Why would it be? The neglected generation that got used to spending their parents money on micro transactions and spewing left and right “i hope you get cancer and fkn die” has grown up to spending their parents money on cheats and spewing left and right “haha you suck, kys”.
It was unavoidable. Can’t even blame the parents who’re too busy working the equivalent of 2-3 jobs in order to stay afloat. It’s just a shitty development of current society that will wreck us for generations to come.
I’d argue the death of community run servers did more harm than micro transactions.
Back in the day you’d have at least one admin in the lobby taking out the trash.
The incentives for charging real money include “losing feels awful.” If you’re genuinely going ha ha, good game, congrats, then that’s psychological manipulation that was left on the table. The studio demands that developers leverage more agony into that defeat. It’ll keep people playing until they eke out a win, and then that win is so juiced with positive signalling, they’ll immediately want another.
Hear hear! I remember when this cool new service called Xbox Live hit the market. I was stoked to play Halo 2 against anyone that wasn’t in my small hometown. It was fun for about a week, and then i started to realize that this is just the worst people, all shoved into a small space. And then, the pregame lobbies went the way of COD, and i slowly started to phase out of online gaming.
It’s why i emulate Sega and NES games these days. They’re finished, i can play games i never got to back in the day, and no squeakers reporting on last night’s coitus with me ma. I’m truly missing the “gaming experience.”
