The first thing I read this week was a blog post about unshittification. Not enshittification, but the opposite. Cleaning up messes. It has absolutely nothing to do with video games, mind you; the author is talking about the internet, how everything from independent websites to microblogging and social media is slowly degraded from greed. That term has become baked into the lexicon now. It has a whole Wikipedia with examples, heh.
I think most of us would agree, especially after the last three or four years, that the video game industry, maybe especially MMORPGs, has become enshittified. But how do we fix it? Can it be fixed? Does it require industrial-grade solutions, or is there something we, as actual players and payers, can do?
For this week’s Massively Overthinking, tell me this: Can the genre be unshittified, and what’s one thing people reading this can do? How do we unshittify the MMORPG genre?
Brianna Royce (@nbrianna.bsky.social, blog): I don’t think the industry-wide problems we have right now are solvable by us alone. Part of the problem is that gamers haven’t been the customer in a long time. Investors are the customer. We’re just the bottled attention being traded around. And when they can’t attract your attention, they try to force it.
That doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do; it just means we can’t buy our way out of it. Kickstarter proved that. But our attention is still valuable. Yes, I’m gonna say it: We need to not just stop buying shit games from shit companies with shit publishers but also stop playing them. Nobody likes to hear this because we feel judged; existence is so painful already and why can’t I have my video game as a treat. I get it. It’s just the truth. And then we need to move our attention to the games and studios that aren’t actively making the genre worse. They’re out there, and you know they are. It will just often mean playing indies instead of the shiny new overpriced thing from the giant publisher that is about to lay off the whole staff. Same as it means hanging out on indie websites made by actual humans instead of slop-filled once-great social media platforms.
Everything can be unshittified. I’m not a burn-it-down-and-start-over person whatsoever, but this is going to take a lot of time, and I don’t think it’s going to be pretty.
Carlo Lacsina (@UltraMudkipEX, YouTube, Twitch): Unless we get something that outright innovates the genre in a way that’s accessible to millions (so not VR), then no. We’re at the point where components of MMOs are used in other video games to monetize them. Just look at the modern gacha game. Aside from the gacha itself, the engagement activities all stem from MMOs. We’re at a point where nobody agrees whole hog that one game is defining the genre anymore. Look at WoW. That game got everyone involved with MMOs, and that’s the landmark for the early 2000s vibe WoW created. Further back was EverQuest, and further still was Ultima Online. There isn’t a central game that people look at and say, “Yeah. This is the MMO dawg!” Nope, not in this world dawg!
So yes, we’re looking for the one game to rule them all.
Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes.bsky.social, blog): Anything can be made better given time, patience, and incremental updates, especially in MMORPGs, and definitely in the small ways that add up as referenced in that blog post Bree’s aiming at. But if we’re talking about the genre as a whole, then I think that applies too, just in variant ways of creating content or making updates to monetization. Adjusting to what’s played and liked, or backtracking when a monetization idea isn’t successful as well as fiscally smart. Hell, if RuneScape can try to change its stripes in this regard, I kind of feel like anyone can.
The blog talks about how diverting attention in the more important and personal ways can add to small changes for the better, which I think can also work for the genre too, albeit without a direct 1:1 comparison. In the context of the genre, designing and developing with a clear vision and principles that eschew bandwagons or what’s the hot trend going on for now would certainly help.
I appreciate a lot of that is much easier said than done in the current gaming industry climate, and that’s a harder knot to untie than I’m willing to try to work out (mostly because I’m not smart enough to), but yeah, I suppose I still hold hope that things can be unshittified.
Sam Kash (@samkash@mastodon.social): Certainly games and especially our MMOs can become unshittified. It’ll happen, I’ve no doubt about it, but the term MMO might largely die out. Now, I don’t mean no one will call our games and the genre as a whole MMOs, but by and large the term might die.
There’s no doubt that publishers and the gaming industry at large will bend over backwards not to call an MMO an MMO. But there’ll still be those of us who know if it walks like an MMO, talks like an MMO, then it must be an MMO regardless of what they say. And that’s because a lot of what made MMOs special is a de facto offer for so many games now.
Back to the point though, the unshittification will happen in the same manner as how we got here: incremental changes that cascaded into all too muchery.
We’ll see games walking back on some of the overly predatory monetizations. Smaller teams will focus back on gameplay that really hooks players and with a smaller team will come more focused intent.
For what we can do today, we got to speak with our wallets but also with our voices. We have to quit paying for the worst gambling-based gatcha style games and we have to let devs know it’s not okay.
Every week, join the Massively OP staff for Massively Overthinking column, a multi-writer roundtable in which we discuss the MMO industry topics du jour – and then invite you to join the fray in the comments. Overthinking it is literally the whole point. Your turn!