10 Manipulative Gaming Tactics You Fall For Every Time

It will always be in publishers' interest to foster a relationship with players which superficially appears to transcend its obviously transactional nature - that is, making you like the company as more than a mere entertainment vendor.

Companies will often do this by using an approachable, likeable public figure to serve as a bridge between players and the company, such as Sony's Shuhei Yoshida, Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aimé, or Microsoft's Phil Spencer.

But as much as these figureheads may often insist that games are made for us, and we avidly lap up the showing of passion, it's important to never forget that video games will always be a commercial enterprise first and foremost.

This isn't to say that enormous artistic toil doesn't go into most great video games, but when Sony makes the claim that they're "for the players," they're really only doing whatever is in their best interest - hence why they took so damn long to allow cross-play functionality on PS4.

The bottom line is that these companies are actively invested in making you see them as more than a monolithic enterprise, but never lose sight of the fact that everything a company does is in the pursuit of financial prosperity.