Competition sucks when it's an individual gamer...
I’d just like to express my distaste in something: Monopolies.
The more I look at the competitive market, the more I’m seeing uber-companies snatching things up and leaving all the indie developers/companies in their wake. It’s either amalgamate or die in this world. It’s like a Katamari ball, rolling over small things at first until it gets bigger, allowing it to eat up larger companies, and every company makes the mother-company better.
Microsoft is the worst for it, and their business practices show. They are the largest distributer of PC operating systems, and will remain so for a very long time. Because of this, they no longer have to worry about competition, which will inevitably lead to them getting sloppy. When a company goes unchallenged, they look for ways to cut corners and get away with a cheap product.
Look at windows vista! With Windows XP, they cornered the market a long time ago, and because of that, they felt they could get away with releasing Vista, a buggy-as-shit operating system that I am ashamed to admit I have on my computer. The problem is that they seemed to have entirely skipped past the “product testing” aspect of the development. You know, that part where people figure out what is wrong with it and fix it.
No, instead, what they did was rushed it to be released, and just used the general populace to do their testing. And because so few wish to migrate to Mac (due to costs), people were FORCED to get Vista. Because of all this, we now have what is widely considered the biggest, steamiest pile of horse manure this side of Kansas, and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it because they will continue to be stupid and buy Windows!
It’s not just the Software industry either, it’s also hardware. Look at Sony and their Playstation line of videogame systems. They put a lot of time and effort into getting a foothold in the market dominated by Nintendo, and because of that, we got the first Playstation, which had a plethora of high-quality games. This success led to the PS2, which I believe is the best selling console of all time.
Because of two generations of domination in the console market, Sony got arrogant, and thought they could get away with making a ridiculously expensive machine, thinking “it’s okay, we own the market, people WILL pay!” Well, guess what, they’re not, and now Sony has a LOT of catching up to do.
Nintendo is next in line to fall victim to this trend of attempting to snag some sort of monopoly. They had two generations of pure shit, so that encouraged them to try something new and interesting, and they did just that with the Wii. They made an original product that was a lot of fun and had loads of potential, and it paid off in Spades…and are now winning the console war….but at what cost?
When they saw that they were selling loads of consoles with games like Wii sports, Wii Play, Wii Fit, and Rayman: raving Rabbids, they realized that they could sell shoddy, bullshit games and sell a billion by catering to the masses….but now we gamers that have been with them since the NES era are feeling shunned. Where are the hardcore games? All the Wii is now is some bullshit pseudo sports/exercise/activity machine…not a game console.
The worst, once again, is Microsoft. They’re so used to just WINNING everything, and they have so much money lying around, that they use it to just BUY everything instead of making a quality product. I’ve watched as they buy all sorts of exclusive rights, buying games that were once exclusive, and even buy games out from other consoles…JUST so they can lay claim to them. They’re not interested in fair, friendly competition (as such a thing does not exist.) No, they wanna own it all! They don’t want to sell a lot of games, they want to destroy the playstation, their main competitor.
What we have here is three consoles, the Wii, the PS3, and the 360 all taking a relatively balanced chunk of the pie, and it should stay that way, but the Wii is getting away with it’s shoddy, bullshit games, and the 360 is just getting by because they keep throwing money at their problems rather than actually making anything half decent.
This monopoly problem spreads past just consoles, but also with game developers. No matter what, indie developers are expected to put time and heart and originality into their games to make them fun, whereas a big game developer like Activision or EA just has to say “okay, here’s a few updated stats and some new tackle animations” and they get away with releasing the same trash every year.
No matter where you go, lack of competition is going to fuck everyone over. If you just throw money at your problems, then the gamers lose because of the lack of quality. If you get to the top, your incentive to do good/better is lessened, again causing the gamers to lose out on original and fun games. If you get to the top and stay there too long, you think you can get away with anything, and end up fucking yourself and your consumers over. And, worst case scenario, you’re so desperate to get to the top that you’re willing to cater to the lowest common denominator to get as many sales at you can…at the cost of your soul.
All the major game hardware makers are guilty of it at some point. Sony just fell because of arrogance, Nintendo just rose because of their willingness to accommodate to the lowest common denominator, and Microsoft is trying to buy it’s way to the top.
Competition is good for companies and consumers alike. Without it, quality suffers, and then the companies eventually fall.
Is there anything I can do about it? Of course not, doesn’t mean I can’t speak my mind on the matter.
(also, there were many other examples, but due to my love for videogames, I felt the whole Console War was the best and simplest way to express my opinions.)
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