Recently two games I’m fond of got updates; Timberborn and Sons of the Forest. I only mention names so our discussion here can be grounded in something. Timberborn is the real star here, Sons of the Forest is after all only a few months into development.
But the devs for this project…. have no right to be as good as they are. The game goes for $25, full price. That is to say you can get it for $10-$15 if you can wait for a sale. I had 300 hours into it before the update, and already I’m up over 400 after the update. That’s how good it is, and in little ways. They recently made some quality of life improvements that entirely change the game for the better. Which makes me very happy, but at the very same time; what’s the deal with real life these days?
It would be easier if I thought it wasn’t planned at all. If I assumed that the same incompetence seen in many public works was present in economics I’d be laughing. It’s comical, how bad economics have become as a system of motivation. I should say specifically for me as an upper middle class person, and pretty much everyone of lower status than I. If you have more than I do, I don’t know, how’s it working for you? Surely better than for the rest of us?
But an economy is an artificial construct, no more realistic than my stupid game about beavers building stuff. The entire point of an economy is to distribute scarce resources and keep itself alive, yet ours has been dying for as long as I can remember.
Someone plans this nonsense. Someone looks at monetary policy and says; “Yeah, stagnant wages, loose credit, low taxes for the rich, THAT’LL motivate them.” If an actual dev behaved like this….. well it’d be Ark.
Yes there’s a dark horse in this story, the devs behind Ark Survival Evolved. A rather fun game, cursed with developers from hell. They promised the remaster would be free to all existing owners, with good reason as they are shutting down support for the unremastered version. Then they changed signals, saying it would be $50, BUT you’d get a copy of Ark 2….. that wasn’t popular so now it’s $60 and you get the remastered version, and that’s IT. So you’re paying full price for a game you already own…. ludicrous.
So I uninstalled the bloody thing. It’s 300 gigs for pity sake, I’ve got things more worthy of my disk space than a developer who holds their public in this little regard.
But the devs for this United States atrocity, they make the Ark devs look like saints. The amount of times signals have been changed, promises broken, and player base betrayed is simply astounding. Nothing of value is offered new for endless servitude, and when you can’t serve anymore you starve……
This game is depressing as hell, and I wish I could opt out of it. I’d do anything to opt out of it.
4 comments
“Someone plans this nonsense. Someone looks at monetary policy and says; “Yeah, stagnant wages, loose credit, low taxes for the rich, THAT’LL motivate them.””
–>That’s bc someone IS planning all this. And I assure you, it’s not nonsense to them. THEY are making BILLIONS of dollars by screwing over the masses. That is not nonsense to them. Everything is perfectly orchestrated to keep the peasants poor and hungry, which forces the poor to keep working and working till we drop dead or become useless to them.
If they gave the peasants higher wages and things like healthcare, we’d be like France protesting and rioting. But Americans have been pushed down into fear and ignorance, into sheeple. We have been put in our place and NO ONE but a tiny few are protesting.
Believe you me, our “broken” systems in America are designed to be this way. It’s “broken” only for you and me, but definitely not broken for the few wealthy fuckers at the top squeezing every dollar from us.
I’m late but… Imagine playing the Sims 4… Yep, that’s me, almost 3000 hrs in. (Since 2014) Full price is over a 1000 Dollars (no, I don’t have money to spend on that) Electronic Arts is the worst, be lucky that Sons of the forest and such is indie. Yes of course, some company’s turn their back on fans and rather care about how many more private jets they can buy. I’ll never understand greed. My sibling saved money on buying a switch and guess what, I can’t even buy any Nintendo games, seeing as they’re always 60 bucks, like bruh, as if Nintendo needs that.
Oh yes, EA…. I think if there was a devil he’d say they’re overdoing the whole evil thing. The sims was such an amazing game, and it’s sequels, it’s hard not to give them money for it. I was quite enamored with the second installment. At the time there was real pressure to expand gameplay with expansions, and it was still relatively easy to make user made assets. That game, and Creatures 3/Docking Station are the closest to perfect pairing of dev work and community creation. Minecraft was always overbalanced towards community, not a bad thing on the surface, but we’re seeing what trying to monetize it can’t work.
All that being said, indie games wouldn’t be nearly the hit they are if it weren’t for lousy AAA companies like Ubisoft, EA and Nintendo. Nintendo is actually less bad, they’ve never let go of being a hardware company, and that’s something that limits how “good” they can be.
An example are two games from my childhood, that I 100% would buy a switch and play if it was relatively easy; Luigi’s Mansion and Super Mario Sunshine, but they make it so hard and tedious…. I play them in an emulator, for which I feel no guilt, I’ve bought them both at least once.
There’s just something about experiencing high quality devs in real time….. and I wish life had some equal experience. I find out about stuff that looks cool in real life, but I don’t have the money for it. Today I found out about this cruise that goes transatlantic in the spring and fall. Spring it goes from the US to Europe, Fall it reverses direction. That sounded interesting to me, spending a summer in Europe with a long pleasant boat ride on either end…..
but we’re talking $12k just for the boat trip, easily three times that to stay in Europe that long…. so I’m stuck with the dull American experience.
I feel like the lack of being able to see the world, due to time management and resources, makes videogames so popular. Who can say, they’ve explored a whole planet by spending just a few bucks? I wonder where virtual reality will take us someday…
Honestly with Europe currently it’s not such a good idea, because of the war. I’m in Europe and the inflation is sky-high! I hope you’ll get to take that trip someday, but maybe the situation needs to resolve itself first. Wouldn’t it be nice to have class-trip prices again, heh?