It was never going to be free forever, because that would be leaving free money on the table, which is unacceptable to any evil megacorp (which is to say, all of the big three). I imagine PSN initially being free was mostly a result of trying to bridge the gap between PS3 and 360 sales, given the multi-year delay and huge price difference.
This is why I exclusively play indie offline games. Also because my PC is getting old lol.
Funny, I remember the playstation's online being dog shit and offline a ton.
I haven't played multiplayer since the PS3 days, before Sony joined the greed bleed
If MS didn't do it, someone else would have and it would have become the trend anyway. The problem isn't the particular sins of a specific company (though to be clear, MS is heinous), the problem is the profit motive.
I sleep like shit, but at least I'm happy with my PC.
Video games could have had a single version for the entire world which contains every localization that the user can freely choose between (you know, like every other software with an international market), but Nintendo popularized the geolocking model that other competitors also started using. (And no it's not because it would take too much space, that might have been true in the ROM cartridge days but now most game cards are just overpriced proprietary SD cards with hundreds of gigabytes of storage, and it's not like game studios are particularly conservative with file sizes nowadays.)
Phones also could have had removable batteries and could be disassembled, but Apple popularized the throw it in a dumpster and get a new one model that other competitors also started using.
The tech industry is especially brazen because two thirds of the users literally value convenience and "polish" above data ownership and device repair rights and literally anything else and the other third is just ignored and everyone calls them stuck in the past, paranoid, amish, etc.
Monetization is the natural path of capitalism. It would not have stayed free for long.
I literally had this thought today then this post shows up on lemmy
Yeah… Microsoft has this thing where they ruin everything they can get their hands on.
OK. I've been browsing through the Lemmy comments here, and I'm drucking funk, fuck you.
Once there was a utopia. YOU Killed it. Fuck you. Um not really a utopia, but whatever, fuck you.
The beginning of the end was Gears of War or Halo. It wasn't that they were particularly good, but they were easy. Anybody could just hop into a game. WOOOO! Game time. Then in came the corporations.
I need to give Epic a little bit of credit here. They've always been fighting against the establishment. So none of you remember the days of Unreal Tournament. You fucking mewling little pukes. The name Cliffy B means nothing to you. Once upon a time a game company made a FPS arena shooter game called Unreal Tournament. It was the sequel to their story based FPS called Unreal. It was amazing for its time, but who cares. They defined game engines in ways that are rippling to this day.
Blah blah blah, stuff, then they released a game called Gears of War. Ok, you're new here. Epic was used to releasing amazing games and then engaging with their players. I know the name CliffyB for a reason. Oh, but Microsoft is a Company. They are serious business. This is a store. Epic would release MapPacks for the UT games, and they would contain some serious work, and they were available for free. Nope said MS. This is a Store. You buy things here. Fight fight fight. Don't worry. The good guys (investment brokers) will win. Right.
But MS had Halo. Nobody here remembers the early source of Halo. The game that came before. I never played it myself, I just remember a high-school acquaintance talking about it. Something about Marathon. Yeah. Marathon, that seems like it was important. Hah ha ha ha, nothing.
Marathon becomes halo. Fuck. That's a lot of shit to contain to one sentence. Oh Well, you're dumb as fuck. Fuck you and your fucking modern ignorance.
"I can play Halo with my friends on my Xbos with such ease. I don't need to smart."
Begin the world of Consoles. This is way betterer. No brain need. Just two thumbs and some money.
"Oh, there is money here." said the people who have MBAs and not much else to speak of. (So do you know what MBA is for? It's for people who are fucking useless, but went to school anyways lol)
At this point, we need to lambaste Epic, because they took their success at game development and tried to turn it into power. "Fortnight FTW makes us have a store makes us infinite money!"
Ok, so now here we are. All the shitstains are in place, (including you lol, cough cough).
So now the people who are making decisions about games don't actually know the first fuck about anything. Not about storytelling, not about non-linear storytelling, not about emergent gameplay, not about basic gameplay. They don't understand what compels instrumental play vs free play. What they understand is that things "NAMES" sell, and you will buy.
And you're buying. Look at all the dollars you're spending on...
