Fuck videogames.

Fuck developers. Fuck them for not giving a shit about their consumers. Fuck them for instating draconian DRM that seems to get worse and worse every year. Fuck them for requiring people have an always-on connection to the internet in order to play a fucking single-player game. Fuck developers for paying voice actors as little as $250 for voicing the principal character in their AAA game, for not paying residuals, and for convicing SAG that they don’t need to pay residuals because “games don’t make money.” Fuck developers for not giving a fuck. Fuck developers for slapping a new coat of paint on an old game and selling it at full price. Fuck them for doing this every year, like clockwork, for the better part of two decades. Fuck developers for not taking risks.

Fuck publishers for mandating developers do much of the above. Fuck publishers for pushing for annualization, for ruining great ideas by interfering with them, for not letting developers take risks, for killing great games’ potential with awful, awful marketing. Fuck publishers for not asking CryTek UK to make a new TimeSplitters game. Fuck publishers for charging $60+ for games that lose 70% of their value as soon as you walk out of the store with them, then having the temerity to blame used game sales for “destroying the industry.” Fuck publishers for buying developers, gutting them of their resources and culture, then shuttering them when their next game isn’t the runaway success you inexplicably expected it to be. Fuck publishers for milking franchises to death, for over-saturating the market, then acting shocked when people don’t want to buy your games anymore.

Fuck videogame journalists for letting developers and publishers get away with this shit. Fuck videogame news sites, blogs and magazines for being so utterly dependent on ad revenue that they daren’t say anything negative lest the publishers pull their advertising. Fuck them for being so dependent on ad revenue they’ll post anything, anything to get pageviews. Fuck videogame journalists who actually consider themselves to be journalists. Fuck critics who think 7 out of 10 is an appropriate score for a mediocre game. Fuck critics who wax lyrical about a game throughout a review only to include it in their “Most Disappointing Games of the Year” list come December. Fuck videogame journalists for hooting and hollering like drunken fratboys during press conferences and trade shows. Fuck the gaming press for being part of the machine they’re supposed to be reporting on.

Fuck gamers. Fuck gamers for vocally complaining about this bullshit but doing absolutely nothing about it. Fuck gamers for complaining about DRM in one breath, then offering developers your money in the next. Fuck gamers for acting like they give a shit, but then voting in favour of the shit they claim to give a shit about with their wallets. Fuck gamers for not demanding better. Fuck gamers for not deserving better.

Fuck me for thinking they did. Fuck me for imagining that maybe someone else out there actually gave a fuck. Fuck me for writing this, for giving the games industry so much of my money over the last twenty years, and for thinking that maybe things could - and would - improve in time.

Fuck videogames.