.
Price plays a role too, only 17,55 Euros for Squirrel here and Concord 40 Euros, plus 20 for Deluxe.
I was interested into Concord, not gonna lie. But even if I wanted to buy and play the game, accept their terms of usage and create a Sony account, its not playable on Linux. And to be honest, I’m thankful for not being able to waste my money and time.
But they have the NES / Famicom version of Tetris, which is owned by Nintendo too. Unless they mean the infamous Tengen / Atari version on NES (some say its better, but there were legal trouble because of Nintendo).
In general talking about something bad, disappointing or controversal is always a good way to generate clicks. That works for news too. We humans are wired just like that. So its not something that has become recently a bad habit, this is something happening since decades, before and outside of gaming as well.
It’s a bit too early to judge. Just my 2c Edit: At least the person who wrote the article seems to understand and play those games. So I give him that. From content wise, this is a good article.
Videogames is a form of games. Every game you play will help during bad times. Racing? Puzzles? Story? Competition? Social? Is it really that surprising that Videogames CAN help with mental health during bad times?