Are Gamers in Danger of becoming victims to "The Matrix"?

[BlackLurker]

I probably sound like a blithering idiot, but hear me out, hear me out.

I was on Cracked.Com (again, please try to hear me out), and after going through at least 5 different articles on gaming (and easily 50 other articles, 3 of which I probably can't speak of outloud), I've noticed something.

Game developers are exercising how far they can go until Video Games go from a medium to a soul-sucking part of our life. Again, please wait until the end of the random, 12:35 am after having woken up at 2:30 am previous day for an entire day of work sleep deprived, and probably easily quelled paranoia fueled sermon before you flame me.

The notion that Game Developers are looking for more and more ways to extort money out of us is easily a notion I highly doubt anyone will deny. We're all trying to earn some scratch so we can live our lives, and they just have a pretty good set of tools to do it with. And yet , mainly through the internet, I hear hearsay of Multiplayer for all types of games to be released to be purposly made more expensive, what with the milking of extra features that you'd expect to be in the vanilla content, as well as having to pay for the service to play online in general. I hear additional hearsay (that I should probably be more skeptical (spell check needed) of) that Single Player, what with the attempting to please one person for 60 bucks rather than addicting them for infinity dollars, is being seen as a liability by the makers, and that it may become an indangered species.

I'd be laughing me off as an idiot, much like most of you will, except for something that happened to me a couple of days ago. I was taking my credit card off of the Xbox list, and canceling the remaining Xbox Live (I was pissed off that it was even being made for me to pay for it in the first place, but I kept it on and tried to get a little more Left 4 Dead 2 out in reduced / refunded time before I'd fully cancel it and stop all transations) we had so I wouldn't be paying for it anymore. If I wasn't trying to get more time with a girl I like, trying to not fail in College, trying to hold down a job, trying to deal with my family, trying to deal with my mental issues, and still doing things for myself (I see sleep as a liability), I'd probably get more use out of it. But since I don't really play it all that much anymore, I went ahead and canceled it (my addicted father immediately purchased a year's subscription so he could complain about the newbs leaving him to die). While I was on the phone, though, I was told this:

"Alright, you're back on Xbox Live Silver, -and you can still play your games offline- yadayadayada."

Maybe it's the business and the paranoia brought out by the articles, but why does that need to be stated? Why does such a thing need to be questioned in the first place? Why should there even remotely be an issue with me playing my single player games that I purchased on the console I purchased (so to speak)? Is there some truth to the conspiracy nutcase theory? Are we a few decades from being livestock for the machines at worse? At best, will I be quiting gaming because of how greedy the companies will become in trying to use me to milk my money even more than they already do?

On a scale of 1 to "I'ma eat that shoe, wait nevermind it's a squid", how crazy am I? Anyone else as crazy as me? Or am I not crazy, and something horrible is slowly but steadily approaching the world of gaming?

.... OH MY GOD DECEMBER 2012!!!!

No seriously though.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Um, I'm pretty sure my new copy of Red Orchestra 2 hasn't started attaching cords to me just yet.

 

[CplDustov]

I'd say it's fair to say that.... yes it seems a little stupid that they remind you that "it's ok to play your games offline" and may well be meant to plant the seed of doubt that makes you subscribe again.

However, it's still a far cry from any real evidence of what you're claiming in the first part. I imagine yes lack of sleep or whatever is making you jumpier or whatever you want to call it. Get some rest I have similar moments though it's usually at stupid o'clock at night overanalysing conversations with friends or whatever and getting worked up about things that later turn out to be less than what they felt like.

 

[uc.asc]

7.5 to 8 on the scale of 10. I'm basing this mostly on your writing style (incoherent, fractured grammar and structure, flight of ideas), and my consequent inability to figure out what your thesis here is -- usually a bad sign.

By the way, the following things are not proper nouns:
Gamers
Danger
Video Games
Game Developers
Multiplayer
Single Player
College

I do love you though~

 

[Thaluikhain]

I probably sound like a blithering idiot,

You noticed that too?

Having said that, I doubt you actually believe any of the above anyway, and just wanted to start a thread. Could have been about someone's avatars or the last thing they saw in a game, I suppose, so this is sorta a step up.

 

[Trixsy]

Honestly, I think maybe it's just paranoia. They likely say that because they've had complaints in the past or get stupid questions. People ask A LOT of stupid questions.

I worked for a company where people place orders over the phone and I recall a certain product... there was a plastic goose and you could buy clothes to dress it up by season/holiday (old folks loved the catalog XD) but, unfortunately, because of stupid people we were required to say to anyone ordering the goose clothing "and remember these are not intended for live geese"... because someone sued the company after a goose bit her when she tried to dress it.

Feel free to process this.

So, while it's obvious to most people with a working brain that OF COURSE you can still play your single player games offline, I'm willing to bet that after being asked 1891610 times a day if they'll still be able to play their games offline, Microsoft just worked the line into their scripting.

Also, it's not a shoe OR a squid. It's a unicorn.

 

[Nickompoop]

Honestly, I think maybe it's just paranoia. They likely say that because they've had complaints in the past or get stupid questions. People ask A LOT of stupid questions.

I have to agree. They worked the line into the script because people are incredibly stupid. Individuals are (for the most part) smart, but people as a group are stupendously dumb.

Also, you're being paranoid. We won't be integrated into the Matrix, but there will be a big crash within the next three years. Possibly sooner if this price gouging shit increases at a faster rate than in the past.

 

[BlackLurker]

God, Time just seems to fly by.... either that, or my sense of time, my soul, and the little money I actually notice that I have, are all being sucked away by my job and schooling....

I suppose my earlier view point (like -far- too many things I do) was a bit too energetic. Let me try to explain my processes. From Wikipedia on The Matrix: "The film depicts a future in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually a simulated reality created by sentient machines to pacify and subdue the human population, while their bodies' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source."

From my twisted head on the subject of the future of gaming: As our medium has become more and more mainstream and more and more profitable, game developers continue to increase the efforts in making video games more and more addicting (not as bad, but still an issue, to me), and exponentially more expensive, until Video Games are a twisted shadow of their former selves in terms of content and playability, and have gone from being a fun interest or enjoyable way of life (or any point in-between) to a painful leech on its consumer base (most definitely the bigger issue). Yes, this view is probably too animated, and I'll try to tone it down a bit more if I need to, but I hope I'm getting my point across.

I've had some recent thoughts a bit more relevant than some simple comment received from the Xbox Live people. I'm still first looking at the train of thought that Proper Multiplayer is beginning to die out. Anyone else remember House of the Dead or Hunter the Reckoning? They are just a couple of amazing games from way back when and there are plenty more just like them. Hell, Left4Dead's a modern example of what I'm talking about (although since it has an online and such, it's usability as an example goes down slightly). Plenty of people rag on how annoying it is, and I'll agree that it's not perfect, but Couch based Multiplayer is one of the best things we've really ever had, and I'm having trouble seeing as many games for it in general as I used to. Maybe it's just me, what with all the stuff I'm dealing with in my life just trying to get my 8 hours, but I can't say I like that.

You guys enjoy playing with other people? Certainly you have a gaggle of friends (or at least 1-3) within walking / short driving / traveling distance of yourself that you possibly play Video Games with? Ever enjoy sitting down with the friend(s) in question, popping in the latest game, started salivating in expectation of the latest experience the 2(-4) of you would share? Stinks when you find that you've gotta send someone back to their house, boot up the system from that location, and have an extra copy of the game and both of you have proper and fully functioning online, in addition to your own area of play, TV, controller, proper cords, and etcetera.

I actually saw this play out before the first post I made on this thread. The guilty party: Dead Island for the Xbox 360, which (at least if I'm not still in some strange mentally impaired consciousness and am just making up stuff) claimed to have a very good multiplayer. My brother and I love playing games. But in this situation, it was actually him trying to get a game for his girlfriend and he to be able to play together, because she does not want him playing anything alone making her just watch, and she's very picky about some of the games he drags her into. Plenty of issues in that relationship, but that's not the focus here. What is the focus, at least for right now is that they wanted to play something multiplayer. So they go to Block Buster (or where ever the latest video gaming store is), rent Dead Island, boot it in, and find themselves stumped to try to access the multiplayer. I went to my computer and looked it up for them, and had to spoil the entire evening with the revelation that the great epic amazing "multiplayer" for the great epic amazing zombie game is actually online "multiplayer". Which means it was just wasted money and another night unable to sleep due to incessant arguing (again, the relationship has enough problems and they know it, it doesn't need any additional focus).

A lot of people don't have a problem with online multiplayer. And I suppose it's not all bad right now. But the weaning of couch based multiplayer (had -no- problems in the past finding a good split screen game, as compared to now, and hopefully not compared to the future) isn't really a good thing to anyone but the people putting money in their pockets over it. It's sure as heck not hard to do. It's just not as profitable. 1 TV vs. 2+ TVs. 1 system vs 2+ systems. 1 game vs. 2+ games. Online subscription fees for all. The only thing constant would be the number of controllers. Otherwise, it's no question that couch multiplayer is less expensive than online multiplayer.

And that's why it's slowly being phased out. Why would they invest in convenient and easier ways for people to enjoy themselves that is also cheaper, when they could be milking as much money as they can off of the money sac-I mean gamers? Heck, when you think about it, making people pay the price of the game is one thing, but then they could make you pay for the ability to play it online, as well as for bonus content (both extras and things required to play), knowing people they've got addicted to the games would freely devote the constant stream of money into the system. Heck, why fund single player anymore when they can have everyone paying online together? I'm sure they'd find a way to do it, too. The little steps in that direction are already being seen.

The pursuit of money is changing the industry, and while change isn't bad, bad change is indeed bad. I'm not too scared of this being a completely crippling issue right now. I'm more worried about this being a problem 20-30+ years down the line, when I want to be able to game with my children, and have to have saved some of the technology from the past to be able to. Hopefully it won't be -that- bad, but you never really know, now do you?

With that out of the way, a few things I feel like responding to:

Um, I'm pretty sure my new copy of Red Orchestra 2 hasn't started attaching cords to me just yet.

I?m almost certain there?s a super Japanese game that uses that interface already. And it is probably amazing.

7.5 to 8 on the scale of 10. I'm basing this mostly on your writing style (incoherent, fractured grammar and structure, flight of ideas), and my consequent inability to figure out what your thesis here is -- usually a bad sign.

By the way, the following things are not proper nouns:
Gamers
Danger
Video Games
Game Developers
Multiplayer
Single Player
College

I do love you though~

I ran this one through Microsoft word. Hope it?s a bit easier to understand. I should probably start doing this for everything I type, huh?

I probably sound like a blithering idiot,

You noticed that too?
Having said that, I doubt you actually believe any of the above anyway, and just wanted to start a thread. Could have been about someone's avatars or the last thing they saw in a game, I suppose, so this is sorta a step up.

Your first sentence makes me put on my sad face. For some reason, I think you?ve said something to me before, but on a different part of this site. I honestly can?t remember, though. Whatever it is, though, please don?t assume I?m trying to be a troll or thread-point-grabber or anything. I know it?s questionable to believe someone else on the internet, especially when prior senses indicate that you shouldn?t, but I mean to go about genuine conversation, and usually want just that. In this case, some patterns I see in the current trend of gaming sort of creeps me out.

Also, it's not a shoe OR a squid. It's a unicorn.

Wait, if it?s a unicorn, then what have I been sleeping with? ?

Honestly, I think maybe it's just paranoia. They likely say that because they've had complaints in the past or get stupid questions. People ask A LOT of stupid questions.

I have to agree. They worked the line into the script because people are incredibly stupid. Individuals are (for the most part) smart, but people as a group are stupendously dumb.
Also, you're being paranoid. We won't be integrated into the Matrix, but there will be a big crash within the next three years. Possibly sooner if this price gouging shit increases at a faster rate than in the past.

I suppose I can agree that my first example was ?incredibly- weak?. I?m not sure if I should delete it and impose my second post into the first, though, since I like to track how I?m thinking, and I don?t like covering my tracks.
Also, is there really going to be a crash in three years? Seriously? How do you know it?s going to be that soon? Do you mean like the one in 1983? And what exactly do you mean by ?price gouging shit? ?

Addendum: Why has most of the punctuation (more evident in the quotes section) turned into question marks? That's weird...

Edit: Nevermind, that's just the preview being silly.

 

[Robert Ewing]

Perhaps this IS the matrix? Or a matrix inside a matrix? Sort of... Matrixception.

 

[manythings]

Honestly, I think maybe it's just paranoia. They likely say that because they've had complaints in the past or get stupid questions. People ask A LOT of stupid questions.

I have to agree. They worked the line into the script because people are incredibly stupid. Individuals are (for the most part) smart, but people as a group are stupendously dumb.

Also, you're being paranoid. We won't be integrated into the Matrix, but there will be a big crash within the next three years. Possibly sooner if this price gouging shit increases at a faster rate than in the past.

I would challenge that. If anything games, based on the curve of inflation vs. numeric price, are cheaper now than they were in that days of yonder (like when the original Ultima (I think, definitely an RPG)) was $100 when it was released in the early 90's. Factor in the cost of production and the explosion of disciplines needed to create games and they aren't that expensive.

As far as a crash goes... I'm going to bet against a crash but weigh-in on a heavy slowdown for the AAA market versus the continuing upward(-ish) trend in the indi market.

 

[Nudu]

Like every other commodity you can excercise your right to buy it or not. You can make the same argument about barbie dolls if you're big into barbie dolls. Or coffee. Or shoes. You don't meet many people who don't buy shoes, why don't you talk about how the shoe industry is controlling us?

 

[Liviola]

Like every other commodity you can excercise your right to buy it or not. You can make the same argument about barbie dolls if you're big into barbie dolls. Or coffee. Or shoes. You don't meet many people who don't buy shoes, why don't you talk about how the shoe industry is controlling us?

*Suddenly imagines being plugged into a Barbies-Matrix, Coffee-Matrix or Shoes-Matrix*

Interesting...

Anyway, OP, I have carefully read through your posts but I'm still not understanding the argument you are making. I don't own an XBox, so I have no idea about this subscriptions business, so yeah, your posts sound a bit like paranoia (you also sound like you have a lot of other stuff going on in your life). Re: your rant about consoles forcing online multiplayer: your argument is that it's expensive and it doesn't let 2 RL people play with each other? I think that's a problem with the game/console itself. And if it's too expensive and damaging to your play style and lifestyle, then don't buy it?

But, again, I don't have an XBox and maybe owning one literally involves Microsoft extracting energy from your fetal eggsac, I dunno.