10 Gaming Facts Nobody Wants To Admit
It's time for all of us to face facts.
Though there's arguably never been a better time to play video games given the utterly mind-boggling amount of choice on offer right now, it's also fair to say that the industry is going through some tricky times as we speak.
And with that comes a number of home truths which we as players would prefer not to admit to ourselves - either because it's inconvenient to do so, or it's just a massive bummer.
For all of gaming's escapist qualities, it's worth facing up to these 10 industry truths, from video game ownership to the iffy state of the current gaming generation, and who we should really be blaming for the prevalence of loot boxes in our favourite games.
There will always be those who are either blinkered to the problems or just don't care, and that's their right, but if you have any regard for the future health of games as we know them, it's absolutely worth keeping these facts in mind.
Much as many of us would prefer to ignore or even deny it, gaming as a whole would be better off if we all acknowledged these sometimes-awkward home truths...
10. Valve Are To Blame For Loot Boxes
Though Valve are relatively unproblematic as video game megacorps go, they certainly shoulder a good portion of the blame for helping normalise loot boxes in gaming culture through Team Fortress 2.
While hardly the first game to implement loot boxes, Team Fortress 2 was one of the most popular and successful early titles to do so, with players able to speed up the process of unlocking digital goods by paying for the pleasure - as opposed to grinding.
This began back in September 2010, and as the popularity of loot boxes surged in the years that followed, it's little surprise that the rest of the gaming industry took notice.
As for Valve themselves, they raked in over $1 billion in revenue last year from Counter-Strike 2 loot boxes alone.
The inclusion of loot boxes may not be bad in all games, but it has nevertheless become the most blatantly cynical way for publishers to create another revenue stream for their products, and Valve are hugely complicit in that ongoing culture.