The Video Game Industry

You know it's bad when refusing to speak out seems sensible by comparison.

EA Games: Challenge Everything (except the status quo)

Or as Caddicarus said once:

"EA GAMES: Piss off Everyone"

Edited by Demongodofchaos2 on May 27th 2022 at 8:38:48 AM

On the topic of working conditions in the gaming industry, I'd also like to point out that this sort of treatment of employees isn't sustainable at all but it certainly feeds the top level executive's desire for short term profit by cutting salaries.

Like in one of the most financially successful years for Activision, they celebrate by firing hundreds of employees, this obviously did affect their games since it is a shrinking of talent but Kotick and his friends are leaving the ship with bags of money due to the deal with Microsoft. I legit wonder who the staff will be when Microsoft takes over, like so many veterans have left over the years, and hiring people will be difficult with the reputation and lawsuits Acti-Blizzard has acquired.

Then there's Naughty Dog's crunch scandal, and I recall it hit the point where the studio had to hire a Hollywood CGI company to finish on the game because they were short staffed. Sure the game made a very healthy profit, but their talent pool has shrunken.

It's part of the reason the indie boom just kind of...never stopped. There's a ton of people in the indie sphere who started in the big companies, got crazy burnt out and then decided to just work on their own ideas without a giant company, especially since in video games...working independently isn't actually that much less stable than working for a huge company.

Hey, let's bring Blizzard back on the chopping block!

As calculated by Bellular (guy who gives news about the game industry on Youtube), maxing out a character's gear with the best stuff possible in Diablo Immortal will either cost $110 000 in microtransactions or take 10 years in real time.

This is an absolutely inexcusable monstrous scam. The only moral thing for Blizzard to do is to die off for daring to release something so shamelessly money-grabbing.

So they actually went through with Diablo "Don't you guys have phones?" Immortal?

Yup, and the damned thing is that apparently Diablo Immortal could have been a good game had it not been saddled to hell with microtransactions. It's like the auction house drama of Diablo III, only worse and without a happy ending in sight.

Also "fun" fact, the game wasn't released in Belgium and the Netherlands because their laws require that games with lootbox mechanics be rated PEGI 18+.

As in, adult only.

The game could have been released in those countries, but Blizzard wanted to sell their lootboxes to children.

This also confirms that's why they were dead set on targeting smartphones despite Diablo being primarily a desktop series: Microtransactions out the wazoo don't fly in desktop software.

Or rather, they have become a sure beacon of hatred and backlash ever since EA's Star Wars Battlefront II showed how greedy and malicious companies could get.

It's sad how Diablo Immortals is not only a blatant scam of a game, but also feels like a liquidation asset for Blizzard as a whole. If you asked me, I'm sure that Kotick and co. saw the writing on the wall and decided to sacrifice the Diablo franchise for one last short-term cash grab before the company crashed instead of letting Diablo Immortal be an apology to the fans, as weak as it could be.

From what I hear from those who have actually played it, Diablo Immortal is actually a pretty fun well-made game if you ignore the RMT mechanics. You can easily finish the story campaign and will always have something to do all without spending a dime.

The problem is more that if you want to pay competitively, you have to deal with the fact that the person who spends the most will always have the advantage and there's no set limit to how much this is.

It's almost worse than if it was a bad game. It's like someone painting a masterpiece that can be viewed for "free" by the public, but you have to pay microtransactions to see the full thing.

If it was a piece of crap in general it would be easier to dismiss it. But because it's a game I might have actually wanted to play (if everything else surrounding Activision and Blizzard hadn't already soured me on them), the blatant monetization feels that much worse.

Edited by M84 on Jun 6th 2022 at 11:16:32 PM

Its like a good steak except someone cooked twelve thousand maggots on the steak as dressing

It's like a good Wagyu Ribeye steak seared to perfection...except they added fucking ketchup to it, and you gotta pay up the wazoo to get one with no ketchup.

That is what microtransactions are — a shitty condiment that you have to pay to remove to get to the good stuff.

It's admittedly not a perfect analogy since I can't think of any places that would serve you a Wagyu Ribeye steak for free, and this game is free-to-play.

Edited by M84 on Jun 7th 2022 at 12:02:04 AM

At this point it just feels like Activision is throwing out all pretense and is going full Then Let Me Be Evil.

Edited by uncertanSearcher on Jun 6th 2022 at 7:03:06 PM

That's hardly fair, there are actually people out there who like ketchup on their steak.

Edited by Perseus on Jun 7th 2022 at 3:03:37 AM

But not on a Wagyu Ribeye or other very costly steak.

Now you two made me hungry.

Might as well look at one of those gaming cookbooks I have.

Newly released transcripts show Nintendo and the US Department of Justice wanted to make an example out of a Switch hacker who profited off the hacking in order to deter more hacking for profit.

Edited by tclittle on Jun 7th 2022 at 2:54:56 PM

Again, corporations are not your friend, even Nintendo is A Lighter Shade of Black.

To be honest, I grosses me out some people said here are willing to look past bad actions like these because theyre a fan of the corporation.

Nintendo really IS the Disney of video games!

Dude was literally selling roms. Software Piracy is always a bit of an ethical grey area, but I don't think anyone can argue a line was crossed here.

Now, I don't think it's something to deliberately ruin someone's life over, but you can't just let it go either.

I don't think anyone expects him to get off scot free. But this is still pretty much fucked up.

Guy deserves punishment especially if its selling stuff he got for free but the lines of “make an example out of them” opens a LOT of horrible precedents moving forward.

Consider how influential Nintendo is in the Japanese government to the point any modification of a device is illegal even without the piracy aspect, wa pushed by Nintendo (and likely other parties but Im not that educated on that).

Edited by M1gamiTensei on Jun 7th 2022 at 1:36:05 AM