Lesrid, 1 year ago

I have thought about this for far longer than warranted I think it comes down to a combination of several factors.

The first is that substitutions among video games are indirect at best. Paradox for example makes strategy games but a fair portion of their fans call them “Paradox games” because of the particular connotations cultivated by their DLC campaigns, multi-year support and mechanical granularity. Also within the strategy genre are the Total War series of games produced by Creative Assembly, fans of that series are throwing fits on YouTube because the handling of the series has been dreadful in their eyes. No competitors have emerged yet to make an alternative Total War experience and several fans were excited about the final entry in a trilogy within the series so the sunk cost fallacy keeps them around.

The second is that any video game player born before about 2003 has witnessed the maturation of the video game industry as we know it. As the rate at which profit is earned in the industry falls, practices and standards change to recoup perceived losses. In video games this manifests in unusually tangible ways for the consumer. Instead of entering cheat codes left in for debugging purposes, you buy power ups with real money. Instead of unlocking alternate outfits and characters by completing challenges or secrets you buy them with real money. Instead of a game having to wait until it is finished to be sold, publishers leverage internet connectivity to ship first and patch later. Many of these practices are striking to the consumer because they are monetizing aspects of their hobby that they once enjoyed at no extra cost, and these practices are appearing in a context of escapism.