While the video game industry might not seem like something that would require “activism” in any major way, the last few years alone have proven that this isn’t the case at all. First, there is activism on the side of gamers who want the big game releases they play to actually be good at launch and not broken and repaired over time. There’s also activism on the side of the game developers, who want proper treatment in the workplace and to stop layoffs due to decisions from up top. Then, as Randy Pitchford has clearly thought about, there is the “Stop Killing Games” movement.
If you’re not familiar with that one, that’s the movement to ensure that video games are able to be saved and preserved and not “lost to the digital landscapes” because they’re not available anymore. In a chat with The Gamer, Randy Pitchford, the Gearbox Software CEO, admitted that he knows about this movement and admires those who are fighting for it:
“I’ve lost games, and it’s an emotional experience, so I admire the activism. It’s a weird, challenging problem, though, because I think that at the same time, if we’re going to have any games that are sincere live services, it seems mutually exclusive to have something that’s going to be a living thing that can’t be allowed to die. I don’t know how to get around that.”
It’s a fair thing to note, as some games have a longer “shelf life” than others, such as MMORPGs, which are built on the principle of “living forever” so long as the servers remain up. However, a large majority of games aren’t like that, including games that were around long before true live-service titles were produced.
Oh, and if you thought that Randy wouldn’t get a bit “existential” with things, you clearly don’t know who this guy is:
“It’s kind of a metaphor, I think, for life. I hate the fact that someday, the people that I care about aren’t going to be here, and someday I’m not going to be here. I freaking hate that. And I wish I could be here forever, because I don’t want to miss anything, and I hate the idea of someone missing me, and it’s just something I have to accept and deal with.”
…yeah, that got deep, but you can also use this to tie it back to video games, because many gamers don’t want games to “truly die” simply because there aren’t ways to play them anymore, which is why this movement has been gaining steam recently.
