I don't think playing a game that you hate is part of being a good friend. Trying a game that you think you'll hate can be, but I don't think it makes you a dick if you don't do something you can't stand to do. In fact, I'd say it'd make your friends dicks if they expected you to do something you hate just because they do it. Being a good friend is not about spending as much time with your friends as possible, it's about being considerate of their desires, and if they're expecting you to do something that you hate, that's not being very considerate at all. As long as you're not berating the game and them for playing it I don't see why you'd be expected to play something you have nothing but distaste for.
It's different with your wife. But in that situation I would just talk with her, let her know how much I dislike the game and try to get her to do something else some nights. Marriage isn't about one-way concessions, and if you really can't stand the game ideally should would understand and forgive you for it.
It's really not as simple as that. At all. I have 2 family members, 1 really good friend (a career partner even), and a few other friends who regularly play LoL. They all gripe about the game, but continue to play it for social reasons. My wife plays it because 3d games give her motion sickness, and she mainly plays games to be social. LoL is one of very few multiplayer games that doesn't give her motion sickness and has a large player base. She's built up a huge network of friends in the game. My brother and good friend are both sick of the game, but have a lot of friends that play.
Everyone knows what I think about the game and doesn't expect me to play it. Nobody forces me. I've quit for 6 month stretches on two different occasions. Each time, I returned because I wanted to be involved with my friends and family. I saw them playing it every night, and the pull of that is just irresistible.
And like I said, I've convinced large chunks of that social group to switch over to other games. We've done months long stretches on Terraria and Torchlight, and some of those people didn't care for those games and just wanted to be a part of the group, so they were compromising too. But my social circle is not a closed system. I'm a single intersection in a massive spiderweb. I have little influence over my friend's friend's friends who are all still playing LoL. People are going to go back to that game consistently to spend time with the people I'm less connected with, and because LoL is larger, its pull will remain more consistent in the long run. Interest in other games will die out over time, and everyone will go back to LoL... and I will eventually, too. The game is basically a very large commons area. This is Network Effect.
I'm not sure if this was directed at me in any way, but... Because sometimes that complaining is destructive. If you're complaint is that the gaming industry is dead because of x game not only do I think you're wrong, but I think your ideas are detrimental to the medium as a whole, and I have a right to say so.
It wasn't directed specifically at you, but at a few people who have been in here basically just to say "this topic shouldn't exist" and led to all the crap about entitlement and stuff.
I also forgot to say that I don't think the gaming industry is dead or dying. I actually think there are a lot of great games out there. I'm not running out of stuff to do anytime soon. But I also think there are a lot of predatory business practices in the industry that deserve some condemnation (and trends that can get a whole lot worse), and the solution is not as simple as voting with your wallet.
You can avoid the culture around you. It's possible and while I'm not gonna lie and say I'm a paragon of discipline and morality because of it (because I'm absolutely not) I've been doing it for about as long as I remember. It's just not possible to avoid the culture and then participate in it, you can't have it both ways. Either you don't watch movies/play games/read books you don't like and therefore are unable to discuss them, or you do and you are. It's a choice, and if you don't think alienating yourself from the mainstream is worth it (and I can understand why not) that's fine, but the option is still there regardless.
Sure. And I very often choose to be left out. But I'm about 80% introvert. I'm guessing you're much the same. We're in the minority. Social inclusion is much more important to most people, and they're going to do whatever is necessary. The point of this is that just because something is popular doesn't mean that a lot of people like it. Most often I think it means that there was some luck in filling a temporary void of appeal to a certain group that also happened to be capable of socially pulling in a large range of tangentially related groups with much less interest.
Have you ever spent an hour trying to get a game to work on PC? I already have this year (Crysis). How about on console? I have once (Saints Row) and I've owned a lot of consoles. Consoles exist because console games just work. It's the same philosophy that's behind Apple products. I agree that the line is blurring between PC and console in a bad way, but it's not like consoles don't have their place.
The only time I've ever had that much trouble was when messing around with mods. I'd also counter that while initial setup on PC is often more complicated, the convenience vs console increases immensely after that initial set-up. With a console, you have to hunt down your disc, change the source on your tv, wait 2-3 minutes through those damn logo splash screens that are unskippable on console, and possibly even more things before you can get into your game, and there's nothing you can do to improve that. On PC, after initial set-up, all you do is click an icon. I can be past the splash and menu screens and in the process of playing any game in my PC library within literally 10 seconds of deciding that's what I'm going to do.
I think enjoying a game for 10-15 hours is worth the money the game cost, especially if the price had gone down by the time you bought it. And sometimes you are going to buy things that end up disappointing you. It happens. If you care particularly about it you can do all kinds of research, up to and including pirating the game, but unless you're playing the pirated copy for 10 hours then I don't think you'll get rid of the experience, just mitigate it. Personally I don't mind so much about buying something I won't like, maybe because I have unreasonably high standards, and that nonchalance has led me to enjoy games I might otherwise not have, if I pirated everything first. Sometimes I'll buy a game and not like it. But I'll keep playing for a few hours because hey, I paid for it so I should at least give it a chance. And occasionally after the first few hours my feelings will change or the game itself will even improve. It works both ways and both options have their ups and downs. Either way you're not going to completely eradicate purchases that you're going to be disappointed in, though. And I really think 10-15 hours is sufficient for a game. I paid probably $30 for Fallout 3 and I don't think I got much more enjoyment out of it. It's an ok game, but I'm not sad I bought it.
I think this one just comes down to personal opinion. I have very limited free time and entertainment budget that I can spend exclusively on myself. I've also developed really high standards regarding price value. I very rarely pay more than $15 for a game anymore. I put research into anything over $5. I look at a lot of DLC or P2W stuff these days and think "why would I pay the price of a full game for a single item?!"
Actually yes. That's what made me read that goddamn contract in first place. And I don't acess my steam account in like 8 months, because of that event. I mostly pirated games, and after I had problems with steam I now ONLY play pirated games.
Ok, so what was your problem? Did you ever contact Steam support? You can say that you shouldn't have to, but services are gonna have problems sometimes, and while it can be annoying to have to contact support, it's a completely different problem from them locking you out of your account. So did you even try to get the problem resolved or did you just default into a position that enjoys the benefits of an industry without actually contributing to it?
And what about indie games? Please tell me you are not pirating indie games. And if you are, please tell me you are at least donating to the creators.
I love Steam. It's never done me wrong. Like Gabe says, it really is a service problem. It is easier to download a game when it's on sale for 75% off on Steam than it is to pirate it and worry about malware, legal trouble, and confusing processes. The service is fantastic.
The other great thing about Steam is how it's enabled indie developers access to a legitimate commercial mass distribution channel.
But if Steam ever fell from grace, I would probably resort to pirating most of my games, except indie games. Fqllve is absolutely right about small-time and counter-culture developers being in much greater need of support. I'm trying to get involved in game development right now while holding down an emotionally draining full-time job and raising a family. It's fucking rough.
And I do like the indie scene more than mainstream stuff, but that's not because I think being indie makes the developers morally superior, though I think some of them really are. I'm interested in games as an art form, and indie games are far more likely to present themselves as art, where mainstream stuff is more likely to present itself as social scene or generic time waster.
Eve
From all the stories I hear about it, Eve is actually the only current major MMO that engages the potential of the genre. I've seriously thought about getting into it myself, but I just haven't been in a position to be involved in an MMO the last few years. The only other exception, I guess, would be Second Life... but that's kind of a weird one.
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Topic: Rampant Monetization in the Gaming Industry (Read 71791 times)