Every single major game corporation does this. Thankfully indie developers don't.

@ZK9931

Ай бұрын

Is it possible for gamers in the world to take over the game industry in the world i mean we cannot fix those things and I'm just talking nonsense but what can we do besides not play any of them in general?

@0ptic0p22

Ай бұрын

XDEFIANT FTW XDEFIANT DOESNT RIG YOUR EXP IN ANY WAY yeah store is expensive(but SELF CONTROL also exists)

@TrojanGamer10

Ай бұрын

YET.

@startraffick

Ай бұрын

Nobody is forcing you to buy any cosmetic. Just stop the whining and the fake outrage. There are too many Grifters invading the gaming space, who are also political operatives masquerading as gamers. I can easily see through the BS smoke.

@memey822

Ай бұрын

COUGH COUGH PUBG COUGH COUGH

God damn horse armor

@tark1873

Ай бұрын

the butterfly effect but for gaming...

@Revali69420

Ай бұрын

@@tark1873great way of putting it bro

@iratepirate3896

Ай бұрын

Todd has a lot to answer for.

@spencerhuckins8197

Ай бұрын

Honestly the 2 dollar horse armor isn't bad at all, but all this manipulation and psychological tactics designed to siphon children's and stupid people's wallets is just disgusting.

@patrickiamonfire965

Ай бұрын

@@iratepirate3896he just presented it. He was told by his boss to monetise it. We can blame the dev but that won’t do anything. Executive are the ones behind it just like the video said. Corporate want to maximise profits and it always been true just like the video game crash due to Atari flooding the markets with saturations of actual efforts barely functioning games. That guy has enough death threats sent to him and yet he still wants to make games which gets my respect.

We need to stop buying into Live Service games.

@_MaZTeR_

Ай бұрын

Sadly the majority that don't watch these videos or in fact any kind of videos or articles spreading awareness about this issue will buy into this crap.

@Itseden6

Ай бұрын

It’s here to stay for good

@beastmode1915

Ай бұрын

I mean the largest problem is Activision/Blizzard fans. Get them to stop and maybe there’ll be some hope

@Soliye.

Ай бұрын

R6S is proof to me that this isn't possible. People buy into it. I swear I never thought so many people could accept mediocrity and "enjoy" it.

@apollo9363

Ай бұрын

Starting with you dont play anylive service games, ill continue tho cause they fun

Short/medium term profits will eventually crumble the gaming industry long term. The corporate world sadly cannot fathom not milking an industry until it dries up and withers away

@agentmaryland1239

Ай бұрын

I'm not an expert, I'm not a therapist, psychiatrist, etc. I'm just an average person, but even *I* can see that this model fails even when it brings results. They would make *so* much more money if they stopped being greedy and it's sad because they refuse to see it.

@electroeel148

Ай бұрын

As long as the execs can cash out tens of millions a year, they don't give a shit about the industry. Anti-Trust laws should be covering Execs and CEOs terrible business decisions

@meurumtrain4747

Ай бұрын

@@agentmaryland1239depends on the games. Cod, Fortnite, aren’t changing nothing.

@urphakeandgey6308

Ай бұрын

This is probably why Japanese game studios have largely side stepped this issue. Japanese businesses are known for thinking long term, at least compared to most American companies. Toyota is a good example. For the most part, they just make reliable cars and don't blindly jump at every trend like Western car companies do lately. Western car companies brag too much about "look how innovative we are" when they're "innovating" a bunch of "features" no one asked for.

@SerfinBird

Ай бұрын

Doesn't help that a CEO gets paid on short term results. Hit a stock price they get a bonus, hit a margin level they get a bonus, cut costs by an amount they get a bonus. There is a reason corporations make terrible decisions. The leadership doesn't own the business they're employees with nothing at stake if things go south.

“The truth is the game was rigged from the start.” -Benny Well it wasn’t like that in the 360 days

@Lizard_X999

Ай бұрын

it really is a kick in the head

@PrimeTime1999

Ай бұрын

@@Lizard_X999 Yippee yaaaay

@Lizard_X999

Ай бұрын

@@PrimeTime1999 there were no wedding bells today

@LG1ikLx

Ай бұрын

Has everyone just played New Vegas for the first time? 😂 Seeing this meme everywhere now lol.

@PrimeTime1999

Ай бұрын

@@LG1ikLx nah I played it years ago

The funny thing is, I was way more addicted to playing games when they were just good games and fun to play. I’m old now (53) but I couldn’t stop playing GTA Miami Vice, or OG Metal Gear Solid, or Halo CE campaign, Diablo 2, Halo 2, or Oblivion elder scrolls for example. Or BioShock. These new games are the exact opposite. They’re not fun to play and I don’t want to spend a lot of time playing them. They are empty shells/soulless…Boring

@JadedRabbit559

Ай бұрын

Same. I can't stand modern Halo multiplayer, and I don't even play games like Fortnite, CoD, or Overwatch. They just don't appeal to me, and I'm solidly inside the gullible target audience age range. I want games that are FUN, not 'sweaty,' or 'next-gen.' Also: Respect. Oblivion is the underrated champion of Elder Scrolls.

@kalui96

Ай бұрын

You're one of those W "old men" Most all of my coworkers dismiss gaming like "the thing nerds do alone in basement". But when the one older coworker guy Mark and I get talking on video games we have to stop ourselves lol. That just goes to show the social aspect of older games transcends the actual gaming and makes/keeps friendships going! Perhaps the "social fabric" people keep talking about could be strengthened by these means but I'm getting too political now

@bexagon6682

Ай бұрын

Couldn't agree more. There's plenty more money to be made if they just focused on paying people to make quality games instead of trying to turn every experience into a casino. It's completely destroyed any creativity/innovation. Games can't survive as a form of entertainment if they're all just cash grabs with different skins, locations, plots, etc. That's what slot machines do.

@COMMANDandConquer199

Ай бұрын

I'm 27 and I grew up playing those games. I can't stand the new live service games. I find myself playing games less and less these days.

@Magplar

Ай бұрын

They’re awful but I’m still addicted

Todd howard on horse armor: “people will buy anything” 10 years ago you could get a virtual hat for $3. Now its 10x as bad. Thats not an exaggerration. In call of duty there are skins that cost $30. Remember the ODST armor in halo 4? That was like, $5 for 2 armor sets. How the hell did we get here?

@Soliye.

Ай бұрын

Because Todd was right. Look at Star Citizen... So many years of development and some plebs have paid ships that cost more than $10,000. The game isn't even remotely close to being finished lmao. And the fact MW3 sold at ALL says it all.

@SterlingSimmons22

Ай бұрын

Shrinkflation

@scout360pyroz

Ай бұрын

​@@Soliye.nah, starcitizen happily bleeds the whales, but it hangs on because of the scope and transparency of its development. If it didn't have that it wouldnt hook nearly as many whales.

@WarriorMonk101

Ай бұрын

We have to boycott live service games

@rzrrox4202

Ай бұрын

It's all corporate greed and kids with no self control.

You can literally feel it happening while playing. You can have 3 bad games in a row only to dominate one and keep you hooked. It’s an endless cycle and you can noticeable sense the change in the lobby. It gives you that gambling sensation of thinking maybe I hit the jackpot next time.

@deadeyeduncan3865

Ай бұрын

Yup, you'll have just an absurd losing streak, still be placing at or near the top of the scoreboard, and your teammates will have nothing Then the next match is a landslide in your favor, then it's back to losing

@agentmaryland1239

Ай бұрын

@@deadeyeduncan3865 And it's so bad because you can perform at your best, but you look at the scoreboard like in Overwatch and your DPS are negative but blaming heals, while Supports are both rocking 9k healing after only 5 minutes in, and Tanks are just throwing a tantrum because the enemy team is coordinated because they spend MONEY, so the odds are stacked in their favor.

@urphakeandgey6308

Ай бұрын

This is why I firmly believe "gaming is so sweaty now" is not just people crying cuz they suck. SBMM is very common now and will make your games sweatier. That's kind of what it's meant to do. This might also be why battle royales became so popular. When you play against 100 players, the SBMM can't be that intense.

@RobertSmith-ow5kf

Ай бұрын

@@urphakeandgey6308 It might be worse in BR. You only get one life and you have 5 teams full sending and destroying the lobby

@SkyNinja759

Ай бұрын

The worst abuser is For Honor. I swear to God that I get 2-3 good/bad games right in a row, then it flips to the complete opposite. I've gotten to the point that I play one match and that determines if I will continue playing that game for the night. If it's a good game I play until I have a bad one, if it's a bad game I just get off and play something else. Skill based matchmaking needs to be removed for public matches. I understand not putting top rated players in with fresh players but for a majority of the player base it's a terrible system. I do not want to be punished with terrible teammates because my MMR is higher, as I am expected to carry every game and vis versa when I am pulled up in MMR lobbies.

Bro the "predetermined" remark immediately reminded me of a 343 community manager saying something about "increasing player retention". Not sure who it was exactly, but I think it was either Ske7ch or Unyshek. Fuck.

@Spendingryan

Ай бұрын

Let me translate, we don't want players to quit before they can buy stuff

@Bellen_Official

Ай бұрын

Fuck 343i. They have run Halo into the fucking ground. I absolutely cannot stand the terrible decisions these companies make. Yes, people will blame MS also, and perhaps they do shoulder some of the blame, but they make a lot of design decisions separate from them as well. Whoever thought that a live service game was what the community wanted needs to be fired from this studio. All we want is a good Halo game (and good games just in general) that are content rich on launch and add in a variety of things POST LAUNCH, not what should’ve been there in the first place. I’m sorry for a bit of the rant, but Halo was my absolute favorite game of all time and they have killed all my buzz or hype for any future projects. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Not this time, or ever again. They are a garbage company that is not deserving of creating anything in the Halo IP. I will approach anything they create anymore with cautious optimism, but if the last three times have taught me anything, I will just be disappointed after the game launches

I knew the matchmaking system sucked when every time I’d get a challenge win 3 games I will spend the next hour and a half losing

@justsweezy6719

Ай бұрын

Start team doubles. Always get the shittiest team mates but you can still win it

@SgtGnome

Ай бұрын

That's when I use all the challenge swaps I have accumulated. Same boat here.

@LegLessEKR

Ай бұрын

I just stopped playing entirely; halo lost its fun for me.

@lambdachi107-gamingandmusi2

Ай бұрын

Firefight is your friend here, if you have the time to spend 15 minutes per game.

@MaximusValor

Ай бұрын

Fr

Man we really did hit the peak of games in the early 2000's...

@returnedtomonkey8886

Ай бұрын

2013 was the last good year for gaming. I'm calling it now. We had exceptions here and there since like Nier Automata, Dmc 5 , Hi fi rush but that's all they are. Exceptions. Not the standard.

@TheNavySqueal

Ай бұрын

@returnedtomonkey8886 fax, but even then when games like hi-fi rush are reviewed well from the consumers, what we like simply doesn't matter anymore. Only what makes money the quickest and best way... again huge change of pace from when devs were pushing their abilities with code to create masterpieces like Halo CE back in the day....

@andrewbarker8631

Ай бұрын

I'm not too sad about it. I was on world of war craft all during the 360 days the whole gamepass library is new to me

@keungwan5901

Ай бұрын

Yes and no. Graphics and graphics hardware are still improving, although they tend to look the same now vs Gunship/Privateer/WingCommanderProphecy/AH-64D/Novalogic. Story and gameplay seem to have plateaued, we do the same things. UI have gotten better and more subtle (Planescape torment, NWN1)

@plzletmebefrank

Ай бұрын

Honestly... Just look outside of "triple A" games. Games in the 90s and 2000s weren't made by massive studios looking to make a bunch of money off of their playerbase. They were made by what we'd call indie devs now. Smaller teams making passion projects has always resulted in better games, better movies and tv, better music, better everything. Steam is a great place to find these games. The user review system works pretty well, they always have sales running, it's easy for indie devs to put their game up onto the store and Steam doesn't try to trap them into exclusivity or ban games unless they're literally illegal somehow. Like sure, it has its issues. But... Steam, GOG, Itch, etc. Even self publishing on your own website is pretty easy, though usually harder to get buyers and there are too many scams trying to get at your personal info to tell the difference between what's legit and what's not. Point is... The bigger games have a problem. That problem is money. The bigger movies have that problem too. Pouring money into something doesn't make it good. Passion and effort and thought do.

I'd rather pay twice the amount for a story complete game instead of a store driven game.

@SkyNinja759

Ай бұрын

That's what Halo: Infinite was marketed to be. F2P multiplayer but paid for story. Then the game drops all story content because they're making more money with skin packs. I would have gladly dropped $90CAD if Infinite had no storefront (earnable cosmetics only), forge, custom games, and a campaign at launch. Sadly corporations always take the path of least risk; instead of a massive investment for a full cost release, they're do the bare minimum and go for the guaranteed nickel and dime skin shops.

@TheMorrisking38

Ай бұрын

@@SkyNinja759 yup, well said. Just sad that it's next to impossible to have a finished game at launch that has a supported story. Hopefully better times are on the horizon.

@finkamain1621

Ай бұрын

Most games now just focus on story instead of gameplay and even then, the story isn't well written because they usually have multiple writers all interjecting their own vision. Gameplay always needs to come first

@YuYuYuna_

Ай бұрын

@@SkyNinja759 I think just about everyone would agree with you (other than the whales). I want AAA gaming to return to fixed box prices and stop this nickle and diming bullshit. Until then I'll be almost exclusively supporting indie games.

@jacobbecklehimer7781

Ай бұрын

@@SkyNinja759That’s also what fortnite did. It was advertised as a zombie base building game but once they started making money from mtx in f2p battle royale they shifted their focus entirely. Feels like a major ripoff.

More people need to see this, and more developers need to be called out for this. We can take good guesses as to who pushes these practices: EA, Activision, Blizzard, Ubisoft, the list could unfortunately go on and on

@bexagon6682

Ай бұрын

@Hazzacheets Microsoft and Sony and almost every publisher aside from Nintendo. Nintendo doesn't get a pass though either really. They just recycle the same games with marginal if any improvements so they don't even really compete with other companies. They do that so they can say they're "all about just being a video game company," but really, they haven't even tried to innovate actual gameplay since the GameCube. *sorry they did invent motion controls, but I don't consider that a positive contribution to the industry

@Hazzacheets

Ай бұрын

@@bexagon6682 honestly man true, the industry has become stagnant because nobody innovates. Safety is the name of the game

@deathtrooper2048

Ай бұрын

EA doesn't do this, they don't have SBMM

@shaynec1389

Ай бұрын

Wouldn't be complaining to the developers team. They're just doing their jobs. It's those suits. Greedy fucks

@plzletmebefrank

Ай бұрын

*Publishers, not developers. The companies sticking their logos everywhere are the ones bankrolling things and making all these weird decisions to try to make more money off of their players. But more than half the time they aren't the ones actually making the games.

Deep Rock Galactic is one of my favorite games of all time. Not only because it is a untoxic and fun game, but because the only thing you need to buy is the game, the rest and even the battle passes is free and you can even select which one you want to grind. The only monetization is the packs, and they add awesome content for a fair price. The devs are by far one of the best and most caring people in the indie game industry and the videogame industry overall.

@Fire4ward

Ай бұрын

I have so many hours logged in deep rock galactic because the game is genuinely fun to play.

@wesleywatson2009

Ай бұрын

The new mission type is so fun

@YuYuYuna_

Ай бұрын

Deep Rock is a goated game. Fun af both solo and with friends.

@MarfeeWarfee

Ай бұрын

Deep Rock is about the only game out there doing monetization right. Rock and Stone!!

@upexx_avm

Ай бұрын

@@Fire4ward i only have over 30 hours by now, but that is because I cant always play.

Triple A studios/Companies lived long enough to become the villains. Time to move over to indie games and away from corporate greed.

@BradCashew

Ай бұрын

A majority of the games I’ve played this year have been indie games, the exceptions being god of war and the souls series.

@j-bod5164

Ай бұрын

And thus continue the cycle. Enjoy those indie games, but once they get a taste of big success, greed will infect those as well.

@The_Sl0th

Ай бұрын

@@j-bod5164 I shall, most games back in the day are good for a few years until they get greedy, or now new games launch and they are full of paywall content or tons of micro transactions

@IntrusiveThoughts838

Ай бұрын

@@The_Sl0thwatch AVGN to understand it’s always been like this my guy.

@IntrusiveThoughts838

Ай бұрын

@@The_Sl0thever heard of AVGN? There is no “back in my day” this problem of corporate greed has plagued gaming since the beginning my guy.

Everybody needs to stop buying microtransactions and battle passes. We have to decide collectively that we arent going to participate in this stuff. If nobody buys this stuff, or if most people stop buying this stuff even, we can win against these greedy corporations. We need to make it clear that the game needs to come first. As an entire community of gamers. Parents need to caution their children against buying microtransactions. Adults with brains need to stop buying them. If we all work together, eventually, they will go away. Whales alone are not enough to keep these microtransactions worth it for the companies. I propose that we get tons of youtubers across all of gaming to spread this message. DO NOT PURCHASE ANY MICROTRANSACTIONS! That is all.

@danielburt9309

Ай бұрын

This 100%. It should be preached more everywhere

@Fence-Dogs-More

Ай бұрын

Wait til you find out what the government does 😂

@kberlinquette

Ай бұрын

When the idiots outnumbered the intelligent... the intelligent lost. It's like the old saying goes, “It's hard to win an argument with a smart person. It's damn near impossible to win an argument with a stupid person.”

@afalseerra9517

3 күн бұрын

@@Fence-Dogs-More we are talking gaming and you shove politics into it, get a life man.

as someone who plays overwatch sometimes and has been since 2016. overwatch 2 was going to bring us a story mode, but they also decided to make the game more predatory like everything said in this video... 3 missions came which where were not received well but were also extremely expensive to buy. then like 6 months later they come out and say the PVE story is cancelled and that they knew they were going to be cancelling it for 18 months overwatch is the only AAA online game i play anymore because the base gameplay is just so damn fun....but their balancing and reasonings behind the things they do are just baffling. we thought that with microsoft buying the company and bobby going away that the game would get better....it hasnt really

The future is indie, as I like to say. We need more Dunkeys in this world: people with big followings and deep pockets to fund and signal boost promising games made by talented creatives and industry veterans alike, and not to interfere with the creative process in the pursuit of money. I'd be down if the OG Bungie team just came together one day to make a spiritual successor to Halo and Destiny, with an indie label to back them up.

@YuYuYuna_

Ай бұрын

THIS, so much this man. People need to support indie devs more and start viewing indie games as more than just lil arcade games you might play for 20 minutes max and see that there are literally dozens upon dozens of incredible indie games of every genre out there, even ones they might not know they enjoy yet. Instead of being a slave to whatever hip new trend is popular in AAA gaming like space games/zombies/FPS/battle royale/etc. you can play a game with almost infinite content like Terraria that has insane content mods for it that add literally thousands of hours to the game (I have 2,000 hours in terraria on steam lol). The only AAA games I've played in the past few years is technically Halo MCC, Elden Ring and Armored Core 6. For the now $70 price tag these AAA games cost the quality and level of passion put into their games just doesn't justify the price point anymore for me. No reason for me to buy Call of Duty or Pokemon when I could buy Deep Rock Galactic for $30 and laugh my ass off playing with friends or buy Palworld and literally shoot "pokemon" with guns in a open world crafting survival game. You'll never get the level of passion and exciting games from AAA games nowadays. It's too corporatized and there is no passion left as we all can see in the games they make. Nothing new, nothing trying to take risks or just making a game they think would be cool to make. Nah, we get the same rehashed CoD or Battlefield or Assassins Creed or Battle Royale game.

@therealjaystone2344

Ай бұрын

Indies are mostly shovelware and won’t be enough to carry gaming

@b-side3682

Ай бұрын

Yes. Future is going more DIY.

The corporatization of video games has made the industry so much worse. Its workers seriously need to unionize everywhere, at least that way they might have more of a say in the kind of products their leadership decides to go for. Bet you we wouldn’t have gotten garbage like Suicide Squad KTJL if the developers themselves had more of a say on what they were making

@stronensycharte64

Ай бұрын

We should ban suits as an article of clothing, every time i see someone wearing a suit i cant help but think theyre upto something evil.

I've been calling these "Corrupt business practices" since 2012. I knew I was right.

@bigsweetz7106

Ай бұрын

Spot on, it's been around for years and getting worse. Completely immoral.

@BrandonStrugy

Ай бұрын

@bigsweetz7106 Absolutely immoral. Once gaming corporations started hiring psychologists back in early 2010/2012 I knew in a decade everyone would catch on eventually.

@therealjaystone2344

Ай бұрын

DLCs are always have been bad business practices since the horse armor

@BrandonStrugy

Ай бұрын

@@therealjaystone2344 I agree completely.

This is why I stopped playing multiplayer games to be frank. I can feel myself being 'gamed' by the game.

@CarTastic-fv6eo

Ай бұрын

Same. There are no point of getting better if you are manipulated from the start by the system ...

The is a game on Steam called Warface, it’s a free2play fps, and objectively it’s not a good game. It’s not a bad fps, it’s just nothing special. However, I played it for 7 years and I never understood why I enjoyed it so much and why whenever I tried to get others into it they never liked it. Well, I feel like I understand now. I think because this game had a small NA community and a decent ranked mode, it genuinely felt like a real comparison of skill. There wasn’t enough of people to take advantage of a SBM system. So you could actually play the game and feel like you were actually playing better than others, or if you were losing it’s because you just had to do better, and not because the game was rigged from the start. Ranked was legit, it wasn’t just setting you up with people at your same skill level, it would just pair teams together and whoever won, won.

@TheeGlocktopus

Ай бұрын

SOCOM II back in the day had it figured out. Dedicated open servers where anyone could join. There was no "matchmaking" there was no "SSBM" there was no "quick join" there was no "quick play" - You had to sit there, figure out what game type and map to play, and join that public lobby, the same as everyone else. There was no system or algorithm. You couldn't be lazy. Everyone these days is lazy. Gamers especially.

@afalseerra9517

3 күн бұрын

@@TheeGlocktopus bro you can still join a server in alot of games. even shit like battlefield, so youre just wrong.

The last section talking about Battle Passes can also be said about Level Based Progression systems like Career Rank. System offers no rewards in early ranks or mid ranks but locks everything at the max rank, why? Not only because it would be an achievement for the player to reach max rank on its own, but because game devs want players to spend more time grinding a long progression system that offers no 2XP weekends or more XP to earn, in the hopes that they buy as many items in the shop as possible before they even reach max rank and get the free rewards. Game devs know most free to play players once they hit Max Level might put down game and not return to it for a long time so they hope by making the system as long as possible the player might eventually slip and buy one or two items in between the grind. And it’s not just Halo Infinite, most other FPS games only have Number Go Up systems with no reward aside from paid Battle Passes.

I feel like the only thing that worth paying money for in a game is story dlc but for like 10-20 dollars not cosmetic you can’t see (even tho I’m guilty of this)

@lordshmee13

Ай бұрын

We all are, my guilt trip is pay 30 cad for the Master Chief armor 😢 and playing campaign forge and hearing over yonder AND ITS NOT EVEN IN STEVE DOWNES VOICE 😭😭😭😭😭🤧😂🤭😭

@Soliye.

Ай бұрын

Nowadays 15$ gets you a color scheme, at best.

Battlefront 2 when it first came out. So many things were locked behind micro transactions, and if you wanted to unlock these items without paying money, you would have to play unhealthy amounts of the game

@AntarcticMagpie

21 күн бұрын

Assuming you mean the EA dumpster-fire-on-release Battlefront 2. Because the original SWBF2 had sooooo many players of insane skill levels in its peak (~2008-2013).

This is why helldivers has been such a breath of fresh air for me

PLEASE, NEVER take this down. This needs to be heard

SBMM and Battlepasses had the _opposite_ effect on me and I just completely stopped playing those games (exception being MCC). I mostly just play classic and singleplayer games these days.

@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778

28 күн бұрын

yeah and I am also so sick of people defending the SBMM. That stuff is so scummy it should be the next lootbox scandal. It should be illegal. holy crap its like gambling.

Everyone, watch this at x.5 speed! Lets get this viral!

I wonder how this is implemented in Halo Infinite. I am sure it is implemented in some way, but how are people ranking up despite this? SBMM forcing you to lose games and keep you frustrated and then throwing you a win streak every now and then, and big rank boost, and if you keep playing you will lose it all and rank further below where you were before. But if you play less, you win more... But then again, there is skill, because I can be in a trash lobby and win games nearly by myself, while my other teammates are distractions. If the system were trying to throttle my progress, they would put cheaters, smurfs, and other tryhards to throttle me at a lower rank. So, there is some skill being taken into account. But I also wonder how much of these "server" issues we deal with, are just the system trying to throttle progress, and force you to lose games. Shrinking enemy hit boxes, deprioritizing your connection to the game server, lagging you intentionally despite what the ping says. Whiffed melees, impossible headshots, so on and so forth, dropped packets etc. Then after a losing streak, you all of a sudden have a God connection to the game, getting kills you didn't expect, have a massive KDA, damage, etc, and huge satisfying win. I wonder how much of that is in Halo Infinite causing everyone to headcase. Does this really lead to people buying shit in the shop? Hmm... Much to ponder...

@skier183

Ай бұрын

I have these same thoughts. Some games it feels like everything is against you. Your weapons take 2 extra shots to kill, whilst the enemies’ seem to melt you. Melees don’t work, you shoot a rocket at someone’s feet and they live, you hammer someone but they take zero damage, etc. I’m still playing Infinite but I largely only play Custom 8s and Ranked, social playlists aren’t as fun as older halos

Chris Hansen here with the predatorial investigation unit, 343i why don't you just take a seat over there for me, please.

Thank you TF2 loot boxes and Toddsterton Howardson for the horse armor...

Thank you for bringing awareness to this issue! These algorithmic practices have been in place for a looooooong time. SW Battlefront 2 was the first time I remember seeing issues brought up in court and regulations being discussed (classified as gambling), but that was only in the EU, and they quickly changed tactics to avoid regulation. Ever since then I'm worried that all video games are basically becoming slot machines. Especially now with AI advancements how will we even know that we're playing against actual people, and it isn't just some algorithm playing out to make me feel like I need to open my wallet?

I love how we can get armor coatings and emblems of these days and months like disability month, but yet no donations? No giving away adaptable controllers? Not a single Spartan in the advertisement even had a prosthetic!

Thanks to these guys I dropped the majority of games from my life and picked up wood working as a hobby😊. I’m in the process of building my first table. Now I Head down to the men shed on the weekend and chill out while working on my next project.

Sadly mental health is something that is widely ignored worldwide, including the videogame industry, we all know games are addictive and yet we still, unhealthily, pour our time and money on it, because companies already know the perfect recipe to hook players, and it's not sorcery, it's pure psychology. and unfortunately it's fair and legal until governments say otherwise I used to play Infinite a lot back in the day, until I started noticing that I was becoming more stressed, my mood was getting worse and I had this constant urge of at least getting one good match (that the game never gave me), so I asked myself if it was even worth it to put myself through this if I knew it was going to be the same thing. So I just stopped playing and pretty much immediately noticed how much better I felt and how much I wasn't enjoying playing anymore. To me it's just sad and unfair that many people are stuck in situations like this but they just don't know it, or they do but can't get out. So it's important to bring awareness about these things because I feel most of us know it happens, we just take it for granted, or think it doesn't affect us.

@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778

28 күн бұрын

The people who claim to care so much about mental health are the same ones implementing these systems to harm mental health. So scummy

Warframe has the best Free to Play model in existence right now. Being able to trade for the premium currency is HUGE! Yeah, you only get maximum benefit from this feature at end game, but the grind, imo is so much fun. Wild how I've yet to come across another F2P model any where close to how Warframe does it. It's not perfect, but its 1000x better than anything else currently

@Soliye.

Ай бұрын

Arena shooters shouldn't be needing "premium currency" in the first place. Paying for the game should grant you access to a system like Reach's. But I agree that Warframe's trading system is great despite not being updated for ease of use. Games should learn from it, but again, your average shooter shouldn't be credit card dependant.

@BroWithTheFro

Ай бұрын

@@Soliye. I agree 100%

@elliottb7009

Ай бұрын

it may be the best system but warframe still goes off most of this video. it creates a system for you to come back everyday. and would still have things in place that make spending money appealing. having a trade system is part of that because you think " its cheaper now that i have sold stuff in game"

@cyriell

Ай бұрын

"the grind is fun" like how? I played it a good amount (655hours according to steam) idk how it is now but 3/4 years ago you just stood afk with your ability on like hydro and you kill everything, the maps are/were mostly the same (alltho that cant be blamed that much considering its a grind game) the trade system i agree with but its not the only game out there that does it

@hemandy94

Ай бұрын

Aside from the monetization system, it's the actual gameplay and story that makes Warframe so great. If you can get past the grinds, the payoff is wild. Always a new experience

I have literal psychological side-effects from EOMM. I used to LOVE jumping into PvP matches in FPS games but now I hate hitting the matchmake button because all I can think of now is "How is my experience going to be manipulated this time?" or "What's the point if the system literally rigs the games before you even enter the match?" and this sense of dread takes over making me just not want to play anymore. After XDefiant I realized that how BADLY I was being gaslit by these DISGUSTING practices. My skill actually mattered, there wasn't a pendulum swing where winning a match basically guaranteed the next was a loss. I could just PLAY the fucking game and it didn't play me for once in the last FIVE years since MW 2019's EOMM ruined everything. These manipulative products need to die for the sake of gaming. I have never actively boycotted games like I have now, and it seems like I'm not the only one. People are sick and tired of the corporate gaslighting and manipulation. It ends NOW.

I went to college for business and marketing, and it was unsettling how much the topics of learning were based on "How to trick the consumers to blow as much money as possible, with you doing as little work as possible" You can tell this whole generation of corporate worker has been fed this same greed tactic schooling and we see it everyday now.

@MintBlitz I've had a suspicion for awhile that the game rewards you for spending money in the shop. Buy an armor set, get some wins. Buy a weapon skin, get some easy matches. I only have my own experience to base this on but I'm as close to certain as I can be without testing it out. Which I have neither the time nor money to do.

I've been saying this for a long time already, I'm glad to see it's starting to get some attention. I first noticed this on CoD Cold War, now I just don't play AAA online shooters anymore. I don't have time for that kind of nonsense. It's a damn shame because I had a ton of fun with the Bungie Halos, CoD4, BFBC2, BF3, BF4, BF1. Now I can count on those franchises being complete trash every single time they come out with a new game. I have stopped buying them, and I have no intention to buy them again any time soon.

I have never spent any money on a game besides the initial price I have never felt more validated in my decisions

@NickLM2008

Ай бұрын

Same. If the game requires spending more money on it then I don't play it.

I call it 'bullet manipulation'. It really puts a downer on perfections when you feel it kick in.

@eggnog52

Ай бұрын

Yep. I've noticed it in CS:GO several times. They have rigged matches as well. Overwatch also does this.

I used to think that gamers would be among the first major consumer demographics to widely adopt a radical anti-capitalist sentiment in response to the near-complete gutting of the very art form and hobby they hold so dear. The fact that the industry has gotten to the point we are at now makes me feel like we, too, may be a lost cause. Gamers are some of the most passionate consumers on the planet, and we are famously temperamental, yet we seem incapable of not being strung along by the same hype cycles year after year. We shout about not pre-ordering games, then we pre-order the game. We shout about hating battle passes, then we buy every one. The reality is that profit-motivated capitalism is the killer of all art, and if you are a gamer who is going to argue against this point, you are part of the problem. That said, I don't want to harp on the responsibility of the individual because blaming an average-income gamer (no matter how much they buy into capitalistic BS) is as stupid as blaming someone who didn't recycle a water bottle for climate change. Maybe when we're all too broke to even buy the machine to play these shitty games on, maybe then we'll wake the fuck up.

@Deliverygirl

Ай бұрын

It makes sense because gamers are mostly children, teenagers and young adults. Demographics known for not making very smart decisions and being bad with their money. Most people don't care about the "art" part of videogames, they care about the game being fun. Children and stupid people love to spend what little money they have to brag to others or try to show they are better, this is why skins are so popular. Dropping a nuke with default skins in COD and all I could hear from my and the enemy team was that I'm a "broke bitch" for using default skins. Gamers are a lost cause, and if you ask me, they have the gaming industry they deserve. Gamers deserve to be milked, scammed and taken advantage of, for being so stupid.

@jeremyashcraft2053

Ай бұрын

Capitalism is not the issue, its a lack of ethics from the individuals that make up these corporations. Capitalism is a-moral, it doesn't come bundled with any sort of ethical framework. To blame greed on Capitalism in embarrassingly ignorant (you think greed was a concept not known to man prior to Capitalism? Was there no greed in feudalism?). Without a profit motive there wouldn't be a gaming industry at all. Xbox, PlayStation, PC, GPUS, CPUS, data centers, broadband internet.... (this list goes on endlessly...) wouldn't exist at all. Without a profit motive, nobody would be motivated to do anything that doesn't directly contribute to their own basic human survival (or it would be an _exceedingly_ rare occurrence). Why would anyone bother creating the next generation of processing power-which takes huge teams of professionals working together (with the help of a century or more of accumulated tech-knowledge and industrial contributions)-THOUSANDS of high-effort-hours, just to high-five each other at the end?

@AuricNova

Ай бұрын

@@jeremyashcraft2053 You've made no point that I haven't heard a thousand times over from every skinny white boy trying to emulate his father. From my experience, only very odd people still think that the profit motive is what makes humans do stuff. For example, did you get monetarily compensated for writing out that block of text I barely read? No? So what motivated you to do so? Most grown people, even some die-hard capitalists, understand that human beings experience a multitude of motivations. We have an innate desire to create, to help, to discover, to advance, and to socialize. These motivators are responsible for the very notion of society. The wheel was not created for profit; it was made to raise the standard of living. Agriculture was developed to allow for greater specializations within communities. A modern example of this is evident in most sciences. Was the James Webb Space Telescope created due to the profit motive? Nope. How about the Hadron Collider? Also, nope. Conversely, I can name several medications that aren't produced enough to meet demand simply because it wouldn't be profitable. That is an undeniable harm caused by the almighty profit motive. I feel I should also mention that economic systems such as socialism still involve $$$; I'm genuinely not sure if you knew that. The only real difference is the money goes to those who worked to accrue it rather than those who siphon as much as possible away from those who actually did the work and call it "profit" (this is why you've probably heard the phrase "capitalism is inherently exploitative" from lefties lol). Now, since I've already heard everything you could ever say on this subject, I know you're probably wanting to retort with something like, "Well, people who invest their capital into starting a business take on all the risk so that the working class can get jobs." This sentiment is total BS. The risk they take on (and only if they REALLY drop the ball) is that of becoming a member of the working class. How scary! If being in the working class meant fair wages, equal treatment, and a comfortable standard of living, that "risk" would not be so frightening now, would it? Meanwhile, if the investor's business flops due to mismanagement or whatever else, the workers are now unemployed and without any of their own capital to fall back on. Workers also aren't given the opportunity to scavenge every cent that their failed corporation leaves behind. Therefore, the risk of working for a startup is much greater than the risk of starting one. But I get it, I know you, you're still trapped in the whole "capitalism is the be-all-end-all of economic systems." Hell, you might even think it's a meritocracy for all I know, haha (HINT: it's not). Everyone I know, myself included, believed that BS once too. I mean, we grew up in the US, for God's sake. But go ahead, keep fighting the good fight in random comment sections against the people who want to raise the standard of living for the average person, decrease the wealth gap, and maybe, just maybe, get some less shitty AAA games along the way, lol. TLDR: You've contributed no new ideas to the debate about capitalism, and you have not swayed my preference for a democratically run economy by the workers, for the workers, nor do you possess the ability, knowledge, or talking points to do so. Respond if you want, but remember, there's no financial incentive for you to do so. So why bother, haha?

I play Fall Guys with my kids. Never let them or myself spend money on it---but eventually earned enough free game points to buy passes as long as we play here and there to fulfill the passes. Been doing it for over a year now--but noticing the last 3-4 passes they keep raising the experience points needed to gain levels on the pass, and changed the way we earn points to make it refer not to skill but to just play 10-30 games per day or week. Getting annoying now to try to keep passes and points.

I was more addicted to games when they had challenges like in halo 3 to unlock recon armor. I always thought they’d do more of that in the future and make the challenges even harder or crazier.

@MrVi9rus

Ай бұрын

before the challange you had to earn it through impressing a community manager, which it seemed like they had 100s of em browsing custom made stuff and fileshares, They literally had a team pushing community interactions at all time for the purpose of ENJOYMENT not money.

It gets even worse once you read about "Engagement Optimized Matchmaking". EA literally has a patent on this, basically matchmaking isn't skill-based but rigged and tailored for each player to keep you in the game as much as possible and they do not give you fair matches all the time, in other words, if they see you quit the game after 3 won matches the next time you play and win 2 matches they will give you on purpose a team of worse teammates so that you will are more likely to lose, this will most likely extend your time in-game, the same thing the other way around, if you lose too much and quit they will make you win just before their prediction of you quitting the game. If with skill it takes you 100 matches to reach your actual rank with fair matchmaking, with engagement optimization it might take you 300 matches of unreasonable grinding, especially in team-based games, in solo games they might tweak the precision of the weapon and who knows what else to keep you in the game.

Spending more time in a game isn't so much of a predatory practice but a core principal of hardcore games for a very long time. Those who feel that the long grinding in those games is too much shouldn't be playing them.

The part of it's not fair when the strategy on games , halo tactical slayer melee system, the melee system wasn't unfair sometimes

I just stopped playing videos games. Been six years since i last played video games. Let be clear, i do still play games just not like i use too. I use to play 6+ hours and now i play 1 or 2 hrs once every two weeks or even a month. Live service kills games, I've seen many new games just die a few weeks after its release. Many new games are just cash grabs and people don't care and still buy them.

@stronensycharte64

Ай бұрын

At this point i just pirate, or play games released years ago. No point in falling for all the new scams these oil salesmen are trying to get us to fall for these days.

@YuYuYuna_

Ай бұрын

I mean... AAA gaming isn't all there is out there to play. It makes me sad every time I see someone say this because over the past 10 years I've transitioned to playing almost exclusively indie games like Terraria, CrossCode, Valheim, 7days to die, Enshrouded, zero sievert, stardew valley, talos principle, above snakes, noita, palworld, Helldivers 2, etc. and I feel a rejuvenated enjoyment of this hobby I love. AAA games just aren't worth looking at 8/10 times. Outside of the rare Armored Core, Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, etc. The rest of them are overhyped trash or straight up false advertisements which I'm surprised don't have legislation against how blatant it has gotten. There's so many incredible indie games out there people just need to not view indie games as these little dinky games like Uno or some arcade game you'd play for 5-20 minutes at most. Indie games nowadays straight up beat the quality and fun of 90% of AAA games, if you ask me. I have almost 2,000 hours in Terraria alone on steam over the past 10 years. As for AAA games? I have only 1 that breaks the 30 hour mark and that's the Halo MCC and it's just from me replaying the campaigns every once in awhile.

I have a Xbox and I do everything I can to spend not too much money on games. I wanted to buy Destiny 2 new season, so I went and bought the coins from the turkey store, 1500coins were 6$ meanwhile they would have been 12 in Colombia where I live or 15$ in the US. I buy most my games either from accounts or codes. I'm all in when it comes to giving these companies the least money possible, they DON'T deserve it.

The worst iteration of manipulative matchmaking is in Call of Duty’s MP, u can literally feel when ur pre-destined to lose and you can’t win no matter how hard you try, you go against clones of yourself or literally GOD. It’s a miserable experience and it’s why I’ve quit COD for good and started playing xdefiant and it’s honestly been a blast.

@halcyonramirez6469

Ай бұрын

its not going up against yourself thats bad. its when the games nerfs you. you shoot a full mag they kill you in 2 bullets to the toes.

You know mint blitz I have 15 of the same messages from 15 different people on the xbox message system can xbox fix that.

343 are the puppeteers. We are the puppets.

Battlefield 2042 also has EGMM. I played that mediocre game for 2.5k hours. I could feel it, some matches I would be doomed to be on the losing team and some matches I'd be assured victory. It was hard to know how good at the game I even was because there was no sense of skill progression in my w/l ratio, which I definitely enjoyed in BF4, BF1, BFH, and BFV, in those games I started out shit and became very good and noticed victories start to overcome defeats.

We should sue the corporations and development teams that due this, and then if we lose we just keep doing it and get better at it and we keep the pressure on until they break, we make this part of their lives so they can't ignore it and eventually they will give us what we want

this comment is so the algorithm recommends the video :)

i cant play 4v4 halo infinite (same as mcc) cause of SBMM. BTB is love, BTB is life.

@427Jeep

Ай бұрын

MCC doesnt have these practices. Just say youre bad, or a reach player. (All reach players stay in their group, are VERY specific, and they all are bad lol)

@nameless8692

Ай бұрын

@@427Jeep Bait used to be believable.

I've been trying to talk to people online about this for years and had to deal with all kinds of accusations of being mentally ill or a tinfoil hat conspiracist. I'm glad awareness is becoming more public, but It's been obvious for a long time.

I felt that it was this predatory and manipulative in recent years with how gaming and the new business model has shifted. Eye opening and affirming to see this video. It's sad to think that gaming will likely never go back to how it was because this new model and how much more money it makes. We've all felt this and many of us have caught on to whats been going on under the hood. Sad reality. I've largely stopped playing these games and hope people would put their time and money elsewhere

XDEFIANT FTW

There is a real study about the "flow state" of games, keeping a player sufficiently challenged without exhausting them. This creates wonderful single player games that are fun to play, and the worst multiplayer games that make you feel like hot garbage in one match and then like a professional in the next. Multiplayer is the only place this "flow state" doesn't belong in, as you play against other people and so random/ bucket matching with wide skill gaps creates that flow state naturally. Instead, designers over-engineered it so that you're predicted/ planned to lose or win before the next game starts, an artificial flow channel that is far more frustrating than not.

Mint: gambling in gaming is bad Me: *sweating from years worth of Team Fortress 2 unboxing*

Older games in franchises are literally the blueprint for printing money and they won't do it. Its maddening. Think COD MW1, 2, 3, BO1 & 2, BFBC 1 & 2, BF 3 & 4. Not to mention it's what the players ask for year on year. The only reason not to listen to the majority of the playerbase is if the current format makes too much money over making a good game. Boycotts do nothing to sales, need a surge in whitehats.

@Mint Blitz this could be resolved under Fraud laws in the US. Since the game is unfairly manipulated unknown to the player. (Basically the player/playerbase is deliberatley manipulated without their consent or knowledge.) Spread the word.

Past 5 years? Try past 15. The player's experience has become nothing but a bunch of numbers to some developers. An exercise in psychological manipulation, stringing you along just long enough to keep you engaged with the game for an artificially extended period of time. Even them announcing that a game is going to be a "live service" has probably been calculated in terms of possible impact. They know gamers. They know how weak outcries of foul play actually are. They know that consumer boycotts are more likely to end up effective demonstrations of hypocrisy than they are to actually cause any financial or reputational damage. They know that everybody who logs in will play, how much they'll pay, and they keep tabs on certain payers. Everything is a metric to them, and collections of spreadsheets and formulas dictate not just how games are designed, but also how they're made. The communities they build aren't really attached to the game in spirit, they're attached to the game by design. Why hope that the players can find their own reasons to stick with a game when you can force the issue and _make_ them stick, via psychologically exploitative design decisions?

this shit is why people say the industry is heading towards another crash... we want this crap to stop! and we want to go back to the attitude of "how can we make this game fun as hell?" and not "how can we make money off this game?"

We all know EA is using every tactic possible

Ubisoft's recent xDefiant game actually ended up using *not* having SBMM as a selling point. We are at a point where a corp actually looked at the gaming industry and found that going backwards (yes technically less money = backwards) was the best way to stick out.

The funniest thing is Blizzard HAD a cash cow with the original Overwatch. It was peak hero shooter and one of the most streamed games. They then decided to stop development to work on OW2 and now the game is a shell of its former self. OW2 is a trash game with completely predatory monetization. I never approved of lootboxes but altleast it gave you a chance, you could get them from achievements and leveling up. Now a single legendary skin costs the same price as the whole original overwatch game. What a sad time for gaming.

The psychologists who are helping prey on addictive personalities should be shamed, degrees revoked, and tarred and feathered. What utter betrayal! Surely none of them thought “I’m going to get a psychology degree and help corporations monetize video games!”

I watched a video on this the other day where a guy has statistics of spending habits. They are only interested in the 2% of players who spend exorbitant amount of money. Something like 63% will spend a couple of bucks and the rest won’t spend any.

*Nintendo's motto* "Great Game First" *Other companies'* "Money First Game Later"

Cod actively rigs individual fights, individual audio, individual bullets to reward people who bought skins or keep people playing. They're the leader in the industry so it will only get worse from here unless regulation is passed somewhere in the world, then game devs will create a toggle to turn it off, and other countries will follow. The EU could be a leader in this.

Balatro has been my favourite game lately. 150MB game, made by 1 dev, A$20, no microtransactions, just a solid fun deck building game.

This is why Baldur’s Gate 3 is one of the greatest games of all time. $70 for a game that is complete, fun, has longevity, you can replay the game with numerous endings. You can pay for the $10 extra stuff, but it’s mostly to wear a cape early lol but it is a choice that doesn’t affect the overall quality of the game. Larian Studios made a fantastic game that doesn’t come off as scum sucking losers

It is obvious since years. There is a pattern in LoL: My jungler is good > Wind dragon, Wind dragon, Wind dragon. My jungler is bad: Power dragons, Power Dragons, power dragons. I check my jungler: Terrible jungler on record on porofessor. If their most tanky person is good, suddenly there are stone drakes over stone drakes et cetera. Just look out for these things.

The “regulation” is built into the market, it depends on the choices of the people participating.

so sad that Halo has devolved into the same pre-determined outcome tactics used in mobile games...truly heartbreaking..

I have been telling buddies for YEARS about this stuff. It always ends in me beating my head against the wall. Most people gaming these days are lazy casuals. They are going to play whatever the corporations give them, and they are going to love it. They are going to spend money on whatever the corporations want, and they are going to love it.

i studied this during software tester classes , spoke with people who developed or helped develop alot phone apps , apps , games ,when i talk about things i seen or been told to or stories , people on game forums dismiss me or not care when i share how deep rabbit hole goes and "how far they manipulate" the player , mind you this was in 2017 and already then "games developers employed more people who gather and analyse player data" then programmers who develop you know , the videogame , people joked that soon it will be more of 2/3 or 3/4. a lot things i seen , who been talked to or so became industry standards in few years later.

Every single pay to win mobile game I've played. Specific ones being Dragon City, Need for Speed No Limits, and Asphalt 9. I stopped playing these games years ago because I found myself spending way too much time in the menus, trying to figure how on earth I could progress without paying for stuff, than in the actual game. One thing I'll add onto is that sometimes these games release bundles with fake discounts. Still remember to this day when Asphalt 9 released a limited time bundle for the Pininfarina H2 that allowed you to have all of the blueprints to unlock the car and its upgrades (legendary blueprints), plus tons of credits and tokens, that had a 90% discount on DAY ONE that never went away and costed $110

Heres a hint on how far some companies will go. Call of Duty used the framework for Ricochet before they marketed it as anti-cheat. Competitive gamers are being brainwashed.

Gaming died in 2010. They figured out we'd pay for DLCs then, which is pretty much directly responsible for this. I can't believe I'm saying this, but at this point, government ought to start regulating the major developers. If developers want to act like casinos, treat them like casinos...require them to have gambling licenses. If Developers don't like it, they get 1 of 2 choices. 1. They make the game they want with all their Live Service BS, but they have to have a gambling license, and they have to pay 50% more in taxes for the next Fiscal Year. They can only be sold to 21+. 2. They make games without Live Service, gambling tendencies, and predatory behavior for everyone.

I've noticed in Halo Infinite, all of my games are always a stomp whether it's my team or not. I will hop in a match, my team will win BTB Slayer 100-30, then the next match, 30-100, then it's always like that. Has been like that since launch, and I don't pay for any content in the game.

I actually don't hate live service games...in theory, a Halo live service game could be incredible! If a game is awesome, I would gladly spend money on it. But, when it's just obvious cash grab crap that has no heart and soul, i don't want any of it.

Remember when EA's Star Wars Battlefront 2 came out & the US government took action against EA for forcing kids & others to gamble their savings away for Yoda. EA & Dice took away the monetization from the game! Battlefront 2 was much more kind by its fanbase compared to EA's Battlefront 1 because of this decision & lead to many content addons, bigger & better than it was at launch. Imagine if there were laws against monetized gambling in games.

SBMM is the single main reason we don't have pre/post-game lobbies that carry over into the next. How could they throw you into algorithm matches if you were still in the same lobby??

1:52 - The sweet spot is supposed to between challenge and success _not_ challenge and frustration.

The change to spartan points on the Halo Infinite Battlepass did me in. I don't play nearly enough to benefit from that. It literally stopped me playing the game.

I remember buying a like 500 gems in pixel gun 3d for 50% of it was my first purchase in the game the sale never came back and it was active for the whole time i had been playing without spending money

Lucky for me... I stay away from any game that includes FOMO, unreasonable microtranactions( i dont mind buying a skin if it costs like at most 2 dollars), battle passes, online only(unless it's made with love), no effective ways of unlocking at least most the customizations by just playing the game.

One of the worst things about gaming these days is that you can't just pop in a disc and play anymore. Recently remembered that I had a copy of Skyrim for PC, wanted to install it on steam, but the code had already been used by 13-year-old me years ago. So now if I want to play the game that I already paid for, I have to pay for it again. Back in the 360 days, you only had to install a game if your disc was scratched up, and your buddy had the same game for you to install so you could play it even on a broken disc. Now even if you have the physical game, you still have to install 60 gigs and clog up your memory instead of playing from the disc. The golden age has passed, folks.

I'd like more examples of the predatory pay to win games outside of mobile. Overwatch 2 is a good example of how corporate greed destroys a vision for what a game could be - with that said, OW2 is in a way better place than OW1 was at the end, and in a considerably better place than halo can even think about being despite the heaps of well earned criticism towards blizzard.

I’ve been talking about these Dark Patterns ruining Gaming as a whole in tandem with Shills and Casuals, ultimately I’m just glad more and more people are realizing what’s going on. The first step to recovery is to know there’s a problem, and AAAA gaming has become so necrotic and cancerous that even Stevie Wonder can see it plain as day.

Honestly the first game that came to mind was WarThunder. Recently they started spamming me with “personal offers” of blatantly broken premiums at a slight discount. Bloody annoying.

Apex legends just made a post about how they'll be introducing two battle passes in a single season... the premium+ bundle that gets you extra levels will also have exclusive skins.

I feel like only legislative action can stop this as this plays directly with people's psychology. Thanks for covering the topic.

The gamers/consumers have allowed the market to get this bad. I've played a lot of those games you mentioned: Infinite, Fortnite, COD, Battlefield, Overwatch, and so on. I've never once spent money on them and have enjoyed them just fine without any additional purchases. Excluding the original $60-$70 for the non-free to play games of course. I've been doing it my entire life. Everyone else can do it too, but they wont.

I have one thing to say: Runescape music: 3:57 💪