Fundation

by magicmakrel

I’ve been playing games for a long time. Long enough to remember arcades, for example.

Lately, I find the experience is less satisfying. I’ve often complained that the gaming companies are exploiting many of the worst individual instincts. Unlike the mostly cooperative PVE environments of roleplaying or single player video games of my youth, the new multiplayer environments encourage win-at-all cost approaches which tempt people with premium-cost advantages.

It’s not a specific game anymore, but what passes for gaming in many ways. Don’t get me wrong, there are still a lot of positive things coming out of the gaming community. I see people who are working to make gaming fun, affordable, and accessible to as many people as possible. The gaming community has done a lot of hard work to produce quality games.

It’s just that I am getting a bit burned out on some of the recurrent problems, like aimbots and cheat programs in online gaming, and pay to win gaming in general.

Projects like my Magic cube are attempts to make the drafting experience more accessible to other players and create a better group experience than some of the other formats.

I appreciate the efforts of the community modders in games to extend the playability and depths of games. For example, I recently picked up the CS:GO Operation Payback map pack and thought it was great to see some new content for a game that keeps improving.

Still, I and other players, are getting tired of waiting for the aimbotter who joins the server to get bored (usually after two rounds) and leave so we can actually get on with playing the game. Increasingly, I find myself encountering obstructionists who do not want the gaming experience to improve for others.

I am concerned about a lot of things in gaming, leaving me to wonder if today’s players are getting the experiences they deserve in gaming.

It’s a shame that given the amount of time and energy people put into trying to make the games enjoyable for players, there are also people putting time and energy into ruining the experiences of others.

Let’s keep in mind, gaming is supposed to be fun for people. It may seem stupid to have to say this, but some people don’t seem to understand this.