Its All Our Fault

Creativity in the gaming industry has long been fraught with problems. Terrible story writing has been a plague on gaming for years. As an observer of the culture you may see the potential of the medium to grow and you will also be consistently disheartened by what seems to be, an increasingly shallow, gun porn and violence vehicle.

But there is one issue that often gets left completely to the wayside. The simple fact that its OUR fault. Capitalism works, but this is what capitalism working looks like. When it comes to deciding what's important to the general public all you really have to do is look at what they are buying.

Perhaps this doesn't take into account peoples motivations for their purchases, the deeper meanings these things have to the individual. As a measure of what's important to society though, what people buy is pretty much the most comprehensive way possible of seeing what exactly has value to them.

This brings to mind the old adage “a budget is a moral document”. Coined by the faithful, this phrase is so deeply and profoundly important, in a capitalist society, that its a wonder that its not more commonly used. Where we spend our money, as individuals and as a society, says a lot about our values, what is important to us and what our priorities are.

So gamers. Here's the thing. And this is quite difficult for me to say. But its our fault that the big three have so much power and its our fault that, with the rare exception, most games that come out of that evil empire are little more than violence porn. Not to say that there's anything particularly wrong with violence porn. Just that there is so much room for more depth in these things that is completely unexplored.

I do my best to spend my money as best I can. I support indie developers whatever way I can (look out for my #1GAM article, coming soon) but, at the end of the day, the field is so devoid of truly important content that it often feels like a completely fruitless endeavour.

Spend your money wisely folks.

*self hatred can be fruitful*