[hopefully brief rant of someone, who is slowly growing old, incoming]
Hobbies and side projects turn into professions and full time jobs. You notice, that your little weekend gig could actually feed you and turn it into your life focus. Five years later, you are handling spreadsheets about flow optimisation and consumer incentives.
Nothing new about this (basicly all specialisation back to the stone age works kind of like that), and nothing I would dare to blame on those, who try to make their best out of it.
But there’s something disturbing about seeing it play out.
At some point (I would roughly say around 2010, but that perception may vary), the internet started turning into a workplace. Now the production line churns out factory made goods. Optimised, polished, streamlined. Websites look the same. Onlinevideos look the same. Onlinegames look the same.
The result does have a higher quality then what was there before, just like a franchise restaurant delivers a better product than if you task a couple of middleschoolers to bring along something selfmade and hopefully edible.
Younglings, who join the internet world in its modern shape, would beg not to have experience the days of clumsy geocities pages and handdrawn flash games, because it just doesn’t match the standards, we got by now.
And yet… something feels missing, that used to be there. Something personal.
Sometimes, I try to trace down the bank info of some old browser games, I used to play (and that have long stopped existing), so that I can send a little belated Thank You.
I can’t imagine ever doing that for a free game, I started in the last five to ten years.
You certainly noticed, that the mood towards the game in this forum and most other channels is quite negative. You may point out, that the same is true for most other free games too and might be right about it. I may in return mention, that game forums have not always looked like that, and if you go far enough back in this one, the mindset will look more bright too.
I’m disillusioned and disappointed by gaming developments, that drag themselves through their workday, with the goal to make something that looks good in marketing meetings, video presentations and thumbnails, that the algorithms like, and that makes a couple of numbers grow bigger at the end of the day.
My inner child dies a little with every day.
Whatever. If you somehow found something in these ramblings, that makes sense, do not forget to like, share and [enter explicite insult that involves one or multiple body openings]
).