Greed. Saved you a click.
this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2024
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Yea, that’s how companies work under capitalism. They are not trying to make the best games, they are trying to extract the most money. And apparently enough people are supporting this behaviour.
So exactly how would non-capitalism work here? I am curious to see what kind of games we would have if there were no incentives.
One of the best video games ever made, Tetris, was made in the Soviet Union, and the guy who made it didn't see any profit from it for most of his life. Passion projects and games as art would still exist too. I don't think Stardew Valley exists because Concerned Ape thought it would make him rich - it did, but that's not why the game exists in the first place.
he did it because no one would listen to his music /s
I mean, other than that one song the music was pretty unmemorable.
Ever heard of indie games?
Indie devs need to eat too. And they don't mind spare money to feel basic security while making games. The difference is they have more of that idealized capitalistic competition to even being noticed, so they create original games that you can remember, while AAA companies do have enough publicity they are sure some 10 mils of dumb fucks would buy a pooping simulator if it's sold by them and follows one of the ironed out formulas.
Making money isn't capitalism. A market economy isn't capitalism. You can look up the textbook definition, but to me capitalism means organizing absolutely everything around the pursuit of profit for the ownership class. Indie developers by and large aren't in it for the money; that would make no sense, because they could make better money doing something else.
Yeah. It seems to me while there's a lot of ways to take "capitalism", the moment you point out that people are taking paycuts to do gamedev there's no way capitalism applies to their motivations anymore.
Capitalism isn't the part where things cost money, it's the part where having money makes you money.
... or sometimes any of ten thousand other definitions, because it's an overused synecdoche for vast swaths of human culture.
You're describing markets. Capitalism is the part where people who don't even work at the game company make money off the game company.
Ideally if money wasn't a factor you'd see way more passion projects. In fact some of the most popular games in the world either are passion projects or stemmed from them. Counter-strike was a mod. Dota was a mod. PUBG was a originally DayZ: Battle Royale mod. Minecraft was originally just a passion project. Dwarf fortress is a passion project.
Overall you'd just get less games like what Fortnite is now or probably every COD game after MW, because they exist for the sole purpose of making money.
There have been some incredible OSS games. Take away IP concerns and they have more access to assets. Take away needing to work to live, and people passionate about gamedev would have no obstacles in creating video games with their time.
Capitalism makes some core assumptions that, right or wrong, generally do not apply in the dev world - assumptions of laziness and selfishness. Smith tried to build a framework around "people will never be altruistic or work because of their pride". It was intended both to standardize and limit those selfish behaviors (modern capitalists threw out the "limit" part). You can make your own conclusions about capitalism and most of the business world, but I don't know a developer who would rather sit and watch The Price is Right than be on their computer coding something other people would love.
Greed of trying to find 'a sucker' someone who will empty the wallet for a flash and a trick. So you get allot of games where the chief motivating factor is trying to copy someone else's grift and land a whale.
Say it with me: only legislation will fix this.
This abuse is the dominant strategy.
If we allow this to continue, there will be nothing else.
Say it with me: nobody is ever going to legislate this in the US.
Fatalism is worse than useless. Spit hopelessness at someone else.
There's a difference between fatalism and realism. I'm not saying the problem isn't solvable. I'm saying it won't happen that way.
Heard the same shit about Apple for years.
That naysaying didn't help a damn thing. Demanding the right action finally has.
Yeah, not the same thing. I'm not saying microtransactions can't be stopped. I'm saying it won't happen through US-based legislation.
And this iPhone monopoly suit is apples-and-oranges to a microtransaction litigation. They're being charged with being in breach of an 1890s law that has held strong, but that has nothing to do with microtransactions. In fact, no relevant law exists except some flimsy gambling statutes that simply do not work. Most importantly, there is no legislative piece to it. Apple broke a big law and has been doing so with virtually no consequences for decades. Nobody's passing new laws against Apple. They're just finally facing the justice that they should've faced a long time gone.
Right, these two things aren't perfectly identical, so there's no possible connection.
The will to solve problems through government doesn't exist! Don't try!
Shoo.
Ah yes, belittle your interlocutor when you can't respond to them. Thank you for justifying this block
The first two sentences were a direct response, but okay, bye Felisha.
In the unlikely event anyone more reasonable happens across this: don't open with 'nuh-uh it's hopeless' and then try to counter-steer back toward 'nevermind all those signs of hope.' Or if you do, don't whinge about having your fatalism accurately condemned.
I bet it's money.
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Why can't they quit layoffs?
Same reason?
Someone posted a video in another comment section a while ago and I found it really informative:
And yes, capitalism and greed.
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Can't? No, they 100% can but they choose not to because greed.
CNBC is corpo propaganda...
Cant walk away from easy money.
Might be controversial but I wouldn't mind AAA studios having one live service MTX heavy game that they use to fund their company. Costs seem to be insane right now. But they never seem to use the money to create new experiences, and neither will they stop at putting it in just one game.
The line must go up. Forever. Infinitely.
The goal of AAA companies isn't to sell games, it's not even to sell MTX, it's to sell the idea that they're a perpetual profit engine to the stock market.