Monopoly is Just a Game?

I ask this rhetorical question to spur on a discussion past this pissed off rant of the gaming industry. Today, many gamers woke up to the news of Microsoft potentially acquiring Zenimax, Bethesda’s parent company. Huge acquisitions like this are horrible for the entire industry as a whole. We’ve seen the quality of AAA games fall to lower and lower standards. Since this is the trend of the gaming industry, let’s take a look at another industry that did the same, Grocery Stores.

We saw a little company like Kroger just sweep the entire nation by buying up many different stores. In my own home town, Kroger stifled competition by owning both Smith’s Food and Drug and Fred Meyer, leaving the only competition with Walmart and Albertsons. I tell you this story to establish what the fuck a Monopoly is… Kroger is the second largest Grocery Store chain in America and, in most cases, do not compete because they are the only store within 20 miles, which drives prices of groceries higher. This phenomena also happens with our internet service providers, where Comcast is usually the only choice for people. Your cell phone service is dictated by your coverage in your area, another monopolistic industry. Monopolies are all around us and the last fucking place I want them is in my god damn games. (I told you this was going to be a pissed off rant.)

As I stated above, monopolies stifle competition. If this trend consolidation continues, the ones that lose are the gamers. It’ll be harder to fight against price hikes for games, expectations on sales will grow and beloved IPs that do not hit the mark will be shelved indefinitely. We’ve seen this happen countless fucking times. Yet, gamers will not stand up and oppose decision like this. I’ll quote one of my discord conversations with someone “(This) Doesn’t affect me, I have a PC :P” It fucking does affect you and every god damn gamer on the planet.

Let’s look at EA and Respawn Entertainment. Respawn is the developers of the now popular Apex Legends, which was slated to be a Titan Fall game. Many were anticipating it, but it got muddled into a Battle Royal game to chase a trend, making EA money instead of making a continuation of a beloved franchise. I can sit here and list all of the daughter companies under EA that had plans to develop IP continuations that we all wanted, but were subsequently shelved for trend chasing bullshit. EA isn’t the only one to do this either as they’re just one of more prolific ones to do it. Activation Blizzard, Take-Two Interactive, Nintendo, and many more all of which have bought out competition.

If we continue to see this happen, we’ll see bigger companies like Amazon taking the easy route, buying out developers instead of working towards creating their own studio. I can easily see the new head line in 5 to 10 years, “Amazon buys out Activision Blizzard” if we do not start seeing regulations barring these kind of business practices. The only way we see this kind of change is if gamers wake the fuck up, and start voicing their opinions and getting politically active. This isn’t just a problem in the gaming industry. We are just seeing the first steps of this happening to gaming. It’s still preventable, so before we get the fucking Kroger of gaming, please speak out against these kinds of acquisitions. Voice your opinions to your representatives and fucking vote for people who are willing to fight against monopolies to help the consumer. If we don’t, innovation and well developed games will be a thing of the past. All we’ll really have to look forward too in the future are a hand full of indie games.

These kinds of decisions and actions by big companies always effects you. Don’t ever think they don’t.