[RANT] Consumerism in games
Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 9:55 pm
Maybe it's just a sign of the times. Maybe I'm just getting old and cynical. Or maybe my meds are making me see ninjas on the lawn. I dunno. But I've got a sinking feeling even my games are trying to nudge me into being a good little spendaholic consumer these days.
Take SSB4 for example. I finally* managed to actually play the game this month, and one thing that stands out is the trophies. All of the Super Smash Bros. games award you trophies as random drops, and SSB4 does too... but mostly, you get gold. Which you use to buy trophies. In a shop. Complete with a nice 3D rendering of shelves with little price tags and neat boxes with fake advertising logos splashed onto them. Don't even get me started on the real advertising in the game! Buy the DLC! Buy an amiibo! It even nags you with a "do you want to receive ads" popup every time you start the game!
It's not just SSB4 either. Hyrule Warriors has a Flash banner on the main menu. And the entirety of Breath of the Wild's gameplay revolves around buying things. Want armor? Show me the rupees! Out of arrows? Be prepared to do some legwork, 'cause nobody ever has more than 15 in stock at a time! But don't worry, half the NPCs in the game are now shopkeepers, so you'll always find someone within easy walking distance! Guaranteed to be 50% more fun than mowing the lawn!
I came here to kick ass and chew gum. But now the gum is $9 per pack and my boots only last twenty kicks before I need to buy new ones.
I'm going to go check out Lizard.
*after a full year of downloading, more than a hundred bucks in bandwidth fees, and two days of "installing", AKA "you don't have enough space to install this, but we're not going to tell you how much you need and you can't change the install device without re-downloading all 13 GB, so you'll have to sit there copying everything else off onto a USB stick, which takes hours and has an 80% chance of failing for no reason whatsoever, so you really will need to sit there and press 'retry' every two hours, no you can't play games while you're doing this why would you even think that AND GUESS WHAT NOW YOU HAVE TO DO IT ALL AGAIN FOR THE MANDATORY DAY ONE PATCH HAHAHAHAHA I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU THOUGHT WE WERE ACTUALLY COMPETENT" but that's another rant entirely.
Take SSB4 for example. I finally* managed to actually play the game this month, and one thing that stands out is the trophies. All of the Super Smash Bros. games award you trophies as random drops, and SSB4 does too... but mostly, you get gold. Which you use to buy trophies. In a shop. Complete with a nice 3D rendering of shelves with little price tags and neat boxes with fake advertising logos splashed onto them. Don't even get me started on the real advertising in the game! Buy the DLC! Buy an amiibo! It even nags you with a "do you want to receive ads" popup every time you start the game!
It's not just SSB4 either. Hyrule Warriors has a Flash banner on the main menu. And the entirety of Breath of the Wild's gameplay revolves around buying things. Want armor? Show me the rupees! Out of arrows? Be prepared to do some legwork, 'cause nobody ever has more than 15 in stock at a time! But don't worry, half the NPCs in the game are now shopkeepers, so you'll always find someone within easy walking distance! Guaranteed to be 50% more fun than mowing the lawn!
I came here to kick ass and chew gum. But now the gum is $9 per pack and my boots only last twenty kicks before I need to buy new ones.
I'm going to go check out Lizard.
*after a full year of downloading, more than a hundred bucks in bandwidth fees, and two days of "installing", AKA "you don't have enough space to install this, but we're not going to tell you how much you need and you can't change the install device without re-downloading all 13 GB, so you'll have to sit there copying everything else off onto a USB stick, which takes hours and has an 80% chance of failing for no reason whatsoever, so you really will need to sit there and press 'retry' every two hours, no you can't play games while you're doing this why would you even think that AND GUESS WHAT NOW YOU HAVE TO DO IT ALL AGAIN FOR THE MANDATORY DAY ONE PATCH HAHAHAHAHA I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU THOUGHT WE WERE ACTUALLY COMPETENT" but that's another rant entirely.