Hi, everybody! Sorry for the rant! I’m Cross-Posting this from my other account on Beehaw, because I’d love to hear others’ thoughts on this. I don’t see much discussion about this and I’m really curious if maybe I’m viewing this all wrong.
I’m just posting this as a combination of question and vent. Does anyone else here feel frustrated by the current ethical dilemmas of purchasing games from certain companies? My partner is very tuned into the various ethical mishaps happening in the world and keeps me apprised of which companies are doing shitty stuff and which people/companies I should stop supporting. This is important to remember, but it is also frustrating to see how many companies out there are doing bad things.
This is a very “first world problem,” but it’s frustrating just how many games out there look cool, but I can’t play them because it’d be giving those companies/people money. The biggest examples are Activision Blizzard, J.K. Rowling, and Wizards of the Coast. I think Baldurs Gate 3, for example, looks so awesome, but I don’t feel comfortable playing it because my partner has alerted me that some of that money would go to Wizards. I feel somewhat frustrated that the discussion around these issues has evaporated when the games are released; it’s as though people stopped caring about the bad things these companies/people did. To be entirely honest, I’m not sure if I myself would be able to keep myself accountable if my partner doesn’t remind me of it; I think I may have bought the games like everyone else because of how fun they look, and how much they remind me of games I grew up on.
On a similar note, as my partner is working on becoming a game developer, he follows the state of game development and tells me about it, which seems bleak. I mourn the old studios that I used to have a lot of enjoyment for, like BioWare and the others that EA ate up.
Thanks for reading all of this. :) I wish things were more hopeful, I suppose. My partner urges me to support indie developers, so I’m trying to move in that direction. Does anyone have any recommendations on staying hopeful, given the current state of entertainment?
TL;DR: I’m frustrated by the current largely-unethical state of the games industry and want to know how I can regain some hope about it.
Terrible people have produced magnificent “content” since Oog and Tharg first painted on cave walls. I love the work of Wagner, even though I’m not a Nazi. Fan of Lovecraft even though his standards are equally shitty. I adore American Psycho even though B E Ellis comes across as an utter tool. Picasso was a womanizing prick, boardering on paedophile. Great painter though.
Feel free to vote with your wallet, but if you become too sensitive to the moral and ethical views of people, or “some” of the people working for companies, you’ll miss out on some masterpieces.
Having said that, I won’t buy any Kelloggs products because fuck Kelloggs. Does that make me a hypocrite? Maybe a little, but we all need our lines in the sand.