I’m mainly talking about these new “but they’re different” games, that have gotten so fucking popular, lately.

“Honky Stair Rail” and “Genshin Implants” or whatever the fuck they’re called.

I don’t care if you can play them without spending any money. I don’t care if they’re any good. None of that matters. The whole model of the game being funded by whales, spending money on in-game items and currency IS LITERALLY EVIL.

There is no way to do it ethically. That is an impossibility, on a fundamental level. There is no excuse for anyone to give these so-called developers and publishers ANY amount of money, attention, or engagement.

The only acceptable way to pay for a game as a service is a traditional MMO subscription, where you pay a flat rate per month/year to access 100 percent of a game’s available gameplay.

I don’t care what your excuse is. I don’t care that you like anime tits and ass. I don’t care if you think your chosen free-to-pay game is different. It’s not.

Stop supporting this shit. Support real games.

A couple of years ago, I would have considered this to be a popular opinion, but about 35-40 percent of the internet posts I see in 2024 are related to either “Honky Stair Rail” or “Genshin Implants,” and it’s starting to freak me the fuck out.

  • andrew_bidlaw
    7•7 months ago

    It’s just a Netflix for games. Many people who don’t really want to invest time (or so they think) are a new market that opened since games stopped to be a nerds’ shit. And it doesn’t end with the game itself: many play Fortnite or Genshin for social communications about it, it’s fandom and peer pressure. You could’ve seen that with the last episodes of Lost that were making news and got discussed everywhere, you see it now. And no wonder it’s then gets more publicity, because that’s what average person consumes.

    Obviously, there’s a big red flag of capitalism perfecting it’s hooks, now in the mainstream. But there’s still a market for more engaging games. Souls-likes could’ve been dead in the water if TRU GAMIN has vanished, BG3 sales show that AAA can thrive, Dead Stranding kinda plays with that visible lack of gameplay while adding Kojima’s shenanigans, Devolver Digital still greenlits cool projects without bullshit. And games that try to marry classic IPs with some form of gacha\gambling fail like Diablo: Immortal or Owerwatch 2, because most CEOs are fortunately incappable of understanding their shit.

    I feel like your general message of not supporting these practices is kind of misguided because the crowds who play Genshin\PUBG\whatever doesn’t often intersect with those who play non-casual games, and they probably aren’t represented on Lemmy that much.