The Fall of Western Video Games: The Descent (Part Two)

Monetization - Profit > Quality

The most commercially well-known reason for the downfall of Western games is monetization ethics. Or rather, the lack-there-of.

Yes, these game studios are both creatively bankrupt and morally bankrupt.

American developers like Blizzard and EA are easy targets for spitballs and lousy PR—mass layoffs, terrible products, outrageous prices, and monetizing absolutely everything.

America popularized microtransactions and the dreaded “loot box” gambling—I mean “system.” After buying the full $70 price tag for a triple-A game, you are expected to pay additional money for cosmetic or gameplay perks. Sometimes, entire chunks of the game will be missing, and the dev team will withhold that content from you unless you pay them additional fees.

To give an idea of how scummy the loot-box system is, several countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands, and Japan, have banned microtransactions that promote loot-box-based gambling.

There is also the issue of subscription abuse. Without getting into the whole argument about how paid subscriptions are inherently scams, some games require paid subscriptions on top of up-front pay and microtransactions.

For example, World of Warcraft: The War Within costs $60 upfront. Then, you have to pay $15 a month to play, an additional $60 for when the next expansion releases and you are STILL expected to pay for cosmetic and gameplay-enhancing microtransactions. If this isn’t bad enough, World of Warcraft also allows players to convert real-life money into in-game currency.

Why is this important? Well, it means that the market in the game is now super inflated, so now the only way to pay for other players' services (the only way to do the end-game content) is also to convert your own cash into virtual gold coins.

Your total for playing World of Warcraft: The War Within for a year is at least $300 a year.

BUT WAIT! There’s more!

If you give Blizzard an extra $25 now, they’ll also throw in a brand-new cosmetic item for you as a thank-you for being so irresponsible with your money!

Here's the thing: if The War Within was the greatest game of all time, it could get away with that ridiculous price tag. But, because the game is mediocre at best, subscribers have been the lowest they have in years.

Every other day, there is a new major monetization controversy with Western developers. One of their favorite moves is to fire half of their staff right before a game launches. Why? So when the game launches and they make a boatload of cash, the top brass won’t have to give any of it to the people who actually made the game! Plus, it looks even better for shareholders. After all, how else will the CEO pay for his luxury yacht?

For a comparison, let's go over to Japan for a second.

In 2014, after the Wii U's commercial failure, Nintendo had to doctor the pay of most staff members. In response, Satoru Iwata, the former CEO of Nintendo, cut his salary in half to help pay his employees’ wages so no one’s pay would suffer.

Compare this to Blizzard, which actively fires its staff after successful launches to pocket a few extra bucks from its hard-working developers.

This is compelled by the lack of gameplay; Western developers are asking for more money in exchange for worse products. It is a classic case of profit over quality, and development teams have fallen drastically for it, trading long-term investment for the short term.

We are already seeing the effects of this aggressive monetization with the fall of Upisoft, a once-corporate giant in the gaming industry that is now closing its doors, possibly for good. However, obnoxious monetization wasn’t the only reason for its death.

Politics - “It’s my way or the highway!”

Oh boy!

Now, we're getting into the juicy part.

Finally, the biggest contender responsible for the Western market’s failure to sell games is politics.

Oh, the horror!

Politics has been a poison in the veins of Western media for a decade now, and video games have arguably suffered most from this toxic trend. American developers have become fixated on politics.

It is no longer about making a good game; it's about progressive media. Developers are so fixated on pushing their political agendas through the game that they forget they're supposed to make a game that appeals to as many people as possible.

It's like these dev teams have a checklist they go through every time they make a game to look progressive and daring on the outside while being hollow on the inside. Whenever games try to be overly politically correct, it comes across as so disingenuous and, quite frankly, insulting. It doesn’t matter where you stand on the political spectrum; no one likes being pandered to, and no one likes being talked down to and told what they should believe instead of what they could.

I kept seeing journalists and gamers alike ask, “Why?” Why do games suddenly need to be political? Super Mario Bros. is one of the most successful video games in the world, and I don’t see any apparent political messaging in it. And right there is the problem.

Game devs are so concerned about adapting politics into their narratives that they fail to realize they alienate a large percentage of their audience every time they do this. If you want a game to sell, ensure it applies to as many people as possible. This is the most basic way to sell a game.

It’s why Dragon Age: The Veilguard was a colossal financial failure. The game checked all of the “progressive” boxes, and as a result, it is one of the lowest-rated triple-A games of 2024 and couldn’t make even half of the money spent on development.

Video games are art, and all art is inherently political. However, there is a difference between political art, which is accessible to everyone and only to one audience.

For example, look at The Last of Us, a post-apocalyptic game many gamers consider a panicle of Western games.

The politics in the first The Last of Us were perfect because they were noninvasive and up for interpretation. The main conflict players are introduced to is the war between the Military and the rebel Fireflies.

At first, it’s easy to side with the Fireflies. The first few hours of the game show you the deep corruption that runs through the totalitarian dictatorship the military operates under. Civilians are gunned down in the middle of the street and worked to the bone with hardly any support. Soldiers are even susceptible to bribes by the player.

Meanwhile, the Fireflies are presented as the underdog revolutionists who seek to free communities from military control and govern themselves free of old-world influence. This all sounds well and good until you look a little closer and realize that the Firefly ideology is just as bad, if not worse than the military.

The Fireflies are war criminals and borderline terrorists. Their ruthless guerilla warfare against the military led to indirect casualties of mass civilians. The true darkness of their organization isn’t revealed until much later when they demonstrate that they are literally willing to kill children if it means just a chance at achieving their goals.

The Fireflies care about power, nothing more, nothing less. They are equally as corrupt as the military.

Neither group is made out as the apparent bad guy in this situation. Both are flawed. It allows players to identify and even sympathize with both groups and understand their morals while being outside the conflict.

Now, compare that to Star Wars Outlaws. Despite being an RPG where you build your own outlaw character, the game ultimately forces you into one political ideal—you can only steal from the rich or police—no one else.

Yeah…Real subtle there, Ubisoft.

Speaking of Ubisoft, they are the biggest contenders of this toxic political messaging!

Do you know where Ubisoft is today?

Bankrupt.

Yep, the obsession with inserting politics into everything literally killed a development team.

If that doesn’t prove my point, I don’t know what will.

Games prioritizing social agendas over storytelling will fail to resonate with audiences, hurting sales and overall engagement.

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After all that doom and gloom, I’d like to offer a flicker of hope. While American games have been flopping harder than a fish out of water, international games have thrived. The amount of quality content from overseas is incredible, to say the least.

If you have yet to play Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth or Black Myth: Wukong, stop depriving yourself this instant and play some of the best games of 2024. It gives American gamers who may not have had much exposure to games from other parts of the world a chance to see what they can do.

Hopefully, by 2025, Western developers will have finally opened their ears now that their wallets have been made casualties in this frustrating conflict.

In the meantime, I’m going to play the new Eldenring DLC!