[ AGAINST NEW GAMES: TRANS-GENERATIONAL MANIFESTO v0.5 ]

...PREAMBLE

p.1 	The state of videogames today is abysmal. While the gaming industry has always
	been dominated by commercial concerns, there remained room for development teams
	to express themselves and their love for the medium. This is no longer the case on
	any meaningful scale. The profit motive has come to dominate in every aspect of
	game development and the result is an average standard of quality so low, and
	general expectation of consumer exploitation so high, the only historical
	comparison is the period immediately preceding the Great Videogame Crash of 1983.
	Publishers routinely participate in hostile, anti-consumer practices and behave
	unethically in every aspect of the industry.

p.2	The worst part is, as the costs keep rising, the games aren't getting any better.
	How many times will we be forced to invest in upgrades just to keep playing the
	same thing? Or better yet, why should we?

...AGAINST NEW GAMES

1. GOOD GRAPHICS ARE UNIMPORTANT
  a. 	Photorealistic graphics is primarily a marketing gimmick. It’s used to sell the new
	generation of hardware, but does nothing to improve gameplay.
  b.	Good graphics, used to describe whatever is closest to photorealism at the moment,
	is a relative term. It’s a moving standard that becomes outdated each generation:
	yesterday's realism is today's eyesore.
  c. 	The technical quality of graphics has little influence on the actual experience of
	play. The visual aspect of the game experience is largely affected by its art
	design, not the graphical standard.
  d.	Emphasizing photorealism in art design is a short-term decision. It looks good only
	in the current generation but ages very poorly in comparison to stylized or
	abstracted visuals.
  e.	Emphasis on good graphics is responsible for the elimination of local multiplayer
	due to the cost of re-rendering visuals on multiple screens. This artificially
	reduces the lifespan of a game, hurts videogaming's social factor and limits the
	ability to play with friends to only those who own the same game and system.
  f.	The drive for visual quality is the primary factor raising the cost of game
	development. The result is that game companies experience tighter profit margins
	and are forced to limit design decisions to what's conservative and market-
	friendly.

2. THE HARDWARE TREADMILL IS POINTLESS
  a.	The hardware benefits to technical complexity have plateaued. Development will hit
	other ceilings long before they do a hardware limitation.
  b.	The continuously rising hardware standards now exists entirely to support the
	constantly rising graphical standard.
  c.	Consumers are forced to upgrade their hardware each generation to continue playing
	new products, but this hardware treadmill does not do anything to benefit gameplay
	or game design. Only the graphical standard changes, despite its unimportance.
  d.	Games could be optimized to match older hardware if developers choose to, but they
	don’t, forcing everyone to stay on the hardware treadmill to continue playing new
	games. The exceptions prove the rule: Serious Sam 3, Overwatch, etc.

3. HARMFUL PRACTICES HAVE BECOME INDUSTRY STANDARD
  a.	The industry as a whole increasingly employs consumer-hostile practices in its
	publication and distribution, such as:
	artificially restricted exclusivity, Digital Rights Management, vendor lock-in,
	centralized multiplayer servers, subscription-restricted online access, paid DLC,
	subscription releases or seasonal passes, exclusive content and pre-order bonuses,
	limited backwards compatibility, P2W and microtranscation models.
  b.	Even the independent industry, which has heavily commercialized over the last
	decade, has largely taken to harmful practices, such as: early access, non-
	investment crowdfunding, DRM, paywalled content, closed source & non-free software
  c.	It is uncomfortable to participate in and unethical to support this industry. Its
	harmful practices will only change when consumers as a group reject it.

4. GOOD GAMES DON'T AGE
  a.	In the long-term, games are evaluated on the merits of their gameplay and design,
	not the technical achievement of its graphics.
  b.	Game design changes slowly and innovations have been few after 3D settled down. Any
	game made today could easily have been made 10 years ago - if we discount graphics.
  c.	The best games of the past are all just rewarding to play today as they were at
	their release. Good game design is eternal.
  d.	The majority of games of each generation will be forgettable, and given time, only
	the worthwhile ones will be remembered. There is little reason to bother sifting
	through today's trash when you can play yesterday's classics.
  e.	The near-complete historical library of video games is readily accessible due to
	emulation. Across the long and wide breadth of videogaming, a lifetime isn't long
	enough to exhaust the list of highly regarded games.

...GAME LUDDITE MANIFESTO

	1. REJECT GRAPHICAL QUALITY AS AN INFLUENCE ON YOUR INTERPRETATION OF A GAME’S VALUE.

	2. REJECT ANY GAME THAT CANNOT BE PLAYED ON INEXPENSIVE HARDWARE.

	3. REJECT ANY GAME THAT IS DESIGNED OR RELEASED WITH HARMFUL PRACTICES.

	4. CONFIGURE YOUR SYSTEM(S) TO MAKE FULL USE OF THE EMULATION OPTIONS AVAILABLE.

	5. CONSIDER ALL NEW GAMES RELEASED TODAY ALONGSIDE ALL GAMES RELEASED IN THE PAST, NOT ONLY
	IN THE ISOLATED CONTEXT OF ITS OWN GENERATION.

	6. CONSIDER ALL NEW GAMES RELEASED TODAY FROM A LONG-TERM PERSPECTIVE. ASK YOURSELF: 20
	YEARS FROM NOW, WOULD I CHOOSE TO PLAY THIS GAME, OR THE 40 YEAR OLD ONE?