NERF: PROLIFIC DEVELOPERS
There are way too many games. We need to stop making them… as soon as I finish my new visual-novel-Match-3-deckbuilder-platformer with roguelite elements.
NERF: FREE GAMES FROM EPIC
Free games are all well and good – that’s what we have libraries for – but a supposedly profit-oriented endeavor like Epic giving away the entire Bioshock series? Well, that just seems disrespectful! Starting this October, Epic will exclusively be giving away game jam games and reskins of Tetris.
NERF: CYNICISM
A lot of you have made cynicism your tool of choice for dealing with an IndustryTM plagued by workplace abuses, exploitative monetization practices and catastrophic game launches. The unyielding negativity and hopelessness is making the whole meta a little predictable, though. This season we are limiting cynicism to game developers suffering from poor working conditions, and players who have spent more than 10% of their monthly income on lootboxes.
BUFF: SILENCE
We’ve seen a lot of developers in The Games IndustryTM really mess everything up for themselves by making naive, over-ambitious statements about their games mid-development. This season, any developer who decides to completely cease their public relations will receive gratuitous praise from their player base, after which they will not be mentioned until next time they release a game.
BUFF: WEIRD PERIPHERALS
We’ve had a lull all the way back since the lackluster reception of the Kinect and the Playstation Move – but this time it’s happening, and it’s going to work for the whole industry, not just Nintendo. Weird peripherals will be king. It’s all gyroscopes, humidity sensors, pressure-plates, wearable controllers and games you can smell from here on out.
BUFF: GAMES YOU CAN SMELL
We’re serious about this. I know you think it’s weird, but we have had the tech for ages – and the fact that you’re not brave enough to order an OVR technologies ScentWare device sure as shit isn’t going to stop us. #GamesYouCanSmell
FEATURE: UNIONS
The Executive class has always been overpowered, but we acknowledge that the steady power creep associated with exploding numbers of employees, increased clout and rising revenues has not helped. We’re introducing unions on the US servers to hopefully ameliorate that. We encourage any executives displeased with this development to please direct your hate mail to yourself.
BUGFIX: STRANGE PLAYER DEMANDS
Consumers have been accidentally demanding very long games, when they should be demanding very meaningful and well-crafted games. Players additionally keep asking for content updates and sequels, when they should really be getting started on something new. With this patch, everyone in the industry will start valuing their time more, realize that life is precious and short, and that condensed, varied experiences are – all else being equal – preferable to unyielding, verbose repetitions of experiences you’ve already had.
BUGFIX: “CONCURRENT PLAYERS”
A mind virus infected a good portion of the gaming press, and the affected journalists have
started acting as if “concurrent players” is a meaningful statistic for single-player games. It should be sorted now, so hopefully you will no longer see titles such as “Elden Ring Loses Almost 90% Of Its Concurrent Players On Steam”. No, you don’t say! They were supposed to keep re-playing it forever!
