This is where we disagree I see the government as incompetent and in opposition to the people. Everything the government touches becomes horrible. The federal government established the department of education in 1979 and our schools have been a disaster ever since. Even with our spending on education ballooning since then.
See I don't think people will just continuously put up with it. There will be a breaking point and other people will see a demand to cash in on. The same way Gamestop made everyone fucking hate them. Amazon saw the opening and started offering release-day delivery and pounced on it. Now gamestop is stuck selling funko pops as they go bankrupt. People right now are turning on the lootbox stuff and nickel and diming. Sure Battlefront 2 still sold like 6 million copies but that isn't even half of what the first one sold. Destiny 2 sold less than the first one and is hemorrhaging players. People are so upset with Bungie they had to lock down their forums. Just watch with the next year or so certain games will advertise that they don't have gambling. Then all it needs is some of them to do better than expected then the tide will start to turn. If I honestly thought that video games were so fucked that people would just continuously buy the same garbage that they complain about forever I don't think it would be worth saving.
Justin Butler
Even the most contrarian lolbert in the world is surely capable of recognizing instances where government intervention was necessary, like the FDIC (completely eliminated the threat of bank runs), FTC/DoJ-AT (breaks apart monopolistic trusts), FDA (enforces pure food and effective medical standards), DoL (enforces minimum wage, maximum hours, and bankruptcy rights, to prevent slavery), and SAA (requires people to save for retirement). If the government didn't do these things, a single massive corporation with the same responsibilities would exist in any similarly massive civilization. This isn't about popular sentiment, because pay2win trash isn't funded by most players, but by a tiny minority of psychotic whales. Those whalebux are the fuel being used to stoke the funeral pyre of legitimate game design, and gamedevs have to be cut off from access to it by force to save the medium.
Michael Watson
Will they? Maybe. I'm not so sure, though. EA, despite taking their hit, have more than recovered from their lootbox controversy - and Battlefront II only ended up selling 1 million under projections. GameStop, despite being shit-on by everyone for almost as long as I can remember them being around, only started to struggle once digital distribution started getting pushed - cutting them out of the loop, since their bread and butter is used games. The shift toward digitally distribution isn't wholly organic either, with multiple manufacturers and publishers colluding to kill off physical media. The only thing saving disks right now is that console manufacturers still rely on box retailers to move hardware, and if you cut them out of game sales, they'll refuse to stock your system - setting you up to be the next Sega Saturn.
Sony surely isn't pushing their streaming service because that's what the customers want, or they're reacting to free market cues. They're in an overwhelming advantageous position and are levering it to bully the market, meanwhile commanding throngs of loyal fanboys who have been trained via console war horse-shit to be loyal to their corporate masters that will - while not actually using the service - shit on physical games, shit on older games and backwards compatibility, and shout you down for claiming otherwise. No doubt with the aid of liberal amounts of astroturfing and paid shills to create the illusion of consumer consensus.
And even if your fellow Americans and Europeans are getting fed up, what of the Chinese? What of the Poo in the Loos? What of all the other markets which have very different market pressures and forces, do not give the slightest fuck about your concerns, and who's money is just as good as yours.
The "free market" reacts to them just as well as it does to you, and not necessarily in your interest or in the interest of the traditional video game industry.
Tyler Johnson
Haha I disagree with all that bullshit. Especially the FDA their insane efficacy standards are the reason why are drug prices are so astronomically high. It costs too much money and time to get new drugs FDA certified so it lets the ones that manage to get through an essential monopoly. Most monopolies are the result of government as well. Hell if it was easier and cheaper to lay new internet lines more ISPs would exist. Why do you think Google fibre stopped rolling out to new cities once "Net Neutrality" was enacted. They saw it was no longer necessary to own the lines since every ISP would have to treat there traffic the same.
Easton Sullivan
The reason drug prices are so high has nothing to do with actual costs, whether research, certification, or production, but are almost entirely the result of runaway profits and lack of transparency. Monopolies existed long before state intervention, and were infinitely worse before that was cracked down on. Modern ISPs are monopolistic primarily because government regulations forcing them to "local loop unbundle" PSTN lines in the dialup/DSL era were never applied to any of the newer broadband systems (cable, fibre, cellular, etc.). Net neutrality wasn't "enacted", those were attempts at maintaining the status quo from the earliest days of the Internet against attempts by ISPs throughout the 2000s (transition from PSTN) at traffic shaping, blocking, peering, zero-rating, and slowlanes.
Jose Miller
You're even dumber than the government regulation faggots. The ESRB is founded, funded, and run by the ESA, who count among their members every single one of the video game platform owners. If AO was made mandatory somehow, it would simply be replaced by AO++ as the new "don't sell this anywhere ever" rating.
Dominic Peterson
The ESRB exists as a direct result of threats by the government to impose such a system. They've failed to curb degenerate behavior by the industry, so it's our responsibility once again to up the ante until they either fold or get flattened.
Kayden Howard
The ESRB was never an industry watchdog. They never gave the slightest fuck about consumers. It was always only ever an industry puppet organization meant solely to deflect criticism and keep government oversight out.
Ayden Gray
The fucking balls on these kikes.
Zachary Barnes
but we can get a crash if we get that cancer classified as illegal gambling
