Things you enjoyed until they got greedy - How corporate greed killed every hobby

[Thiletonomics]

Where's the Pokémon RTS? The FPS? The roguelike? The horror game? The MMORPG? Sure Nintendo/Game Freak have tried a few things, but there is a huge desire for a different type of Pokémon media, and they are way too big to not have the resources, so many just see it as laziness and a lack of respect for the fans.

We’ve seen a bit of that with the spinoff games, but those have really been neglected. Shame, it would be cool to see a remaster of Pokemon Conquest.

Sadly, side and spin-off games seem to be a dying trend in general. It would have also been cool to see another Pokémon Ranger or PokéPark game.

That also reminds me of how Sims spinoff games are mostly dead now too, as the console versions of The Sims 4 is just a port, with no mod support and a pisspoor control layout. Compare that to previous Sims games, with spinoffs such as Bustin' Out and The Urbz, and even the console versions of The Sims had their own charm to them, i.e. being able to direct control your Sim. And even the infamous Wii version of The Sims 3, with people reporting the game even bricks consoles, had more charm to it than the console version of TS4.

More thread tax, Blizzard games are tacking on even more and more microtransactions because Microsoft wants to see return on it's $Billion purchase of the company, although the microtransactions were ramping up even before that during the Bobby Kotick era. The $90 FOMO reskin of the Brutosaur mount, adding early access to the expensive versions of WoW's Expansions, and the nickle and diming in Hearthstone is not even funny now, it's just sad.

 

[The Feline Solution 2]

Warhammer

First thing i thought of. Got priced out more than 10 years ago and i wasn't even playing, just painting. Shit was expensive back in the 90's but its gotten absolutely insane by now. The price hikes combined with putting less and less models in a box is outrageous. I also think model quality went downhill ever since they switched completely to CAD, not to mention it's almost only mono pose shit now.

Idk about everyone else but I don't like the idea that I buy a game, enjoy playing it, and then 10 hours in I can no longer progress because the creators are still making the second half of the game

Early Access is the bane of my existence and i keep falling for it. The number of EA titles i have on steam compared to complete releases is at least triple. Bonus points for all the games that just got abandoned by these so-called devs. Sucks to have niche tastes when it comes to vidya.

 

[Judge Dredd]

the audience for Pokémon today are like mid 20's-30's

This leads to an obvious issue. Is pokemon for grown ups or kids? I'd say it's for kids, with Palworld being the "adult" pokemon game.

Zelda went through a similar transformation. I remember the whole "blades will bleed" trailer back on the gamecube, and later Twilight Princess. Turning the kids game into a dark fantasy game.


I mentioned cars in the OP. This video popped up in my recommendations basically going over the things I mentioned.

Thread Tax from a friend. Hotwheels.
He was grumbling about something called "treasure hunt" cars. These are supposedly rare variants with a special golden flame logo on them. They only make so many a run and are mixed with regular cars. Turns out that shop owners pick through their stock to find these treasure hunt cars, and re-sell them on ebay for hundreds of pounds.

 

[Miriam Margoyles]

Most (not all, but most) Marvel movies post-Endgame. They clearly want to just keep the momentum going, past what would have been the natural endpoint, and everything feels cynical and calculated and whorish now.

 

[Cloaca Rimjob]

Pints at the pub, literally London prices everywhere now except at spoons maybe

 

[Otterly]

Seeing bands live. You used to get a paper ticket from the record shop, have a pint, turn up, dance, leave, buy a dodgy knockoff t shirt from a bloke outside and go home happy. Whole thing would cost you 25 quid max. Now you have dynamic pricing, scalpers, and you can’t even try to take the posters home becasue they’re all LED screens. V sad.

Lego. Lego used to be normal toys.
Now they're over-priced things for fanatics with blatant misprintings and set errors.

Urgh. I love Lego, but yeah, this is an issue. So few of their sets now are ‘playable.’ They’re more like imagination-free dioramas for adult collectors rather than playsets for Children actually BUILD with. The doors on the cars don’t open. The roof of the car used to flip up. You could move a figure through a set playing with it and now it’s just a display piece. Not impressed.

 

[Retrofire]

basically everything. i know it seems reductive, but i believe it's true.

 

[General Patton]

Streaming. I can understand the desire for every studio to control their own content--not that I agree with it. Constant consistent price increases above and beyond inflation, meanwhile, I'll be dropping something by the end of the year.

Hulu is 19 dollars now for no ads. 19 damn dollars. It used to be 7 dollars not long ago. Now streaming sites are making you pay separate for no ads....plus paying cable streaming to not pay ads on top of the original cost.

If that's not greedy I don't know what is.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Confectionary/Ice Cream
I used to think my dislike for chocolate and other sweets over the last decade was due to me getting older. But supposedly no, it's widely held that the big chocolate makers (cadbury and nestle) have declined in quality. My parents still buy Quality Street and Roses at Christmas almost out of tradition, but most of them just aren't very nice, and even old favourites reach the glorious rank of passible.

But the US supposedly has it worse. I'd always heard stories about how mythic certain sweets were either amazing or amazingly shit (hershies), but supposedly ice cream in America is now called "dairy treat product" or some other term because they no longer pass the minimum bar to legally be considered ice cream. If true I can only imagine how horrid it is.


Going back to an older reply.

Books. Anyone who reads in any serious capacity will tell you that in order to find consistently good reading material, you need to go back decades.

Saw some videos about "romantasy" books being the new popular genre, and alongside all the usual hand wringing, supposedly conventions have turned in dens of harassment and sexual assault, if not being outright scams.

If true, what the fuck happened?

 

[General Patton]

I heard EA Games has gotten ridiculously greedy but I haven't given much attention to The Sims since they put out that boring Sims 4 game, tbh.

 

[McMitch]

If true, what the fuck happened?

The industry has spent the past two decades artificially promoting female authors. So now every woman with a can get her fan fiction with as little as filing off the names while new male authors have to reinvent the publishing industry every time they want to get their book out. Further, with the death of the casual reader as a market, these women are the only ones whose books actually sell. And since they’re basically writing porn, and since their target demographic is “young adult,” there’s no incentive for any of them to compete on any literary merit (mych like how porn for men does not need to compete on cinematic merit), further isolating the industry.

So now you have an industry populated by horny readers and writers, many of whom are not particularly intelligent, who are largely unused to facing negative consequences for pushing boundaries in an era where it has become more socially acceptable for the recipients of their unwanted advances to speak out about them.

 

[Jace on ice]

Ordering pizza used to be fun. Now it's so expensive that I have backed out of the food delivery app several times after seeing the prices. Even ordering large pizzas for multiple people is not worth it anymore and many places stopped offering these altogether.
I'd rather get the pizza from the store because the quality of some of these is quite decent, it's not the same as ordering one but at the same time the price to quality ratio is good enough to consider these as a viable substitute. I also make my own pizzas from time to time but that's heavily dependent on having the right ingredients at hand, so it's not as spontaneous as I would like it to be.

I heard from a dude at work that a local pizza place was insanely good so I was going to order one for the game but I looked up the prices online and plain pies start at $30 with additional toppings at $5 each.

I rolled my eyes and made nachos instead.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

The industry has spent the past two decades artificially promoting female authors. So now every woman with a can get her fan fiction with as little as filing off the names while new male authors have to reinvent the publishing industry every time they want to get their book out. Further, with the death of the casual reader as a market, these women are the only ones whose books actually sell. And since they’re basically writing porn, and since their target demographic is “young adult,” there’s no incentive for any of them to compete on any literary merit (mych like how porn for men does not need to compete on cinematic merit), further isolating the industry.

So now you have an industry populated by horny readers and writers, many of whom are not particularly intelligent, who are largely unused to facing negative consequences for pushing boundaries in an era where it has become more socially acceptable for the recipients of their unwanted advances to speak out about them.

Couple that with this weird gaslighting they've done to new women writers (who aren't literate) that they're #bossbabes fighting for women to break out in male dominated SF-F genres.

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

I thought soulslike referred to games that were similar, but soulsbourne were games from From...

The current terminology is rollslop

 

[Radola Gajda]

View attachment 7960041
>Ein Autovolk, ein Autoreich, ein Autoführer!

Volkswagens are car master race.

 

[Thiletonomics]

Confectionary/Ice Cream
I used to think my dislike for chocolate and other sweets over the last decade was due to me getting older. But supposedly no, it's widely held that the big chocolate makers (cadbury and nestle) have declined in quality. My parents still buy Quality Street and Roses at Christmas almost out of tradition, but most of them just aren't very nice, and even old favourites reach the glorious rank of passible.

But the US supposedly has it worse. I'd always heard stories about how mythic certain sweets were either amazing or amazingly shit (hershies), but supposedly ice cream in America is now called "dairy treat product" or some other term because they no longer pass the minimum bar to legally be considered ice cream. If true I can only imagine how horrid it is.

Are the generic brand ice creams worse at this, or are they actually better buys because they're cheaper than the declining quality products made from named brands?

And have they reached Chinese ice cream-levels of poor quality yet?

 

[The Last Stand]

Hillary Clinton.

 

[Gianfranco Pizzaballa]

Supermarket treats: Pepperidge Farm cookies, potato chips, Triscuits, deli meat. They seem to have more than doubled in price so I have adjusted my eating habits (probably for the better).

 

[Judge Dredd]

Supermarket treats: Pepperidge Farm cookies, potato chips, Triscuits, deli meat. They seem to have more than doubled in price so I have adjusted my eating habits (probably for the better).

That seems to be the better of bad options.

The other two being shrinkflation, or declining quality. Got a frozen chocolate cake for my parents recently, and the plate they used as it fit perfectly was now too big. Lidl biscuits used to be our go to but they've gotten really bad this year. Meanwhile, Tesco/One Stop bourbons are very nice, albeit more expensive. The saving isn't worth the quality decline.

 

[Scale Smerch]

Seeing bands live. You used to get a paper ticket from the record shop, have a pint, turn up, dance, leave, buy a dodgy knockoff t shirt from a bloke outside and go home happy. Whole thing would cost you 25 quid max. Now you have dynamic pricing, scalpers, and you can’t even try to take the posters home becasue they’re all LED screens. V sad.

Oh god I can relate to this since it's started infecting indie crowds and festivals. Want to see some underground industrial acts live? Suddenly that 25$ ticket is now 75$, the drink cost has doubled, and you're looking at half the acts - and worse acts at that - you'd normally get for a single night. Merch? Don't even bother, it's easily going to exceed what you've already spent, if you can get it before it's swiped by scalpers for Ebay markup sales. Added hilarity in the usual festival packages too doubling in cost for a worse experience.

I really want to support certain groups, but the nonsense surrounding the scene now makes it a fool's errand for anyone appreciating the value of money.