Monday, June 13, 2011

Get Up Stand Up

Cracked recently published a provocative and, well, very depressing look at future trends of the video game industry.  "The 6 Most Ominous Trends in Video Games" is certainly a must-read, and I feel like I should go through all the bullet points in detail, Malstrom-style.  But, like I said, it's very depressing.

Here's what I don't understand.  If the game industry is becoming little more than a three-card monte at a subway station, why is anyone putting up with it?  Why can't these "hardcore" gamers stand up for themselves and demand some rights?  There's no reason to shovel tons of money at crooked game companies who only want to nickel-and-dime you to death.  DRM, DLC, Cloud Gaming, Pay-to-Play...Fer crying out loud, people, show a little backbone.  Stop giving these crooks your hard earned money.

Video games have been around for over 40 years.  We have dozens of game consoles and computers, and literally tens of thousands of video games.  If the entire enterprise disappeared from the Earth tomorrow, we'd be fine.  Our grandchildren would be fine.  Isn't this the real reason why this industry doesn't want to grow?  The small and shrinking clique of "hardcore" fanboys will always shovel out money on cue, receive nothing in return, and beg for seconds.  At this point, they're little more than domesticated pets.

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