Has the internet ruined Video Games?

Through predatory monetisation, rushed development, and profits over player enjoyment, has the joy and escapism of video games been lost?

In this episode, Steve Wright - owner and Editor-in-Chief of Stevivor.com, Australia’s leading independent video games outlet - joins us to explore the profound impact of the internet on the video game industry, discussing both the positive and negative aspects, including the evolution of gaming experiences, the rise of indie games, the dynamics of gaming communities, and the future of gaming in terms of subscription models and AI.

Additionally, the discussion highlights the challenges and opportunities presented by the internet, emphasising the importance of connectivity and community in shaping the gaming landscape.

Check out the episode here.

Gareth King (00:26)

Steve, thank you so much for joining us and welcome to the show.

Steve Wright (00:29)

Thanks for having me, pleasure to be here.

Gareth King (00:31)

Before we get into it, can you tell us a bit about what you do and the journey that led you to this point?

Steve Wright (00:36)

Yeah, and it's a journey that led me to this country, I guess, too. I grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, which is in the middle of nowhere. It's a lovely place. Definitely go visit. You'll see everything that you need to see in a day. And then go to better places in Canada, like Toronto or Vancouver or whatever.

Anyway, I moved here. Well, I didn't realise I was moving here, but I arrived here in 2001. And had the intention of staying for a three-month working holiday that blew out to a year, which was the maximum allowed at the time. Apparently it's more now. I'm old. And decided to stay. I went back home for a year, I think 2003 or so, to finish off my degree, but became a permanent resident and a citizen.

And my little travel blog, stevivor.com, which was meant to, you know… my mom could click on the big blue E on her computer desktop and realise I was still alive. Like it didn't have to be that anymore. And it evolved into basically just something that I would throw up whatever I wanted originally, and then kind of evolved into an outlet for me to do video games journalism. And it's kind of gone like that ever since.

We really kind of put the focus on video games in about 2009, I believe. And since then, we've got writers coming in, I can commission writers and pay writers to do video games journalism. And it's a really fun thing for me to do. It's like a hobby with the video games, obviously, and it's my creative outlet in terms of journalism. And I never thought I would be doing it, and I probably would have picked a different name for the website if I knew I'd end up where I was.

Gareth King (02:22)

Yeah, wow. So look, you said you made the switch to focus on video games in 2009. Having been covering games for so long now, did you ever expect the internet to kind of involve itself and change the industry as drastically as it has? And what surprised you the most?

Steve Wright (02:40)

Well, like I guess a lot of things that I do, I kind of owe to the internet. I met my husband on the internet via an app that you probably know of, if you know, you know. And because I was doing video game journalism via the internet, I'm old school, but I'm not old school enough to have written for like Hyper magazine or anything like that. So, in terms of my specific journey, the internet's always been there. So, I think it's a good thing in most cases.

But of course there's things in recent years maybe, or you know maybe the last 10 years or so that, that maybe aren't as ideal as they used to be, but you know like everything I made friend groups through the internet so it's I'm speaking very generally of course not not about video games per se, but there's a lot of good the internet does.

And in terms of video games and video game journalism, like it's it's really simple things like when we first started and you couldn't get parcels you know left on your doorstop like if you missed your delivery you missed your delivery. And when I was first going out to EA, think they were one of the first publishers that gave me early access games, or not early access games, pre-release games, I should say. They'd send them via the post and it'd probably be registered post and you had to make sure you were at the door to collect the disc, which had all the, you know, promotional use only, not for resale, all that kind of stuff, because you didn't want games to leak.

That was a bit of a pain. And then with the internet, it's like, okay, well, here's the code, plug it in, download and away you go. So, it's, yeah, there's good and bad. And I guess we're going to get into that, aren't we?

Gareth King (04:09)

Yeah, absolutely. And in terms of, know, I think we can all agree that the internet has got kind of good and bad, no matter what we're looking at it in the context of, but just on that, that point, obviously it's been super beneficial for you in a personal sense and in your journalism sense. How do you think it's gone in terms of the effect on games themselves?

Steve Wright (04:31)

Well, probably the elephant in the room is people talking about the internet and video games. It's all, know, like everything's a game as a service now. And if you're not familiar with that term, let's just shortcut it to Fortnite. Everyone's heard of Fortnite, love it or hate it. It's free to play. So theoretically you can download it and jump in. But there's season passes and micro transactions and all these kind of devious ways to try to get you to spend your hard earned.

And we could probably spend two weeks on this, but you know, for everyone who doesn't spend any money, jumps in, plays as the default skin, really likes Fortnite's battle royale experience, there's someone who feels the need to buy every single skin. They've got the Darth Vader, they've got the Master Chief, they've got all the Star Wars characters, et cetera, and spend more than they are generally willing to spend in worst cases, or the smart ones budget a set amount and spend that money.

There are a lot of current games or upcoming games. There's a trend of that style of kind of design and philosophy. But I guess on the positive, Sony's a really good example of really trying to leverage this game as a service methodology. They acquired a company called Bungie, and Destiny is their really big title of the moment. It used to be... How much history do you want? In its current model, it's free to play, and has that kind of spend more money, play forever, never leave us, keep giving us money.

And it interested Sony so much that they acquired Bungie and they were kind of infusing that methodology and greenlit several games as a service. And most of those have either come out and have flopped or have been cancelled. So I guess that's the silver lining. Yeah, it looks kind of bleak, but I think consumers can fight back or choose not to engage in some of these things.

Gareth King (06:29)

Yeah, look, that's a good point around the consumer themselves. Cause one of the things that I've seen looking into this topic, is a lot of discourse and chatter - to me, even as an outsider - around the games as a service model. One extreme is fully into it, as you said, but then at the other end of the spectrum, it is somewhat kind of gambling and addictive in a way. And I guess we've all seen those news stories and beyond video games, know, like some kid has picked up their parents phone or whatever, and spent all this money in like the app store or whatever.

So, it's all sorts of financial implications, good and bad, around the games as a service model. But beyond that financial aspect, what impact has games as a service had on the types of games or experiences that players seek out and enjoy these days?

Steve Wright (07:19)

Well, so without the financial stuff and not worrying about some of the really... it is horrific some of the stuff that you do hear. Destiny is a good example of a game that people enjoy and find friendship with. We've since broken up our guild, but we were a group of like six or seven people that would just change in and out and play together. And it was more about getting on a microphone and having a catch up than it was, you know, like, oh, take the corridor to the right and like, eyes up. Like we weren't being very efficient.

So, you can with games, and it doesn't have to be lot of games as a service, but like there are people who build communities, who find friendships, who just find the engagement that they want through a game. You know, like not a game as a service, but Gears of War Reloaded came out recently. My best friend used to live in Melbourne. He's since moved back to Adelaide, but Gears allowed for or allows for split-screen co-op. So theoretically we could have, you know, if he was still in Melbourne, sat on the couch and played through Gears of War and basically just chit-chatted the whole time and just had a really good time playing together.

Gareth King (08:32)

That's a good point around the co-op thing. You know, I think back to my best memories playing video games. I used to love like Mario Kart and you know, like those, those kinds of games, getting all your mates around, you're sitting on the couch and everyone's just having a bash and just passing the controller. And everyone's looking at the one little screen that you're playing on. What's happened to games that encourage people to all be sitting in the same place and playing together? Are they still made or has that been, I guess, made way for games where as you said people can dial in remotely, throw on a headset, and then kind of socialise through video games that way.

Steve Wright (09:12)

So, like, I'm speaking generally, probably at most times, but generally speaking, I guess games don't allow for co-op split screen as much as they used to because I think it's fair to say that a developer is trying to get so much out of the hardware, like the Xbox or the PlayStation or whatever that you have that you're playing on, that they want to dedicate all of the processing to your experience.

And if they have to basically, you know, create two versions of the same experience on the one screen, I think that's why there's a lean away from that kind of experience. I guess that's not really the internet's fault. That's just kind of maybe hardware inefficiencies.

But there are a lot of games that are meant for co-op experiences. It's like, let's not talk about COVID too long, but I got my families, like my family in Canada and my family in law here in Australia, hooked on Jackbox games. I remember as a kid playing, you don't know Jack, and that's maybe a Canadian and North American experience more than an Australian one. So sorry if I've lost all of our locals. But a Jackbox game is meant for multiple players. And in the old days with You Don't Know Jack, you were a family of four trying to cram around your keyboard. And my buzzer was A and my dad's buzzer was L.

Anyway, and it was a quiz show, and all you need is something to play it on, like to display it on, like a PC console, whatever. But everyone uses their phone as their controllers. So, it worked really well on Zoom, like broadcasting from my computer because people could just use their phones in their home. And I guess the internet is inherently built into that because you need the servers to be able to dial into to get the controllers working on your phone.

Gareth King (10:48)

One of the things you mentioned a couple of minutes ago was around the developers focus on the individual experience rather than trying to build something for multiple people in one place, they can kind of build one huge thing for multiple places. One of my pet peeves around like downloadable stuff with games is like, you know, I'm not like a massive gamer. I've got an Xbox. I've got a bunch of games that I love playing on it, but I don't play it very often.

And every time I switch it on it's got, you know, 30 gigabytes of stuff that I just need to download. And so by the time that that downloads, I'm kind of over it. Idon't want, I don't want to even sit and play it anymore. So, I've lost that kind of itch. But with file sizes like that, with the games, clearly that this, the internet connectivity allows for massive exploratory worlds where you can just find joy in looking around and discovering rather than just that completion or winning.

Has this changed the way that games are created rather than needing just a linear narrative? Does it bring more consideration into, I guess, the storytelling and the worlds themselves, rather than the objective?

Steve Wright (12:02)

That's a good question. And there's so many different games, like I don't think there is really an answer. It's, you a walking simulator? Are you a cosy game is the terminology for like a Stardew Valley where, or a Harvest Moon, where you're just kind of going and tending to a farm. I know Animal Crossing was very big in the pandemic. My husband loved it. I just, I never saw the appeal of going through everyday mundane chores, but.

Gareth King (12:29)

Yeah, it was crazy. I remember seeing people, you know, are saying, I'm playing Animal Crossing. I've just caught this fish. Look at this. And I didn't get it, but it seemed very cute. You know, I'm sure there was some kind of like nice feeling and positive rewards come out of that, which was in a very shit time.

Steve Wright (12:48)

Yeah, well, like I'm a huge Resident Evil fan and one of like my first, I had a NES growing up. I'm 43. I’m old. There you go. Did you have an NES as well? Maybe. There you go. And we moved to a Sega Genesis for the next gen, which I can't ever remember if it's Mega Drive or Master System.

Gareth King (12:58)

I'm 44, so... Absolutely did.

Steve Wright (13:13)

And I remember one year I got a new Sonic game from my parents and I like cracked the sads, I was just like beside myself, because the PlayStation was out and I kicked and screamed and threw a tantrum to get a PlayStation. My parents took all the stuff that they had for the Sega Genesis and all the games and traded it in and let me buy a PlayStation. But they like this is their like the best parenting move they ever did. They went, here's the PlayStation. You don't get a game. If you have money, you can buy one. I did not have money. So I played the demo disc for that PlayStation for like a solid three months.

But thankfully, my friend down the road, his parents got him like every game system that ever came out, any game he wanted. So, like most days after school, we would go to his house, and like that's where I played the first Resident Evil. That's where I started to play the second Resident Evil and then eventually had enough money to buy my own copy.

And I've loved that game and that franchise for the, it's what, nearing 30 years that it's been out. Resident Evil is a really good example of, you know, like trying to tap into something that Resident Evil is not. So every couple of years they try to do a multiplayer focused game that's usually like packed into one of the sequels and people play it for like 20 minutes and go this is not what I'm after. It's just they're trying to capture that games as a service thing where like I could buy a skin or this and the other and so like I think they're kind of failing in that regard, but like it's always a side project with the main game

And going back to what you were saying about file sizes and all that, it's I don't know if it's an internet thing it's more of like a late stage capitalism thing where, it's like, how fast can we get this out? We said the release date was this. We need the game to come out for this quarter or it's going to ruin our sales, which is going to ruin our stock up.

So, all of that factors in and things are probably released in a rushed sense or an inefficient sense where files could be compressed or condensed or more efficient, so you'd have less of a download. And I guess the factor of the internet there is, yeah, we'll just, we'll do a patch, we'll do a patch here, we'll fix this there, which I don't think is a good thing.

But I guess conversely, there were games that I used to play back in the day that didn't ever have the chance to be patched. And if something was broken on one of those, it was broken forever.

Gareth King (15:26)

That's kind of leads me onto my next question there. Now we're talking about breaking and patches and fixing things up post launch. Another thing that, you know, I've seen a lot of complaints around was that people are so stoked to get a thing as soon as it launches and then there's something gone wrong with it.

So beyond, guess, having to issue a patch to a game just so people can play it. What other issues has the ability for developers to rush something out without it being ultimately quality controlled and just ready to play smoothly?

Steve Wright (16:00)

Video games are huge, like bigger than movies, huge. And people maybe don't remember that or aren't exposed to it, so they don't think of that. Sometimes it's not an issue of someone trying to rush something. It becomes a matter of they have a team of, I don't know, we'll say four or five for the sake of it, who are playing the game every day, testing it, trying to find all these bugs and problems.

But as soon as you release your game to potentially millions of people, you suddenly have millions of testers and they're going to hit every scenario, every possible combination of how things can be done and find things that developers simply can't. So I guess on the plus side there, as we're collectively doing this work for them, we are finding issues, but then there is the ability for those issues to be fixed. So that's a good thing.

I don't know if you can really fully fix that issue. Like it's just, it's really just a matter of scale. There's so many people that are hitting up your game, they're absolutely going to encounter things that you haven't anticipated or you you maybe did and thought you fixed it, but you did A and they did B and it's causing those issues.

Gareth King (17:08)

Yeah, yeah. My younger brother, he's like, he's like quite into games. Every time I see him, he's bought, basically he's gone back and he's recollecting all the old consoles and all the games. And you know, they're like $2 to buy these games now. And he's like, look, I've got this PS1 game for $1 and you know, all of this stuff. But it's quite interesting that those are all done and dusted when they're out. And I guess the complexity of them is nothing like it is now.

But doesn't the, I guess this connection now between, let's call them the players and the producers, doesn't that provide a kind of a real channel for dialogue that may positively influence games as it goes over time? Like can developers collect that feedback and based on, I guess, the market sentiment, change entire games to keep it in, I guess, the good books of the market?

Steve Wright (17:59)

For good and bad. I guess it depends on how you perceive good and how a group forms and what a group's intentions are. So, like a good example isn't really related that I can think of immediately isn't really related to games, but it's game related. Sonic the Hedgehog, the feature film, the first one that came out, the designs for Sonic were nightmare inducing.

Gareth King (18:23)

That's right, I remember that now.

Steve Wright (18:29)

The general public kind of came together and said, please no, please change this. And you know, that happened. Another example that people may or may not see as good or bad is the ending to Mass Effect 3, which I won't spoil, but the gist of it is, it was perceived pretty much as a lacklustre ending. This Mass Effect franchise was this huge franchise, an RPG where you got to define your character, make thousands and thousands of choices and come to very branching storylines, and really I don't envy BioWare. Having to try to take all of those branching storylines over three games and then somehow figure out how they could resolve them, because your experience wasn't the same as mine, wasn't the same as Bob's down the road, but they tried and that was their concluded piece of work, their art if you want to consider it art, and the community kind of just went, nah, do better, fix it somehow, and they kind of tried to fix it, but I don't know, I think it was maybe worse off for trying.

And I guess right now, you know, if I ever hear the term woke again, it's one too many.

Gareth King (19:32)

I have heard it applied, you know, like I say, I'm kind of an outsider looking into the world of video games, but I do see quite a lot of furious debate around characters you can choose, or their outfit and things like that. And without kind of going too far down that path, seems like same as everything. There's a lot of outrage culture, you know, it builds an entire ecosystem of negativity that I would assume that the developers have not done it on purpose to generate that reaction.

Steve Wright (20:06)

Well, like, and I forget the name of the consulting group, which annoys me because I would love to talk about them because they're basically a consulting firm that developers will engage to think about diversity in their games. And this is where like the woke, you know, anti-woke people will come in and say, hey, no, like that woman isn't as attractive as she needs to be and why are her breasts so small and like garbage.

And then on the flip side, there's an Australian group called Collective Shout, which is now trying to target what they perceive as inappropriate games. And the game that they latched onto kind of successfully was a game about like simulated rape. And that is not a game that anyone needs to play. So, they're not wrong in that specific instance, but now they're trying to also say that games involving transgender people, or games with consensual, mature sex in them, like they have to be removed from Steam and from all these platforms and you know, they're not my cup of tea in most cases, but that's not for me to say what people can and can't play and it shouldn't be for Collective Shout either.

Gareth King (21:15)

Yeah, look, just even on that point, I guess we can, we can take another, a new direction here. I'm assuming that you would, you would generally have to be like an indie developer to be, to be making that sort of stuff. But doesn't the ability for, for indie developers to make the smaller games that they want, you know, they could say, look, we're making a game for 25 people. We don't care. We're doing it and it's going to be distributed through the internet. Doesn't, I guess the internet as a now kind of a distribution model breaks down what I assume would have been some pretty standard gatekeeping in the past from, from bigger publishers.

Steve Wright (21:56)

Yep. Well, and that gatekeeping is really still there. The likes of Nintendo and Microsoft and Sony all have, Nintendo's probably, I don't want to say the worst, but they're probably the most strict on what, well, and then for better or for worse, we'll get into that in a second, but like they'll have guidelines on what has to be done for a game to be put on their platform.

And a common thing you'll hear with games getting updates or like expansions is that it's slow through the Microsoft certification process. That all sort of applies, but on the flip side, Nintendo also has this, and all the platforms have this issue where gross clones of a game that actually is succeeding gets shat out and put up on a Nintendo eShop for five bucks and unknowing people buy that instead of the game they wanted.

But a lot of indies will develop and put their game out on Steam or itch.io and will be able to tap into local funding schemes and that kind of thing, like PAX Australia is a really good example.

Gareth King (22:54)

Just for clarity, can you explain quickly what Steam is and also PAX? PAX is the big event, right? So let's start with that.

Steve Wright (23:02)

Let me just throw out some acronyms. PAX, I don't think PAX stands for anything. Penny Arcade Expo. Actually it does. There we go. It first started in Seattle and it's a convention. It used to be kind of like the heavy hitters and some indies and it's really more like the indies now. So, it's a really good opportunity to go and meet, you know, the person or the team of three or four who have developed this game, play it, talk to them about them, and really get to explore the indie scene. And it's also a chance for indies to be able to have their game seen by a lot of people.

Steam tied in is the big heavy hitter PC distribution platform, where you can purchase and store your digital collection of games. There's other storefronts on PC like the Epic Game Store, Ubisoft has one, EA has one, GOG, which stands for Good Old Games, is another. I really like that. All the kind of old ones, all the old Star Trek games that I love, they're now preserved on Good Old Games so I can play them on my current PC without digging out old consoles, figuring out if they need an adapter because they don't have HDMI ports or whatever.

Gareth King (24:14)

That sounds, that sounds cool. You know, and we've been talking about the removal of that gatekeeping, which almost just lets anybody make the game that they want. You mentioned a couple of minutes ago, those games have simulated whatever, which is the real dark side of this ability. But on the positive side, how has this ability for anybody to really make a game and get it out there, kind of affected building and creating new genres or innovations and even communities within the world of video games?

Steve Wright (24:46)

If you have an idea for a video game, it's probably already happened. If you have an idea for a genre, it's probably already happened. But there's not to say you can't iterate on it or find a group that does like something that you want to engage with and do it. And there's, know, that's, I'm constantly proven wrong in that generalisation. There are people that have just crazy ideas.

There's a game, it's not unique. It's been done before, but I'm excited for it. It's called Baby Steps. And it's like a walking simulator, when people say walking simulator, they generally mean you're controlling a character and walking forward and looking around and maybe solving a mystery. This is literally like you need to use your controller to move the person's legs and arms and try to get them actually moving through an environment.

Gareth King (25:32)

It makes me think of, it must be like, years ago now. I can't even remember what it's called. I just call it quop or something. That was a nightmare.

Steve Wright (25:38)

Exactly like that. So, well, yeah, and I, that's not my cup of tea, but some people are sadists, I guess, and like doing that. So good on them.

Gareth King (25:49)

But yeah, like that's, that's interesting because I guess beyond technical know-how, nothing's stopping anyone coming up with the idea and putting it out into the world. I remember a long, long time ago, speaking to someone that wanted to get into video game development, and I knew somebody else that was in it. And when those two kind of spoke about it, just felt incredibly daunting. Like just this massively long journey that felt over before it even started for person two.

But now that you've got so many people, they can kind of dip their toes in and see what happens, and as you said, going to one of those events where you can speak to the other developers, the little teams, and of course, who knows what networking comes out of that and who you meet, what ideas might spawn off there. And that's in real life.

But again, as you touched on a couple of minutes ago, that kind of community and connection through the internet seems to be enormous now in the world of gaming. What would you say, I guess, the difference between a healthy gaming community and we've all heard of toxic ones. Like even if you're not a gamer, you hear about this. Like how does the internet build both the positive ones and then of course, you know, the toxic ones, but does it also blur the line and allow the shift between the two?

Steve Wright (27:02)

It does. A game that I've been playing lately called Rematch is a decent example of that. It's a developer maybe having a limitation to what they can and can't do within their game, like voice chat, et cetera. Or it's just a decision to limit some of that. So Rematch is a 3v3 or 4v4 or 5v5 soccer game, football game, where you control one character, you're in a team with others. It's not AI bots or anything like that. You're playing with real people. And rather than give you the ability to just scream obscenities at your teammates if you think they're not playing very well, there's commands tied to the D-pad that will launch like a voice clip, like good job or thanks.

And it's weird. Like when you make a mistake, good job is meant to be uplifting. Even though the sound file doesn't change and it's exactly the same as if you did something good, like if you make a mistake and someone says good job, you know inherently the sarcasm is dripping off that statement. So, it can be used for good or bad, but there's kind of ways to control some of that stuff. And then a lot of the control really just sits with you as a player.

Like my sister has kids who are 16 and 14 now and the 16 year old, her son loves playing games. It's kind of like, yeah, just pop your head in once in a while. If he's playing like Rainbow Six and there's voice chat, just make sure he's not getting abused or abusing other people. And you know, like just remove yourself from the situation if you need to. It's yeah. It's, and that's kind of like the internet in general. Like, Oh, have you stumbled into a welcoming place or is it somewhere that you shouldn't be?

Gareth King (28:42)

Absolutely. And that's so funny around that. That good job, the sarcasm behind that, which is obviously that competition aspect. Like everyone associates the word win with games, no matter whether it's a board game, a video game, or like a sport game. But in terms of that competition, one of the huge things which, which still blows my mind, that’s come out of competitive gaming is this, this phenomenon of e-sports.

The first time somebody showed it to me, I couldn't believe what I was seeing like in these gigantic arenas, people playing games on a screen down there. And that to me felt crazy. You know, I'm going to be showing my age here too, but I remember being a kid and we used to have this toy shop in Australia, it was called World 4 Kids, believe it or not. And they would have like the super Nintendo sit up in there and there'll be just lines of kids waiting to play, whether it's like street fighter or something, you know, and then that was I guess it's a very, very small parallel version of what e-sports is now.

Through how spectacularly huge and successful e-sports is now, surely that A brings an incredible amount more eyeballs and budget to the world of gaming in general, but also allows so many more people to actually make a living in various means from, I know you've got to be super good to get to those, those ranks and things, but it does feel like quite a, an aspirational thing, which doesn't rely on, like professional sports relies on genetic gifts.

Whereas theoretically to someone like me, esports, yes, it would rely on some mental and, reaction gifts and things, but it does feel like something that everybody could aspire to get to. If you're short, you go, well, I can't play basketball, but this is like everyone, all they need is to play a game.

Steve Wright (30:36)

I think sadly, think because we've told people our ages, I think our time is done. I think our Twitch reactions are probably too slow, especially if we, well, for most things, most e-sports are Twitch reaction driven. So like shooting or sports tactical awareness kind of thing.

So, we're probably put out to pasture at this point, but yeah, like, and every game has, if it's not esports directly and you know, like big spectacles at stadiums with people watching you, like, Battlefield or whatever you want to play has like a ranking system rematch the game I was talking about before the soccer game. Yeah, like I think I'm in Gold League, I don't think I'll ever aspire to hit diamond league but you know, like I can kind of compete with people at my level or where the game thinks I'm at in terms of my level and aspire to do better or realise I've hit the ceiling and find another game.

Gareth King (31:31)

You have to play the Masters League. I was speaking to someone recently that they said they were doing Masters sports and they were 36. And I was like, whoa, I thought that was for people that are like 70. Yeah. So that's, I don't think that's something that I'll be, I will be doing, becoming an e-sports pro.

But how has that, you know, hyper competitive environment and even mindset, does that affect the way that say casual players might look at games? Does it affect the way that potentially publishers build games thinking that it will end up in one of these arenas being played? How much of a consideration is that?

Steve Wright (32:10)

It depends, I guess, on the developer's intent. A good example of something absolutely impacting the other is a game called Overwatch. So was developed by Blizzard. And Overwatch had this grand goal of being like the next e-sports thing, to the point where they created the Overwatch League. Activision was selling licenses like franchises to different entities, conglomerates, whatever, to buy the Los Angeles team or to buy the whatever team.

And a lot of the work would kind of go back and forth. So the league needs this to happen. So maybe we'll make a couple of tweaks here that impact the general game. Sometimes they had them like running separately. Ultimately, I think the league kind of failed because they were trying to make it more of a big deal than people accepted it to be. But that's a good example of someone doing that specifically with that in mind.

Fighting games are better examples maybe of people just kind of deciding they're going to make a league around it. So, there's tournaments like EVO with Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, like you were saying, even Super Smash Brothers, the Nintendo mascot fighter, where they'll just have tournaments. And maybe rules, this one fighter is too overpowered or has these moves that are too hard to deal with. So, you can't play as that person for this tournament or that kind of thing.

Gareth King (33:32)

Yeah, right. It does sound actually quite fun and you know, they introducing kind of handicaps that they're brought in when someone gets a little bit too good, and out of hand. But it's just, it seems as we've been saying, the modern gaming landscape is just so big now. We've spoken about NES, right? You pull the cartridge out of the box, you put it in the thing. If it doesn't work, like you blow on all the electric bits until you break the game. And it's like, that's it, you know. But now there's just an infinitely large world of people and things going on.

For someone just getting into games now, if they're feeling overwhelmed by the modern gaming landscape, how would you direct them? What advice would you give them to find a good community and a good experience for a beginner?

Steve Wright (34:18)

Wow. Well, and that's a hard question because so many of us are quote unquote gamers and we maybe don't realise that or accept it or acknowledge it or choose to identify as that. You know, my mother-in-law plays Wordle and Quirdle and all these variations of Wordle. They have like seven of them now and they do the crossword, the New York Times crossword and the Age crossword on their iPad. That's technically you're playing video games, but that's not to say you have to be a gamer. It's pick and choose. Like there are people I know who love Star Trek, barely play a video game. They have a Switch for their kids. I'm like, great. There's this narrative game in a telltale game style called Star Trek Resurgence that just came out on Switch. And it's like perfect for that person because the original version on Xbox and PlayStation and PC, I tried to get my dad to play it he was just a little bit overwhelmed because he loves Star Trek and it's a good story that I wanted him to experience, but he's like, I know, I gotta walk this guy around and which button do I hit?

The Switch one is more like a touchscreen. It's almost like it's been made for someone on an iPad. Because there's so many different ways to play in so many genres and so many different experiences, like you might just be a smartphone person. You might sadly be one of those people that plays one of those games that definitely is out to get all of your money. I wish you wouldn't play that. I hope you find a similar experience on a console. But then again, the consoles now cost upwards of like $1,000. So maybe if you spend $100 a month on your pay to win game thing, maybe you're doing it right compared to me. I can't really tell you.

Gareth King (35:56)

Well, just on that point around, you know, like the smartphone game, micro transactions in everything. You know, I remember I was getting on a flight and I downloaded a casino game. I was like, this is awesome. You know, I'm just going to play this. It's like no brainer, spin the roulette, play some poker, you know, like just stupid stuff. Open it up. And it's like, you've got like $50 in the casino. And then if you want more, you've got to pay more and more and more and more things.

Would you say though that the way that so many things are now subscription models rather than owning anything. Are microtransactions and I guess the financialisation like through small bites within games, whether they're smartphone or, know, through servers and things, is that just games and publishers aligning with the way people are moving to pay for things these days? So it's a bit more natural.

Steve Wright (36:46)

Late stage capitalism. I've played like 300 hours of Star Trek online, a massively multiplayer online game. Same idea, it's free to play. I spend a hundred bucks every once in a while because there's like a Starship that was on the TV that I really, really want, and I am fine with that.

And then there are people who probably spend far more money than I do, which is sad, but I guess on the flip side, all of that money that's being made by the studio, they will pay developers to make new chapters of a storyline, and hire the actress who played Seven of Nine from Star Trek Voyager to come in, and record lines and there's new content that I get to play for free. So, I sidestepped that question altogether.

Gareth King (37:29)

I mean, that's a good point. Let's take that one on as well. You said that, you know, the developers might bring in new people to create new content and chapters for the game. Does that bring more new surprising perspectives that the developers could never have imagined the games potentially heading down that path when they originally had the idea? How does that work? Like what's a game that has started out in one thing and then through getting unexpected people involved has gone off in another direction?

Steve Wright (37:57)

Early access games is my answer to that. So there's quite a lot of games, mostly on PC, on Steam, where you can start playing kind of like an in-development version of a game or an idea, and provide your feedback to developers. And that will eventually turn the game into its 1.0 release or its full release. And it could be anything from a shooter to a real time strategy, a deck building game with cards.

Going back really quickly to your casino game that you bought, if you haven't played a game called Balatro, you absolutely need to. It's on smartphone. It's on every console that you can imagine. It's like a poker game, but that's like doing it a disservice. It doesn't have microtransactions. So like there, and there are developers doing that. Like I just want to put out a game. That guy's made money hand over fist for doing that because he's not trying to like, you know, nickel and dime you inside the game. You pay your amount upfront and you're good to go.

Subscriptions, like I'm just sorry, I'm hitting all these things that you've talked about recently. Subscriptions, late stage capitalism once again. Probably the biggest one that comes to mind is Xbox Game Pass, which is Microsoft's big subscription thing. And the downside, like you were saying, you don't own any of these games, and there's larger implications talking about buying digital games anyway. But this is a really clear cut example of you're subscribing to a service. It has so many games in this library, like a Netflix style kind of access.

But you know, one month to the next, the game that you were playing might not be in the library next month. So, there you go. If you want it, you gotta go pay for it. But some people really like that. Like they'll churn through games. They want new stuff. They don't wanna have to spend $100 on a game. Each time they wanna play a new game, they just wanna get this library, play what's there, churn through it, get to the next one. And like, again, there's no right or wrong way to do it.

Microsoft though is incredibly problematic at the moment. They've acquired a lot of companies. They've also laid off a whole bunch of developers within all of those companies. King and Candy Crush is a really good example. Like everyone's heard of Candy Crush. I have never played it, but I, like everyone else I know about it.

Gareth King (40:02)

I went through a little phase of playing it. I remember cause it worked. It was, was the only thing that didn't need a cellular signal or like wifi to work. I remember I, you know, through various reasons, I would find myself in this place where, you know, like the comfort thing for anyone to do is just like, yeah, I'll just pull out the phone. And obviously nothing works except Candy Crush. So, I smashed through a bunch of levels on there and you know, I enjoyed it for what it was. But as soon as I was out of that zone, I wouldn't look at it again.

But just on your point there around the game pass subscription model, does that also bring similar kind of benefits in Netflix does right? Like you pay a flat fee, you might start watching something, you don't like it. You're not really financially invested in it. You're just like, I'll just move on to something else. So, if people can do that through all these games, through a subscription model, how much of them would then go and like buy the actual game or is it, they just keep playing it through the, I guess, stream?

Steve Wright (41:00)

I don't have stats at hand, but a lot of what Microsoft's been saying about Game Pass is that it is working in that way. And it could be because you start playing a game, you really like it, and you realise it's leaving the calendar next month, and you're not gonna have time to finish it. So, you buy it so you can keep playing, or it's you really, really like it and want to support the people making it, so you decide to purchase it to make sure you get a new one or something new from that developer. So it could work in both ways.

A lot of developers say it's a good way to get their game out there in front of people's faces. And then of course there's people who say that it's a ripoff and you know it's Microsoft killing creativity and development and so yeah.

Gareth King (41:40)

Look, I could understand both sides of that coin and you know, like the, one price trial a million different things sounds amazing for someone like me. So it's just like, Oh, I'll just test it out for a little while. I don't know what sort of games I like, I like games where I drive a car, you know, I don't need to do the races. I just go looking around at stuff. That's, that's good for me.

But just on that kind of subscription model, where do you think the, I guess the business side of gaming evolves over say the next decade? Will it remain or even get more subscription-based, or do we kind of get to a point where players demand a bit more of a return to a one-time purchase model?

Steve Wright (42:22)

I hope the latter is the case. I think it's probably going to be more subscriptions. Kind of like, you know, there was Netflix now, there's Netflix and Hulu and Disney and Stan and Binge and all of the major publishers have dabbled, or are doing or are considering similar things. Like PlayStation has their own version. Nintendo has their own version now. Everyone has their own version.

It's good and bad. Like we're also seeing kind of more the late stage capitalism stuff, like just the big dogs buying all of the studios, getting rid of half the staff at that studio. Cause you know, we already have the comms team or we already have people who can do this with King and Candy Crush.

They've got developers using AI to like automate some of what they do, so they can then get rid of those people and let the automation take over some of the work, which like that's, that's to me is a horrible thing because you're missing out on the creative side that those people will bring.

It can like, you know, generate new Candy Crush levels, but it's only going to generate new Candy Crush levels based on what has been, not an idea that someone has that can be implemented.

I get horribly dystopian and I hope it's not going to be the case. Well, no, just, yeah, in general, it's, looking kind of bleak and I hope we get through this in more aspects than just video games.

Gareth King (43:32)

Oh yeah. Look, me too. And it is, you know, everybody's talking about AI at the moment and positives and negatives, and there's so much bleakness and you follow that too far, and it's just like, woah we’re gotta turn that off.

But yeah, I think about, know, like some more of the positives, but as that tech gets better, let's say it does get the ability to create new ideas. Do you think that the evolution, the further evolution I should say, of technology and connectivity through the internet will eventually be able to deliver a uniquely customised gaming experience for every player?

Let's say you're in a fully immersive helmet playing this thing and you're almost not playing a game now, you're in another world, but it's completely unique to you and no one else will get the same thing. Maybe this is already happening and I just don't know, but do you think that things will eventually get to that point?

Steve Wright (44:32)

To take this from bleak to extremely hopeful and optimistic, if I could have a Star Trek holodeck, if I could walk into a room and just say, computer, make me a detective in a 1960s pulp, you know, yes, let's do that. I would be happy to do that. I wouldn't care what was done in the background to make it happen. Let's do it. Holodecks for everyone.

Gareth King (44:55)

That's funny, it's like, you know, that show Westworld and there was that episode, what was that episode of Black Mirror as well, where they're living in, you know, their idealised life while they're on the outside, just the body there. Which is, I mean, look, if we can kind of just plug into the perfect world for a little bit, maybe that will offset the bleakness that we could potentially encounter everywhere else.

Steve Wright (45:18)

And the other bit about the Star Trek holodeck specifically is that Star Trek is this utopian society where we've gotten rid of hunger and famine and disease and people are smart enough and well-adjusted enough to go and maybe have a holodeck experience for an hour or two and then leave and go back to their regular life. So, I think that balance is also something that we need to strive for, and that if I got bleak again, might be creeping its way into some of our lives, which is needing, we need to fix that kind of stuff.

Gareth King (45:46)

Yeah, yeah, look, there's so much to think about there. We could probably spend hours just talking about that. But on that note, just to finish up, we've been talking about how the internet and connectivity and technology has impacted and influenced games, the culture and the community. What would you say in your opinion has been the best part of that happening? And how would you like it to continue as we move forward?

Steve Wright (46:10)

I'm just going to turn it back to me. Like I wouldn't be able to talk about video games with you without having the internet, without deciding randomly to take my travel blog and write about Resident Evil 5, and have people somehow, I guess through the power of the Google algorithm, read it, decide they wanted to interact with me, start writing for me, or start reading what I write, and letting me build something amazing and fabulous and that's my experience as a games journo.

I get to meet developers and other journos and people from not only Australia but around the world. And developers do that, they can get jobs now remotely and work for Activision or whoever they want. It makes dreams, and I hope that kind of thing continues on, and people get to connect and have adventures that they might not have had without this fantastic little invention.

Gareth King (47:04)

What a brilliantly positive note to finish up on. Thanks, Steve. What's on the horizon for you and where can people follow what you're up to?

Steve Wright (47:12)

Always busy, always video games. It's getting close to the holiday season, so all the big hitters are coming out. I'm playing NHL, which I know Australians don't care about, but it's like the Canadian guy's dream. All of our stuff, in terms of the video games website, is on stevivor.com. I'm SWrightAU. Mostly on Blue Sky. Find me on the internet. And I've just started picking up a gig writing some stuff for Trek Movie. Mostly video game related, but sometimes not. So, you can find me there.

Gareth King (47:40)

Awesome. Steve, thank you so much.

Steve Wright (47:42)

My pleasure. Thanks so much.