>>723066340
I fucking hate Vampire Survivors and the genre that it spawned. I thought that ARPGs were the most soulless vidya experiences possible, where the aim of the game is to not have to play the game, but then along came the fucking Survivor-like genre where you don't even have a game to invalidate in the first place! It's just a fucking slot machine with a very shallow level of meta build-crafting as the core gameplay mechanic! It is literally designed to turn your brain into slush via dopamine spikes without you having to meaningfully engage with it or earn those rewards in any real way.
This isn't the way it's supposed to be. I'm not saying that videogames are some kind of karmic stairway or valid tool for profound spiritual revelation, but like with literally anything else in life, if you get the reward without having to put the effort in, there's no growth, there's no meaning to it.
I used to see that comic about the girl being put into the pleasure cube and think that it wasn't that bad, but this genre becoming popular has caused me to revise my opinion. Rewards without struggle are bad for the soul, and that isn't even getting into how it has ultimately lowered the quality of the industry because it demonstrably proves that video games don't need to be well-thought out, have interesting gameplay, narrative, or any artistic vision at all to be successful. A dev who might have created something worthwhile might spend less effort and churn out garbage because what is the fucking point in investing into the industry when the audience is full of drooling fucking mongoloids who don't care about any kind of integrity so long as they can clap and giggle at the flashing lights and noises.

I don't know. Maybe this is just a reflection of the human condition. I'm not sure what I even want out of this. I suppose I just hoped we could be better.