Signtist

We as a people have been lulled into a false sense of security by corporations claiming “It’s okay, we can both get what we want!” as they play the long game that ended up resulting in the global situation we have right now. We have to reject capitalism in all forms as much as we can, and truly embrace only what few products were made for the sole purpose of creating something, not for profit. It’s no longer about only following what few companies use the power we’ve given them responsibly - the troublemakers ruined it for everyone, and now nobody can be trusted with it. Companies aren’t just not our friends, they are our sworn enemies.

But are you? Literally the only people who could possibly make a gamer-first video game is an organization that isn’t money-first. That was my whole point. You have never played a game made by a for-profit developer that wasn’t specifically money-first, even if the gameplay ended up being good in spite of that. Indie devs are the only people making games that sometimes break that mold, and while I wouldn’t exactly call an indie dev “nonprofit,” it’s a lot closer to the truth for the ones that truly make gamer-first games than grouping them with a for-profit corporation.

It’s not all that shit of an argument. All companies exist to make money, not products. If they could make money without making products, they would stop making products altogether. Some are more egregious about that fact, but it remains a fact for all companies, even the ones you think are your friends. It’s possible for a company to do what consumers want and still make money, establishing a good relationship that makes both enjoyable products and decent profits, but even those companies are just one leadership change away from short-term profit-driven decisions that run the company to the ground.

In a legal sense, media is media. The laws were established for music before digital games were mainstream, and were then applied to games.

Oh, yeah, that’ll happen. The tried and true method of making massive profits is to sacrifice long-term stability for short-term revenue, then abandon ship before it sinks.

You’re right, we don’t know. Hopefully everyone will collectively agree that it’s not worth the price, but I’ve unfortunately seen too many companies blatantly fuck with their consumers only to have record profits to think this is going to be any different.

One major misconception people often make is that they assume they represent the average person. You won’t pay $1,000 for an all-digital walled garden console, but there are a bunch of people who just buy the next console to keep playing Fifa or Madden or whatever, and don’t pay any attention to any of this. Sony is banking on those people continuing to buy their products regardless, allowing them to make more money charging more for cheaper products, even if they lose some of their more well-informed consumers in the process.

They’ve always prioritized anti-consumer practices, they just used to have to hide them and hold themselves back because there was a chance we might actually stop buying their products if we got too mad. Now they’ve pacified us to the point where we’ll complain even as we pull out our credit cards to consume more of their wares.

It’s literally the same issue we’re having in politics; they’re not your friends, and they have never been your friends - they only care about improving their own situation. They won’t care about someone who doesn’t stand up for themselves, and things will only get worse if we don’t come together to do something to stop their gravy train.

At least with corporations it’s easy - you just have to stop buying their products. Even that’s too hard for everyone to coordinate in this apathetic day and age, though, so they keep on profiting.

Absolutely! It won’t be the police, it’ll be Antifa hackers taking over the drones!

Lawmakers must act? Nah - the only way to act now to prevent armed police drones is for us to form a revolution. There are significantly too few lawmakers currently in power who would even think to vote against something like this, and far too little time before this kind of thing is available to vote in new lawmakers who might actually fight it.