Video Game Execs Are Ruining Video Games
Video Game Execs Are Ruining Video Games
The cycle of mass layoffs in game development isn’t a problem of the industry’s inherent “instability.” It’s a problem of exploitation.
Execs and the late stage capitalism game they play is ruining everything.
Seriously. They're actually betting against their own long term survival and it's baffling.
They don't care about their own long term survival. Their goal is to boost the next quarter and collect their bonuses, and when things go south, they jump ship with their golden parachutes and head to their next executive job.
if capitalism was designed in a way that long term was relevant, we would have this conversation...
Stop
Buying
AAA
Games
Stop
And don't confuse high budget indie studios with AAA game developers
I think I'm doing my part as a patient gamer.
Same, bonus points if you don't even buy the AAA game when it's on sale, instead buy an indie game with that money.
I recently played RDR2 and Witcher 3. They're very good AAA
This is a nonsense take.
The Last of Us, Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, God of War, Doom. There are plenty of AAA games worth your time and money. Every bit as lovingly crafted as your precious indie darlings.
Maybe stop buying them blindly because you've seen a flashy ad for them on TV. There's plenty of bad AAA games that do all the gameplay competently but have literally nothing to say. Where you can't feel the touch of the designer at all, and all you can hear in it's place is a hubbub of design-by-committee noise. The only thing those games have to say is "give me your money".
Larian Studios who made Baldur's Gate 3 could technichally be called an Indie dev despite the big budget and employee count. The company is privately owned by its founder and the games are self published.
Notice that other than Baldur's Gate and Elden Ring, those are pretty old titles at this point. The AAA studios are doing everything they can to make sure those nightmares never happen again.
I would argue elden ring (haven't played, not my style but heard many good things about it) and bg3 are not AAA studios, they don't release high budget games frequently, they focus on one genre, and don't have much (especially large budget titles) outside of that area of focus.
That list is also staggeringly small compared to The list it's derived from, and I would say whatever list includes those games has a much larger "awful titles" section to go along with it. If anything I would say the games you listed (that are from multi title developers) are the exceptions that proves the "don't buy AAA titles" rule.
He's referring to the working conditions.
And don’t confuse high budget indie studios with AAA game developers
On the other hand, there are a lot of publishers out there who really shouldn't have things called indie when they're involved.
The ones who have struck gold (perhaps multiple times) and are already worth multiple millions, publicly traded or even owned largely by investment firms. Some like this still footing everything on the players (crowdfunding and then early access) and on top of all of that going onto places like Imgur and Reddit and doing unpaid marketing there (doesn't seem great for the actual devs, and then there are things like multiple accounts/sockpuppets/deleting+reposting etc).
And even without the unpaid marketing stuff, a publisher has a lot of ways to screw over developers and/or players usually with the goal of money in some form.
Best I can do is preorder day 1 DLC.
🏴☠️
Indie games are the best!
Believe it or not, video games are art, and art is no longer for art’s sake. It’s for shareholders. That’s when these decisions happen.
Return to Obra Dinn is some quality piece of art. There are still people making art instead of marketing.
You say that, but not all art is made solely for money. Just take a look at the indie scene (games, music, film, TV, etc) as an example.
Right! Can you imagine if Rembrandt had an executive committee behind him dictating what to paint a picture of, then micromanaging brush strokes? That's the games-for-shareholders model, and it's fucked. Games are best when made by people who are passionate about the project, not solely about the profit. My big hope now is the publishers learn from the Sony debacle and simply publish the game, be happy with their profit cut, and shut the fuck up.
AI making art while humans turn the gears, sounds like the future we all wanted.
That's true, and it's a subset of another reality: execs are ruining life.
It's the unchecked capitalism.
Better labor protection and antitrust laws would help, but the fundamental push is towards maximum exploitation of worker and customer. Power consolidates and then abuse for profit becomes easy.
It’s unchecked because customers don’t really care. When is the last time there was a boycott of a game due to how the developers are treated?
Boycotts are only one tool in the box. Legislation should be addressing things like consolidation of power and anti consumer practices.
Unfortunately, the US has one far right party that has many lunatics that don't believe in government (along with other insanities), and one center-at-best party that does that wield power effectively.
Boycott is a strong word, but I know that I and many, many others decided not to purchase Disco Elysium based on how all that drama went down. And I know I'll never buy HiFi Rush after the way Microsoft closed that studio while simultaneously lamenting how they wish they had more games like that, because I don't want to reward bad behaviour.
Same reason I haven't bought anything from EA in a decade, and I'm really on the fence about supporting Ubisoft at this point too.
Whereas in a communist economy where people didn't have to struggle to survive, game developers could focus on improving their craft and telling whatever the funnest story they can think of is. We can already see this on a small scale with the difference between indie passion projects like Hades, and AAAA cash grabs like suicide squad. Imagine if everyone could afford to chase their passion instead of money.
Capitalism ruins everything, news at 11.
I'm trying my hardest to not buy any "AAA" game. The major corporations have lost me as a customer, I'll only be buying indie games.
... except monster hunter... It's been part of my life too long and it's one of like 3 game series I always play with an old friend lol
Yeah capcom is one of those weird ones. Really aggressive monetization but god damnit the games are good.
I excuse only two produces of capitalism: chocolate, and Monster Hunter!
Water is wet, the sky is blue, capitalism ruins everything.
Capitalistic motives is incompatible with any art form. Executives are the harbingers of the mindless greed of it.
The good art we see under capitalism is in spite of it, not because of it.
Capitalists ruining things for everyone else? Gasp!
Capitalists are people. People will always corrupt a system for personal gain. Which is why communism is such a silly idea. It's always immediately corrupted. Capitalism assumes people are corrupt and has provided the greatest standard of living in history. It saved China.
"People will always corrupt a system for person gain"
No, only people who would do this sort of thing accuse everyone else of doing it
It's related to the bonus system. Execs are rewarded for share price increases instead of making good games. They'll alienate the whole playerbase and ruin 30% of future sales for 5% increase in revenue for current sales. The 5% is enough to increase the share price so that CEO's are entitled to compensation. So to min-max as a CEO it's best to alienate the playerbase.
Also spending more money on marketing than on the game will result in more games sold at the cost of next games sales in the same franchise.
The games industry is well overdue for a more product focused approach for brand building. Diablo 5 will probably never be made since polling will suggest no interest. It was a major cash cow and Diablo 3 sold like crazy because Diablo 2 was great. It's the enshittification of video games in full swing.
The entrenched Blizzard Activision is getting out competed by Paradox but Paradox is starting to screw up in the same ways by releasing Cities Skylines 2 without mod support. Cities Skylines 1 was good because of mods and Cities Skylines 2 is good, but not as good as 1 with mods.
Big companies should take a lesson from the indie book and do more closed betas, more early access and more mod support. Sell DLCs that improve a complete game instead of it being the last 10% of the unfinished game. Adding a map section like in Horizon Zero Dawn is great.
Meanwhile, a potential game of the year, Animal Well, was made by one dude and put out by a publishing company started by a goofy YouTuber.
I'm 4hrs in and it's been a very rewarding experience so far! More heart than the last Assassin's Creed I played, which I don't even remember which one it was
It's dominating the well-like genre like no game has before.
What's happening to games in this gen is just what happened to the larger tech industry before, MBAs that pretend to be human are put in charge of a product after creators already made it successful.
Execs are ruining
I wonder... does anyone know how many shares in a company you have to own before you can call-in during shareholder meetings to ask questions? I'm wondering if we could push back against this by """asking questions""" that make majority shareholders aware of the damage companies are doing to their own brands. I know modern capitalism is all about "money today, fuck tomorrow", but I wonder how many shareholders would be happy knowing that companies would probably make more money if they'd stop cannibalizing studios and franchises.
You know, play into their greed and make convincing arguments about how their decisions are ultimately robbing them of money.
There was a guy a few years ago who spent $40k on Nintendo stock in order to ask about a new F-Zero in a shareholder meeting. They said no at the time but we did get F-Zero 99 last year so maybe he did make an impact.
They have a term for that type of shareholder... that I can't think of right now, sorry. A lot of big companies have things in place so 'disruptive' shareholders don't ruin their plans.
Edit. Exxon calls them "activist shareholders"
You're assuming that they don't know that, lol. They do. It does not matter because people keep shoving money up their ass and number goes up.
Ultimately, do they care? Most shareholders are in it for the stock price, this kind of thing might affect it slightly but I doubt it'd shift the needle much
Execs should be made to provide benefits to society. I saw we blend them into nutrient paste and use it to make food for our hungry people.
Take this with a grain of salt because I can't think of the proper search terms to verify what I think I remember reading:Once upon a time corporations couldn't be created unless they proved a benefit to society. We really need to go back to that...
Edit: with more time I found something.
"In the United States, the first important industrial corporation seems to have been the Boston Manufacturing Co., which was founded in 1813.
Experimental in nature and spaced out in time, these early ventures grew mostly independent of one another (the article mentioned older companies from around the world that I left out) But they had one thing in common: even as for-profit ventures, they were explicitly required to serve the common good.
For the first companies, the privilege of incorporation, often via royal charter, was granted selectively to facilitate activities that contributed to the population’s welfare, such as the construction of roads, canals, hospitals and schools. Allowing shareholders to profit was seen as a means to that end. Companies were deeply interwoven within the country’s or town’s social fabric, and were meant to contribute to its collective prosperity"
Source (I know, it's not a source I'd use for a college paper): https://qz.com/work/1188731/the-idea-that-companies-should-benefit-society-is-as-old-as-capitalism
why? oh, it's got a million and one uses!
Thanks Todd
VC money dried up. Time to fire everyone.
Activision has fucked Warzone 3 so badly, and it's actually so incredibly improved from what it was during the disaster that was WZ2 but still a far cry from the peak that was WZ1.
Ice is cold
Well that aint news
“Even when you believe you’ve found yourself the right job, it can evaporate in an instant, and then you are suddenly competing against hundreds or thousands of people for every job position,” Kai said.
Same as it ever was.
Ruining franchises. Games are the best they've ever been.
True, play animal well.
Remove video games. Execs and more importantly shareholders, are ruining the fucking world.
Parasites do be like that
Just play Hades 2. It's fucking amazing