GAMING: You Win When There Is More Competition

Image from Enaba¹.

I get it. You are a Nintendo and Sony Fanboy. We are all aware of how important these systems and games have been to our lives.

However, we should take into consideration that despite having a wonderful history with the entertainment that we consume, they do not have a monopoly on our attention and our preferences. More importantly, we should not put them on a pedestal and put them under as much scrutiny to improve rather than be a medium that feeds us slop.

Complacency breeds stagnation. This can happen to individuals and organizations. With the latter, at least lately, many companies seem to have grown comfortable with being the dominant (or only player) in their respective space(s). There is a sentiment that they feel like they are untouchable and under no pressure to improve. For the most part, in some regards they are right because the effort to make a change is often time consuming and requires quite a bit of energy to retrain or completely change a routine.

While I understand that change is difficult, however, we should at least attempt to explore ways to get the Nintendo's and Sony's of this world to stay on their toes and occasionally look behind their backs. For the most part, it doesn't require a huge commitment on your part, nor is it limited to these companies but more broadly speaking to these very large companies that seem to want to take advantage of the customers they serve.

In a previous post, I wrote about how not to get taken advantage of by these large game companies² and this post is an expansion on that idea. Large companies have an immense amount of resources that can overwhelm any individual because everything is at scale. Company people and executives know this. You do to and as an individual sometimes you may feel that you are powerless and alone. This situation makes it ripe to be taken advantage of. As an individual this happens at scale.

This same premise is advantageous to an individual because the problem exists at scale. Big companies use scale as a strategy to overwhelm the individual and in the same way, individuals can return the favor. The biggest barrier for any individual is to detaching oneself from the entertainment we often identify ourselves with.

The good thing about entertainment is that we have an abundance of choices of what we consume. We should take into consideration that these large companies both compete and collaborate on many different levels, often in several different categories, and sometimes monopolize them.

Other than Apple's iPhone or Google's Android, you have an abundance of choices of where you get your entertainment. Trying Linux is a HUGE first step into liberating yourself from even the clutches of the duopoly of Apple and Google. Keep in mind this is not a negative commentary on Google and Apple but helps further illustrate that in some categories, choices are limited. Linux is not mature enough for mobile at least right now, and the only other alternatives are Android derived or not available in some areas like Harmony OS³.

Between the Apple's App and Google's Play stores, those alone can be alternatives to the Nintendos and Sonys of the world. These are such huge alternatives, Nintendo, out of all companies released games on these platforms. Obviously this is just for mobile and where you get the most options are on your computer, assuming that you have one. This is irregardless of whether you are on Windows, Mac OS, Linux, etc.

The other alternative is just to avoid all this bickering and completely remove yourself from these forms of entertainment. While the suggestion seems extreme, it is not entirely impossible, and might even be healthy...

Let's say you don't go to these extremes and you have a computer. You have Steam, Epic Games, Gog, Itch.io, and Amazon Games, as well as many others that do not require a launcher. Many of these larger game platforms provide an abundance of free games that you can claim and play, on top of numerous titles appearing on different platforms. I can't stress enough that you should be claiming games that these platforms provide regardless if you are going to play them or not. Epic Games is one of those companies that provide "free" games on a weekly basis that I highlight and update in the blog post, "Free AAA PC GAME! Claim before it is too LATE (at Epic Games)!!!"⁴. Itch.io is unique where some games provides an option to donate to the developer with the games that are available for free. If you feel inclined to support the platforms and the developers, by all means, buy a game on them.

To circle back to what I described earlier about "scale" is that the more people that actively explores these alternatives ultimately compounds the effect of scale from the customers' perspective. We are the customers and in some regards, victims of abuse. That is the way we win but it is a voluntary group effort. Some effort at scale is huge compared to zero effort at scale, that equates to "none".

The keyword here is not just "scale" but "effort". We also need to put in "effort" to ultimately acquire the results we desire. Keep in mind, companies are also aware of these types of movements in community lead "effort", and they too put considerable effort, with more resources, to build moats to prevent these sorts of actions that they perceive to be against them, despite these companies worsening the services to the customers they provide for.

Let's take our power back.

Here are some wonderful resources that can be helpful for your journey:

• Gamers Nexus: YouTube Channel with tech reviews and investigative reporting in the tech space.
• Louis Rossman: Entrepreneur, electronics technician, Youtuber, well known for advocating right to repair.
• FUTO: Non-profit tech ownership advocacy group.

VERSIONS

2026v.0.1.0: init⁵

REFERENCES

1. PS5 vs. Xbox Series X: Which Console Wins? ↩

2. GAMING: Don't Get Taken Advantage of! ↩

3. Sailfish OS and PostMarket Os are some of the Linux derived OS for mobile ARM processors. They are both Linux derived and not Android. Sailfish is developed in Finland. PostMarket Os is in very early stages and I am testing it in virtual machines. Graphene OS, Android derived, is said to officially release on Motorola phones in 2027 with Google's core services removed from the OS. ↩

4. "Free AAA PC GAME! Claim before it is too LATE (at Epic Games)!!!" lists releases of games. Some titles are in rotation, so just in case you miss claiming them, they appear appear for free in the future. ↩

5. blog.avrstory.net's development release page. ↩