Scorbunny Is The Build-A-Bear Pokémon I’ve Been Waiting For

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1. 

   Worried Internet Citizen

   May 7, 2021 at 4:27 am

   As one peruses the comments and articles in reply to the episode of Four Corners, one becomes aware that it appears the point of the episode went over the heads of most gamers, the author of this windy article included.

   The episode deals with three elements of the gaming industry; addiction, microtransactions and loot boxes, and does so both separately and appropriately interrelated. The biggest theme throughout however was the trend of some users towards addiction, and the exploitation and indeed willful creation of these players by some developers.

   Whether one likes it or not gaming addiction is a real, recognised mental health disorder that has consequences on the lives of those who suffer the affliction; even if they aren’t consciously aware. The episode was careful to explain it was a segment of the industry engaging in poor practices the every game, but also importantly that whether a developer intended it or not, any game could become addictive.

   We see it all too often, players in steam reviews who rack up hundreds of gameplay hours inside months. But in health we also see the toll it has on people’s lives and relationships. Sleep problems, nutrition issues, heart disease, eye problems, stroke, broken relationships with spouses or children. These are real, tangible outcomes that we see in noticeable numbers every day in Australia.

   Perhaps sometimes clumsy in it’s delivery as it struggled to fill out 44 minutes with limited interviews, the Four Corners episode was definitely fair. If anything it didn’t go far enough at exposing the stinky underbelly of gaming. It is further important for one to remember this wasn’t an episode to inform gamers on an issue. It was an episode intended to let those with legitimate concern, alert those not in the know to the situation.

   At no stage did the story claim Assassin’s Creed feathers were part of a microtransaction system. What one player discussed was his personal struggles with gaming addiction, and how the ultimately pointless pursuit of gathering such in-game feathers was a symptom of that addiction for him. The point was to express the mundane, tedious and wasteful nature of such game mechanics that lose people weeks of their lives for no tangible or proportional reward.

   For a medium intended as an escape from the mundane and tedious, it is indeed apt to include criticism of game mechanics which encourage or require grinding. Go hack just a decade and how many gamers were opposed to the idea of games with grinding mechanics? At the very least one must concede that alone is a monumental position shift of the fanbase, and such a shift in such short a period of time requires at least some behind the scenes manipulation of the community.

   In an industry where Rockstar have made $14Bn from GTA Online microtransactions alone, acting as though they’re rarely used by anyone flies in the face of reality. Retailers literally stock microtransaction vouchers for GTA Online, and just to get you over that initial spending hurdle Rockstar will happily sell new players a bundle of the game and a microtransaction voucher which you pay full price for.

   Zynga made $7Bn off of housewives playing FarmVille on Facebook. Games like CandyCrush, World of Tanks, Fortnite, they’re all making huge returns despite costing nothing to download. That you personally may have never spent a dime on any of these games is not a coherent or logical argument against the hordes that do.

   What would have been nice to see exposed in the episode are the enforcement demands of companies like Rockstar. Let us not forget the Melbourne based developers now imprisoned for making cheat software which got around or simply disabled the microtransaction system. Or the 3 European developers now going through the process of suffering the same fate. Some of these “cheat” systems literally just turned off the microtransaction element of the game, nothing was taken from Rockstar in the process the player just couldn’t spend any money on microtransactions.

   I think most Australians would be outraged to learn that our government is depriving two citizens of their freedom over something like that at the behest of Rockstar and parent company Activision. It plays into the topic of microtransactions and really should have been exposed.

   So to should the trend to release half finished games at full price and expect players to purchase DLCs to acquire the remaining components of the core game. This tactic plays into the same gamblers fallacy that loot boxes use to keep you spinning. In terms of a half finished core game, you’ve already purchased the game and so for many they feel they’re already invested enough so they have no choice but to purchase the DLCs to complete the game.

   Further still the desire to ever increasingly isolate the player as a tactic to drive hardware and game sales.

   These are all predatory behaviours by the industry and I can’t think of any AAA studio that isn’t engaging in at least one if these practices, other than perhaps Nintendo. It’s important that they’re all exposed and dealt with through regulatory reforms. Regulation isn’t scary, it doesn’t make an industry go away. Indeed it legitimises the industry and ensures longevity, and right now there are enough studios engaging in predatory practices to be a threat to the long term survival of the industry, so all genuine gamers should be calling out for regulations to bring the industry back inline and return to sustainable practices.

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