Scam or shady practices.

For me it is Digital games. At least that is the case with Nintendo. You buy them, then you buy them again and again and again.

Kind of like Buying a movie on demand. Sure, you own it, but then you switch to Xfinity or get rid of Amazon prime or whatever and yes, you own it, but will never see it again.

I do not know how it is with other systems or even how it is supposed to be with the Switch. But this is 100 percent a win for game companies.

Our only benefit as far as I can see is not having to go out and get the game in store.

But that is just me and maybe it is not that bad, but I feel it is shady.

How about you?

Paid online. Having to pay an ongoing subscription fee just to play part of the game you already paid full price for is trash. It was better back when systems like PS3/Wii/Wii U had it for free.

Digital Pre-Orders. Why? It's not limited supply.

GaaS.

MTX.

Layoffs. Yeah I'm calling layoffs a scam because we have seen how make a good game. Fired. Make a bad game fired. There is no motivation to try if AAA publishers fire you in mass either way.

Crunch. Crunch is BS and even worse witch all the layoffs.

MS and Sony plus other AAA pubs doing only 18-month contracts for big games.

Yearly games. Regurgitated crap at full price is insane.

Most if mobile gaming.

Selling “pre-release” copies at a higher cost. Locking features behind a micro transaction paywall. Paying hundreds for used retro games.

The post about digital games reminds me of a lot of remasters. Most remasters are low-effort updates to games, probably costing a tiny fraction of the original development costs, yet they're used as a justification for increasing the price of often ancient games, or at the very least keeping prices high. It's even worse when the old, cheaper version gets taken down when the remaster is released. Another aspect to this is that it often fractionates the community, which is an issue mostly on PC if there are mods, but it could have other downsides as well.

In the same vein, collections, often remaster collections, can also be a scam, for exactly the same reason: The old, cheaper version often gets removed from sale, and you have to buy the more expensive collection instead.

Did I yet mention how lackluster backwards compatability is the driver behind my previous complaints? If old games were available via backwards compatibility, it would probably greatly reduce the viability of remasters/collections.

Online multiplayer costing money is 100% a scam. Free online multiplayer is clearly possible (just look at how things work on PC, and I imagine it's largely the same on mobile as well), yet it costs money on consoles. It happens only because people are willing to pay for something they absolutely should have no reason to pay for. I absolutely loathe Microsoft for introducing paid online multiplayer, because it doesn't seem like an unreasonable thought that it could be free on consoles as well if not for Microsoft. Add microtransactions on top, especially if it's a paid game anyway, and you have a game where every aspect is monetized to some degree.

As for pre-orders as mentioned in the previous posts, I don't really see the point. The point for me was never ensuring you get a copy, it was getting a copy as soon as possible. Pre-orders of digital games do that just fine, especially since preloading is a thing. It's also very clear you don't know what exactly you're getting into, so essentially you know exactly what kind of a deal you're making when you're pre-ordering. If someone wants to fund a game by paying extra for some pre-release bonuses or something so there's less pressure to make more money elsewhere, personally I'm just fine with that.

"Free" to play, gacha, GaaS in general.

Subscription services of all kinds. It's all deliberately designed so big corporations can scoop money directly out of your bank account on a regular basis, especially since they're all designed to be "opt out."

MMO’s charging a subscription and money for expansions.

Pick one or the other.

Always online.

I get that online functionality is standard these days, but unless you’re playing a PvP only game, always online should never be a requirement. Not just for games, but consoles as well.

Watch_Dogs trailer.

Nintendo's handling of digital games. After buying LttP and Super Metroid for the 6th time....