@gamespotter_198: Well, they won't be burdened by people for long. Their last console was trash and so is Game Pass. I wouldn't pay $3 for it.

It will eventually eat itself. It happens about every 100 years. Give it 10 years. You'll see a depression. It's boomtime now, but it's all built on speculation.

@blaznwiipspman1: "Not enough savings to last even 1 month." Do you think that might be because they get laid off every two years?

None of this is normal in an industry with booming sales. Like most everything else it does, Microsoft is lying to investors about their sales.

They're lying about sales.

@astrokidwell: 25% of the U.S. population isn't white. They exist in reality and are not in fact political statements. Are you proposing that every game should show only white people with white people problems? Because that's not reality anymore. We left the farms and barns 50 years ago.

When you see a black person in a game, that's not a phantom. That person is out there. They may be outside your house right now getting ready to knock on your door and ask if you'd like to hear the teachings of Joseph Smith or if you'd like to buy a vacuum cleaner. You might run into an Asian person or a Mexican person at your local deli or club. These video games are preparing you for that moment so that you'll be less startled. And you'll be shocked to learn that these people aren't political statements. They're people. In your city, just like you. They probably hate it there, too.

@Mamba219: That's true. It's one reason I got back on GameSpot after all these years. I wanted to read and explore instead of just picking out games from PSN or Steam. Part of the issue with me is my age, I admit that. I'm not the typical gamer demographic anymore. I'm in my 40s now, and I understand that someone in their 20s hasn't encountered RE4 before. So the remake to them may have been magical. And then open-world games or games like Alan Wake II, if a young gamer hasn't encountered that gameplay before, they'd be blown away by it. For aging gamers like me, things are starting to look repetitive, but maybe that's more of a personal problem.

I decided to go to my back catalog for awhile instead of bitching about new games. I remember back in 2011, you had games like Catherine and LA Noire with its MotionScan tech, Limbo, etc. It was like the sky was the limit. And then everything just settled, and they seem to play it on the safe side now. I don't remember the last time I played a new game where it felt new and not rehashed. I'll always keep looking for something special from games, though. When you do find it, there's no feeling in the world like it. It's better than the best song or movie.

@sebb: I deleted it from my phone over a year ago (for obvious reasons). I can't remember really well what items I was buying, but I believe it was mostly upgrades that got me and then wanting to get crops/goods early. It was insane. I always got Farm Pass, which honestly, that's not all that bad. But then buying trunks of diamonds because I couldn't wait a few hours or days for crops and building upgrades, that was what mostly got me. And then Apple store has this really neat thing where they don't instantly charge you. So it's easy to press that button and just keep racking up charges.

When I finally deleted it from my phone, I swore off pay-to-play forever. I would have happily paid $200 flat to play HayDay indefinitely and get unlimited diamonds, but thousands? No. And that's what those games eventually turn into if you happen on one that hooks you. And it's not hard. I still can't believe I did that.

@mrbojangles25: You're very right. I hope things change, not just in gaming either, but in so many other important areas of the economy.

@mrbojangles25: The government hasn't protected consumers since the 70s. I don't imagine they'll get around to it this half-century either.

@stickemup: These companies will find out. The games they've put out in the last few years are so slop that I wouldn't mind to skip everything new on their services and just go back and play my PC catalog for the next few years. That's how long it would take me to get through all of it.

Enough gamers won't reject these things for it to matter though.