The Greed Problem in the Gaming Industry

Article by: Night Ninja

Greed! It’s contagious, and it can turn the best of men into people who only care about profit. It’s so contagious that it has affected the video game industry as a whole, where video games are no longer made with a passion, a desire to make a game that can stick with someone forever. Instead, the industry focuses on half-baked messes, DLC, and monetization. For those who are unknown to this, the gaming industry has become a greed filled cesspool, one that will do anything to milk the consumer for money. Rarely would you find games, that gives you your investments worth, instead it’s bogged down with cash cows, and practically scams to take advantage of you as a slave, or you might as well be… Back then video games used to be filled with wonder and adventure, worlds you would otherwise be unable to see or experience, and not even movies achieve quite the immersion that games can. To most gamers, we have some pretty incredible memories behind these outlets, Ocarina of Time or Breath of the Wild or even Majora’s Mask, Metal Gear, the Final Fantasy franchise, Halo, plenty of games out there that are prime examples of feeling like you are a part of a living breathing world, with memories that will carry on with you, for life. SO WHY THE FUCK IS THE INDUSTRY JUST FILLED WITH THESE SACKS OF SHIT WHO ONLY CARES ABOUT THE GREEN??!! It’s because we didn’t put our foot down, at least for a while we haven’t. In all fairness, we needed to put our foot down the moment DLC became a part of the industry, the only reason not everyone cares as much is: it was game and more! The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a prime example of a complete game, and then the DLC coming in, adding so much more, a natural addition that feels like something new, not something that should have been there, to begin with. However the industry kept getting more and more greedy, they began to put pressure on people with Season Passes and Pre-order bonuses, as a way for someone to invest much more than they need to, right out of the gate. The issue with these practices is the hint that we aren’t getting the full game, otherwise, if there is more content already planned/made that I can’t get otherwise, might as well be telling me I bought a fucking demo. But the highest, absolute scummiest practice these days, have been “monetization”, “games as a service”, “loot boxes”, or more commonly known as “microtransactions”.

• _Microtransactions_

This practice was born in the free mobile game market, as a way for certain games to make money and stay free, there have been certain cases where this is very harmless in FREE games, however, the issue comes with it being tied to progression and being a “pay to win” experience. If it’s in a mobile game, the least you can do is go “well I’m glad I didn’t spend money on that piece of shit”. However, the biggest issue arises from REAL PAID GAMES having this system!!! It’s a practice that you will sadly find within many full-priced retail games, and some of the biggest names in the industry are behind them!

Yes I know, shocking… Electronic Arts makes the list, but it has been quite the mainstream company for the face of video games as they are the home to many of gaming’s greatest hits, such as Battlefield, Madden, Fifa, Need for Speed, Mirrors Edge, Mass Effect, Dead Space, the list goes on. However, it was only until as of late that their greedy anti-consumer antics came into the public eye, as I’m sure many of you will know about the Star Wars Battlefront II controversy. For those that don’t, it was EA’s latest scheme to milk people dry, what started as an apology for Battlefront 2015, became an attempt to make a pay to win system, reliant on buying loot crates to gain a big edge against other players.

To break the system down, you gain credits from each online match you play(with little to no incentive to play well) and spend these credits either buying loot crates or purchasing characters. Inside the loot boxes contain “Star Cards”, which when applied to classes and characters, gives a significant edge against others, offering 2 times the damage even. Not only that, but people lashed out when they found out that hallmark characters like Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, were both behind a 40 hour grind for each character, and as a result EA publishing a statement on Reddit, upon the community finding out this, their response was, and I quote: “The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes.”. This comment became the most Downvoted Reddit post in history, sitting at -672k points, if you wish to look at the post itself, you can find it here! Thankfully this gave EA some much-needed backlash, as this resulted in the game having a 50% decrease in character costs. This, however, wasn’t enough backlash as they still included the pay to win mechanics, until the backlash became so much, with government officials around the world, stepping in and addressing the gambling these titles actually, truly, is. This even caught the attention of Hawaii State Representative: Chris Lee. He had held a meeting to address the predatory practices, calling the game out for being “a Star Wars themed, online casino, designed to lure kids into spending money, its a trap!”. If you wish to see the highlights itself, the YouTube video is linked right below!

However, as much as the game caused a lot of controversies, EA themselves turned the microtransactions back on, even with the fact that they had caused the investigation of loot boxes and microtransactions around the world by these government officials, and the ever so looming investigation that may commence in Washington state soon enough. Even with all that has happened, it’s still a greed filled cesspool, and plenty more lies have surfaced over the course of this game, such as cosmetic’s not being an option(which it was and has actually already been implemented in, just turned off). However, they still only have a one-sided mind, and it still is and always will be greed, as they have even gone as far as implementing this system everywhere else in their games, such as “Need for Speed: Payback”, and what was originally planned for the new “UFC 3″(but EA quickly backpeddled and only offered Ultimate Team, like every other shitty Sports title they pump out), which both were to have loot boxes and their own version of “Star Cards” from Battlefront II. Electronic Arts, EA, or how they should be called now: “Everything Awful”, considering they’ve even been so hell-bent on getting so much money, they had shut down Visceral Games, and their Star Wars project, asking where their version of Fifa Ultimate Team was. What we really have to blame for their greed, is Fifa actually, as EA has earned about $650 million annually with Fifa. However, they aren’t the only company integrating these predatory practices.

Activision has made patents on new matchmaking algorithms which you can find here! These patents, as you can view publicly, was designed to trick you into paying to get better, and even making you think you need them, by putting you in matches that you could(by design) never win! In addition to this, they began exploiting their player base in Call of Duty: World War II. This game, I was originally ecstatic for! This was a Call of Duty game, coming back to the gritty realism of World War II, and with their last game in this era, has been Call of Duty: World at War. I wanted this game to do everything right, the last COD I had played was Black Ops II, and for good reason! When the game released, people found out that the story was some generic Michael Bay type of cinematic movie, with the online being filled with this game’s version of loot boxes, aka: “supply drops”. They went as far as to make this a social activity, where you can get better loot, by watching others call other boxes, and watching them be opened. Combined that, with the matchmaking patents, Activision just reeks of greed!

Oh, how the mighty have fallen!! I used to be a BIG fan of Halo back in the day, it was my only weakness to the Xbox, or the Xbox 360. It was FPS at its finest, and with Halo: Reach, being my all-time favorite FPS! So when Bungie announced the original Destiny, I was extremely excited, it looked like an MMO version of Halo, and one I could enjoy for decades to come, as of TODAY, the original Destiny is actually pretty good, however, when it first released, it was a mess! So naturally when Destiny 2 was announced, people thought a true sequel was on the way, one that would expand on where Destiny 1 left off, however, we all thought wrong! What we got was a game made by the minds of exploitative douchebags at the helm!! Most of the features that Destiny 1 found was gone, and most the game’s content is behind their own loot box system: “The Eververse” and “Bright Engrams”! THIS STUPID FUCKING SYSTEM, is made to reward you with a Bright Engram after getting the LVL cap of 20, and maxing your XP AS IF leveling up. Not only did this game have the audacity to give us as little content as it did, but to close the rest of the content behind glorified gambling, is sickening! It’s fucked up to think that the great Bungie, the creators of HALO!!!!! WOULD FUCK THE CONSUMER OVER THIS HARD!! To make matters worse, an XP Throttling System was found earlier on, where it was designed to slow down your progress, to make the idea of buying Bright Engrams, much more tempting and not as difficult, this was discovered, turned off with a half-baked excuse, but the XP needed to earn more Bright Engrams, was increased. It didn’t stop there, the barely an expansion, “expansion”, locked players out of activities if they didn’t own “Curse of Osiris”, this was changed after enough backlash, but most of the content it even gave, was towards The Eververse! The Christmas event after this, was just as bad, most content in The Eververse!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Their response to all this?? Their REASON for The Eververse!?!? Because it was “too hard to make content”… FUCK YOU BUNGIE!!! Literally, when I heard this, all my respect for them, had died, good fucking job you morons… and to top it all off, we got them throttling the faction rally tokens, giving the same bullshit excuse, the same bullshit “we will try to listen and improve”, and it’s back to square fucking one. Play this game? NEVER!

Even Warner Bros. has a huge interest in the market. They currently have a big RPG game series called Middle Earth, a spin-off series that takes place in the universe of Lord of the Rings. The first game “Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor”, was an instant success, an RPG that takes quite a few pages from Assassin’s Creed, but also an amazing combat system, inspired by the Batman: Arkham games. People were DYING for a sequel, and it was eventually delivered: “Middle Earth: Shadow of War”, however, it was presented with greed in mind, as most major progression can be bypassed with microtransactions and loot boxes of its own, to get orcs for your army, WHICH IS ESPECIALLY needed for the end game. Most of the game is through the orc recruiting, and undermines the WHOLE experience, by allowing me to simply, pay up to bypass it all. It’s either that or you literally have to deal with a slow, monotonous, grind if you REALLY want to be a cheapskate to them, and avoid paying up. My question is, then what is the point of going through the game, if you want me to pay to avoid it? I can do that for free.

What was once a great company back in the day, that had given us the likes of the early Tom Clancy games, Rayman, Assassin’s Creed, Beyond Good and Evil, Far Cry, the point is, this list could go on and on. Ubisoft was once a company that created some of the best games I’ve ever played, Splinter Cell being one of my all-time favorite franchises they did, alongside the original Assassin’s Creed titles. They have done some of the most fun open world games too, however, as of today they are a company of greed, where there are many rumors of employees being mistreated, and pushing out their now only gimmick, open world games.

Ghost Recon turned from linear missions and competitive multiplayer that encouraged tactics, to an open world game with a laughably bad story, and a desperate attempt to get people to pay money up front to have the equipment they may want or need. If you looked up a complete map of Wildlands, you will find all types of equipment scattered about randomly to push players to buy the equipment instead. I went in wanting to enjoy it, and although some aspects are still enjoyable(such as the different scenarios you still get to plan tactically with your team), it still is a game that loses a lot of its enjoyment because of its greed, and above all the game feels like it has a lot more tropes and similarities with Far Cry, way more than the actual Ghost Recon or Tom Clancy brand by far.

Even Assassin’s Creed Origins is the same story, what could have been the desperate redesign and new life the series needed, it didn’t get, as it was filled with microtransactions and loot boxes, and DLC you can get by pre-ordering, that might as well have been the plague unleashed with how easy it makes the game. Ubisoft had already been called out on how cheap they are with their graphics downgrades alone, one of the most notable being Watch_Dogs and its noticeably downgraded graphics from its E3 reveal, to its official release, if you want to see all their major games compared, take a look at this video here! To make matters worse some of the titles are just glitchy and half-baked products, products you’d best not even waste time with when there are much better titles out there!

I love Rockstar prior to GTA V, they had made such amazing games, with fantastic stories, and big open worlds, crafted to perfection. Max Payne, Bully, Midnight Club, Red Dead, but of course, Grand Theft Auto ruled supreme! It’s a very controversial game, as over the years it’s been the topic of games being “bad for children” or “too violent”, but it has always sold AMAZINGLY! Grand Theft Auto V is a great example of this, but however has become the next topic, why? Its online component, where its a game that, if you want to have fun, be successful, it all revolves around money, V was originally meant to have plenty of Single Player additions, but only Online got the treatment, as each update, would require you to buy shark cards, to even enjoy the new additions, as much as I loved the single-player campaign, the Online is truly just a scam, to get money to flow in, a pay to win scandal. Why am I talking about this now? Because Take 2, the publisher and parent company of Rockstar, had announced all their games will do what GTA Online did, from here on out, including Red Dead Redemption 2… It may very well lead to these gaming legends, falling from grace, just like Bungie, and it truly would break my heart to see a Bully 2, made with these things in mind.

I will be honest, I have never been the biggest Blizzard fan, but I will say… I have some pretty bad feelings about Overwatch, I know it’s an FPS that has free content updates, and a very balanced, competitive game. It can be fun, and it’s not entirely a bad game if anything, the actual game itself is very solid with its mechanics and gameplay. I however still feel uneasy about its loot box system, now I know its “just cosmetic”, but frankly I’m fucking done hearing that excuse, I’m also done hearing the “games are too expensive to make” comment as well. As a matter of fact, the comment about games being too expensive has been found to be complete bullshit, and you have greedy companies like EA turning off the Battlefront II microtransactions and I quote won’t have “a material impact on EA’s fiscal year 2018 financial guidance” as they’ve said here. The point is Blizzard has easily made a killing off the game sales alone, but what makes this more unsettling is how they tiptoed around a new Chinese law, that would require a list of loot box rates, Blizzard tried to avoid this by making it so the loot boxes can be bought through an in-game currency you buy instead, only to eventually release something, however a bit cryptic to some it seems. I just personally feel like something is off about Blizzard doing that, that they may have something to hide from us…

• _DLC_

It’s no secret that as of today the gaming industry is full of Downloadable Content, also known as DLC. One of the earliest adopters of this practice was actually Sega of all people, with the Dreamcast. Back then, however, DLC was a simple small addition to an already great game, now it’s another form of greed for the industry. DLC has also been used in another form, and that is expansions, which in turn ends up expanding the game beyond what it was originally planned to have, sometimes giving PLENTY more content to it. DLC, however, became most well known and made its forceful stay in the generation of the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii. This still started as a harmless way of giving small extras to an already great game with plenty of content, most of these cases involved games like Call of Duty having extra maps, Guitar Hero and Rock Band having extra songs and song packs, and even simple cosmetic items. It was a more modest approach to adding more to your favorite games at first and proved to do well, as most DLC at this time(as I’ve said) are completely made to be a small cheap addition to a game you already owned. It, however, started to escalate over time as more companies found ways to more so exploit this practice and get even more money out of people.

This was one example I remember from back in the day, Little Big Planet on the PlayStation consoles. It was a neat series of games that started on the PS3, and got 2 sequels, the latter having also been released on PlayStation 4, and two handheld games on the PlayStation Portable and Vita. The gimmick of the game is that you can create anything and do ANYTHING, that is if you have the DLC to do so… Of course base LBP was a fun experience, and you can still do many things, however, Media Molecule started to add more DLC over time, some was simple costumes, however most DLC packs added in things that drastically changed what you could make. One pack back in the day added in water, another added a paint gun, and it was only until Little Big Planet 2 did this become more noticeable, where there was DLC that added in specific material, power-ups, and even gravity being applied to an object as well, allowing it to pull things into its gravitational force. Over time it became clear with Little Big Planet that they wanted to hide the real tools and additions behind DLC. I am still so surprised no one notices this and points it out, I’ve actually had yet to see anyone call out how much its a bullshit system to get DLC sales, and now other games are starting to do the same, where most games are released now with its original intended content as DLC.

As much as I am a fan of the Batman: Arkham series, It is definitely responsible for a lot of this trend, where you may as well not buy an Arkham game at launch and wait for the inevitable Game of The Year Edition that includes everything, sure not all of it seemed that important, but in the case of Arkham City and Catwoman, it SURE AS FUCK WAS! This was when publishers got the bright idea of pre-order bonuses, where if you pre-order a game, you get a DLC with it, sometimes it’s a minor thing like a cosmetic, but in Arkham City’s case, it was an entire character, WITH story importance! If you were someone who bought Arkham City base game without a single DLC, and even without Catwoman, I’m sure you would have been immensely confused! The whole point of the story is that there are sections where Catwoman finds out things of her own or even has to help Batman herself, and when shes cut from the game, it’s just awkward transitions between each section where you’re Batman! It’s become such a bad practice that most companies now LOCK the ending of games behind DLC! If games did things more like “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt”, where the base game was FULL of content, that made it feel like a complete experience, and if the developers wish to give extra in the form of an expansion that gives so much more to the game that it’s almost doubling or even tripling the content you had beforehand, then that is totally fine! I have no quarrel with a publisher or developer wishing to add to an already great experience, as a matter of fact, I welcome it, it’s a problem however when they decide to hold back content on you, punishing you for not pre-ordering or not even buying the season pass.

If that didn’t make your blood boil, why not a fighting game with half of its roster paywalled into being DLC!? BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, a game that I was initially very excited for, Persona 4? RWBY? I had already loved Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, so this was immediately amazing to me, however when you find out that before the game even releases that they will block off characters like Blake Belladonna as DLC? When it’s already announced before the game releases?? Blake is a hallmark character from RWBY, she’s one of the main 4 and she’s DLC!? It’s frankly fucking idiotic that a company would think anyone would be okay with this, and it makes me ashamed that Rooster Teeth’s good name is even barely associated with this game that reeks of greed!! The worst part is its literally half the fucking roster that is DLC!! 20 in the base game and 20 as DLC, are you fucking kidding me!? It’s ridiculous and Arc System Works deserves the backlash they have been receiving from even fans of the BlazBlue franchise!! However, thankfully as of late Arc System Works also showed signs of waking up and made Blake and Yang free DLC, but it still doesn’t change the fact that a significant amount of the roster is DLC, and that needs to change. 

Surprisingly enough… everything before isn’t what I was so upset over, but this was what made me want to do this article the most! The crown jewel of this shitshow of not getting all of the game, unless you indulge in DLC, is sadly Final Fantasy XV! This is a game that I had enjoyed to a great extent, and I need to be real here as someone who has been such a huge fan of the Final Fantasy franchise, let alone a fan of Square-Enix. Thing is, I did enjoy the game, at launch and everything, I actually pre-ordered the Deluxe Edition that came with Kingsglave as well, and I enjoyed the game as much as I did, so I got the Season Pass as well. As much as I enjoyed this game to death, it doesn’t change the fact that this game was released as an unfinished product. For those that don’t know, Final Fantasy XV started as a side game called Final Fantasy Versus XIII, a game that was going to tie in with the latest installment that was in production: Final Fantasy XIII. The two was originally part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, which would have included Final Fantasy Agito XIII, which later on became: Final Fantasy Type-0. It had a troubled development for over 6 years for the PS3, until it was later rebooted for the PlayStation 4 as its own mainline game, renamed to Final Fantasy XV, it’s original director Tetsuya Nomura was replaced with Hajime Tabata. Eventually in 2016, the game was released in November, however, missing many story elements and other various features. However, what brings this to light is the greedy addition that’s Final Fantasy XV: Royal Edition! More content, everything from before there, and only $50 for those who are looking to buy the game, but… for those who already owned the incomplete mess that was the base game of XV, even with the season pass, it was initially an extra $20, with the actual price being yet to be determined, but still looking like they still wanna charge others…

This is when my heart sank, and I became appalled by the fact that not only did they have the FUCKING BALLS, to have asked for a season pass upon release, but to tell us that basically, we hadn’t paid enough fucking money!? It’s fucking greed at its finest!!! If the game was actually complete, then this wouldn’t be a fucking issue!!! The game is still incomplete!!! Even if you get Royal Edition, it’s still not with everything that SHOULD be there!!! Episode Ardyn and Lunafreya aren’t even there!!! Do people seriously THINK Square-Enix didn’t make enough off of XV!? There is a fucking mobile game, a side game that came with pre-ordering XV from GameStop, Kingsglave the movie, Brotherhood the anime, THEY FUCKING RE-RELEASED ONE OF THEIR WORST OLD GAMES THAT WAS MADE RIGHT BEFORE FINAL FANTASY: “KINGS KNIGHT”, AND FINAL FANTASY XV CONSTANTLY TRIES TO ADVERTISE IT TO YOU IN THE FUCKING GAME ITSELF!!! They had made plenty of money off of all that, let alone how much they sold out with CUP NOODLE TRUCKS, AUDI’S, AMERICAN EXPRESS, COLEMAN CAMPING GEAR, AND FUCKING ASSASSIN’S CREED ORIGINS TOO!! LET ALONE WHO THE FUCK ASKED FOR NOCTIS TO BE IN TEKKEN 7 OF ALL GAMES!? WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE TEKKEN!? A GAME PRIMARILY KNOWN FOR BEING HAND TO HAND COMBAT, NOT FUCKING MULTIPLE WEAPONS AND BLADES OF ALL THINGS!!

IT WOULD BE ONE THING IF ROYAL EDITION CAME WITH SO MUCH CONTENT ITS MORE SO AN EXPANSION, BUT THEY HAVE STORY TIED TO THIS AS WELL, WHICH SHOULD FUCKING BE IN THE BASE GAME!!! TAKE THIS AS AN OPEN LETTER TO SQUARE-ENIX AND THE FINAL FANTASY XV TEAM, I WANT TO SUPPORT YOUR FUCKING GAME, BUT I WILL NEVER SUPPORT GREED LIKE THIS, PEOPLE WHO ALREADY OWN THE GAME DOESN’T GET THIS CONTENT, I WILL NEVER PICK UP, OR SUPPORT FINAL FANTASY XV AGAIN!!!!!

Now, there is no denying that Microsoft over years has innovated upon many things, including the PC platform. I, however, have never been an Xbox fan, as I’ve stated before, Halo was the only thing I gave a damn about on the platform, but Microsoft themselves, has gotten greedy with the brand, it was obvious ever since the Xbox One had been announced, with all of its restrictions(such as needing the kinect to even use it, along with an internet connection 24/7, and their original scheme to get rid of used games), and now Microsoft had not only made Halo 5 a grindy microtransaction filled mess, by also not including split screen.

Halo 5 was probably the biggest downfall on their part since it had been their killer app since the Xbox brand’s inception, to take even the split-screen away with a half-assed excuse of how “couch gaming is a thing of the past”, is utter bullshit. They had even gone as far as to monetize Forza 7, with loot boxes locking pointless customization to your racer, and the race modifiers that had been a staple since the beginning, and finally wishing to redesign the gamerscore system, adding in loot boxes for avatars, monetizing Xbox itself!

Furthermore, as of late Microsoft wishes to expand on exclusives, which isn’t exactly a problem, but they wish to achieve this with EA, the Player’s Unknown Battlegrounds company, and Valve itself! PUBG makes sense with how popular it is, but EA already has absolutely no credibility left in the gaming industry, and each game that comes out is now focused on monetization more than anything else!! Not to mention, if they own Valve, Microsoft will have FULL CONTROL over the PC gaming market, even though it is a long shot for Valve to be sold off, it’s still a thought that frightens me as someone who looks into being a PC gamer!! NO FUCKING THANK YOU, I WILL HAPPILY KEEP WITH PLAYSTATION AND NINTENDO!!!

As much as I grew up on Nintendo, I can’t say I’m proud of them… Just recently did they climb out of the hole and earned their place as the industry giants they once were, and with the Switch’s success, people are back in love with Nintendo. As much as I wish to focus on everything good they’ve done with Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, and other various games, they have their own greed. Is it in the same sense as EA, Activision, Bungie, and all these other companies I’m pointing out? No, but Nintendo at the end of the day is innovative but, ultimately old-fashioned.

As of today, YouTube as a platform is still very strong with gaming taking one of the many spotlights the site has, however people aren’t very keen on showing Nintendo, why is that? Because of the Nintendo Creators Program which you can take a look at here(you’ll be blown away by this), this initiative was made by Nintendo to ultimately control any content on YouTube that is even related to them, they utilize this new program to keep every YouTube video that uses one game of theirs, under their ultimate control, and YouTubers have no choice but to conform to this program if they wish to make content on their games, it essentially allows Nintendo to control any and all monetization for your videos, and depending on how they feel, they will give you however much of your money back, but still taking a significant cut, HOW ABOUT WE CALL THIS THE “FUCK YOU YOUTUBERS INITIATIVE”!? I cannot stress how much I HATE that Nintendo is this greedy, already does anyone who wishes to make a career off YouTube has struggled financially, and even worse, anyone who wishes to ignore this will have their channel forcefully deleted! The only person who found a workaround for this is Jim Sterling who already doesn’t monetize his videos, instead is completely Patreon supported instead, and he gets plenty of copyright claims by Nintendo, and is able to dodge these by using more copyright content to cancel each other out, leaving no one to claim any monetization. IT’S FREE FUCKING ADVERTISEMENT!! HOW THE FUCK DOES NINTENDO NOT REALIZE THIS!? ITS FUCKING PATHETIC THEY WOULD TARGET YOUTUBERS BECAUSE THEY DON’T HAVE ENOUGH FUCKING MONEY!!! If it was, however… the only greed that Nintendo has, I wouldn’t have sectioned a whole part of this just for them, in addition, they have targeted any and all fangames.

This would be completely reasonable if these games were illegally making money off of all this, but not a single game was, every game Nintendo has brutally taken down with a Cease and Desist, were games made out of the complete passion for Nintendo and their games! WHAT!? Literally, a single game with a Mario, Link, Samus, or Pokemon is immediately taken down!! WHY!? They literally don’t violate anything as they are made as free fan games, by fans, for fans! It got so fucking childish and stupid to where they threatened to sue The Video Game Awards if they didn’t remove two nominees from the Best Fan Game award: AM2R(Another Metroid 2 Remake) and Pokemon Uranium Version. It wasn’t even enough for Nintendo that they had filed DMCA takedowns for the two titles, but to also rob them from receiving an award for the fans hard work??? IT’S LITERALLY A FUCKING KICK IN THE BALLS TO THE FANS AND NINTENDO SHOULD FLAT OUT BE ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES, IT’S WHY I HAVEN’T USED A SINGLE VIDEO OR PICTURE OF THEIR CONTENT, ONLY THE FAN GAMES AND FAIR USE ITEMS BECAUSE I REFUSE TO LET NINTENDO CLAIM A SINGLE CENT OF MY HARD WORK, SERIOUSLY, FUCK YOU NINTENDO!!

I am going to be upfront and say that I am a PlayStation gamer, it’s my favorite line of consoles, and the exclusives will always remain some of my favorite games of all time. I’m however not here to talk about that, I’m here to talk about how Sony and PlayStation as a whole forgot about Backwards Compatibility, in favor of digital copies, and re-releases, and of course their streaming service PlayStation Now. Back then, when PlayStation 2 released, people were all wanting a slice of the PS2 action, it still is my favorite console to this day! It had it all, the Dualshock 2, graphics unlike anything having been seen before, online gaming, MMO’s like Final Fantasy XI, exclusives like the MGS series, Jak, Sly, Ratchet & Clank, God of War, and Backwards Compatibility! People loved the idea of only needing to keep their PS1 memory cards and games, and still have complete access to them on the PS2 with ease! Hell, the PlayStation 3 originally had models that played PS1, 2, and 3!!! That’s 3 game libraries worth of titles to enjoy on one system! Who could say no to that!? Sony apparently as of now… The last time we had true Backwards Compatibility was with the PlayStation 3’s later models that still played titles from the PlayStation 1, but why is this? Digital, HD collections, and services. As much as I hate Microsoft, I will give credit for allowing people to still enjoy Xbox original games, and 360 games on the Xbox One(however I still don’t see the reason to only have a SELECT FEW AVAILABLE THIS WAY). PlayStation however, since the PS4, has never gone back to Backwards Compatibility, you can’t own a PS4 and play PS1, 2, or 3 games on it. Most PS3 models can’t play PS2 games, or can they? It’s actually been proven by people who jailbreak the PlayStation 3 that it was actually a feature Sony had just switched off, why? Greed!!! Even they aren’t immune to it!!! They have told the general public that how PlayStation 2 emulation is possible on PS4, is by an emulator carefully crafted for each title, WELL HACKERS HAVE PROVED THAT WRONG TOO!! Take a look at this video of Dragon Ball Z Budokai working on PS4 from being jailbroken!

Why let gamers get to slide in their original copy of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas when you can force them to fork over $15 for a digital copy??? God knows Rockstar and Take 2 loves still making sales off of that game even years later after its original release… The excuse of how it’s an emulator, crafted specifically for each game is bullshit, it is just an emulator you mainly plug any old iso into, and it runs! Why allow gamers to put in their copies of Uncharted 1-3 for PS3 into PS4 and play them, than buy the Nathan Drake collection?? Or why not allow the same for Borderlands 1, 2, and Presequel, than to just give them 2 and Presequel with the Handsome Collection!? Why let gamers use their PS3 library right on their shelf, then having them fork over $100 a year to STREAM the games and never truly actually own them anymore!? It’s so fucking obvious PlayStation doesn’t dare give us backwards compatibility again, because if they did that, we wouldn’t need to buy the same game over and over and over again, just to continue to enjoy it on our fancy new PlayStations…

So how does this end??

As much… as I am pissed at the greed that had plagued this industry, I’m upset because I care, because I want the industry to move towards a better future, not one with DLC, Microtransactions, incomplete messes, predatory practices, and getting the government officials around the world involved because the industry doesn’t know when “enough” is. I want to see Bungie back to their old selves, giving us games that lives up to their legacy from Halo, I want to see Activision go back to the company that pioneered third party publishing and development from back then on the Atari, I want to see EA fucking mean Electronic Arts again, I want Nintendo to treat their fans with respect on YouTube and for the fan games, I want Sony to let us enjoy all generations of their games with no strings attached, and I want my favorite company Square-Enix to continue to have games deserving of the Final Fantasy name. This can be taken as an open letter to the whole gaming industry, greed doesn’t belong in business, it is something that can ruin all good faith anyone can have, and it can ruin how much the consumer loves the products given. I know the point of a company, of a business, is to turn profit, but it doesn’t need to be this way where profit is prioritized, if you can make a good game, one people enjoy, and want to support, then you WILL make profit, because people are happy with what you put out. The gaming industry does this, and NOT just being greedy fucks, I’m pretty sure we all will be happy! However… if this were to continue, people will slowly start to just continue to play the old games, or find better things to do, what the industry doesn’t realize, is that the consumer is over having this be the norm, and if it continues, it may very well lead to another video game crash. I hope the industry can make the right decision before it’s too late…

All references:

Microsoft wanting EA, Valve, and PUBG Xbox Monetized Itself! Forza 7 “pay to earn” Halo 5 Microtransactions Xbox One original DRM practices removed BlazBlue DLC Batman DLC Overwatch Chinese Law Destiny 2 Faction Ralley Destiny 2 Dawning Event Destiny 2 Curse of Osiris Lockout Destiny 2 XP Throttling and other info NFS Payback UFC 3 Battlefront II Pokemon Uranium Version and AM2R PS2 on PS4