Capitalism and commercial industry sucks the fun out of gaming

   Let me first make it abundantly clear, that in no way am I suggesting that I am anti-capitalism or that a socialist system would serve gamers any better. I am merely just acknowledging one of the drawbacks with a capitalist system that is driven by consumers with half a brain.

   Every game has always had to balance the scales of profitability to investment and innovation. But I feel like, over the last decade, those scales have tipped over and fallen off the damn table.

   Maybe I'm wearing my Rose-Tinted Glasses, but I look back at the origin of game franchises like Diablo, Elder Scrolls, Fallout etc. I think about how those franchises have turned into cash-cows that clearly were no longer a product of developers with a passion for making a game fun their first priority.

   Due to this, it's a throbbing thorn in my soul that Blizzard was eaten whole by Activision. Blizzard is now just a zombie on Activisions leash. Activision has fooled enough people into believing that Blizzard is still alive, but the truth is sad and grim.

You get mainly five things from the gaming industry now.

A) A rehash chapter of a previous title with little or no difference from the previous chapter. It doesn't matter if Black Ops 5 is virtually the same game as Black Ops 4, people will buy it anyways.

B) A remake/remaster of an older game. If it already has a fan-base, they WILL milk it.

C) A ripoff of an already successful title, reskinned as that companies successful franchise. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Bethesda, with your Hearthstone and World of Warcraft rips.

D) A new chapter of a once successful franchise, but designed and altered specifically to squeeze money out of its once good name.

E) An original concept with most or all of its potential squandered with a short deadline, stingy budget, and or greedy mechanics, like lootboxes and premium content.

What you don't see much of are original concepts with healthy budgets and deadlines, designed by developers who give a damn about how fun their game actually is. The last game I can think of like that is Minecraft. The original Mojang team developed Minecraft as a labor of love. They were making a game that THEY wanted to play.

We need more developer teams like that. We need more Blizzard North, more Mojang. Most of all, we need less AAA corporations swallowing them up and squeezing the life out of them too.