I“ am Jack Boyles. I am losing my humanity… I am turning Hollow.
Stories get passed on and permutate over time but there is one story I’ve heard that doesn’t, a story of a knight – one of the knights of Gywn in fact, have you heard of it?
Some say this knight had an immense power that he could traverse the abyss. He set off to Oolacile, a once thriving city that fell waste to the clutches of the Father of the Abyss. The noble knight with his trusted companion, a wolf, journeyed to the land Oolacile. The knight and his companion were to fight the Father of the Abyss and to liberate Oolacile from the ghastly creature. The knight fought valiantly but with his companion downed and on the verge of being defeated, the knight acted selflessly and sacrificed his own life in order to save his companions. This once benevolent knight, now only recognizable by his physique had been consumed and corrupted by the abyss. In his new-found rage, attacked anything or anyone until one day an unnamed knight ended his reign of terror. Stories say his companion still awaits at his grave, waiting for what, I do not know.
You see Chosen Undead, no matter how powerful we believe one’s self to be, we can be corrupted and consumed; do not fall prey to the power of the Abyss, do not allow yourself to be a consumer.
The abyss is pervading the land and tainting the very foundations of its construct. I and other reputable people try to inform the dangers and to fend off this lurid sap. A feeble idea marred by the nascent perception of the populous whom invest their souls on cosmetic items, loot boxes and other such content that should already be allocated within the innards of the game; sometimes that content is already prescribed on the disc. Tis not so much vexation if the game is free to play but one cannot possibly tolerate such etiquette with a full priced retail game. Principally when the game is formulated in such a way that its desiderata is for thee to spend their souls. This ritual has been coined ‘Games as a Service’ or ‘Live Services’, names conjured to send you adrift.
Not all ‘Games as a Service’ are harrowing, Nintendo’s ‘Splatoon’ hosts special events, adds new weapons, new maps and cosmetic items all for free; the only way to acquire the weapons are from points gained from participating within the game and the points are distributed respectfully… Many AAA companies such as EA and Ubisoft for example, have and will, design their games to devour your souls, applying this technique in both Multiplayer and Single player.
To me, this seems an unstable business model because companies are not just competing with other companies, but they will be competing with their own products.
These big AAA developers and producers no longer refer to us as players or gamers, we are consumers. Consumers, ha, must we not enjoy their games? Must we not look at them as entertainment? Must we not see them as an art form or a form of escapism from the atrocities of life? Not in their eyes. They are just consumable items for us to feed on, reducing their own games to just an item with no inherent value, insinuating we gamers just view these as products that we consume and gain no experience from. Ugh, uh… Surely, this implies that some publishers see games as nothing more than a vacuum sucking everyone’s time to serve no purpose other than to exist, acquire souls and then to be abandoned. Games are not the pendent.
Consumer! By the gods… Would you expect that from a director? Would you expect that from an author? Of course not, they are an audience or a reader. A level of respect participates, not mere vessels for conjuring souls. Would thou agree we should be treated with the same dignity?
If only there were more Covenant of Artorias… End this corruption and consumption… We all should protect ourselves, so our faint doth not follow that of the knights.”