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Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

democracyjournal.org

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Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#81

Post by emodendroket »

jandrese wrote: post #77
emodendroket wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NES-era games juiced the difficulty so you couldn't beat them on rental. Not quite the same but if I were going to pick a "golden age" of relatively not-exploitative gaming it might go from SNES-PS2 or so.

NES era developers knew that many of their customers could only afford a few games a year but also didn't have enough memory on the carts for extremely large games. The only way to prevent kids from blowing through the content in a weekend was to crank the difficulty up or figure out some way to offer endless replayability (ala Tetris). It's really incredible when you see printed out maps of old NES games just how sm…

It was at least in some cases explicitly about rentals. That's why the difficulty was jacked up for US releases -- Nintendo was successful at getting game rentals legally banned in Japan, but not the US.

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#82

Post by emodendroket »

mantas wrote: post #61
emodendroket wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NES-era games juiced the difficulty so you couldn't beat them on rental. Not quite the same but if I were going to pick a "golden age" of relatively not-exploitative gaming it might go from SNES-PS2 or so.

PS1 was the golden era IMO. It was slow enough for good graphics, so gameplay came first. But it was fast enough for rather good physics and AI.

I find it hard to go back and play early 3D games. But on the "exploitation" front there is no pay-to-win stuff.

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#83

Post by knuththetruth »

jpmoyn wrote: post #68

I don't understand why there is an issue with markets entering the domain of "leisure", and I certainly do not think that this is something new. Is a hobby shop immoral? Micro-transactions in freemium video games have proven to be a great way to make money for games that are deemed worthy by their users. No one is being forced to buy the new skin in Fortnite. You can't stop market forces. If you choose not to partake…

>You can't stop market forces

“Market forces” are not natural phenomenon, they’re political impositions on human interaction in places where and to the extent which they’re useful. It’s fully within our power to prevent their intrusion into domains where this application is wreckless, destructive, or immoral. Many more sane developed countries than the US, for example, have done this with healthcare.

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#84

Post by kazagistar »

cirgue wrote: post #80
ergomarky wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were they skeptical at all though? Or did they just want more control over the content? Whenever I talk to people who would very much be in that category, they don't hate TV at all, in fact they love it and sub to Netflix and Prime (or whatever else), they just hated the bombard of ads and not being able to watch what you want when you want. So this hypocritical behavior you're trying to highlight just doesn't exist…

Was it not a commonly held opinion with your friends/family in high school and college that television was a pretty rotten form of media? I don't think that this is a universal phenomenon, but it definitely exists.

Pretty sure this only existed (and exists) on one side of a class divide. TV as entertainment for the "lower class" and thus if you want to be rich and snobby you avoid it for "higher pursuits". Then Netflix comes out and its hip, and gives people an excuse to participate in TV. Once the poor all have Netflix, there is suddenly a gap for a new cultural differentiator built around it.

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#85

Post by IanDrake »

This is probably the best argument for socialism I’ve ever heard. We must, must, give up the abundance that capitalism provides for the vast majority of people so kids can...play more video games?

This is Poe’s law at its finest. I really can’t tell if the author is trolling.

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#86

Post by wuliwong »

marnett wrote: post #33
colemannugent wrote: post #15

> how can the market exploitation of civic, social, and leisure spaces possibly be averted What? The ominous "market" isn't forcing its way into any of these spaces. You let it in . You bought that game with micro-transactions, you signed up for that "free" social media app that was "secretly stealing your data". What shall we do? Our economic system isn't doing what we think it should! Could it be that we don't unde…

At its simplest, if there is still private property it is not and cannot be socialism or communism. Scandinavian countries are social democracies - UBI, universal healthcare, guaranteed labor, etc are social democratic ideals. Please don't criticize the author for lacking understanding you also lack. > we should educate people so that they can't be taken advantage of? No! It's the system that's wrong! We are a capita…

You just doubled down on "criticizing for the lack of understanding you also lack"!

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#87

Post by bitwize »

emodendroket wrote: post #81
jandrese wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NES era developers knew that many of their customers could only afford a few games a year but also didn't have enough memory on the carts for extremely large games. The only way to prevent kids from blowing through the content in a weekend was to crank the difficulty up or figure out some way to offer endless replayability (ala Tetris). It's really incredible when you see printed out maps of old NES games just how sm…

It was at least in some cases explicitly about rentals. That's why the difficulty was jacked up for US releases -- Nintendo was successful at getting game rentals legally banned in Japan, but not the US.

If that's what Nintendo were trying to do they did a piss-poor job at it. I beat Super Mario World over a single weekend's rental.

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#88

Post by cromwellian »

This article definitely isn't written by a gamer. Most gamers HATE pay-for-powerup. There was a huge rebellion against EA's ingame purchase model for Starwars Battlefront for example.

Many games allow in game purchases, but only for cosmetic changes (e.g. "skins") like Counter Strike, TF2, Overwatch, etc, not to allow you to buy skills no one else can acquire.

And while it's a concern that there are games that are going that route, the gaming community does push back.

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#89

Post by kazagistar »

annabellish wrote: post #60
gowld wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the golden age now , where difficulty is customizable?

Absolutely not. Difficulty is customisable, but we still live in a world where massive AAA titles lock things which in previous generations were relatively easily attainable behind grinding measured in weeks, not days, with no regard for any difficulty setting you might have, while constantly suggesting both explicitly and by implication that you could skip the grind by just giving them more money. I think a lot of t…

The reason the golden age is now is specifically because you have all those options. Just because AAA games exist doesn't invalidate the fact that if you are looking for a specific type of more traditional game experience, you can find it much easier then ever before.

Re: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

#90

Post by coldtea »

everyone wrote: post #78

This reads like it was written by someone who doesnt play or appreciate games, or even know much about the artform. The point that is brought up several times, that they are classist due to their cost.. If you cant afford a game, or dont want to support its publisher or business model, but still want to play it. Just pirate it. Most games are readily available to pirate. Games have simply become as film, and novels a…

>This reads like it was written by someone who doesnt play or appreciate games, or even know much about the artform.

So, like a proper adult?

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