Toast On Jam: It’s Time To Accept That The Games Industry Is Not Going To Change Its Ways

The gaming industry is not a pretty one. Though I love what it is capable of producing, the most fresh-faced and promising of all major media has mired itself in the ways of the old guard. The games industry looks to the film industry like a big brother rather than an equal which can be surpassed and that’s part of what brought me to realise that the industry is not going to change anytime soon. At least not for the better anyway.

For the entirety of my (extremely) short adult life I’ve advocated calling developers and publishers out on their shenanigans, to not remain silent and (for the love of my cat who silently looks on as I type this) to not pre-order games. I’m not going to stop advocating that but I have grown to accept that things are not going to change.

You may look upon my despondency, oh reader, and decry me as a cynic. In most respects, yes, I am a cynic. Just yesterday I brought to question the authenticity of people who mourn a recent death or offer sympathy to someone with cancer. In this case however, I’d like to believe I’m being realistic.

Do not go gently into that good night… Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

So the old Dylan Thomas poem goes. If you’ve watched Interstellar then the words are likely etched into your memory given how many times Michael Caine uttered them. It was as though the screewnriters only payed attention in that one specific English lesson during high school.

Ultimately, you’re going to die but that doesn’t mean you have to acquiesce and meekly surrender yourself. Silence is as good as support and the industries practices do not warrant your support. That said, be realistic about what your voice can accomplish.

Granted, I am somewhat butchering the entire theme and message of the poem here but there is a point to it. In writing an article on Monday about the SNES PlayStation prototype I learned that Nintendo had gone behind Sony’s back and humiliated them by secretly signing up with Phillips to make the SNES console. This was back in 1991 and it was then that it dawned on me – the games industry has always been a seething pit of deceit and treachery. That’s further back than my entire existence.

It’s easy to look back on the earlier periods in gaming’s history through rose-tinted spectacles as this magical time of innovation but it just wasn’t. The scene was not all too different from what it is today. The difference is that the industry troubles and evils now extend to the consumer as well. The industry has always had these issues and will likely only accumulate more issues and problems for developers and consumers alike. Many have hardly gone away but have been replaced or subverted.

We no longer pre-order games but rather “reserve” them and every game gets revealed with a big watermark letting us know that it’s only in pre-pre-pre-alpha so as not to judge it too harshly.

The gaming industry could have been something different, something purer but as it got bigger it became dirtier and even more so by following in the footsteps of the film industry. I adore some of the work that both put out but both are in the same position of raking in gargantuan mounds of money through remakes and churning out sequels. Fresh ideas are scarce, not for lack of trying but for lack of support from those with the coin to make it happen.

These things will not change and as Hollywood finds itself in a rut, so too will the games industry.

Further proof of just how stoic the industry is can be seen when looking at this year’s E3. After the furor that sparked in the wake of E3 last year with outcries for representation of women in gaming and so on and so forth, feminists cheered at the dearth of women both onstage and on-screen at E3 2015 but it was all a ruse; smoke and mirrors. The big companies made it look as though there was better representation of women when in terms of the numbers there wasn’t. They just made us think there was. In essence, publishers used representation as a marketing tool rather than actually seeking to address the issue of representation.

Your voices were heard but the actions taken were shrewd rather than progressive. That’s the sort of forward movement the industry is making.

Do not be disheartened, good humans and cats, sometimes progress is made. DRM is no longer the plague it once was. The back and forth between the games industry and its consumer-base is akin to the war between Oceania and Eastasia/Eurasia in 1984. They’re immovable and make small advances here or there on certain fronts but for every front conquered another is lost and so it goes; a stalemate.

If there is hope, it lies in the proles. In this case “proles” refers to the greater public which accounts for the bulk of video game sales. If you’re reading this then you’re among the vocal few.

Your voice is small in an ocean of money but it exists and as long as you use it you are not complicit to the wrongs of the industry. Just don’t expect your words to be met with welcome ears nor incite change.

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