Playing the Games We Have
The video game industry is in a cynical, exploitative state with unfinished AAA releases, microtransactions, rising hardware costs, and studio closures. But there's an alternative I'd like to talk about: indie art games, the growing retro handheld scene, and my decision to play the extensive library I already own on a Retroid Pocket 2S rather than chasing new expensive hardware.
don't think I'm wearing rose-coloured glasses when I say the industry is in a really cynical, exploitative state. The status quo now is that AAA games are no longer [released finished](https://ourculturemag.com/2025/02/28/how-day-one-patches-reflect-the-rush-to-release-unfinished-games/) and have a [micro-transaction system](https://fgfactory.com/best-10-aaa-games) baked in from day one, leaning on seasonal content and battle passes to keep the money flowing long after launch. Multiplayer games launch with servers that can't handle the initial load and then die out quickly. [Highguard](https://godisageek.com/2026/03/highguard-shutdown-45-days-after-launch/) lasted 45 days, one of [52 games that have already been shut down in 2026 alone](https://gamerant.com/games-shut-down-2026-list-highguard-anthem/). And games are no longer optimized because (similar to web dev) game devs assume gamers are using beefy machines with huge amounts of free space. [Unreal Engine 5](https://exputer.com/features/game-optimization-getting-worse-2025/) alone has become shorthand for stutter and slowdown no matter what you're running it on.
Also? RAM and GPUs are becoming genuinely unaffordable, with [memory prices climbing as much as 89% in a single year](https://shattered.io/ram-prices-ai-memory-shortage-2026/) as AI data centers eat up the world's DRAM supply. Microsoft and Sony have been raising console prices in lockstep, the Series X now costs [$799.99](https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2026/06/25/following-apple-microsoft-dramatically-hikes-xbox-prices-again/), a $300 jump from its 2020 launch price, not long after [Sony hiked PS5 prices](https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2026/06/ps5-costs-too-much-but-these-new-xbox-price-increases-are-just-absurd) of its own back in April. Microsoft is also [closing even more of its game studios](https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2026/07/06/xbox-to-lay-off-3200-workers-every-studio-affected/), that's 3,200 jobs and four studios gone in the latest round alone. Sony, meanwhile, [announced the phase out of physical game discs by January 2028](https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/physical-disc-production-ending-in-january-2028-for-new-games-releasing-on-playstation-consoles/), with the PS6 being a digital-only machine, and Sony is also [stepping back from porting its single-player exclusives to PC](https://www.techradar.com/gaming/playstation/pc-gamers-say-goodbye-to-playstation-exclusives-as-sony-confirms-single-player-games-arent-coming-to-pc-anymore-except-for-one/). Even Valve's new Steam Machine—[over a thousand dollars](https://www.geekwire.com/2026/surprise-valves-new-steam-machine-is-here-but-the-price-is-the-real-shocker/) for the base model—isn't a good deal at all. Would've been [perfect five years ago](https://
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