vivster said:
Arcades have been pay to win long before the internet existed. Believe me, there is always a way to introduce people to gambling. There are TCGs, sticker collectors and gatcha. Kids will pay for anything to look cool in front of their friends. That hasn't changed with the internet and would never change. You mean the journalism that wouldn't be free because of their very limited reach and easy controlability by the state? Journalism is only a small part of freedom. What has an even greater effect is people's ability to reach beyond their borders and experience different lives. It's hard to lie to a population when the internet presents them with constant answers to their questions. And yes, modern journalism also manages to lie to the public, however it's rarely for political gain and it's only affecting a portion of the population and not 99% as if it would be without internet.
I think you might be forgetting that aggressive monetization(arcades) and gambling(TCGs) existed long before the introduction of digital games. If anything the internet first curbed it because of the easier access to cheaper games, after that it became predatory to the max. The internet has shown us how far companies are willing to take it and you can't tell me that they wouldn't have done the exact same without the internet. Give their creativity and ability to squeeze ever more money out of their customers a little bit more credit. |
Except gaming existed at least 20 years before the internet. Sure arcades were a gateway to gambling machines yet PC and home consoles didn't have any of that. But true that collector's packs with 5 random cards would still exist and probably would have become part of pay to win in Skylanders / Amiibo form.
The internet is no reliable source of information. It's a great tool to deceive and spread fake news. Investigative journalism is pretty much dead since news feeds are flooded with cheap sensationalist 'news'. Who pays for a newspaper anymore? It's easy to lie to the public using the internet and people simply look for confirmation while disregarding anything contrary as fake news.