Link ShareThe Video Game Industry's Mergers and Collapse

The art of video games is dying, as big money and mergers and acquisitions have lost their way.

I think for many gamers... they saw this coming with the rise of game passes. Although I wasn't a subscriber, I called it out myself, over five years ago - when the season passes were a single-tier. I told myself: they are going to get people hooked, then up the pricing - because the pricing didn't make sense - gamers were getting more value than Microsoft or Sony could provide, long-term. This was especially the case when the game pass included newly released games. Moreover, I didn't like the idea of game access being tied to a subscription.

I believe the initial manifestation of these problems that were arising, actually began with the various mergers, the quality of the AAA experience continually decreasing (along with a lot of broken promises), but additionally embroiled around the Blizzard sexual-harassment of women incident, as well as all the acquisitions. And certainly, I saw it when previously you could purchase a live game and not pay for a subscription or battle/gaming-pass - as was the case with Overwatch 1 - which Blizzard absolutely bastardized. It has lead to such a push that there are projects that have attempted to recreate Overwatch 1, using Overwatch 2 and Blizzard's now-since-abandoned Workshop implementation.

The bottom-line is when game developers not only fail to listen to what gamers want and their feedback and continue to make poor marketing decision after poor marketing decision - specifically more recently Sony's gaslighting to customers that they want digital-only releases - and especially independent game creators/small businesses are able to recreate the magic and gamer-feedback-welcomed environment, that clearly they have lost their way.

I suppose the other major indicator was associated with right to own - as it tangentially related to right to repair - as was the case with Apple and John Deer tractors. When companies intentionally create an environment that disrespects and ignores their fanbases and what they want - to take the valuable feedback and follow the previously and widely accepted industry mantra of "the customer is always right."

We've seen customer service constantly degraded, as the result of corporate greed and especially following COVID-19. We've also seen it with unannounced implementation of the surveillance state, dismantling of regulation, and as companies fully embrace AI (going against their initial promise it would only be used to make their employees more productive; instead just take a look at how Meta was macro-recording their employees administrative actions - to eventually replace their work with a model). As the phrase goes and under this current corrupt administration: "there is no honor among thieves" and "absolute power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely". Instead of ever-admitting overreach or fault with their actions, they double-down - as if they've got something to prove.

It's too bad the past two years, that corporate America hasn't taken it more to heart. And I'm confident the reason why they haven't taken it to heart is largely due to us living in a crony-capitalist state, where the competition is owned by the same people... essentially creating a monopoly - where stake holders invariably win. This also results in price-gouging and antitrust practices that allow these organizations to run roughshod around consumer rights, environmental protections, etc. When the only punishment is fines and those fines are often lesser than adhering to the law, unfortunately these large mega-corporate conglomerates will continually choose the cheaper of the two options and bypass what's in the best interest of employees and the law. Obviously not all companies act this way, but it has become an ever-increasingly common practice.

And quite honestly, I'm not sure what the end-game for corporate greed on this level looks like. Elon and other tech evangelists, seem to purport that once we achieve super intelligence with AI (a term that Trump has decided, unilaterally, to rename AI to super intelligence, to obfuscate the justifiably bad-rap and coverage received under these practices), that we'll all receive a universal basic income and that there will be no need to work. What's worse, is corporate America in its own greed, is literally bankrupting the country and since Trumpism began - has openly shown us who they are and acted in the worst ways possible.

I personally believe we're headed towards a dystopian future for citizens and consumers, in terms of our self-governance rights being stripped away and running roughshod around our societal norms and constitution. What I find confusing about this is with this overexuberant amount of wealth, what do they gain other than a few more zeros behind the amount in their account. This is a level of money that doesn't buy more happiness and even after they achieve their goal of owning everything, they will still remain unhappy. Personally, I actually see a strong parallel between the ultra-wealthy attempting to fill voids (or holes) in their lives, that money/fame/notoriety alone cannot satiate. Yet, they relentlessly engage in domination. What I can tell you is both Trump and Elon had some traumatic upbringings and were raised in sociopathic families, associated with establishing norms that are inherently inhumane and focus on either material wealth, or exploitation/subjugation/extorting others to either obtain wealth, or peddle their own ideologue fantasies. When such approaches prove to be unpopular with the people, they appear to engage in sadistic pleasure and it only encourages them to double-down in their actions.

There are power in numbers and voices and "we the People" should spend less time expecting someone to come save us, and begin saving ourselves and using our voices - when we still have a first-amendment and before the constitution is completely ignored/discarded/perverted beyond the point we retain access to these rights. Suffice to say, there's a lot of bad-faith actors within the corporate world, which now extends to the government world - as corporate America attempts to fashion government in its image, and for its own vices and various purposes.