The Gaming-Miasma Complex
(This is a cut chapter from the essay “Lost in the Miasma” that I felt didn't fit with the overarching theme of the essay, but I still wanted to publish it, as it captures some of my thoughts on the modern gaming industry and works by itself as a short contained essay.)
The miasma—or the internet—has made gaming as a whole worse for the consumer on a physical, technical level; it has corrupted the games industry to such an extent that game development is now pretty much only about making as much money as possible as quickly as possible as easily as possible while ignoring all ethical values and disregarding the consumer almost entirely. The miasma has enabled a gross disregard for game preservation, player feedback, and, most importantly, the overall quality of the games themselves, all the while making it easier than ever to forever milk cash out of the player through endless low-effort downloadable content, microtransactions, and by pushing fake money purchased with real money that is then used to purchase dumb mystery boxes that contain dumb prizes chosen basically at random, which amounts to literal gambling.
And since many gamers are, in fact, children, this gambling is thus targeted at children, despite the fact that even the state of Las Vegas (the most morally dubious state in the United States, and the de facto authority on gambling, pretty much) has made gambling illegal for anyone under the age of 21—so, these mega games companies are using their miasma games to somehow get around established common-sense gambling laws that even the most questionable state governments abide by; i.e., games companies are being flat-out fucking evil by taking advantage of children all while smoking flavored miasma through a gigantic gold-encrusted hookah pipe funded by their ill-gotten child-gambling dollars.
Combine this gambling thing with the fact that, for a game like the Crystal Chronicles remaster—wherein the multiplayer relies on the existence of miasma (online) servers run by greedy miasma companies—the moment these greedy miasma companies decide to stop hosting the servers, the multiplayer aspect of the game ceases to exist. So, in short, an aspect of the game will eventually be inaccessible at a random date, meaning that, on top of modern games incorporating gambling into the gameplay itself, consumers are also gambling on the literal ability to boot up and play the game at all, as many games are dependent on the miasma to even run in this year 2025 of our Lord. And this is especially problematic for MMOs, as, once the servers are shut down, the MMO itself is pretty much gone for good. We are paying more for an experience rather than any tangible, long-lasting thing—and this is the new normal for gaming, a fact that games companies don’t want us to think about because, typically, when we spend money on stuff, we expect to get something that we can keep (and access) for an indefinite period of time—unless we consider buying games more akin to food, movie tickets, or theme park admissions, which is indeed how modern games companies want us to think of gaming because it serves their fat pockets.
The main reason the games industry has unanimously pushed so hard for digital-only is so that we’ll forget that games were something we could once hold in our hands, observing the cool cover art and flipping through the glossy paper manuals; instead, they want us to see games more as ephemeral experiences to be resold over and over again; think Nintendo reselling their classic games on each new platform without the option to transfer your purchase from one platform to the next—you will, instead, buy Metroid Fusion twenty times because why the hell not.
It’s planned obsolescence for something that doesn’t have to become obsolescent at all, really; it’s the ability for game companies to say, “The Crystal Chronicles Remaster multiplayer servers are being taken down, so if you want to play multiplayer Crystal Chronicles going forward, you should buy Crystal Chronicles Remaster Remaster, which is a remaster of the original Crystal Chronicles Remaster, which, of course, is a remaster of the original Crystal Chronicles” and so on. And I’m not saying every online multiplayer game need be supported forever—just that, if the game has a multiplayer component, that component should be accessible through other means, such as local play, so that, when the online servers inevitably cease to exist, the game is still fully playable with all modes intact.
And it makes sense why a games company in 2025 wouldn’t want to add local play to multiplayer games, because, long-term, adding offline options is not financially lucrative—it prevents the endless reselling of remakes and rereleases and remasters. And while this “planned obsolescence” has been happening in other industries for years, it was not this blatantly in-your-face in the gaming industry until the appearance of the miasma. And I’m not naive; I know that all businesses exist to make money, so I’m not, like, shocked or anything that games companies are doing this. I’m just pointing out the fact that, before the miasma, it was way harder for a games company to ship customers ephemeral garbage and get away with it. And now that the miasma has totally permeated every inch of our culture and society, it has become incredibly easy for games companies to do just that—screw us over—while somehow simultaneously pulling the wool over our eyes such that we’re still buying their ephemeral-garbage games and the sequels to those ephemeral-garbage games and the remasters of those ephemeral-garbage games as if this whole thing isn’t totally fucked.
But it doesn’t have to be this way: we can stop it. We can stop buying the ephemeral garbage. We control our wallets—not Epic, not Valve, not EA, not Activision, not Square Enix.
And if you really want to play some of the slop these vile companies put out, then stop and think for a moment: Do you really want to support an industry that really only cares about online-only microtransaction-filled gambling games, many of which are targeted at children?
We do not have to play the newest games all the time—in fact, if we are, we’re pretty much supporting an industry that is actively trying to get children to gamble using mom’s credit card.
We compromise our values every day, simply by being part of a system that values capital over all else, including values themselves. So why compromise our values on this, when it’s so easy to just not purchase video games from morally dubious companies? These companies want us to be followers, chasing every new gaming trend; they want us to feel like we’re missing out—not just if we don’t play the newest game immediately, but also if we don’t buy the grand deluxe edition complete with limited-edition art book and 1:12 scale statuette of the game’s main character; they want us like little consumer puppets, dancing by the strings connected to their massive shadowy hands. But we don’t have to be their puppets. We don’t have to purchase from them. All we have to do is just not input our credit card information. It’s that simple.
There are literally thousands of old games out there that I know for a fact you—the reader (yes, I am writing directly to you right now)—have not played, and many of those games do not suffer from any of the problems covered in this essay. Obtain those games ethically, as you see fit; play them. Know that the corporate-induced FOMO is all in your head. Stop following trends. Stop contributing to the spread of miasma. Stop supporting corporate dragons. Unsubscribe from all their email communications. Stop interacting with their social media accounts. Stop reposting news about their upcoming games that aren't even out yet but somehow have already “gone gold” and received five-star reviews from all the major games publications—can’t you see that they’re manipulating you, that they’re using you for free advertising? You do not work for these companies. Brand loyalty is a marketing scheme. Snap out of your soul sickness.
Start the miasma detox—before it’s too late.
I know that you can become unmarketable, ungovernable, unbuyable. You can become a corporate dragon slayer.
You have the power.
I believe in you.