- We accept that games like Street Fighter V go to launch with half missing features, and a spotty working feature. We pay full price for that unfinished and untested game.
- We participate in glorified advertised betas like The Division which penalize players and ban them for finding and utilizing exploits...the sole purpose of beta testing.
- We spend an average of the price of a game to utilize online gaming. We then are expected to "sit tight" as servers fail at peak hours constantly then weep with joy when we are given a free month of service. Luckily the advertisements on my home screen always seem to be operating fine during outages.
- We support Indie developers who promise the moon in their Kickstarter but then have no real business strategy or grasp of how to move forward. You know why successful Kickstarter games are such a story??? Because they're a rare gem among a mountain of failure, unfulfilled promises, and legal embezzlement.
- We love paying extra for DLC so much that we now buy season passes for content that may or may not come. We don't really know how much more we'll get...but why not buy it just in case?
- We watch superior emulators of classic and non circulating Nintendo games get shot with cease and desist orders while they continue to peddle their console they've all but abandoned three years into its lifespan.
- We expect that MOST games will not work their first couple days in the marketplace.
- We accept that this is all for the better and that things are truly better than the way they used to be in gaming.
Guys...we have a REAL problem. We are the abused girlfriend that keeps going back to the abuser. We make excuses, see only the good, and every time we are screwed over we shake our heads and wonder what WE did wrong.
Is it our fault games are expensive to make? Is it our fault that games take a long time to develop? Are we heartless bastards for not taking pity on the studio that charges us $60 for half a game and a promise of a patch?
We are made to feel that way. Studios are always sure we are the first to know when they have to lay off staff due to poor sales. Don't worry the people who made the decision to push that half baked game, as well as lay off the staff who advised against it still got their money back.
Are games hard to make? Sure...they weren't any easier back in the day. Yeah, an SNES game is not as complex as PS4...but no one seems to remember PS4 wasn't even a concept or feasible thing in 1994. It's not a valid excuse...it's a straight cop out.
How do we change? I have as much information on that as I do as to why my Xbox Live is down as I write this rant. I just think we really need to absorb the last month of headlines (see above list) and really take in what being a console gamer REALLY means in 2016.
