Recently, I was playing the hell out of Spelunky, an indy (indie?) game I personally love. It occured to me that I have rarely, if ever, in real life (I have online) met someone who has donated to any indie (indy?) games. I'm sure there are donaters out there, the maker of Dwarf Fortress lives entirely off of the proceeds from it from what I understand.
But what I don't get is we buy games that we hate all the damn time. I know a lot of people on here hate Halo, right? Well, I'm betting that you buy every damn Halo game that comes out just so you can review it and say how shitty it is, whether it be to a big-ass crowd or just a couple of friends. Don't take that an insult - if I had a 360, I probably would too. We buy games that suck for the reason that either, A, we don't know they suck yet, or B, we know they suck and want to play it so we know how much and why it sucks.
Yet I know plenty of people who play games like Spelunky, Dwarf Fortress, hell, even something like IWBTG, say, "How nice," and drop it.
Look back at all the shitty games you bought last year, the year before. Think about each one - if you didn't buy used, they were probably about 60 bucks. Why? Why do we have to shell out so much money yearly, for games that we know suck, or don't want to wait for reviews to tell us it sucks, when we could be doing something productive with it?
Maybe I'm insane, but I think it's time we start donating to indy/indie developers instead. Next time you play something like Passage or Today I Die, why not say, "hey, one less shitty game," and donate 60 dollars to it?
Hell, better yet, why don't we take that money and distribute it to indy games based upon quality? Say you play a hypothetical game, call it "Benjamin Franklin's Big Adventure" or something like that. So you really, really like BFBA. You think it would be worthy of being on a shelf in a videogame store. So you donate 60 bucks to the guy, which his telling him, "Wow! This is really good!" Now, say he makes a sequel - BFBA2. It sucks. Hard. Donate to him, like, 5 bucks. "Well, that's not very good," he says, "I should try harder!" Of course, I write dialogue like it's from a 50's PSA, but that's besides the point.
Why don't we start doing stuff like that, reinforcing what we really love with cash and saying, "Well, this sucks," with less cash, or, hell, even just an e-mail/message to the developer saying, "Not good," and giving him/her critique on how to improve their game?
Right now, all we're doing is encouraging blandness and stupidity, buying stuff like the Halo series and Gears Of War and all that. Don't get me wrong, those ARE good games, in their own right, but we need more than that. And if all that we do is buy that, no matter how crappy reviews we give it, if it sells as much as Halo, they will make a sequel. Because they know that we'll buy it, no matter how much it sucks donkey balls. We're encouraging stupidity and sequels, rather than originality, creativity, and innovative but good gameplay.
That's just wrong.
But what I don't get is we buy games that we hate all the damn time. I know a lot of people on here hate Halo, right? Well, I'm betting that you buy every damn Halo game that comes out just so you can review it and say how shitty it is, whether it be to a big-ass crowd or just a couple of friends. Don't take that an insult - if I had a 360, I probably would too. We buy games that suck for the reason that either, A, we don't know they suck yet, or B, we know they suck and want to play it so we know how much and why it sucks.
Yet I know plenty of people who play games like Spelunky, Dwarf Fortress, hell, even something like IWBTG, say, "How nice," and drop it.
Look back at all the shitty games you bought last year, the year before. Think about each one - if you didn't buy used, they were probably about 60 bucks. Why? Why do we have to shell out so much money yearly, for games that we know suck, or don't want to wait for reviews to tell us it sucks, when we could be doing something productive with it?
Maybe I'm insane, but I think it's time we start donating to indy/indie developers instead. Next time you play something like Passage or Today I Die, why not say, "hey, one less shitty game," and donate 60 dollars to it?
Hell, better yet, why don't we take that money and distribute it to indy games based upon quality? Say you play a hypothetical game, call it "Benjamin Franklin's Big Adventure" or something like that. So you really, really like BFBA. You think it would be worthy of being on a shelf in a videogame store. So you donate 60 bucks to the guy, which his telling him, "Wow! This is really good!" Now, say he makes a sequel - BFBA2. It sucks. Hard. Donate to him, like, 5 bucks. "Well, that's not very good," he says, "I should try harder!" Of course, I write dialogue like it's from a 50's PSA, but that's besides the point.
Why don't we start doing stuff like that, reinforcing what we really love with cash and saying, "Well, this sucks," with less cash, or, hell, even just an e-mail/message to the developer saying, "Not good," and giving him/her critique on how to improve their game?
Right now, all we're doing is encouraging blandness and stupidity, buying stuff like the Halo series and Gears Of War and all that. Don't get me wrong, those ARE good games, in their own right, but we need more than that. And if all that we do is buy that, no matter how crappy reviews we give it, if it sells as much as Halo, they will make a sequel. Because they know that we'll buy it, no matter how much it sucks donkey balls. We're encouraging stupidity and sequels, rather than originality, creativity, and innovative but good gameplay.
That's just wrong.
