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Stop Killing Games — An initiative to stop publishers & developers killing games
(www.stopkillinggames.com)
this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2024
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Technology
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I want to apologize in advance for the aggressive tone in this comment. It's the only thing that comes out. I'm not angry at you, not at all - I'm angry at videogame publishers and at the current situation.
Has "vote with your wallet" ever worked? Literally ever? Maybe when the stars align. If the path to a better world requires everyone to be educated, and it's more convenient for the vast majority of everyone to just keep going with whatever shitty system is currently being used, then nothing will change.
You know what works? Government regulation. Remember the ozone layer? Have you noticed how it's not a problem anymore? That's not because everyone got together and agreed to "vote with their wallet" by never buying anything that depleted ozone, which requires a crazy amount of research with every purchase. No, it was solved by the government (or governments?) banning the sale of anything ozone-depleting and cracking down on it. That's what works.
Voting with your wallet is an illusion.
Importantly, "vote with your wallet" is also straight up enabling discussion where those who have the most dollars have the most votes is taken for granted.
This is not how we want to run a society. We can already see the results of it, and they're incredibly not good.
Exactly!
Plus, it's not really a matter of being able to withhold your money from a company, when you bought a game 20 years ago and don't want to see it disappear, or if you're trying to buy a game from 20 years ago that is no longer sold. People would literally throw money at companies if they just kept games available somehow. But "I won't buy the next game you release if you delete my digital purchases" isn't a viable method of protest. The money the company thinks they're "saving" by doing so far outweighs any losses from your non-purchases
Apology not needed.
I agree with you. The ozone layer is a great example of this being successful. And there are other examples of this kind of issue elsewhere. Like the we have to push for user repair rights or against planned obsolescence (which one could argue this is planned obsolescence, in thinking about it).
A small number of informed users won't disincentiveize companies from abusing the masses. Because most companies are garbage so of course they will if they can. And regulations are the solution. I'm not suggesting we ignore that. But those of us who are informed can still incentiveize those companies that do treat their customers well in the interim.
I concede to the point though. I said, in effect, that supporting businesses that treat us well will help. But I suppose it's more accurate to say that will, at best, stop things from getting worse.