Gaming has more than its fair share of problems right now. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to find new games I really want to play. Practically nothing fits my actual values. And even games which fit enough for me to just about tolerate are becoming somewhat rare. And that’s before you get to the cost of everything. Hardware, software and services. At least in the 90s and 2000s, I would describe gaming as having been pretty centrist or even centre-left in some cases. Now it almost universally comes across as right wing or even fascist. And that’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. Jeffrey Epstein himself played a key role in fostering the free-to-play, microtransaction centric, greed dominated corporate hellscape gaming has become in the 2020s.
It is true that bargains in gaming do still exist, although only really in software, and only really because of the sale culture that Steam has cultivated over decades, which has forced Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo to compete (if you can say Nintendo competes on price, which is debatable). I wasn’t kidding when I talked about how Steam is responsible for almost everything good that’s happened in gaming in recent times. But outside of that, you very rarely feel these days like you got a good deal. You generally feel as if you have to fight against the rip-off system. If you buy everything on launch day, and get the deluxe edition because you know you love this particular series; and you can save a little bit by paying up front for the DLC season pass; you still feel like you’ve paid too much. I almost never feel like I get value from a full price game. Pokemon Legends Z-A a recent example of one where I did feel like I got my money’s worth on the base game. But even then, the price of the DLC left a sour taste in the mouth.
The thing is, it may not even be the case that all of those publishers are charging extortionately for the work that goes in to these titles. But that should then lead you to ask questions about the industry as a whole. Do games need to be this grand in scale? Do we need this many developers per game? Wouldn’t it make more sense to spread those developers out among more games? Clearly, something; or more likely many things, have gone very wrong to end up in this state. While neoliberalism is definitely to blame in large part, I think there’s definitely a lot more going on besides.
In this article, I’m going to briefly outline my solutions to the issues I see as holding gaming back from its full potential; and even the reasonably gamer-friendly position it used to occupy during my childhood. I’m going to categorise them as either instant fixes, more mid-term challenging problems to solve; or dream scenarios that we’ll most likely need a form of revolution in order to make reality. In the vast majority of cases, it’s pretty self-explanatory as to what the problems are; and I’ve also touched on several of these points before. Therefore, I’m only going to get into the specifics where I feel I need to offer more context.
Instant Fixes
- More affordable games.
- Phase out most free-to-play games (unless only cosmetics are paid for) – No paid unlockable characters, modes or areas. Certainly no micropayments to skip artificial waiting times.
- No paid battle passes – Paying to be locked into playing the same game for many hours to unlock what you’ve already paid for makes no sense to me. Free battle passes are ok though. They’re more akin to traditional gaming progression or seasonal challenges.
- Fairly priced DLC / season passes – I’m a casual Tekken fan. I’ve been waiting 2 years for the latest release to come down in price to a sufficient level for someone who will only play it very occasionally. At this rate, I’ll be waiting another year or two to get a fair price on the game with all the extra characters. Many of the DLC characters are core Tekken series returnees, and you can bet that’s not an accident.
- Free online play and cloud saves – Steam offer these essential tools for free. Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo can and should do the same. PlayStation and Nintendo have in the past.
- No “Pro” edition mid-generation console releases – They’re deeply unsustainable, add complication to game libraries and make the jump to the next full generation less of an exciting event.
- Longer console generations (a full decade).
- Less remakes and remasters – Let games become retro, and enjoy them as they were originally intended to be. Limit the practice to exceptional circumstances when dedicated long-time fans specifically ask for a remake for an older game. That’s how it used to be before we started seeing a deluge of remasters (because it’s relatively easy money and a sure thing for extremely risk-averse publishers)
- Fewer sequels – unless they’re genuinely necessary rather than a “cash grab”.
- More new IPs – more creativity in general.
Challenging Problems – will take time even with widespread desire for change
- A more affordable and more comprehensive cloud gaming service for PC games (I’m thinking of GeForce Now). Nvidia’s service has a lot of things going for it. Primarily how you own your games via Steam or other stores, so you can play them on future hardware you may end up owning. However, the game selection is far from comprehensive; which it needs to be for it to be any serious gamer’s primary platform. I also think going down the “install to play” route is a mistake. Cloud gaming needs to always be easy, and it needs to be significantly cheaper than buying the hardware yourself. “Install to play” compromises the core selling point. My main hope with regard to cloud gaming now is that Valve themselves come out with their own competitor directly built into Steam. That would be a hugely significant development and would be great for gamers.
- Controllers, mice, keyboards, headsets and other peripherals must be compatible across all hardware and operating systems, and be built to last too.
- Gaming peripherals must no longer require proprietary software like Razer Synapse or Logitech G-Hub in order to function fully. We should be able to fully customise them via a web-browser on any operating system. There are benefits to downloaded software, such as being able to automatically change DPI or polling rate settings when specific games are launched. But it shouldn’t be mandatory. And the software should also be available on Linux (especially Steam OS).
- We need to have the option to choose between handheld and static “GameCube style” versions of systems like Nintendo Switch 2. The opposite of the Switch Lite concept. Why should you have to pay for a battery, screen and other hardware necessary for a handheld device, if you’re like me and always prefer to play on the TV. I wouldn’t exactly say Valve are doing this with Steam Deck and Steam Machine, since the hardware is different on both. But they are offering people the choice of a handheld or a static experience. They’re even offering in the Steam Machine a choice between living room and desktop use. They are undoubtedly catering to gamers like me more than the others. And I wouldn’t include the ROG Xbox Ally or Playstation Portal in this, because neither of them are truly doing what the Steam Deck is. The Portal is a cloud gaming and remote play device that requires ownership of a PS5. And the Xbox Ally is a Windows handheld from a 3rd party with Xbox modifications. It’s not a ground up Xbox handheld.
- Games need to stop progressing graphically for a while, in order to allow storage and other hardware components to catch up, become cheaper and store more games again. People are never going to need 8K TVs; but I imagine that is going to be a big focus of Sony and Microsoft in the next generation. Games look good enough now. PS6 needs to reset the ratio of game size to default storage space to around the era of PS4, when managing storage internally and externally wasn’t the frustrating experience it became with PS5 and Sony’s move to NVMe SSDs. And actually this gets more important over time, as we all accumilate more generations of downloaded games that we have to fit on the new systems. All of which will undoubtedly be backwards compatible, as is now the industry standard. PS4 games are no trouble because they can be stored on a standard external hard drive. I still use the same one I used with PS4 and PS4 Pro (before I realised how bad of an idea mid-generation consoles are). But PS5 games will almost certainly need to be stored on the PS6’s SSD when you want to play them. If so, that’s going to cause yet more storage related headaches for Playstation gamers in future. If it turns out that they will be playable from an external SSD, then that doesn’t really alleviate the problem, since NVMe SSDs are still very expensive if you want a useful amount of storage (aka over 2TB).
- A far better and industry collaborative method for preserving games for future generations.
- DRM-free games (all games).
Dream Scenarios – maybe in a degrowth communist world
- A unified software store for every publisher – Yes, even Nintendo. (ideally a nationalised Steam). You’d buy a game once, and own it everywhere. And you’d be automatically entitled to any future remakes or remasters of that game. And we’d eliminate the problem that often occurs now where your DLC is stuck on one platform, so you can’t move to a different platform, unless you buy the same content again.
- All consoles of the same generation would be built to equivalent specs; so as to make it seamless to release games everywhere.
- A unified cloud gaming system available on any device, and with all games from all publishers available. That is unless there’s a good reason why they can’t be. For example a niche peripheral that’s no longer available or compatible with current devices; like a dance mat or lightgun.
- All games preserved for future generations except possibly certain online only games. But even in that case, we should endeavor to preserve them, even if only for educational demonstrations rather than actual gameplay.
If we were to see even half of the things I listed in the first category implemented, gaming would be in a far more tolerable situation. Clearly at this point we can’t just sit around and hope for the best. We need to push for these simple reforms by voting with our wallets and being vocal; while also keeping a socialist gaming future in mind. We’ve become far too used to the need to own specific, expensive machines to play specific, expensive games. And we barely bring up the fact that we have to pay subscription fees for each console’s online functions. Services that not only don’t need to be paid for, but that attempt to lock us in to playing primarily on that system. They essentially bully you into picking one platform to play all your 3rd party games on.
It’s not a status quo that can continue that much longer. It’s going to get to the point where people will either get fed up of the toxic gaming trends, and stop playing. Or they’re going to be totally priced out of their hobby. Perhaps that could lead to a huge resurgeance of retro gaming, which could end up being very positive. As long as you already own the hardware that is. Otherwise cost is going to chase you down the retro rabbit hole too.
There are definitely issues in other media. DRM in e-books, music subscriptions (not all of them, but certainly Spotify is problematic); cable and satellite TV being replaced by 10 different apps with subscriptions that add up to more than you were paying before. But no other group of media consumers get shafted more than gamers. This is another reason why we need to fight back. Otherwise we’ll end up with physical music from some labels you can only listen to if you buy a specific machine, or yet another separate subscription. You’ll need two different boxes to play your movies on. It’ll be like Blu-Ray and HD-DVD all over again. Except this time, there won’t be a definitive winner. There may even be three formats. If you want to watch those exclusive films, you’ll need another box. And if you’re thinking: yeah, these corporate goons are bad; but they wouldn’t stoop as low as reinventing CDs or vinyl records in order to capitalise on nostalgia and the physical media resurgeance; think again. Nothing is off the table when it comes to squeezing every penny out of us. Sony tried to stop you ripping CDs in the early 2000s, which didn’t go well for them thankfully. But now we live in a much more brainwashed world where the majority place far too much trust in these multinational conglomerates.
Because gamers are so used to being treated with contempt by companies, we’re the guinea pigs. If we sit there and take it, the corporations will gain in confidence that they can do the same to everyone else. It’ll make the present day mess of endless streaming apps seem like nothing if they’re left unchecked and emboldened to do their worst.
