Having watched these companies do the things they’ve done to consumers has been almost a sin. Yes, it’s almost a sin to watch the industry in this day and age become what now has been described as a trainwreck. From Fallout Fuck you First to what is left of BioWare’s Anthem and finally to Blizzard and China. There’s a reason I didn’t cover each of these stories as they cropped up day after day. And that’s because I wanted to make sure they went somewhere, and boy howdy did they go somewhere. Blizzcon this year was instigated by protesters and user scanned questions from the website, however this is nothing compared to the fact that leading up today data miners found that Bethesda would continue producing more things for Fallout 76 in hopes of salvaging a mostly sunken ship. Finally, to cap all this off EA is considering scrapping Anthem in its entirety.
So why am I suddenly making a blog post over this?
I think it’s important for people to see this trend and to wake up from whatever dream-like state you consumers have had. Ignore the orange cheeto and drink some coffee cause we’re about to rip a new hole in this industry. While these are only 3 major companies in the gaming industry, they all have one thing in common. PC. A lot of sales of their games are primarily on PC. Unlike Sony, Nintendo or even Microsoft these major publishers of well known games such as World of Warcraft, Fallout, Skyrim and the every notorious Anthem. Watching people be disappointed in companies like Blizzard-Activision is a sad time for all of us. Especially when The Outer Worlds has made such a big splash with fans of games like Fallout.
I think Outer Worlds is the shining gemstone that can give us some hope, but only some hope of the future. People are still very excited for the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 game by CD Projekt Red and as a result are expecting great things from it. I think 2019 has given us enough bad news for this industry that I would not blame people for getting upset. After all, politics are the one thing gamers don’t need in their games. I don’t mean we shouldn’t put political things in games. I mean real world politics between China and the US do not belong in gaming. People should not have to shut up in the US because China said so. Get that political shit out of our games and we’ll go back to ignoring the rest of the world. See, unlike a lot of interest groups out there, gamers generally don’t bother people for the most part. We don’t go out and commit shootings, we don’t go out and harass people or stalk people. Well, most of us don’t.
What I’m trying to say is, gaming for a lot of people is a great way to ignore the outside world at least for a little bit. It’s a great way to avoid watching CNN. It’s a great way to avoid political controversy involving the big orange man. It’s a great way to get away from the world and just sit on your couch as you absorb a story or something. Unfortunately, the world seems not be able to keep it’s political penis away from the rest of us. So what do we do? We protest. We review bomb, we go to blizzcon dressed as Winnie the Pooh or hold Hong Kong flags or we watch as people like Randy Pitchford sit around and call people entitled shitheads because he can’t take the criticism that Borderlands 3 is a bad game. Of course, that is only one man’s opinion.
But it may take time to watch people come to realization that your world is destroyed before we can see change. I don’t expect change to happen overnight. Cause god-willing it won’t. Companies like EA need to understand we’re not going to take your shit anymore and put our foot down by voting with our wallets. Say what you want about Epic and it’s short but terrible run during its development cycle, but it will never compare to what EA has done to damage the industry.
People are willing to forgive 1 or 2 blunders when it comes to this industry because no game is perfect. But that shouldn’t stop developers from taking the easy route or blaming consumers for their lack of faith or thinking consumers are “entitled” when we don’t agree with your shitty decisions. I understand a business still has to make money, but if you want to make money why not just do what Amazon has done and that’s to build customer loyalty. In the end, customer loyalty will eventually bring in more and more customers for your business. Chasing after that quick buck nets you that little bit but you don’t get the long-term gain. And no matter how many investors you have to satisfy, it will never be enough for your consumers.
I’m done, that’s all I have to say on it. Today’s post was a bit long but hey, at least you guys enjoyed it I hope. See you guys next time. Good night, America.
The Grasshole Show Season 3 