I genuinely cannot wait for the impending video game crash, because as far as I am concerned with the current circumstances we find ourselves in, it’s a lost cause.
Why do I say this exactly? What with casuals invading the video game industry by large, demanding beloved franchises one after the after cater to their whims, ideologies and sexualities driving the actual fans out of their industry.
While mainstream media outlets are launching cabals against gamers and video games by shaming developers, mainly Asian developers for producing content that has depictions of women. Because a fictional woman inside a video game isn’t allowed to look like an actual woman, that would be sexist and bring your ESG scores down.
And the all digital future that awaits us.
Combine this with the influx of casuals who adore the modern “cinematic” experience, resulting in games that are hardly innovative, inspirational but thankfully require absolutely zero actual thought power to progress through and complete, and in such extreme cases these video games end up playing like an interactive movie where the only objective is to walk, talk and mash buttons.
And then you have the younger generation, everyone’s bitching about Generation Z, my own demographic and I understand why, modern children these days are just simply mind-fucked from all of the above mentioned issues and are seemingly desensitized to what actually made gaming great in the first place.
Modern children are the ideal customer for these corporate tyrants, born well after the golden age of gaming, which has now devolved into a microtransactional hellscape with always online connectivity, built around live services.
Naturally as you would expect, the children of today would rather receive in-game content such as microtransactional outfits, costumes or in-game currency over actual new games themselves for Christmas a recent study has revealed.
The Entertainment Software Association conducted a survey involving over 500 American children aged between 10 to 17, this is of course a relatively low sample size but nevertheless this survey has revealed what we already know, that majority of children have expressed a desire for video game-related gifts for Christmas.
Exactly what sort of video game related gifts?
Out of the 500 children surveyed, a rather large 72% of whom would like video game products for this holiday season, however just 22% of these children actually specified physical copies of games.
The findings indicated that 39% of the surveyed children mostly desired a video game subscription of some kind, with console hardware following closely at 38%.
While things such as game accessories, such as in-game microtransactional content, skins and costumes alongside virtual currency, and physical games were ranked at 32%, 29%, and 22%, respectively.
It’s not hard to see why, with the most popular games in recent memory all effectively falling under the live service mantra with regular content drops and collaborative additions, such as Fortnite, Apex Legends, Call of Duty (Warzone) and Grand Theft Auto V.
With these sorts of games regularly providing new digital bling bullshit to push onto customers who are either physically children or are mentally a child, these games often enough have ways of buying in-game currencies in exchange for real life cash or deploy barbaric seasonal passes to skip the grind and get into the action.
Games such as Grand Theft Auto V, which has sold over 190 million copies to date regularly preys upon consumers with aforementioned “Shark Cards”, given how Rockstar continually drip feeds its players with regular content additions of which to possess new things such as vehicles and more it costs a substantial amount of in-game currency to buy, money which would otherwise take days to grind.
So no shit kinds want these sorts of in-game items, additionally, the survey included responses from over 500 adults, revealing that one in three individuals had already chosen to purchase games for themselves or others. Furthermore, 57% of parents expressed their intention to buy video game-related items for their children.
Among adults, video game products were the most planned purchase at 70%, followed by money and gift cards at 62%, and technology such as smartphones at 62%. Books were at a lower priority with a 26% consideration.
Stanley Pierre-Louis, the president and CEO of the ESA, provided a statement in response to this information.
“More than 212 million Americans play video games regularly, so it comes as no surprise that games are at the top of this year’s wish lists. Whether a family is getting a new console, updating their controllers and headsets or adding to their library with new games and expansion packs, we know video games are a great tool for families to play together and connect during the holiday season and beyond.”
This development will undoubtedly disappoint many as it has myself, game subscriptions and microtransactions have faced ridicule over the years for their predatory nature. However, the latest generation appears to have embraced these practices despite the criticism so why would you expect anything to change? Live services such as the XBOX Game Pass has spawned bullshit from game publishers themselves to offer their own subscription services in the forms of EA Play and Ubisoft Plus.
The modern “gamer” is nothing like someone who actually enjoyed video games over a decade ago, they’re simply mindless zombies continually feeding the beast, buying microtransactional content en mass, buying in-game currencies or service subscriptions such as GTA+ so they can skip the grind and access the leaking faucet of content or to unlock new “swag” for their in-game characters.
While we sit here and argue about it, the machine will continue to turn whether or not you or I state the obvious, because of man-children and actual children mind you, draining their parents bank accounts because they’re hooked on these garbage online-only spectacles that show absolutely no sign of stopping, but rather will progress until a point where they’re no longer sustainable as we eagerly await the collapse of the industry we once held dear to our hearts as game developers begin to implode all around us.
You old coots just wouldn’t understand, I need $50 so I can roll for the limited timed Winter Woody champion in my Disney mobile game.
