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Harry's hot takes: It's time to make gaming great again

Hashtag MGGA

Harry's hot takes: It's time to make gaming great again
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What do you think is the worst thing about gaming? Before you answer, I'll answer for you - it's everything. Gaming is a horrible broken shell of its former self, a rotting carcass infected with fat maggots, all of them writhing around in a mixture of bliss and agony.

You might think that there are some good parts, some redeeming features, some semblance of joy that keeps your passion for the hobby burning. But you're wrong. You're deluded. You're blinded to the truth because all the takes you've been given on the subject were cold and meaningless.

What this discussion needs is hot takes. In fact, it needs the hottest takes. The sort of takes that you need to wear two pairs of heat-resistant gloves to handle, lest your fingers be burnt to the bone by the sheer, overwhelming hotness.

So the campaign starts today. We need to make gaming great again. And we're going to do it by following these hot takes to the letter. It's the only way. If we don't do this, gaming will never be great again. MGGA.

Retroactive microtransactions

In the past, games didn't have microtransactions in them. Essentially that means a lot of the things you got in those games, you stole. That's just legal fact. Check the law if you want, but it's the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Publishers need to go back to those games, figure out what people have stolen, then make them pay for those items. Not only would that make more money for the publishers we all love, it'd also make people stop complaining about how bad microtransactions are now.

Think about it, if someone went through your library of games and sent you a massive bill, you wouldn't be so angry about having to pay to get Luke Skywalker in a Star Wars game now. Infallible logic.

More weird, difficult to use controllers

In the 1990s, every console had a vast number of third party controllers that were complete garbage. I'm not talking about the semi-rubbish ones you gave to your friends, I'm talking about the confusing ones that you could never get to work. The ones your auntie bought you at a petrol station.

We need more of those, and we need them ASAP. Because gaming is too easy. Oh, you can download a game on your phone and play it within seconds thanks to the intuitive controls? In my day, when gaming was great, it literally took days to figure out how half of the tat I owned worked.

If gaming is too easy, and the controls make too much sense, then how do we separate the wheat from the chaff? If The Last Starfighter happened now, everyone would get to have a go and the universe would be destroyed. Just think about that for a second. THINK ABOUT IT.

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People aren't allowed to talk about Dark Souls anymore

Seriously, that game came out literally years ago. Who even cares anymore? No one talks about the old films anymore, because CGI and Michael Bay came along and made them all obsolete. Citizen Kane? More like Citizen I-don't-care-where-are-the-giant-fighting-robots.

Also, it's just not very good. You die all the time? That's the point? That doesn't seem like a point to me. It seems like everyone is rubbish at Dark Souls, because it's rubbish, and rather than admitting that they wax lyrical about how amazing and sophisticated and clever it is. It's the gaming equivalent of reading a Wikipedia entry before going to a book club.

So, in order to make gaming great again, no one is allowed to mention Dark Souls anymore. Nothing is the Dark Souls of anything, because Dark Souls never existed. Neither did Bloodborne. It's time to move on, together.

No one can shout on YouTube

Why are you all shouting? Why don't you calm down and try not shouting? And while you're at it stop being so obnoxious. And definitely stop being so racist, misogynistic, and downright creepy in order to keep your public profile as high as possible.

YouTube is like if MTV was made by Ritalin-addled children who were so convinced of their own importance and so enamoured with the sound of their own voice that they decided not to show awful music videos and just shout and gesture frantically.

I get we need YouTube, because no one watches the television anymore, but to make gaming great again we're going to have to institute some sort of decibel meter on everyone's channel. Go over the limiter and you'll be administered an electric shock. It's the only fair way I can think of doing things.

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Create a gaming police force

Obviously there are a lot of rules being laid down here, and what we need is people to enforce them. That's why I propose the creation of a communist-era-style secret police force that can monitor the actions of players both on and offline, and react accordingly.

They might be your friends, they might be your neighbours, and you'll never know until you hear their boots coming up your stairs. Gulags might be pushing it a bit too far, and no one likes to throw around the words purge or five-year plan, but I might start throwing them around in a couple of months. You know, to be on the safe side.

Just remember, if you stick within the rules you're going to have nothing to worry about. If you don't stick within the rules then you're going to have a lot to worry about. It's simple mathematics. But it's the equation that's going to make gaming great again. Or get you transported to Siberia.

Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.