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There are very few things I truly hate...

Niyumi··2 votes·216 views

But, you know, the slimy, greedy suits like the guy in charge of Riot are one of them. Terrible, shitty people who feel empty inside (gee, maybe it's your conscience), and so try to fill that hole with money at the expense of everyone and everything. Never satisfied, they went and destroyed a beautiful industry that enabled passionate, imaginative people to share their visions of other worlds with people, and twisted that ideal into some pathetic mockery -- all in the name of money.

I haven't been excited about a game release for probably 15 years now. Every new game that comes out is just... dead. There is no passion anymore, there is no wonder, there is no adventure -- there are just thinly-veiled cash grabs, and half-assed games that we would have laughed out of the market a decade ago, but are now welcomed with arms open by the gimme generation who grew up with the shitty quality we have nowadays. There was a time, not too long ago, where developers actually cared about the games they were producing. They actively talked with the playerbase, asked them what they wanted, told them their ideas, and produced wonderful, fantastic worlds for us to explore. They poured their hearts and souls into their games, and, when they were done, they felt truly alive -- like you were actually in another world, living another life. I can't think of any games like that anymore, nor any companies who actually give a damn beyond income potential. Now, every game just tries to be "cool" or adheres to some cliche setting, and nothing new ever happens. No one has their own ideas anymore, they just copy what others do.

Anyone who does create something new is choked out by all the suits who won't allow passion to interfere with their greed, unfortunately. See, the greedy suits can't compete with passion, and they can't put out the kind of quality a company who cares about their game can and will. So, they do everything in their power to make them either sell out to them or go bankrupt. Whether that's taking their idea and creating a half-baked version of it with more marketing to draw people away, or offering the company many millions or billions of dollars... whatever it takes.

I just wish there was a way I could go back in time, before greed destroyed everything I enjoyed. I'd be happy then. But, no, greed is in everything now, not just gaming.

So, yeah. While there are very few things I can say I truly hate... the greedy assholes who went and destroyed everything are one of them. I don't even hate them as a person, I just hate their greed, and the fact that they push it onto others (I'm not religious, but, "Hate the sin, not the sinner"). I wish the world weren't filled with people like them. It'd be a much nicer place.

11 Comments

InfernoFøx2 votes

The world runs on money. If you dont make money then you wont have any products. They have to balance out between what the consumers will want and what they will make money off of. Think of this through a marketers standpoint. Its kinda hard to please 30 million people at once without having them pay. It puts the company at a downfall. You need to understand that the company has 30 million people to deal with. So if 29,999,999 people like how things are going, then riot will probably keep it that way.

You go on about people being greedy. But in a sense, their greed for money brings new ideas to the field that will please the players. They want to make people happy while still getting money. So they will go out of their way to make things that the consumers will love.

This game has been out for 7 years now, soon to be 8. They are just trying to be a company trying to stay in business. All they have is different gameplay, community, and of course, payable items. Its hard to keep a game like this in the industry for awhile. So i say props to Riot for keeping the game so popular for so long.

Remember @Sciela, nothing can be done without money in the gaming industry.

Niyumi1 votes

Yeah, the world runs on money (only parts of it though, not everywhere). But, there's a difference between raising money to keep the game going and to keep working on it and improving it (which Riot really doesn't do) and being a greedy asshole.

Some of the earliest financial reports from Riot had revenue is >$70M, which was when the game was still new. Now, I'm no economist, and I've never done financial work in a game studio, but I can guarantee no game costs anywhere near $70M a year to keep running. Maybe, at the most, ~$2M. So, that's $68M in profits. Where'd that money go? Not back into the game (well, maybe back then, but I didn't play before the Tencent sellout happened). Some of the more recent ones I've seen showed an excess of ~$2B (billion). So, if we're still saying that the game costs ~$2M to run, then that's ~$1.98B a year in profits, and I can only imagine that number continues to go up. If they have all that money, why do they spend 4-5 months doing what a competent team could do in a week? Why do they spend 5 years updating a champion when League is such a tiny, minuscule scope of a game relative to just about anything else in the industry? The work doesn't take that long. It's not hard to do either. They just don't want to spend money they won't get a return on, despite making so much in profit.

So, no, they're not just trying to stay in business. They are making so much money it's not even funny. There is a difference between staying afloat and being a greedy asshole.

TheSequelsRBad2 votes

You know, I see posts like this all the time. Posts with the general theme of, "The gaming industry has fallen apart, it is trash now, and run by a desire for money. It is a shame kids will never see the good old days."

A large part of me suspects that such posts are nothing more than nostalgia, fondly remembering games from the posters youth that tint there viewpoint.

Maybe I am wrong, to be fair, I am only 18. But I have played games that I assume you would describe as the "good old games," currently I am playing the original Half Life, for example. Not an ancient game, but on the older side by the opinions of most gamers today. And while it is a blast to play and I love it. I don't really see it as a revelation of what a game should be, crushing modern games by the weight of its moral superiority. I have just as much fun in League and Overwatch, as in Half Life.

It you are looking back further than that, then I can have no opinions. But I ask you to answer honestly if you are sure this post is not nostalgia speaking.

Niyumi1 votes

Well, it's more than just the games themselves, it's how the industry worked, and how developers treated their games and the playerbase.

Half Life is a bad example, since Valve was never really a "good" company. They started up around the same time EA did, and were more of a gimmick company than one that really cared. FPS games were a huge fad back then, since they were starting to smooth out the kinks in the genre, and a lot of people jumped onto that ship (FPS games are where Activision got its start, for example, as early back as Turok).

Now, if you want a company who everyone loved, let's look at Nintendo. Before the old CEO retired (and then later died), Nintendo was a company who did what they did because they loved it. Miyamoto (the guy who started nearly every Nintendo series) actually talked about it a bit in the old Nintendo Power magazines; he was a very adventurous kid in Japan, and would go adventuring around in caves and the forest around where he lived, half in reality, and half in his own little world. When video games hit the arcade, he wanted to share his world with other people, which is where Zelda was born. He wasn't following some cliche, he wasn't just trying to make something that was "edgy" and "cool" to draw in kids, he was just sharing the product of his imagination with others. Nintendo also had a pretty stable income from hanafuda cards (I don't even know what those are, don't ask), and the whole game thing was more of a garage band kind of thing.

On top of that, every new game they released brought something new: SMB1-3 each had unique mechanics and gameplay styles, and then SM64 totally transformed the series with 3D. Zelda (skipping Zelda 2) > OoT > WW... each one was something entirely new, with new stories and feels and playstyles.

Then compare that to someone like EA, or Activision. Everything they release is just a rehash of what they've already done, with a fresh coat of paint.

But, you know, I can still go back and play those old games and love them so much more than any of these new games that come out -- but you can only play them so many times before you know everything that happens by heart. : /

TheSequelsRBad1 votes

You may be right, but I think part of the reason the gaming industry has changed is the trend from single player games to multiplayer online games of various descriptions. The focus of, not the industry, but the gaming playerbase itself shifted from games like Legend of Zelda, Mario, or even Half Life, to the more competitive, sport-like games of WC3, Starcraft, and, more recently, DotA and League.

Tastes and trends change. It may not be that older games are better than newer games, or that they were more lovable and or enjoyable. But rather that the new generation's tastes themselves have changed. I mean, I have more fun playing League then playing Legend of Zelda.

I am just thinking aloud really, because I see people make your point a lot, and yet I really don't see it at all. It makes me wonder if I am just some "deluded tasteless millennial gamer" or something. lol.

Niyumi1 votes

Even games meant to be single player are just bad now. Assassin's Creed, Dishonored, Skyrim, Dues Ex, Final Fantasy... all single player games, but all are just lifeless compared to what we used to have. And then DLC started to become a thing, and gaming lost that much more.

I think, in this case, it's more about society corrupting everything. People are taught to be entitled and lazy these days, and are impatient as all hell, so games are built to accommodate that; stories are irrelevant and largely lacking, complexity isn't a thing, paid content is a thing (you used to earn it), and so on. People don't care that much about exploring a new world, they just want to show off to their friends and preen in front of everyone they can -- they're being vain, in other words. Any game that does focus on storytelling and adventure is considered a cult classic now, like Dark Souls.

So yeah, while tastes do change, I think there's a bit more to it this time. The suits (in more than just gaming) are pushing the bad aspects of society, and killing off the good in industry.

S0kaX1 votes

Be careful, the "Protect RITO's image!" squad is out there and will haunt this post reducing it to -10.

Niyumi2 votes

Oh, I know. Bunch of kids who don't know what things used to be like, and praise the companies we have nowadays. Also wouldn't be surprised if this post gets deleted by a moderator, since I'm indirectly implying Beck is a greedy suit, and a bad person.

But, everything I say gets downvoted into oblivion, and I don't really care either way.

S0kaX1 votes

{quoted}

Oh, I know. Bunch of kids who don't know what things used to be like, and praise the companies we have nowadays. Also wouldn't be surprised if this post gets deleted by a moderator, since I'm indirectly implying Beck is a greedy suit, and a bad person.

But, everything I say gets downvoted into oblivion, and I don't really care either way.

Most of the times the good posts get downvoated to hell because the squad won't let posts about RITO live. https://i.imgflip.com/7pzif.jpg

Kitty Cat Tosha1 votes

I still find occasional game-gems, but I usually have to scour steams indie category for them. You are right about the aaa-industry being soulless, but there are still plenty of passionate indie developers :)

Niyumi1 votes

Yes, there are a few passionate indie devs, but very few of them stay that way once they get a taste of the money. Team Moon and Ori and the Blind Forest come to mind -- they started great, and genuinely cared about what they were doing, and then stopped fixing bugs and doing updates because they were working on the "definitive edition" that was ultimately just a reselling of the original game.

It's kind of saddening though; all the games / companies we would have laughed out of the industry 15 years ago are now all we have, and the indie devs are instead laughed out since they just can't compete with the resources someone like EA, Ubisoft or Activision has.

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