The Rules of Video Game Spending
Rules I use to help inform the type of games I play these days and where my money goes:
- No pre-orders
- No temporary content
- No chores or extreme RNG
The most impactful thing you can do is vote with your wallet. If there are monetization practices that you don’t agree with, simply don’t engage with it at all.
No Pre-orders
In the digital age, there is absolutely no reason to ever pre-order a game. Any game could be the next Cyberpunk 2077, unfortunately. Don’t take that chance just for some exclusive gun or outfit that you’ll probably use for five minutes.
No Temporary Content
This is a little more of a gray area, because you could argue that any subscription-based game is “temporary”. But this is primarily aimed at things like battle-passes where even if you pay for a certain “season” but then don’t put in hours upon hours to “earn” what you have already paid for in a limited time window, it’s gone and you have effectively thrown your money in the trash can. In a similar vein, things in a game that “expire”, whether explicitly or due to some more powerful item constantly being released that you must get instead because what you have is now meaningless.
No Chores or Extreme RNG
This one is probably the most subjective, but life already has enough chores and to-do lists of stuff to get done. Some people may feel a sense of accomplishment with that, but for me doing boring repetitive tasks just makes my game feel like work, not fun. Closely related to that is using any kind of randomization with very slim chances at getting whatever it is you’re trying to get, often with multiple layers that all must align. I’m not even going to get started on lootboxes; luckily those seem like they might be dying.
It can be fun to see a shiny rare item drop but it should never be done at the expense of blocking gameplay. In many cases game developers make things intentionally tedious so that they can sell you another thing to solve the problem they artificially created, which starts to get into rent-seeking territory:
The classic example of rent-seeking […] is that of a property owner who installs a chain across a river that flows through his land and then hires a collector to charge passing boats a fee to lower the chain. There is nothing productive about the chain or the collector. The owner has made no improvements to the river and is not adding value in any way, directly or indirectly, except for himself. All he is doing is finding a way to make money from something that used to be free.
Rent-seeking – Wikipedia
All of these tactics and the various ways that companies employ them are just ways to try to trick you into an infinite cycle of playing their game and giving them your money. But you know what is the best way to accomplish both of those things? Make a game that is good and fun.
At the end of the day I play games to have fun. A long time ago gaming was a major interest for me but I have quite a few different hobbies and interests these days, so if a game does not respect my time I don’t waste my time on it. The video game industry has had crazy growth over the last 20 years and it feels way too focused on the money these days (game companies and content creators both). Maybe it was always this way and I just didn’t see it, or maybe this is just part of growing up and out of the target demographic.
There are definitely still individuals and smaller teams out there making good games out of passion, and I find myself drawn to those more these days. If I do buy a AAA game these days it’s typically from at least 3 years ago and includes all the extra mega bonus content on sale for $5-10. Like I said, vote with your wallet.