This article originally ran under a different banner/website in November of 2018 and is now being here re-uploaded for purposes of convenience and consolidation. Please enjoy.
GATHER ROUND MY FOLLOWERS!!! I HAVE DONE IT!! I HAVE OBTAINED AN ITEM THAT WILL ALLOW ME TO MAKE GAMING GREAT AGAIN: THE INFINITY GAUNTLET!!! It was not merely an easy task. It took years of tireless research. Years of wandering the universes for the stones. Years of fighting those who would want the stones for their own selfish purposes, but I have prevailed. With the infinity gauntlet, I will bring balance to the industry. It is simple calculus. The market is finite, gamer’s wallets and time are finite. If the industry is left unchecked, it will cease to exist. It needs correcting and I am the only one willing to act on this. I am the only one willing to save my favorite medium. With the mere snap of my fingers, I can shape the games industry to my will. No more asset flips flooding Steam. No more live service games banking off microtransactions. NO MORE LOOT BOXES!! You may think me the villain, but I am not the only one wishing they could shape the industry with a snap of the fingers. With more and more games having online connections, publishers take advantage of their ability to change games at their will. Many of them have been using this to allow themselves to engage in numerous anti-consumer practices, only to patch them out years later to gain some good press. Both Middle Earth: Shadow of War and No Man’s Sky hope that their updates would allow you to forget their tidal wave of bad press they received on release, but I never forget.
Following the success of Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, publishers Warner Brothers looked for ways to squeeze more money out of players. For their sequel, Middle Earth: Shadow of War, they decided to warp and mutate the famed Nemesis so the player-based was seduced into spending more money. While the orcs in Shadow of Mordor had character to them, Warner Brothers stripped all that away to make the iconic orcs disposable trinkets making Shadow of War just another bland sandbox game. Not just orcs though, Warner Brothers wanted you to buy loot boxes filled with different rarity of orcs. LOOT BOXES IN A SINGLE PLAYER GAME. THE SURE GREED OF IT ALL! Warner Brothers assured players that the loot boxes were there for player choice. Unfortunately, the large grind near the final mission designed to seduce players into buying loot boxes was not. Reviewers warned players of this grind and as a result, the game did not meet Warner Brother’s sales expectations. Six months after Shadow of War release, Warner Brothers determined that they have made all the money they can from the loot boxes, so why not remove them to gain some good press and a few sales. As of July 17, nine months after Shadow of War was released, the marketplace where you could purchase the loot boxes has been removed. In order to prevent Shadow of War from being a grind, a long list of changes was patched into the game, proving that microtransactions do affect how a game is designed. After seeing EA rush to remove loot boxes from Star Wars Battlefront II, it is baffling Warner Brothers took so long to remove the loot boxes in Shadow of War. My theory is Warner Brother plans to release a Game of the Year version of Shadow of War and doesn’t want the loot boxes controversy affecting those sales. Nonetheless, I don’t think we should be forgiving or forgetting Warner Brothers for putting loot boxes in a single-player game.
Another game hoping you will forget its past with its new update is No Man’s Sky. No Man’s Sky’s claim to fame being an open-world procedurally generated space adventure game, promising the moon, but failing to deliver on any of it. No Man’s Sky’s lead developer Sean Murray promised an astronomical amount of features that were absent from the final version. No Man’s Sky could be described as a shallow experience stretch over a vast empty universe. The game eventually devolved into a meme used when a game was launched with little to no features. I still chuckle every time someone refers to Sea of Thieves as No Man’s Sea. While the question of why these features were absent from the final product has not been answered, developers Hello Games are hoping you forget all of that with their update called Next. Next contains multiplayer, endless base building, character cosmetics, ship updates, and UI and graphics overhaul. All features that were promised for release. While I commend Hello Games, for sticking with No Man’s Sky and not abandoning it for another project, I don’t think we should forget all the promises unkept for two years. Hello Games did not deliver the product they had promised their consumers. When their customer’s called them out on it, they went silent. I, for one, don’t believe we should be waiting so long to be given the game we had been initially promised.
I will admit on reflection, that not all patches containing updates are bad. As a Warcraft fan, I will be throwing stones in my glass house if I believed that. World of Warcraft would not be the powerhouse it is today without going through the numerous patches and expansion packs presented over the years; though, Wow updates are not always flawless as well. Many players expressed grief over the Battle for Azeroth pre-patch that was designed to lower stat values but ended up making fighting minions and monsters a chore. While the issue has been ironed out, we can’t forget these patches can drastically change the enjoyment your players experience. An example of positive changes is the newly released expansion pack for Enter the Gungeon referred to as Gungeon and Draguns. The recent update adds a new boss, numerous mini-bosses, new rooms, and of course, new guns. In order to smooth out the difficulty curve, developers Dodge Roll, have increased player’s chance of getting exciting and powerful weaponry early and often. More players are returning to the game saying the randomness that plagued the game has been ironed out. I will admit, I didn’t play Enter the Gungeon before the expansion. I picked it up with the new expansion and was surprised with an enjoyable roguelite experience. I am starting to wonder if I would have enjoyed it before the expansion. There is a possibility I would have erased it with my new toy.
Maybe, I am wielding too much power with the Infinity Gauntlet. Maybe it is not my call to decide what games can and can’t exist. I am sure I can erase Shadow of War and No Man’s Sky, but that won’t stop history from repeating itself. Some other games would attempt to follow their path, and try to get away with loot boxes in their single-player experience. I have no doubt more games will not deliver on promises made, but if I wipe out all the frustrating roguelites, expansions like Gungeons and Draguns would not exist. I cannot prevent the doom from consuming the industry; I can only get onto my soapbox and warn you that the end is nigh. The power to remove your choice to give games a second chance, well it is too much for me and it is not my place. For what would a doomsayer be without any doom to speak of. This gauntlet though is too powerful to fall into the wrong hands. I can only imagine the terror EA would cause with this gauntlet. Especially when I left the EA circus; they surely will be looking to vow revenge against me. I must go on the run. I must protect this gauntlet at all cost. Feel free to give Shadow of War or No Man’s Sky a second chance, I only ask that you make your voice heard when another publisher tries to get away with tainting more games with scummy business practices.
