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Just weeks after helping to kick off what some are now calling GamerGate 2, legendary game dev and CEO Mark Kern put out a post on X calling all gamers to strike back against AAA studios.
How? By hitting woke companies in their wallets.
Related: SBI BTFO by Brazilian Vidya Curator
Some have pointed out that the ability to leverage skinsuit IPs for unlimited loans makes entertainment megacorps immune to boycotts.
But Kern dropped hints of insider information which, according to him, indicates that woke game studios are vulnerable.
Related: Walsh Tries to Jump the GamerGate Parade
What kind of counterstrike is Kern calling on all gamers to launch?
One which, it just happens, aligns 100 percent with the ethos of this blog.
Related: Gaming Ground Zero
Indeed, Kern’s call for a two-year moratorium on buying AAA games is reminiscent of a common mantra recited here:
Don’t give money to people who hate you!
Related: Console Wars: The Secret History of Gaming
In support of his moratorium, Kern cited the mass layoffs implemented by X CEO Elon Musk upon his purchase of Twitter.
Musk’s firing of 80 percent of the former Twitter’s employees is reported to have cost the company nothing of value while saving it from bankruptcy.
Wokists took over AAA game studios by prioritizing Death Cult messaging over money.
Gamers can fight back and win using the same strategy.
Answer Mark’s call.
Stop paying people that hate you, if only for two years, and see what a difference it makes. Not just to the industry, but to your soul.
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Call me a skeptic, but how is this any different than “Get woke, go broke?” We know this doesn’t work.
His call to action is irrelevant to me because I don’t play too many games these days and if I do buy new ones, they typically aren’t AAA.
The only counter to my skepticism is if the gaming community is the exception to the typical customer at large in the marketplace, but the GS’s track record is poor. I cite the endless cycle of EA releasing a new Star Wars game, people bemoaning it until release date and then jumping on it like a fresh piece of meat only to realize, like they predicted, it was spoiled from the start. This isn’t exclusive to just Star Wars, name any big name franchise title game.
I wish them the best of luck.
While I’m not sure one can call boycotting AAA garbage “fasting,” because fasting involves temporarily abstaining from a good and healthy thing – like abstaining from food in order to pray or abstaining from the marital embrace to seek God together as a married couple – I do think there’s some personal benefit to be had from saying no to the garbage. Maybe the studios will sit up and take notice, and maybe they won’t, but the folks who choose discipline over easy dopamine fixes will grow as people. Perhaps by God’s grace they will grow in sanctity as well.
“Call me a skeptic, but how is this any different than “Get woke, go broke?” We know this doesn’t work.”
It hasn’t worked in the past because the money spigot was on. Also, notice how many gaming IPs have died. Not buying bad games works.
Mark Kern is identifying a window of opportunity where the money spigot for woke game devs is turned off. Kick your enemy when they’re down.
It is always a good time to stop giving money to people who hate you.
We’re at a very different point than we were a decade ago. Every entertainment sector is doing terribly, customer confidence is at an all-time low, and unlike the last time industry figures like Mark Millar and John Carmack are speaking out against the clique tactics setting explosives to everything.
Alternative industries have sprung up and audiences are beginning to find them. They have decided they no longer wish to give money to people who hate them.
Now is not the time to let up, to which Kern is right.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s useless to stop buying AAA games, so buy AAA games anyway. I just see the track record of most consumers, including gamers and I’m skeptical this time will be different. I’m more skeptical that the impact will be what we’ve always hoped it’d be this time around.
Layoffs always happen in the industry, sometimes they get media attention, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they happen in cyclically.
A big point I want to make is that the average consumer keeps these places afloat. All studios have to do is make a couple of good games and they will have their life support back for another decade while we go back the same nonsense. The average consumer is too hopeful and will waste money on that misplaced hope.
A vital part of online activism is learning to read the room and seize opportunities. Mark’s 2-year AAA moratorium aligns naturally with our DGMtPWHY ethos. It’s a once-in-a-decade chance to introduce that concept to a much wider audience. That is how this time differs from prior happenings.
My only quibble is discipline involves growth, which is usually a process. Starting a fast by going 40 days without food when one has never refused a cheeseburger on Friday before, for example, seems like a setup for failure. Even fasting for the Ember Days or the Easter vigil takes some training
in self-denial, and no small amount of grace. Likewise, long term abstinence like ‘no new AAA games for two years’ might be more manageable framed as “don’t buy the next AAA title” repeated as needed for as long as needed. The result is the same, because the goal is the same. It’s like remaining chaste until marriage. The couple must decide at the end of every date, as much as all at once, that they will not put the cart before the horse, so to speak.
Like Bayou, I can’t boycott an industry I don’t buy from now. Even so, I hope this works.
Patronizing Death Cult-affiliated studios is remote material cooperation with grave evil at best.
Our Lord didn’t say, “Go and start the process of developing the discipline to eventually stop sinning.” He said, “Go and sin no more.”
Point taken. Thank you.
As they say, “the proof is in the pudding”. I wish Grummz and the people he’s calling out all the luck in the world.
Side note, somehow read “DGMtPWHY” without issue even though I’ve never seen you use that acronym before. Lol.
This assumes that you can make those safe assumptions about other consumers.
Which you can’t, considering you automatically begin with that dismissive tone.
Consider that you need to broaden your view of things about objectively searching out data points that don’t just reaffirm your own conclusions before you mouth off like an authority as opposed to demonstrating how you’re just a semi normies schmoe.
Amen.
I won’t call you a skeptic.
I’ll call you a Gamma male because you talk like you’re an authority when you’re just a schmoe
Funnily enough, I’ve been on the indie, retro, and middle market gaming track ever since 2016. Unlike most triple AAA games which is nothing but regurgitated dreck like Life is Strange or Forspoken, the games I play like Nier Automata, Persona 5, Y’s Lacrimosa of Dana, and more recent ones like Armored Core VI, Signalis, and Yakuza Like a Dragon provide me with far more enjoyment with many times the gaming content too.
The timing also lines up with Ross Scott’s “Stop Killing Games” campaign. This is not really a boycott but rather an attempt to stop companies from cutting off access to games that customers have paid for in on a perpetual basis, especially when there is no reason for an online connection/verification in the first place. However, I’ve seen a lot of people so disgusted by the current situation that they’ve decided to simply boycott AAA games entirely, regardless of how things shake out legally. (For example, Ubisoft has not only shut down the servers for “The Crew”, but they are actually completely removing records of the game from customers libraries, meaning that if they ever decide to release the game again anyone who previously purchased it would have to purchase it a second time.)
More and more gamers are realizing that even if a AAA game doesn’t go woke immediately, you’re likely going to have it robbed from you within five years, and if that doesn’t happen it’s likely to get forcibly “improved” with no option to maintain the original game (think Warcraft 3 Reforged or the recent Skullgirls updates.) The only people I see defending this are bootlickers who take stances like “you shouldn’t expect to enjoy anything you pay for for more than a few months anyway, just shut up and buy the next product.” The time has never been better to get a massive chunk of the audience on board for a blanket AAA boycott.
Armored Core 6.
Unicorn Overlord.
Monster Hunter Rise.
Pokémon Legends Arceus.
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
Off the top of my head, these are the only games made/pushed in the mainstream industry that I have actually purchased that were also released in the past 5 years.
It’s not hard to do what Grummz is doing, and knowing from insiders that the games have to make money now due to the inevitable drying up of DIE funds means that taking this attitude (Which has thankfully shown to be growing based on player data) with an element of intentionality should work out far better than anyone can hope for.