Humans are complicated animals. We can do a lot of good things, like create Cool Ranch Doritos, and we can do a lot of horrible things like…well…look around. Our means of reaching an answer to the question “will we or won’t we” is demarcated by twists and turns, switchbacks, and leapfrogs. How soon we arrive at a destination of reason is really a matter of how badly we want to arrive at that destination. Sometimes it’s easy to decide: not being a piece of shit means not being a piece of shit, full stop. Other times, we say we’re going to do one thing with all the conviction we can muster and based on solid justifications, only to do the exact opposite, somehow supported with conviction and justifications that are, in our own minds, just as solid.

Let’s take a trip back in time to…my last post, in which I vehemently stated that I would not be playing Dune: Awakening because Funcom took a whole lot of my money for a Secret World lifetime sub, and then proceeded to run the IP into the ground twice, ultimately leaving it on life support. I was adamant that I would not be doing business with this company again because if they did me wrong once, they could and possibly would do so again.

I bet you can see where this is going.

My beef with Funcom was based on the fact that they ruined something I liked a lot. Because they abandoned TSW/SWL I strongly suspect that there will be no more video games in that IP and I’m mad about that because TSW was really a groundbreaking piece of virtual entertainment, specifically in the MMO genre, and it was completely mismanaged. It deserved better. I’m also salty about having paid the princely sum of $200USD at the time to show my support, and then was made to feel like such a show of support was worthless. Did I get my $200USD worth of entertainment during the lifetime of TSW? I don’t know, really, but I think there’s a little bit of all of us who get upset when we buy into something and then don’t get a seat at the table; it’s insane to think that we’re owed such a seat, really, and I know that, but I also don’t know that, if you get my drift. There’s logically knowing, and there’s emotionally knowing, and they don’t always jive.

Here’s where my road — my personal, definitely-not-your-own-experience road — begins it’s winding way through the mountains of decision. I bought into Fortnite: Save the World, and really looked forward to its continuing development. Then Fortnite: Battle Royale happened, and STW got canned (what is it with games abbreviated with the letters ‘T’,’S’, and ‘W’, anyway?). I was pissed, and in that case I had only paid the basic $50USD or so for STW. I saw it as Epic taking something I wanted and turning it into something I certainly did not want, and didn’t care about me, the paying customer. It was TSW all over again, but then last night, this happened:

Why would I consider using Epic’s flagship game development software if I were pissed at them for twisting Fortnite into the abomination we enjoy today? To that end, I had also purchased (or taken advantage of freebies) from the Epic Store between the end of F:STW and right now as I type this post. I had been holding a grudge against Epic for ruining something I liked, yet it apparently wasn’t a strong grudge, since I was still giving them money on occasion, and am considering using their development software.

My issues with Epic and Funcom are purely my own. Neither of them have committed war-crimes (that we know of), nor are they on a J.K. Rowling-style path of bullshit (again, that we know of). If they were, planting a flag against them would be baseline and undeniable — and I wouldn’t be alone in doing so, I am certain of that. In the case of Epic and Funcom, my anger is purely mine: what was I willing to stand for, and what was I willing to forgive? Ultimately, does my decision matter to anyone but me? I’m sure that neither Epic nor Funcom felt the weight of my spongy decisions on their profit margins, and me “voting with my wallet” wouldn’t change the decisions they make. I was shouting into an indifferent void, and was feeling pretty smug about it, which, when I gave it some thought, really only left me short of breath and nothing else.

Right about now you might have reached the crux of the issue, which is an internal debate over how much is too much, and is any hardline position wasted. If any stance can be logically undermined, even the most lamest, personal, and relatively inconsequential stance, then any stance can be weaseled out of, right? Where’s the line between doing the right thing, and doing the right thing so long as it doesn’t come with a side of FOMO? This feeling is what prompted me to write this post, and to turn off my Steam Presence so people couldn’t see me playing Dune: Awakening this morning. I came out swinging against Funcom, adamant that I would twist an unfelt knife in their bloated body not for a grand gesture, but for my own self-satisfaction, yet I ultimately proved that I was a hypocrite. Should this about-face matter to me? This is not a life-or-death situation; it’s not a conflict that’s present outside of my own head. Hell, I bet only a handful of people even read the original post, and of those, I would have a hard time believing that any of them really gives a shit.

The post isn’t about rewarding Funcom with cash after I said in very violent terms that I would never do so again; it’s about character, I guess. I went and did something I said I wouldn’t do, after giving some very strongly worded reasons why I would not. In the end, I ended up doing it because I wanted to do it, “principles” be damned. On one hand, this bothers me because I do feel strongly about the demise of TSW, and shrugging it off and giving Funcom money tells them, in some weird way, that their actions in this regard were OK, maybe even forgiven, ignored, or never made any impact in the first place when they clearly did. In a way, though, I consider Star Anvil’s creation of the TTRPG Secret World system a bit of a salve that allows the TSW universe to live on in-perpetuity, so while it’s not the original video game form, it has ultimately morphed into something that’s probably a hell of a lot better in many ways. But I also think that this is why cash shops in games are often seen as problematic: buying from cash shops shows companies that including them is justified, and it really only takes one, a few, or some people to support it for companies to think they’re doing the right thing. I don’t want Funcom to think that shuffling a live-service game off the court when it becomes an irritation for them is OK (I know that there are factors beyond the veil, because Capitalism, and TSW’s fate wasn’t a case of “this is boring for us”), but is abstaining from buying Dune: Awakening going to send a message? Is it the right vehicle for such a message? Will anyone hear it anyway?

Now you see why I said that the journey from start to destination was a twisted and convoluted one. I have as many reasons for reversing my stance as I did in defining my stance in the first place. Which is the right stance? Is there a right stance if I’m the only arbiter, and if the stance only affects me? In many ways, it is affecting me because I feel like an asshole for swinging for the fences, only to hit a grounder along the first base line. I have failed myself and have made myself look like a complete idiot for going off the rails, only to slide into the depot under cover of night when I hoped no one was looking.