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US kids want games subscriptions and virtual currency more than games this Christmas
(www.gamesindustry.biz)
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this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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Where did we go wrong?
Most games are free to play and heavily encourage subscriptions. So capitalism?
That's a small facet of the larger problem.
Unchecked "free market" capitalism, if I had to guess.
Companies should never have been able to run outside of a very tight yoke. Yeah sure, capitalism. But not unchecked and especially not unchecked-across-borders so they can start escaping shit by moving legal entities around. Oh and speaking of that, maybe "corporations as entities" is another really really big one we fucked up, allowing the people who make the truly shitty decisions to shirk responsibility for them.
Relevant article: https://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-accountability-history-corporations-us/
TL;DR: the way it was supposed to work is that entities that wanted limited liability were granted corporate charters in exchange for providing some large, tangible public benefit (and very much not just "shareholder value", BTW). This post-Dodge v. Ford Motor Co. world where corporations are essentially mandated to be sociopathic is an absolute 100% perversion of what incorporation was meant to be for!
In case you are wondering this because it seems children actually prefer subscriptions to owning games, they don't. Out of what is offered to them, the most desired choices happen to be subscription models of some form. If those games were something you just bought then the desire would be for games that were purchased in full.
We've been hooking kids on gambling since (at least) baseball cards, which -surprise!- were heavily lobbied to convince law makers to let it fly.
Consumers were doomed the instant we failed to torch and pitchfork that shit.
It's never too late for torch and pitchforks
This type of games are free to play. So a bunch of kids who are friends can start playing at any time even without money. If some of them like the game, they'll stay as a group for the social aspect.
I don't see any wrong in it. Its just different of what I did 30 years ago.
I'm gonna have to disagree. As somebody who was an Overwatch addict, these games are designed to effectively be like drugs. They are not meant for children and shouldn't be purported as such.
These are casinos playing in simple.
In fact, it's much less incentivized for a game that is one and done, even multiplayer titles if they are a paid game.
@panchzila @PopOfAfrica pretty much sounds like when I was addicted to Ever quest and didn't care for offline games.
When we evolved out of the water.
Not pushing harder against subscriptions and scummy practices.
Not teaching kids thr value of money imo is the main one. They dont understand the cost of subs because its not their money they are spending.
I have a half brother whose on the sensible side of buying games. He doesnt get a lot of money, hell he got a 20$ steam card from a friend, and hes saving it for an indie game that doesnt even release till 2025.