Decline of Gaming
1. Games in the past
Taking the example of Call of Duty (COD), and well know franchise, the first 3 were pretty much the same, world war shooters with good lore and history that somehow, were revolutionizing the industry of shooters. The games needed to be fully finished before they released, because patching games via update back then was not a thing. In 2009 we get the first modern military shooter released by infinite ward. The Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (COD 4) was something that the gaming community haven’t seen before. The campaign was truly amazing with well develop characters and lore, new mechanics and movement and visuals. But the real deal was the multiplayer. The COD 4 multiplayer was something new and never seen before. It established the standards for todays COD’s. The introduction of arcade and consistent gun fights, good maps with perfect flows, perks, killstreaks and gun customization, showed that the developers were trying to the right thing and making a really good game based on their passion. Fast forward one year, treyarch releases COD: World at War with a new game mode: zombies. That new game mode was thrown in the game as just a project from de developers but in nowadays, is one of the trademarks of treyarch COD’S. The game mode was unique and it attracted a lot of people that basically made the developers create for maps and features for zombies. In 2010, Modern Warfare 2 released and that was one of the most iconic games of all time because of its campaign and specially the multiplayer. Gun customization was taken to a new level, the introduction of tactical nuke in killstreaks, new killstreaks, well designed maps. We can see the game was made for someone who really wanted the game to succeed and established a new standard for online multiplayer. The COD’S released in the next years were innovative in their own way and we start to see some problems in 2014.
2. Microtransactions and RNG
In 2014, activision releases Advanced Warfare. Surprise surprise, it has loot boxes. Now, the problem was not the loot boxes, but what was inside it. They started to put over powered guns inside loot boxes and the only way to get those was through spending some money spinning those boxes. You could of course, play the game and earn the currency to open boxes, but that would take a long time and you needed to have some pure luck. Everything that was new and putted in the game, besides maps, was basically unlocked through loot boxes. Other games started to implement this loot box system in their games, like PUBG, Fornite, Star Wars Battlefront II, Battlefield etc… Basically, companies tried to extract the most amount of money from customers based on their pure greed. For example, PUBG, it was a success in its alpha phase and everyone was really enjoying and what they decided to do? Add loot boxes to a game that was in an ALPHA PHASE, I mean, they didn’t even try to fix the issues that were affecting the game at the time, and they released a terrible port of the game to XBOX to money grab the costumers. Star Wars Battlefront II, EA made the most overpowered character in the game a 20$ unlockable or 100+ hours to unlock it. How is this even fair to someone who doesn’t want to spend any more money on the game, doesn’t have much free time to unlock it, and every time he enters the game, gets stomped by someone has the character because he had extra 20$ to spend on it?
3. Gaming in 2021
After some from the fans of gaming in general, most of the companies decided to end with the loot boxes and created other mechanisms for people to get customization for their game, like battle passes. You no longer have to pay to get the gun you want, the best character in the game, to access to content like maps. The only thing in most games behind a paywall is customization, which is not a big deal because we get to unlock everything else for free without the need to pay for anything.
Best regards my dudes
European Super League (ESL)
**1. What is the ESL**
The ESL is a closed football league created by twelve clubs entitled as the "founders", that aims to provide mid-week matches, thus replacing Champions League football (UCL). These twelve clubs are AC Milan, Arsenal, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Juventus, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Tottenham Hotspur. It is expected 3 more clubs to join this new League. Clubs from Portugal (Porto, Benfica, Sporting) refused to join, the big giant from France, PSG, was invited but refused to join like the german clubs (Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund). Almost all football associations from europe and their clubs expressed their disapproval towards this new league. The chairman man is the Real Madrid president, Florentino Pérez, Vice-Chairman is Andrea Agnelli (president of Juventus) and the second Vice-Chairman is Joel Glazer (president of Manchester United).
**2. What does this mean to football**
Creating a private league where teams can't access for their sporting merit creates an underlying issue related to the identity of football. For example, in England the sport was created by the working class, it belonged to the poor. Fast forward to these days, we see a lot of clubs owned by some rich guys who don't care about the sport. Some of them don't even know what an off-side rule is. They treat football as a business to generate money, as their primary job is to maximise revenues and profit with what's so called "the beautiful game" that was created by the poor and stolen by the rich.
In the beginning of international competitions, nations could only play in a World Cup through an invitation. As the years went by, FIFA regulated the competition and made it accessible for every nation in the world, this means, every country in planet earth has a small chance of take part in a World Cup, and perhaps winning it. They even expanded the 2026 World Cup for 48 teams, instead of the actual 32.
So, the identity of football relies on the small chance of every small team/club in world to achieve the biggest competition in their region for their sporting merit, and not by the invite of some wealthy individuals. Every kid who plays football in Europe dreams to play in the champions league and in big clubs, every kid in the world dreams to dress the shirt of their country and play a World Cup for their nation. We can only keep these dreams alive if the sport rewards the merit of each individual. Creating private leagues that can only be access with invites will kill the game. A private league where you only need to play to win money, (no relegation) will kill the spirit and identity of football. ESL will kill the dreams of million kids around the globe that want to play in the highest and prestigious place of the game, and that place, should only be access by your own merit and hard work.
**3. FIFA and UEFA**
FIFA and UEFA are trying hard in preventing this madness to happen. UEFA and FIFA stated that the players who play in the ESL, will be forbidden to play on champions league, World Cup, and in the European Championship this summer. Alexander Ceferin, the president of UEFA even stated "We will try to use all the sanctions against the Super League clubs. As soon as possible they have to be BANNED from all our competitions, players too”. Ceferin, goes even the extra mile and says "We might be naive in not knowing we have snakes close to us. Now we do. There will be legal action soon.". So has we can see, FIFA and UEFA are doing everything they can to protect the integrity of the game around the world.
**4. Governments and fans around the world**
The president of France was the first to condemn this ESL followed by Boris Johnson and his culture secretary. The European Commission Vice-President tweeted "We must defend a values-driven European model of sport based on diversity and inclusion. There is no scope for reserving it for the few rich and powerful clubs who want to severe links with everything associations stand for.". Around Europe, there are a lot of ex-players like Luís Figo, Rio Ferdinand, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Lukas Podolski and Mesut Ozil who take a stance against ESL. Current active players like Ander Herrera, Bruno Fernandes (Manchester United), Daniel Podence (Wolves), João Cancelo (Manchester City) and Rafael Leão (Milan) share the same position as the ex-players. Almost all fans in Europe and around the world, including myself, are pretty disappointed with this madness, and we all hope that the project doesn’t move forward. In the end, we can only show our support to FIFA and UEFA, our disappointment, and hope that this project ends soon.
Thank you for your reading, if you have any suggestion feel free to send.
Best Regards
