Valued Content

Two years ago, I wrote a Randomly Mine called Content.

Five years ago, I wrote a video called You Can't Put Gameplay On The Box.

So welcome to this article, where I'm basically merging the two, because the issue of content is still present, as is the inability to sell the aspects of games that matter.

Forza Motorsport's two months old now, and it's been… struggling, to say it politely. I binged it at launch, and did have a great time when playing with friends, being able to do exactly what I wanted to do but never could in GT7; hop into a playlist with a party, and race 'till 2am in a variety of configurations.

Unfortunately, that's about the only strong component of the game. Everything else from the optimization, to the career mode, progression tree, customization options, and even the user-interface is such a turn-off, it virtually stains the whole game… but it recently encapsulated everything wrong about the Live Service Content Mill play model.

Back when games were starting to move into this practice, it was done with the reference point of DLC. The implication was the literally valued content of Map Packs, Characters, and Modes, were going to be dished out for free to all players instead of locked behind a paywall that only divided the community.

Quickly, it was becoming evident that this wasn't going to be the case though, at least, not consistently. Personally, I first felt this with the otherwise phenomenal Titanfall 2. Whereas the first game released nine brand new maps across three packs, its sequel released…

One.

They ported four from the original game, as well as created five for its Live Fire mode, and judging from Data Leaks, Respawn intended to add more content, but it was clear that the Live Service model wasn't going to simply be the previous DLC model but for free.

Things were going to be cut down, the quota was no longer about the number of maps, weapons, or modes, it was now about just releasing something regularly.

That's where we come back to Forza.

The series that used Mclaren's flagship vehicle as their cover car twice, featured dozens of them across both major branches of the IP, is now trying to FOMO people into grinding its atrocious career mode with a temporary window to unlock…

A 650s that's been drivable since Forza Horizon 2.

I'm a car guy.

I pretend drive them.

I've pretended driving them for thousands of hours.

This does nothing to compel me.

This is the most pathetic attempt to lure someone into an eco-system since Windows Vista…

Now I hate Time Based Rewards in all forms, so one could maybe make the argument that for someone like me, the quality of time-based rewards is irrelevant, but I'm more just baffled by how these exploitative directors can't even exploit their users properly. Inept to the point of thinking they're going to give hours of their day for a piece of chewing gum.

It's one thing to witness Youtube channels go through this, pumping out watered-down versions of whatever was trending on r/games that day until finally,people had enough slop and stopped watching.

It's a whole other thing to witness mega-corps with billions of dollars managed by people who probably consider themselves to be very intelligent people, take business cues from Homer Simpson.

Everybody knows about Capitalisms "Race to the Bottom", and this is just the latest example.

It's what happens when you try to summarize a successful piece of art, and all its thousands of variables in market timing, technical execution, audience interest, cultural relevance into a decimal point. 

The consequences of describing your audiences interest in engaging with content… of relying on buzzwords and top-trumps so consecutively, you can't even sell your shit as gold anymore, but will still sell the shit as shit but it's all new shit…

Even when it's not.

For content to have Value, it needs to have purpose… but I actually kind of hope companies don't realize that; make people eating this slop vomit it out even faster.