There's "derivative", a word that is somewhat unfairly maligned, and then there is me peeking over the shoulder of one of my Genshin-addicted friends and taking a full ten seconds to realize they were playing a different game.

Look, I'm never gonna play Wuthering Waves. After Genshin, I'm never touching another gacha game again. I'm just here to bitch and moan because I find it cathartic. Buckle up.

I'm one of, like, ten people on this planet that has an opinion on Shadowgate 64, and even though it pretty much objectively sucks ass I still had enough affection for it to add a copy to my collection. It's clunky and slow and ugly and occasionally bores me to tears, and still charms me in spite of all of that. But, y'know... I can trust it. Inside that crusty old cartridge is an experience that I know like the back of my hand, fully open, never changing, for better or for worse. Would I have been frothing at the mouth if I had paid full retail for it when it was new? Yeah, potentially, but that's its own problem. When I come home at the end of the day, it's still going to be exactly what I paid for. I don't have to worry about it missing content or maybe not even being there at all (entropy aside). I don't have to worry about it miraculously updating itself while it sits on my shelf and promising me a new adventure proportionate to roughly a quarter of its original retail cost. And I certainly don't have to worry about it pestering me every single time I walk into the room about how it cooked up this really fun looking texture pack that gives every character Juggalo makeup and asking if I'd like to give that a spin for a couple of quid. Shadowgate 64 is a friendly and non-obstructive roommate and decidedly outmoded. More and more I'm finding myself saying "they sure don't make 'em like they used to" - games, that is, and specifically insofar as buying a game used to mean buying a game and not a note from devs or publishers telling me "I'll gladly let you pay me today for a hamburger Tuesday!" (Editor's note: The hamburger is an analogy for a game.)

The human mind is terrible at math and statistics. Retail markets price goods just below a full dollar amount because they're hoping it'll trick you into thinking you're saving money. Slots are seemingly randomized in their outputs so that means if you just keep playing, you should hit it big eventually, right? Lottery tickets say clear as day on their backs that you have a snowball's chance in Hell of winning a jackpot, but obviously somebody is winning them, so that means you do have a chance. I mean, I even do it to myself when nobody's trying to con me - I hop into my car and drive to work fives times out of the day, and feel perfectly fine doing it, but I get anxious climbing onto a plane even though I'm significantly safer in the air than on the ground. Not everybody is fooled, of course, and some of these fallacies have become prevalent enough that many have caught wise to them by now - but when you're continually being attacked from all angles, can you ever be 100% sure you aren't getting fleeced somewhere? Our skulls are full of meat custard and electricity, and it's nothing short of a genuine miracle that we can sit here and discuss it, but even for how remarkably advanced we are as a species, we are still so very easily manipulated. And the social engineers behind every system are fully aware of it, and are explicitly counting on you to stumble into their little mind games. The people who defend these kinds of practices, whether it be those who perform them or those who indulge in them, pretty much always tend to cite some flavor of "nobody is forcing you to partake". Which is a defense you can use for a lot of things, and is a terrifically weak one to reach for. I don't have to go to work tomorrow. I don't have to pay my bills. I don't even have to eat. I am not "forced" to do many things as far as I have the choice to not do them. But every action has a reaction, and I will pay for those things eventually, whether it's the laws of physics or nature or man catching up with me. And even more unfortunate than that is that there are people who know life is hard, and will tempt others with the idea that for a pittance, all of their worries, those annoying, nagging tethers we all wear, could disappear. Here's a fact of life: Video games tend to be kind of expensive. But hey, get this: You don't have to pay for jack when you play gacha. You can just settle for playing a game that is quantifiably smaller than the one people who have dumped hours out of their life and zeroes out of their bank account are playing. You did that to yourself! Don't blame the game, blame the player!

I mean, it's already pretty suspicious from the word go. Even a Powerball ticket costs me a couple of bucks. You don't buy Wuthering Waves or Genshin Impact or Counter-Strike 2 or MultiVersus. You just play them. You can install one of these games right now and jump into it, no strings attached. At least, not at first. That on its own - that promise of getting something for nothing - is just the bait on the hook, but it isn't there for you to not bite it. The way these games market themselves to you is something I can only call "brazenly insidious", oxymoronic as it is. If the argument to be made is that these games offer plenty of value without the consumer needing to pay a dime, and that everything that comes after is optional, then why are they so godsdamned insecure about it? Why do they keep shoving advertisements in my face? Why do they keep dumping in frivolous new content every few weeks? Why do they spend time creating duds to make the things they're actually proud of look better by comparison? Why do they insist upon me coming back every single day, like a job, demanding I prove my dedication to them? The simple answer, of course, is that nothing is actually free - at bare minimum, everything takes time and energy, and in a society predicated upon converting time into money into joy (and a universe that runs off of energy), you need to find ways to keep that wheel turning or the whole thing falls apart. If every person who played Wuthering Waves never paid a dime, the game could not sustain itself. It is not a "passion project". It was made by a company, with employees who work there to make their livings and hopefully keep doing it tomorrow. The people who produce this game most likely would not be eager to keep putting out content for it even if they were getting nothing in return. Unfortunately, they already promised you that the game was free, so how do they get you to chip in?

Well, they could just ask really nicely... Or they could round up all of the things that you generally take for granted with full paid releases - weapons, characters, costumes, the ability to play the game uninterrupted - and shove them into a capsule machine. And then they'll do anything and everything in their power to convince you that the contents of that capsule machine are exciting enough that you won't miss all the pennies you shove into it. They're hoping you won't realize that pennies do become dollars eventually. As media goes, this is a practice almost wholly unique to the gaming industry. When it comes to books, manga, films and TV, music, et cetera - while there may be a few different ways to obtain them, what you get at the end is something that you can read/watch/listen to from start to finish, and if it's good it's good and if it sucks it sucks. Sure, they might stick in a fistful of ads here and there, but you'll still get the full experience by the end of it. It's primarily hawkers of games that have the gall to say things like "ah, yes, you did pay for a ticket to see our top-billed star Leon McSuave perform his iconic Blackberry Blues, but to actually play as him you'll need to enter this raffle". And it's because it's so uncommon yet commonplace, we've begun to shrug our shoulders and go "that's video games!" But it wasn't! It wasn't video games! Critics will try to convince us video games aren't art, even though they always have been. But now people are trying to convince me video games were always just ways to generate revenue, and - okay yeah, obviously a lot are, but that isn't the fault of the games themselves, it's the fault of people that demand we commercialize anything and everything. Art is meant to be consumed. We're the ones who put the price tag on it.

It's not enough to say that it's "just a game". I've played games. Lots of them. And they can be lots of things - they can be simple or complex, lighthearted or serious, nostalgic or nouveau. They can be fun or they can be the opposite of that. They can be life-changing. Games can be pretty much whatever we want them to be, which is part of what makes them exciting. At least as of today, most of them are not casinos. We've been pretty comfortable with the idea of "make good game, sell many copies" for a while now. Obviously, that's not bulletproof. Making a good game is harder than most tend to assume, and even making a good game does not guarantee commercial success - a harsh truth those that all who sell media for a living frequently learn. Even so, there was at least an idea there that if a bunch of talented people came together and put something out for others to experience, it would be met with a lot of praise and hopefully satisfaction for all. But while the tools required to make games have become more accessible and understandable than ever, the ability to create something that will capture the attention of the broader public has become significantly more difficult. Billions of dollars invested into licensing fees and cutting-edge technologies. Hordes of programmers and designers worked to the bone, crunching as hard as their bodies will permit. Draconian deadlines constantly forcing even the most dedicated teams to make cuts at every corner. Trend after trend constantly emphasizing that bigger is always better. All potentially in service to a game that might be hacked apart by the public and critics alike, and just maybe break even in sales if one prays enough. That's scary, innit? But what can you do? I mean, besides scale back your expectations a bit. Obviously that's not an option.

Well, I guess you could just, y'know... Sell the same game. For years. And just keep the band together, let them drip-feed content out so the people playing it never need to play another game. Much safer. Microtransactions and "season passes" and crossover events and nominal sequels and more. It's not just for MMOs anymore! Live-service is the way to go! Even if most don't bite, there's probably at least one millionaire out there who will spend a cool few thousand on skins that took you five minutes in Photoshop to put together, and that'll help offset the losses. And if things don't work out in the end, you can just pull the plug and try again. Nobody gets it right the first time!

We did this. All of us. We're the ones who keep saying yes. And yes, I do mean we. We as in you, and me. I'm not just yakking for fun, over here. I'm speaking from experience. I have blood on my hands, too.

So look, I'm here to fess up. I'm not innocent. I'm guilty as hell. I bought Team Fortress 2 as a retail title almost right before the game went free-to-play. When the infamous supply crates were first introduced, I have to admit: I didn't understand them. Why do I want to spend more money on a game I made a point of buying on sale? I have guns, and I'll get more eventually. These hats look dumb. Why do I care? But then they added more. Badass helmets and video game references and short shorts for Heavy. They added a wizard's cap... It's like they were trying to hurt me. There's crates where you have a roughly 1-in-250 chance of getting the highest-tier items. I knew that. You can look on the Wiki and get the percentages laid out for you. Those are not winning odds. I bought keys anyways. They added a hat that makes your head look like a giant banana - for god's sakes, mate, I'm not made of stone.

I bought fake furniture for my fake apartment in PlayStation Home. I've purchased a good handful of skins to make my fleet sparkle in Elite: Dangerous. I dropped way, way more money on Final Fantasy XIV Mog Station swag than I can ever possibly defend. And yeah, when all of my friends were first diving into Genshin, I even bought some pulls. Got some pretty good rolls, too. But after hearing a couple of them bemoaning their poor luck and talking about how they were considering dipping into their wallets again because they didn't want to miss out on the latest banner - I don't know, I finally scooped up that crumb of clarity I'd subconsciously been hunting for. I didn't need any of this. Nobody did. At least in my previous experiences, I could half-heartedly justify that I was so keen to drop extra dosh on these games because they were my favorites - because I authentically enjoyed my time in them and with them, and wanted to reward that by freely partaking in the transactions offered to me, even if I knew it really wasn't a fair trade in the end. I couldn't entertain that illusion any more with Genshin. Even for all of the kind things I might have been able to say about that game, the system at its core was unquestionably unkind. It promises so much and guarantees nothing. Everything it does is deliberately crafted to tease your credit card out of your wallet. No matter how transparent the creators may be about their intentions, the facade built around it is disgustingly dishonest, and so is every other game like it. They hurt my hobby, and worse than that, they hurt people. No thank you.

And as to how I feel about the potential that this is just what we can continue to expect from games in the future, the question is and ultimately always was "what is worth preserving?" Depending on who you ask, the answer could very well be "everything", and while I'm not particularly inclined to disagree with the sentiment I think there should be a degree of caution exercised when you go down that path. I think preserving the products of ideas is important, if only to provide the means to reflect upon them, see where they came from, what they resulted in. To create a trail to follow so one can better understand the meaning behind them. Ideas themselves, though, I think need to be evaluated with a bit more scrutiny. Everybody has an opinion. There's a lot of debate over whether or not every opinion deserves to be heard, but I personally feel one thing you can't debate is that some opinions simply don't carry as much value as others. Opinions that fly in the face of the human spirit, that are misguided and misanthropic in nature - that, when executed, result in a net negative for mankind - aren't worth the air expended in speaking them. The guy telling me not every person is created equal is entitled to his opinion, but that doesn't mean he's entitled to a seat at my table. And the person who's telling me it's fine to leverage people's innate gullibility in service of selling electronic ephemera can go sit out on the dirty crates next to the former. Stop inviting these jesters in. Keep them out in the cold where they belong. Let them live in infamy and obscurity, and let the old codgers who were there to witness them (i.e. me) tell of their missteps so nobody will ever repeat them.

So why did I take time out of my day to shove a game I've never played before up against the lockers and yell in its face for a few minutes? Because when I checked in on the friend I mentioned at the beginning of this lengthy rant, they were trying out Wuthering Waves as they and all their other Genshinites were out hoping it would be "something better". Something less tedious; something less predatory. Something like Genshin, but worth playing. I just want them and anybody else reading it to know that it does get better. The first step is to play games made by people who care about you, or at the absolute minimum, authentically want you to sell you a product worth the asking price.

Thirty years from now, gods willing, my Shadowgate 64 cart will still be here, still playable and complete, patron saint of mediocrities that it is. Thirty years from now, if you can even still play Wuthering Waves, it will likely no longer resemble itself anymore - some will see all of the pounds and scars gained in its attempts to keep their attention, and to many others, it will surely represent years of time and effort spent in service of a something that ultimately amounted to nothing. If you're adamant that you won't regret dedicating yourself to these gargantuan, transient monoliths of avarice, then more power to you. But I was perfectly happy with the view I had before, and I'm not gonna pretend I'm not a little bitter that they keep springing in front of my face.

Хм..
Может я охладел к киноиграм, но Волк уже не произвёл такого же впечатления, как года 3 назад. Хоть я и вообще забыл че там по сюжету.
Просто это же всё ещё игра, так? А твои решения не влияют не на что. Ну ладно, это база для таких игр. Но тут даже иллюзии мало, что ты хоть как-то че-то где-то. А эти смехотворные похождения по локации на (иногда буквально) 5 секунд вообще раздражают.
К арт-дизайну претензий ноль
К истории есть, но я готов ради нескольких моментов простить. Хоть антагонистов очень обидно сливать начинают под конец

7 молчаний в ответ из 10