• SteveNashFan@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    Boycotts don’t work when John Gamer spends hundreds of millions on microtransactions. I could never buy another EA Sports game for the rest of my life, and all it takes is one whale to wipe out ten of me boycotting. The economy of boycotting games is completely broken at scale when whales exist, and companies know how to cater to them.

    • Trail@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      But if the whale does not have 10 other people to play with and show off their whaling, then they won’t whale no more on that game.

      You are the plankton accompanying the whale (wtf am I typing while shitting in the morning) even if you are not paying directly, you support the ecosystem. No other players to play with, then suddenly it’s a boring game.

      • jabberwock@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 hours ago

        I get your point but look at any harbor in the Mediterranean when an event comes to town, it’s full of super-yatchs. The rich will always be fine peacocking for each other, and yatch builders manage to stay in business just fine. I realize it’s a bit different since there’s a whole social aspect of the game, arguably the whole point is to play with others. I just don’t see the bean counters having that foresight.

        I’d put more weight behind IP law, where if a company chooses to shut down an online game then it gets treated like abandonware and they cannot pursue fans who run their own servers. That does put the onus on the fans at the end of the day, but I think in the long run it would make companies more willing to appeal to a wider audience if we always had an open model to fall back to.