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Current Events in the gaming landscape started making me think about consumer buying habits. Something that's particularly annoying to me is seeing the idea of a high-profile game absolutely shitting the bed in terms of bugs being called "the next Cyberpunk". Specifically, it is the idea that Cyberpunk's awful launch state was in any way a significant or teachable moment to AAA publishers at large. "Execs rush game out before it's done because Money TM, hide it before release, and it's Really Fucking Bad" is a tale as old as the industry itself (E.T.!). Before Cyberpunk, there was Anthem. Before Anthem, there was Fallout 76. Before Fallout 76, there was AC Unity. Before AC Unity, there was Alien Colonial Marines. Before Alien... you get the idea. Cyberpunk is not shocking at all - the industry has had a "Cyberpunk" almost every year or two! Every time people say "surely this will teach people to Hashtag NeverPreorder" and it never does, and never will. And honestly? Saddling the consumer base with the responsibility of fixing the industry is fucking stupid.
The problem here is that even if every person against something boycotted it, they will barely be a blip on the radar because the casual consumer base simply lack that level of scruples due to lower investment. (Note I do not mean this as a knock against more passive fans at all, just stating the facts that enthusiasts are more likely to keep to those kind of things). So if the thing you want to change has mass appeal, the idea of "voting with your wallet" having an effect is dead out the gate. Hell, the entire idea of it is based on an ideology as fundamentally broken as meritocratic capitalism. "Too big to fail" franchises such as CoD and Pokemon are as such only partly because of quality, and have hit a level of brand inertia that they can coast forever pardoning extreme fuck-ups.
An aside: this is the part where I fully admit I may be overthinking, but with this in mind I do kinda wonder how much of the time "voting with your wallet" is pushed by fanboys as a discussion-terminating argument. Cause if that doesn't work, then next recourse is to yell and bitch about it online (something I would argue is much more effective than most think).
You may ask, then, what's the alternative? I'd say the only way that the constant "Cyberpunks" can be stopped is getting governments involved, creating game dev unions, and setting up consumer advocacy/watchdog networks. The game industry has proven over and over and over and over and over that it can not and will not regulate itself. The ride down the slippery slope will only get bumpier from here on.
TL;DR the gaming demographic is so huge that expecting a big enough number of them to "wise up" is wasting energy. Which sounds more realistic: train hundreds of millions of people to properly identify and disengage with predatory games to the point that they never make money and stop being made, or build infrastructure that enforces accountability so those predatory games aren't made in the first place?
EDIT: modified the framing of the post to improve focus, didn't want the thread to get derailed
The problem here is that even if every person against something boycotted it, they will barely be a blip on the radar because the casual consumer base simply lack that level of scruples due to lower investment. (Note I do not mean this as a knock against more passive fans at all, just stating the facts that enthusiasts are more likely to keep to those kind of things). So if the thing you want to change has mass appeal, the idea of "voting with your wallet" having an effect is dead out the gate. Hell, the entire idea of it is based on an ideology as fundamentally broken as meritocratic capitalism. "Too big to fail" franchises such as CoD and Pokemon are as such only partly because of quality, and have hit a level of brand inertia that they can coast forever pardoning extreme fuck-ups.
An aside: this is the part where I fully admit I may be overthinking, but with this in mind I do kinda wonder how much of the time "voting with your wallet" is pushed by fanboys as a discussion-terminating argument. Cause if that doesn't work, then next recourse is to yell and bitch about it online (something I would argue is much more effective than most think).
You may ask, then, what's the alternative? I'd say the only way that the constant "Cyberpunks" can be stopped is getting governments involved, creating game dev unions, and setting up consumer advocacy/watchdog networks. The game industry has proven over and over and over and over and over that it can not and will not regulate itself. The ride down the slippery slope will only get bumpier from here on.
TL;DR the gaming demographic is so huge that expecting a big enough number of them to "wise up" is wasting energy. Which sounds more realistic: train hundreds of millions of people to properly identify and disengage with predatory games to the point that they never make money and stop being made, or build infrastructure that enforces accountability so those predatory games aren't made in the first place?
EDIT: modified the framing of the post to improve focus, didn't want the thread to get derailed
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