Welcome to a new edition of my absolutely irrational, contrived, and completely unthoughtout rant on Wednesday! Please welcome my two main guests: Steam and the long list of games that would have been better off never seeing the light of the internet – or haven’t quite done so yet!
The Glorious Era of Indie Games
A few years ago, indie games were considered the great hope of the games industry. Where the big players like EA or Activision had little room for new impulses, games like “Minecraft” or “Juniper’s Knot” made it painfully clear to me that a huge development studio is not necessarily required.
Individual people or very small teams have created games in which I have spent more playtime than in many AAA titles. And in general, I consider it one of the greatest achievements of our time that anyone who develops something is now theoretically able to share it with the world. However, I find the developments of recent years more than just a bit alarming.
We are so different and yet so alike
When you browse through the Steam store today and finally give in to the audaciously intrusive “personal queue”, I get shivers down my spine every time. A large part of the games is now from indie developers.
Don’t get me wrong, dear indies! If you have great ideas, please implement them! But when alongside the 100 Minecraft clones, which all claim to be “something completely different” simply because instead of a pickaxe you now mine with a trident or instead of dirt, the moon, then I get “the cold vomit” in German, to put it mildly. And if anyone tries to convince me that they “started at the same time as Minecraft, but just finished now”, I feel compelled to misuse my keyboard for things that would be immediately censored due to increased violence depiction by youth protection.
Early Access, Early Exploitation
An even larger portion tries to sell itself to me as “Early Access”. While I certainly see the benefits of such a model from a sober perspective, the safeguards for the customer are simply too low. More and more games appear that are offered as “Early Access” and then quietly buried after a few months.
Where have all the nice, finished games gone, where you don’t run into bugs every ten meters? What has led to this drastic change? I can easily imagine some developers counting their money: We made only half a game, but we already cashed in. Bye with a smile and thanks for your trust, you gullible gamers!
Ah… that felt good again. See you next time. Feel free to get a bit worked up, it can be very liberating!
