On 20 December 2024, the European Pirate Party (PPEU) endorsed a citizens’ initiative called “Stop Killing Games” to protect gamers’ rights[1]. This initiative came about in response to Ubisoft’s decision to abruptly cut paying customers’ access to a game titled The Crew. We obviously support and endorse this initiative, but we do find it addresses only one of the many factors that are killing videogames: the violation of gamers’ rights as consumers. Videogames, however, are more than mere consumer products. Like movies and books, they are forms of artistic expression and, through their narratives, tropes, and symbolism, they reflect the artistic, mental, social, political, and emotional landscape of their creators and players. As interactive cultural artifacts though, they do not just reflect all these aspects, but they influence them, as the interactivity of the medium makes them extremely powerful influence tools.
The dean of computer games design himself sounded the alarm nineteen years ago[2]. No one listened. Predictably, the games industry and the gamer community seem to have learned nothing. In fact, the situation, as far as mainstream and popular gaming goes, seems to have gotten even worse. The lack of creativity, the rehashing of old and tired ideas we were warned about is here to stay, especially in mainstream gaming. Mind-bogglingly expensive productions, flashy graphics, a deluge of advertisements, aggressive media campaigns, and crossovers cannot wallpaper over the fact that mainstream games have become even less creative than those of the previous decades.
Independent (indie) creators try their best, typically creating small, but often memorable and sensational games, followed by small, enthusiastic communities. However, it is not easy for them to break through and become mainstream. They have to battle some of the toughest boss monsters the Cathedral can summon.
For starters, we have distribution and publishing juggernauts, such as Microsoft, with their recent buyout of the RPG behemoth Bethesda, creator of the iconic Fallout and Elder Scrolls series[3]. The malignant influence of these conglomerates cannot be understated in any way. When they buy out creative companies, they immediately and invariably proceed to destroy the games people came to love: creatives are laid off, game universes are turned into franchises to be bowdlerized, milked, abused, and cheapened out for a fast buck – or shelved and taken out of the market entirely.
And even if game creators decide to strike it out on their own, to create the games they desire to play or, even worse, to create games that represent their cultures or their identities, they risk being targeted by grifter gaming “influencers”. Claiming to be the true voice of the gaming “community”, these grifters fan the flames of outrage, which translates into views, donations, influence, and even political power. The greatest example of this was the toxic, neofascist “GamerGate” grift: gamers could see that there was something very rotten in the gaming industry. They coud see the noxious influence of the industry and its sycophants in the Press. What GamerGate did was turn their frustration and annoyance into violent wrath and deflect and redirect it to game creators, programmers, critics, reviewers, and researchers – in short, against all those that could help understand the problems of the videogame industry and push for the creation of better games.
As if that was not enough, GamerGate shattered the gaming community into warring factions. A recent, and highly alarming example, was the review-bombing of Baldur’s Gate 3 by Black Myth: Wukong fans [4]. Being a neofascist, corporate-backed, campaign, Gamergate infected the community with its venom and strengthened the industry’s chokehold on videogames and gamers. The irony is that gamers, who were co-opted and lured by the new reactionary governments favored by Big Tech, have always been in these politicians’ crosshairs; when they find an excuse to do so, they will concoct yet another moral panic, and the gamers, who became useful idiots for the likes of Donald Trump, will soon find their favorite games heavily censored, or even banned outright.
Of course, there is much to be said about the collusion of the military-industrial complex and the gaming industry[5]. Even smaller countries seem to view gaming as an opportunity to project soft power[6], even if sometimes the results can be disappointing[7]. All this, without taking into account the decades of copaganda – Police Quest, anyone? This collusion that involves videogame corporations, governments, and the military-industrial complex, encourages corruption and potentially turns game creator teams into vehicles for the perpetuation of fraud, not to mention the fact that it fosters an unhealthy culture of dependence onto government handouts – quid pro quo, of course.
Those game creators that decide to create smaller games and organically grow a community have to deal with different problems which still can be just as disruptive and devastating. They have to compete on crowdfunding platforms and game markets (such as Google Play and Steam) with all forms of scams. They have to compete with influencers (most of them of the toxic grifter kind). This can undermine their dedication to their work, exhaust them, ruin their reputation, or entangle them in dishonest practices[8] such as the ubiquitous plague of microtransactions: “free-to-play”/pay-to-win games, pay-to-promote games, games with pop-up ads (often advertising other games in deceptive ways)[9], illegal practices like gachas/loot boxes/”surprise mechanics”, “unique” downloadable content (DLC), all of them preying upon some of the most vulnerable people of the planet (children and adults with mental issues).
Although this is mostly seen as a mobile game issue, even AAA game studios (such as recent NBA2K games) have proven to not be above shoving microtransactions down gamers’ throats. Or, perhaps, especially AAA game studios. If you think we’re exaggerating, all you have to do is remember an infamous, disgustingly crass and dehumanizing keynote by Torulf Jernström from 2016, former CEO of Tribeflame[10]. Or, even before that, Electronic Arts’ former CEO John Riccitiello, who was gloating to investors about manipulating players into spending money[11].
Still, we have barely scratched the surface of the subject of unfair and toxic practices against creators and gamers alike. Creators are abused by the methodically evangelized “crunch culture”, which affects every creator, regardless of their identity[12], and leads to worse outcomes for everyone, from creators to the quality of the produced game. It is also very probable that toxic, partisan and bigoted behaviors in game studios are exacerbated, if not outright caused, by the negative mental health effects of crunch culture on game creators. In a nutshell, the video games industry has enshittified[13] the whole sector – from online games and games that require a connection to a corporate server in order to run locally, all the way to community dynamics and labor relations.
So, what is to be done?
We have a few modest proposals. We believe that games in general should become smaller. Large games exacerbate the chokehold that large media conglomerates have on the gaming market and are often a chore to play,especially for older gamers and gamers who have familial or professional obligations. These folks cannot and will not sink 150-200 hours of their life each month for every game they want to play. They also are not going to spend 10-25% of their disposable income on scammy gachas, lootboxes, “surprise mechanics”, “pay-to-win” buffs and power-ups, and the like.
We need smaller, bolder, more experimental, more personal games that allow creators to create games through which they can express themselves, their culture, identities, and ideas. And by “express their identities”, we are not talking about mere decorative tokenist “diversity”, which only serves as fodder for exhausting culture wars and outrage marketing.
Promote culture peace and freedom of expression in gaming
Of course, support to game creators, especially independent and semi-pro, must be encouraged. As a matter of fact, we believe that small, independent game creators are among the best candidates to be helped by a meaningful Universal Basic Income (UBI) policy, which has always been an integral part of the Pirate Movement’s proposals. This would allow them to create their games and foster a community without having to tolerate abusive behaviors or resort to questionable practices in order to fund their projects.
Let us discuss freedom of speech and expression in videogames a bit here. State and corporate censorship, to which even AAA games are subjected, is going to intensify in the coming years under Trump and other far-right governments. As a matter of fact, we must include even “centrist” and (neo)liberal governments that will seek to stay on Trump’s good side, throwing – as is their wont – their citizens under the bus. True to our Pirate ideology, we will be vocal in our support of videogame creators facing censorship attempts and harassment by state/deep state actors and astroturfed mobs like the GamerGate “movement”.
As an additional measure to safeguard the artistic and creative freedom of game developers from the “culture war” harassment and censorship campaigns organized by the far right, we propose the creation of a legal defense fund, in a similar vein to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund[14].
Unchain the gamers
Corporate-owned servers of multiplayer games hold entire gaming communities and games hostage. We must keep exerting pressure on lawmakers to ensure that game server protocols and APIs are open to the community – at least at the end of a game’s commercial life – and that individual gamers or communities be able to host servers of their own. Remember LAN parties? Imagine that, but this time with users being able to connect to each other over greater distances, without having to depend on the publisher’s infrastructure, supervision, and – yes – surveillance. Also, we need to bring back and re-normalize the concept of offline gaming, without needing an internet connection, without the game “phoning home” to send the users’ personal data to its publisher. Furthermore, we must push for strong legislation against the industry’s predatory practices, with clauses that will be able to ban them, no matter how they rebrand them.
Protect videogames as cultural heritage
In the USA, the publishers’ lobby buried an effort to archive and preserve old videogames[15] with the utterly ridiculous excuse that there is a “risk” that the researchers using such archives might enjoy playing and studying these videogames. The fact that the American judiciary sided with them and accepted this argument is both preposterous and dangerous: it sets a dangerous precedent for all libraries, from the embattled Internet Archive all the way to the brick-and-mortar public libraries in our cities.
Although we Pirates are highly critical, and rightly so, of Articles 15 (link tax) and 17 (upload filters/pre-emptive censorship machines) of EU Directive 2019/790 (EU Copyright Directive)[16], we applaud the far more sensible, compared to the United States, approach Europe has taken w.r.t. the preservation of cultural heritage and the adoption of legal protections for libraries. Abandonware[17] vaults, archives of old/obsolete software and source code, community game repositories and emulation of depreciated and obsolete hardware must be given robust legal protections, without grey zones and ambiguous “case by case” clauses that favor the publishers’ oligarchy. Releasing the source code of retro/obsolete/”out of print” games must be encouraged, celebrated, and rewarded, rather than penalized, and avenues for this must be sought.
In this direction, we urge the PPEU to collaborate with LIBER (Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche – Association of European Research Libraries) to protect the cultural dimension of videogames. Furthermore, specially w.r.t. emulation, modding, and community engagement, we believe we Pirates have every reason to support the concepts of VIPER (Virtual Intellectual Property Engagement and Recourse) license model[18] proposed by virtual worlds expert William Burns, which he discussed, among other topics pertaining to intellectual property within virtual worlds, with Second Life blogger Mona Eberhardt[19].
Sources:
[1] European Pirate Party (2024). European Pirates endorse citizens’ initiative to protect gamers rights | European Pirate Party. [online] European-pirateparty.eu. Available at: https://european-pirateparty.eu/european-pirates-endorse-citizens-initiative/ [Accessed 12 Jan. 2025].
[2] Murdey, C. (2006). Gamasutra – Features – Video Games are Dead: A Chat with Storytronics Guru Chris Crawford. [online] Gamasutra. Archived at: https://web.archive.org/web/20110217132542/http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2722/video_games_are_dead_a_chat_with_.php [Accessed 12 Jan. 2025].
[3] Browne, R. (2021). Microsoft closes $7.5 billion Bethesda acquisition, aiming to take on Sony with exclusive games. [online] CNBC. Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/09/microsoft-closes-bethesda-acquisition-aiming-to-take-on-sony.html.
[4] Pureza, G.M. (2024). Baldur’s Gate 3 is Getting Review Bombed by Black Myth Fans. [online] Game Rant. Available at: https://gamerant.com/baldurs-gate-3-review-bombed-black-myth-wukong-fans/ [Accessed 12 Jan. 2025].
[5] Tomkow, A. (2024). War Games: How America’s Military-Entertainment Complex Spreads Propaganda Through Entertainment – Viterbi Conversations in Ethics. [online] Viterbi Conversations in Ethics. Available at: https://vce.usc.edu/featured/war-games-how-americas-military-entertainment-complex-spreads-propaganda-through-entertainment/.
[6] Bachelor. J. (2016). CD Projekt Red, Techland receive grants from Polish government’s $27.4m research fund. [online] GamesIndustry.biz. Available at: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/cd-projekt-red-techland-receive-grants-from-polish-governments-usd27-4m-research-fund [Accessed 12 Jan. 2025].
[7] Troughton, J. (2021). Polish Government Monitoring CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 Progress. TheGamer. [online] 11 Jan. Available at: https://www.thegamer.com/polish-government-monitoring-cd-projekt-reds-cyberpunk-2077-progress/ [Accessed 12 Jan. 2025].
[8] Admixer.Blog. (2020). In-Game Advertising: 8 Ad Formats to Monetize Mobile Games. [online] Available at: https://blog.admixer.com/in-game-advertising-8-ad-formats-monetize-mobile-games/.
[9] Htwo (2024). The Insidious World of Fake Mobile Game Ads. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhajAqI66nU [Accessed 12 Jan. 2025].
[10] PocketGamerbiz (2016). Let’s go whaling: Tricks for monetising mobile game players with free-to-play. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4.
[11] YongYea (2019). Listen to EA’s Former CEO Gloat About Manipulating Players Into Spending Money. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cut1E5hua_4 [Accessed 12 Jan. 2025].
[12] Wikipedia. (2022). Crunch (video games). [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crunch_(video_games).
[13] Wikipedia. (2025). Enshittification. Wikipedia. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
[14] Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, (n.d.). Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. [online] Available at: https://cbldf.org/.
[15] Barder, O. (2024). Publishers Have Finally Said The Quiet Part Out Loud About Retro Games. Forbes. [online] 26 Nov. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2024/11/26/publishers-have-finally-said-the-quiet-part-out-loud-about-retro-games/.
[16] Europa.eu. (2019). Directive – 2019/790 – EN – dsm – EUR-Lex. [online] Available at: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/790/oj/eng.
[17] Wikipedia Contributors (2019). Abandonware. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware.
[18] Burns, W. (2017). Arcade Exchange Update. [online] Available at: https://cityofnidus.blogspot.com/2017/11/arcade-exchange-update.html [Accessed 13 Jan. 2025].
[19] Eberhardt, M. (2018). Intellectual Property in virtual worlds (and assorted issues): A discussion with Will Burns. [online] Mona Eberhardt – Living Virtually. Available at: https://monaeberhardt.wordpress.com/2018/04/17/intellectual-property-in-virtual-worlds-and-assorted-issues-a-discussion-with-will-burns/ [Accessed 13 Jan. 2025].
Also read/watch:
[1] Video Game Genres That Don’t Exist Anymore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4ouvRXp2LM
[2] Mx. Paige Ashlynn on the lack of platforms for indie game creators to post their games: https://peoplemaking.games/@mxashlynn/113814636946975616
[3] The reactionary Charles Koch Foundation had shown interest in Interactive fiction since 2018, as shown by one of their featured stories.: https://charleskochfoundation.org/stories/whats-on-charles-melchers-must-read-list/
[4] The “Stop Killing Games” European Citizens’ Initiative: https://www.stopkillinggames.com/eci
#StopKillingGames #StopDestroyingVideogames #StopDestroyingGames #Retrogaming #Enshittification
