They do when the shareholders investment funds the start of development. You can imagine how their thoughts change when the shareholders decide it's not profitable enough and shut down the company
Shareholder + Capitalism = Corporate Socialism. The globalists invented “shareholder capitalism” by putting communistic fascistic feudalist elements into it and called it capitalism. This is about gobbling up money and control while hiding behind the face of “everyone will be happy” Or… “You’ll own nothing and you will be happy.” - WEF
This gets to the other side of the coin though. The tools for making high quality games have become better and better over the last few years, so we are seeing a lot of that experimentation going on there. The difference in gameplay between a million dollar game and a 100 million dollar game has shrunk to nothing..... so in many ways it is a golden era if you just want to play games.
@@factorfitness3713 hire good lawyers, make sure whatever investment agreement has a path to survival if the investor's interests no longer align with the company.
Admirable sentiment, except for the fact that the guy who said that was an anarchist and an environmentalist, essentially the worst policies that can happen to industrial development are advocated by his lot. Growth for Growths sake is how society developed from preindustrial feudal setup to a position where half the world population isn't dying from fever, dysentery or starvation. This kind of parasitic sentimentalism is most prevalent amongst activist types. Productivity increases growth And wages Should keep up with productivity, it's when the latter fails that resentment flourishes along with the kind of m0r0nic ideals peddled by the people in the comment section.
@@t.s.d.1376Industrialisation has brought many bad things and good. I could see the benefit of it's theoretical disassembly from an anarchist/environmealist perspective. Things need balance and I don't think it's wrong to include others with different views which could bring new and improved ideas to the table. We have to somehow deal with this growth which benefits few and inhibits the prime condition of a system built up of all of us looking for happiness, security, safety.
@@t.s.d.1376 thats the idea behind modern capitalism though. if a company fails to profit and/or grow, they fail, although there is no need or requirement for growth. Capitalism makes business owners behave as a cancer cell, and then turns away as cancer destroys society
I’m a veterinarian who owned her own practice for over thirty years. During that time, I’ve watched private equity buy out single-owner practices more and more, to the point that only three practices in my county are not corporate-owned. They buy animal hospitals, fire most of the staff, raise prices, and don’t care how many animals now cannot get good care because they can’t afford it. It took years of planning and my willingness to take a few hundred thousand dollars less than Corporate offered me in order to be able to sell my animal hospital to an associate vet who started at our place as a teenage volunteer and joined our practice years later as a doctor. But, there are too many owners who cannot turn down what private equity people offer.
@@kristophermichaud4467 Interesting that you assume I’m a man, though, especially since I said in the original comment that I’m a woman. Or is that part of the sarcasm? I can’t even keep track anymore.
@@jessejamez5985it's just the natural progression of capitalism to get worse and worse and to consolidate wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands because they are incentivized to do so, anything and everything becomes legal the more money you have, so why wouldn't you use that money to break bend and rewrite the rules and get more money?
@@jessejamez5985 That's not failed capitalism. That's highly successful capitalism rapidly approaching its endgame. You might even call it late stage capitalism.
This has been the pattern that has been plaguing US industries for decades. Focusing on shareholder short term profits only, has been dragging down the viability of most sectors in the long term.
I read that it used to be that companies reinvested so much the shareholders had to sue to get their cut. Now the focus is exclusively shareholder even over the company's health.
@@Smethells2023it's not the end result of capitalism. A lot of it has to do with the government allowing too much consolidation. The big question no one asks is where did the companies get the money to buy up their competitors. The answer is the federal reserve. Inflation isn't rising prices, but an expansion of the money supply. Big banks and their customers get access to money before the rising prices happen. They buy up their competitors at low interest rates and then pay the money back with devalued dollars. This leads to consolidation which of course allows companies to be less competitive.
@@PrettyGuardian I'm not. Capital is excess time/labor/productivity. Capitalism is the system where individuals control the capital. It's important to understand that money is a representation of time/labor/productivity. When the federal reserve creates money they are essentially saying this made up thing is equal in value to the labor of the people. That's not capitalism it's theft and it dilutes the value of the labor. In short printing money devalues labor. Reducing the supply of money increases the value of labor.
It represents a fundamental change in the way the stock market works. It used to be a place for long-term investment. Investors made their money by collecting regular dividends. Now, the stock market is a casino, and investors make their money by holding stocks for only a short tine before selling them at a profit..
I have a hard time believing CEOs and shareholders even have souls. Let alone the people who speak FOR those money-grubbers. You ever seen Bobby Kotick talk? Dude is literally the exact type of “bug-eyed salamander” Bo Burnham was talking about. Not just Zuck.
I was working on a kids educational game for the Ipad a long time ago that had a cute little racing feature . It was cute but that's it . I'll never forget the day the CEO ( who was absolutely not a gamer) came in, saw a near final version of the races , and excitedly and genuinely proclaimed " WE'RE GOING TO BE THE GRAN TURISMO OF ANIMAL RACING!!! ". He seiously thought we'd kick off a major line of animal racing games when it as just a neat minigame we implemented into the game but if it was up to him we'd be on Animal Racers 7 .
Capitalism is based on exploitation ...and mericans think it's freedom . Brainwashed from birth It's a slaver system , we do all the work and the rich get the profit...AND ITS ALWAYS BEEN THAT WAY !!
Yeah, but at least give some credit where it's due. The management class has to staff the company, manage the logistics, and most importantly, keep the money coming in so they can pay the workers to work. It's not nearly as easy as people think. Personally, I respect the hell out of game companies that are run by gamers and former developers, but that's not reality in most of the industry because running a business is its own skill set and it's very different from the artistic and technical side of making a great game.
I genuinely don’t understand how “buy a company to then fire the workers and close the project” is even legal and normal. Corporations should be liable for that stuff. It’s totally leads to monopolies, worse conditions for workers and worse products for consumers.
Same thing with movies. “I’m an investor. I want to invest $10M in a product and I want $25M back. Therefore the product needs to have all the features consumers like according to market research. And avoid anything controversial that may lose consumers. So we will create shiny, meaningless fluff and market it heavily.”
@@NothingIsKnown00 I mean it is what consumers want though lol If it wasn't then we wouldn't be getting this garbage anymore. You have to understand that these companies need to make a profit and they can only do tht if you buy their garbage. Unfortunately, most consumers enjoy the microtransactions, the paywalls and the pre-orders because gamers have massive egos
"Companies don't want to make money. They want to make ALL of the money. This is why you'll see layoffs and cutbacks no matter how successful a company is. The more they make, the more they expect, and they'll gut anyone to get it." - James Stephanie Sterling
@@thej3799 I started following their content about a decade ago when they were primarily a game reviewer, and while they still do that to a degree, their videos over the past few years are more about addressing issues with the gaming industry as a whole, especially in corporate "AAA" spaces. They're also an indie pro wrestler!
Best solution is for companies to use AI to train off of employees work so that games can be developed better with less workers working less hours. Then these developers can be able to do productive things in the economy instead of making children games
Blame the Supreme Court. In Dodge vs Ford Motor Co they made the ruling that publically held companies must put the interests of shareholders over employees, customers and the community.
@@2avcrm "My ambition is to employ still more men, to spread the benefits of this industrial system to the greatest possible number, to help them build up their lives and their homes. To do this we are putting the greatest share of our profits back in the business." - Henry Ford 1916.... Russell C. Ostrander argued that "this company was in business for profit, Ford could not turn it into a charity. "... paying employees and making customers pay less is considered charity...
Maybe Microsoft shouldn't have spent 75 billion on buying Activision/blizzard. They said the same bs oh this is good for us and will allow us to be more competitive while paying our workers Then they proceed to axe 3 studios that had highly successful games. These monopolies are complete trash.
@@tyeekessaris4682 who wouldn't feel the same about sony? Not a fan boy, I work in games. They closed Arkane Studios, Tango Gameworks, and Axed a massive chunk of people from Bethesda. Before the closures of these studios and mass firings microsoft said we need more award winning games all 3 of these studios gave them this. Hell Hi -Fi Rush from Tango Gamesworks won them a Game Award, Developers Choice Award and a freaking BAFTA.
Former game designer here. After 7 years in game development, I left. I was so tired of companies' greed and really low salaries. Companies only want money, not to build a great game with immersive gameplay and a strong community.
@@NighttimeJuneau Move to UX field temporarily, but want to go to finance sector. I just realized I want to have some money for my family and save more for retirement because I don't trust our government (I'm in the EU). Yes, this is hard, but unfortunately, circumstances are stronger than my wishes.
Btw seeing as you want to move to finance, you should know tht Is a lot more stressful and although the pay isn't bad and more reliable, you won't ever be paid as much as you could be paid as a game developer unless you become a CFO.
The industry is being pushed forward by indie devs. AAA gaming is at an all time low, but at the same time indies are experiencing a bit of a renaissance. You can REALLY tell the difference as a player when devs are allowed to fully realize their vision
Rainworld does that for me. It's a game no pure corporate AAA studio would ever consider because it's difficult and frustrating, and its art style is unusual and non-commercial, as is the game play. But you can feel the attention and soul that was spent making it.
They don't care about the developers, they only want the IPs. Ironically, those IPs became popular because of the developers; without them, they are nothing.
They aren't buying talent, they are buying IP and product name recognition. And for some reason, so many consumers want to buy the same game 20+ times in a row like CoD or Battlefield. Each year that the new (old) game comes out, for some reason people want to pay another 60 dollars +microtransactions. Shareholders are a problem but it is also the consumers that are funding this slop model. Stop buying this slop of infinite sequels with microtransactions and start supporting more indi game devs.
We all remember the studio shutdowns Microsoft did, despite the fact Hi-Fi Rush was a success and one a game award, they still shut down the studio. I don't if anyone who watches and read comments will agree, but there is a reason many gaming channels are saying Nintendo has won the console war. And let us not forget what Satoru Iwata did during the Wii U era, where he took a pay cut to help pay for employee salaries. Do you think Phil Spencer will do that?
Something that needs to be pointed out with Nintendo's executive pay cuts, in Japan, their labor laws make it extremely hard to lay off workers, so you end up with executive pay cuts instead.
@@BigOnAnime94thank you for saying this. American corporate sector is just not a good environment for game making beyond small companies (former Blizzard, obsidian, etc.)
@@Woozy.0 Yeah, it's terrible. Stronger labor laws would go a long way, as well as unions. I learned about Japan's stronger labor laws thanks to a video Good Vibes Gaming put out months back. For Japanese companies, their American subsidaries had layoffs, but not the Japanese ones. The difference strong labor laws that favor the workers make.
We also have to remember that Nintendo is extremely litigious against any projects to preserve legacy Nintendo code and software to the point that any fan games of Pokémon get attacked by Nintendo even if they're never going to sell and never on a Nintendo hardware
Even with more than 6 decades shorter of a history than cinema, and 2 to 3 decades shorter than television, gaming has a long and storied history of studios, developers, and for lack of a better word, maestros.
Investors aren’t in it to create wealth. Hell, they’re not in it to even make wealth… They’re only in it to accumulate power so they can feel important, when they actually have no redeemable attributes that makes them important.
Investment is actually the way most businesses get funded and can be a great resource for bringing a product to market. The problem is when the people who funded your product choose their agenda over the development of your product as the priority. Now, your product is not what it promised, but a lesser version of itself. That is why we are seeing a failure of products, not just in the gaming industry, but in all businesses where these investment firms are active.
Don’t buy Elden ring DLC, don’t buy Baldur’s gate 3, don’t buy stalker 2, don’t buy Alan wake 2, don’t buy anything from CDPR… Acting like every AAA games are bad is just ridiculous
The problem with independent games is that they never attract a large player base. Its fine for rimworld for example but when you want to play sw: bf2 youll never get the full experience with bots
Former industry employee that was laid off here. If your dream involves working for someone else, don't chase it. Don't follow your dreams. Because they will exploit you and your passion. Better to change your dream.
My dream isn’t to work for someone else. Mine is to be a masterful character artist who expands his own brand and business which belongs solely to himself. I’m forced to work for someone else by voices not my own.
Hey, question, is Unity still the best option for indie devs? I don't want to have to let Matt Bromberg fuck my mom every time someone downloads my game.
@@alphastratus6623Thing is, they will eventually reach all industries. The ones that are not affected are probably too small right now, but they will be reached eventually
don't pre-order games. wait until a game releases, listen to reviewers (while avoiding spoilers if you care about that) and don't get caught up in the hype. Buy indie games and reward good industry behavior
I've been doing that for a few years; I buy most of the games on Sales a few months (or even years) after release (unless they are cheap since release).
Yeah, never understood that shit, unless you are a content creator you don't need to play the game day 1, especially since it's a digital product, it will never run out. The only games that make some sense to play day 1 are multiplayer stuff, and MMO expansions, and in the case of expansions only if you want to profit of any exploit that slip past the devs, or you care about "worlds first" and stuff like that.
@@dvoiceotruth Late capitalism and corporatism is designed to alienate when the accountants and exploiting executives take control of all your hard labor to the point that common consensus ties "most rich person" = "Most hard working person". Oh... wait... Look at Elon Musk. He LOVES taking credit for things he didn't do - in fact, it's how his "brand" works.
@@grzyruth9205 Of course it's hard to do. Otherwise, it would be the normal way of doing business. But as the video pointed out, there's a sudden influx of talent needing a job, and you, yes you, could be that employer!
This is my plan. If anyone wants to follow what I’m doing I’m about to release mostly all my indie games completely free to play, and launch my brand with merch for support my work instead of in game purchases. I’m doing everything privately, just like I have with my music
The Hardware industry has also been appalling for health of "The Gaming Industry". Price gouging and rebadging old stuff as new and poor QA has left a bad taste in the mouths of those who're informed, which affects the enthusiasts and influencers, which filters out further.
It’s not just this industry. Fast food industry is going through the same thing, investors making bets that covid sales would continue. People used food and entertainment to cope. Now they will go back to old patterns
I watched another video exposing this problem. Their main point was that the corporate side expected extreme monetary success on every project, like gaining 20x or 100x the money spent on development, not just above 1x, which is all that's necessary to keep a studio going. If they didn't meet those absolute supremacist predation numbers, and just gained even something like x5, the studios were closed. The corporate side is expecting Genshin Impact levels of constant extreme success (which is only "successful" because it syphons as much money as possible from it's players in return for the most worthless reward possible, like 0 desirable characters for 100 dollars). It is truly an abomination, it is destroying the *ENTIRE* industry in search of the single most profitable, most abusive, most worthless studio, leaving nothing but dust all around. That's not what art is, not what preferences are, not what games are, and that's beyond boring. There's supposed to be diversity in art, genres, art styles, narrative, not the same garbage over and over again with literally no alternative, that's a monopoly's nightmare, sheep that eat the same grass and never complain. It really is societally cannibalistic lunacy, the consumption of the world, simply for the purpose of increasing a number. These corporations shouldn't have billions of dollars and shouldn't fuel economies in the most destructive way possible, they should be playing cookie clicker in jail for trying to destroy the world for their benefit.
We're trying but it's difficult, especially as there are decent enough swaths of people and disciplines that are surprisingly against (or at least, passively neutral to) unions. Part it comes from the Silicon Valley individualism/meritocracy/etc mentality. Edit: I might add that many, if not most, of the current game unions tend to be focused around QA who are historically the most at-risk.
@@PhotonBeast It's why the west coast liberal and the east coast liberal aren't the same. One is more collectivist than the other. Silicon Valley types are only liberal on the Internet.
@@PhotonBeastAs a construction worker with software developer friends, I've noticed that software development is very similar to construction. Look at those trade unions for ways to adapt, not at unions tied to specific workplaces.
@@PhotonBeast hey since you know people gaming industry I got couple question I like to ask. How many of you guys heard of GODOT since is 3D game engine that you can download for free on steam and how many you are unable to become independent (indie) developers due to non compete agreement.
@@PhotonBeast how many game developers do you know have heard game engine GODOT as when I decided look into being independent (indie) game developer it seem like to be only free one that I know of for 3D games.
as somone that was affected by the embracer group layoffs, I'm here for the embracer slander. I haven't been in the AAA industry long but I'm already so fucking exhausted, Id love nothing more then to go indie someday but there's even less job security there, My goal is to get experience in the industry that I can then take into the indie scene later in life
@@AttenuatedNecronym applying your stereotypes of a cringe discord mod to everyone that's a mod is pretty stupid and in fact, does not make it true, as another reply said they're basically doing customer service for a studio and publisher for free, they should be honored in some way
The Saints Row reboot being a total and utter failure had nothing to do with Embracer, it was squarely on the developers being weirdos making games for other weirdos who don't even like games, although they did drag other studios down with them because Embracer owned them all.
@@paranoidpanzerpenguin5262 an Extremly broad and naive assesment considering thats the game I worked on and was my first gig in the industry, and I can say for sure thats NOT what happened. Volition was an extremely mismanaged studio, development was a mess, boiling it down to "yea these hundreds of people that all worked on the game are weirdos that don't like or play games" is extremely naive. If I had to boil it down to ONE thing, it would probably be management as a whole, Volition doesn't have game directors, The job of a game director is someone that keeps the game moving towards a specific vision, they get the final say in everything, without a game director you run into issues where individual teams and people kinda just do their own things which resulted in a lot of mismatched ideas and half baked things that don't really mesh well together at all. Considering the story itself, I think the main problem with it was the fact that a lot of people at volition where tired of saints row and didnt want to work on it anymore, a lot of these people have spent most of their career working on saints row and wanted to do something else but where forced to make a game they didnt want because SR was the companies cash cow, I think every big thing that the fans hated can be tied back to that in one way or another, some attempt from people at volition to do something different while still at the end of the day being forced to make a sr game. and I don't think thats healthy. I think a game director unifying the vision for the game and steering everyone towards what makes a SR game a SR game would have gone a long way to kept those visions from straying away. Pretty much everyone has their own opinions on what a game should be or what they want to make, you need someone to keep people on coarse or else the game ends up becoming a mess. And this goes for all games, not just saints row, Poor management and communication of ideas will kill any game. Theres a lot of other company wide logistical issues in how things where managed, bleeding staff, and drama with deep silver and a former writer that all had massive implications on the game as well that all lead to the final product, generalizing it into "the devs are weirdos" is such a bad faith assessment. at the end of the day, volition wasn't closed because of saints row, Saints row did better financially then most people online would assume and volition was gearing up to work on something new, we where only laid off after the deal with the saudis fell through and embracer realized they didn't have the money to keep a lot of studios afloat anymore. If SR did really well would volition still would of been closed? probably not, we wouldn't of been lower on the chopping block if that's the case, but if the deal went through 100% volition would still be alive and kicking. Considering the fact that gearbox was put up for sale within weeks of volition being closed as well and at that time volition was under gearbox there was talks of why volition wasn't just sold off with gearbox, and its speculated that embracer closed volition to make their bottom line look better in the short term for the shareholders rather then waiting out a bit longer and selling us off with gearbox for a higher price. at the end of the day its just greed.
@@fortheloveofnoise China has also made the repair parts market into a compete shithole of fake crap. Even name brand stuff isn't a sure thing anymore.
Talked to a few people that were involved with some of the acquisitions by Embracer, specifically. That guy running Embracer was really just a billionaire who "liked collecting cool things" and wanted to "collect" companies he thought were "cool". Literally no greater strategy at the top of Embracer than that. So its collapse was inevitable. F'ing crazy.
@@PaulGuy Gabe is getting up there in years. Who knows what will happen when he passes, and whoever inherits the company might have a different vision. Unless...... and hear me out, he chooses his heir Willy Wonka style. Giving out a "golden ticket" to the Bellevue office through cosmetic purchases in TF2.
Doesn't matter to them, they'll maximize short term profits and then get a golden parachute out when the company is about to implode. Then get hired elsewhere.
CEO turnover has increased too. If you can make such gobs of money in five years that you are financially independent, you don't need to care what happens on year seven.
Reminds me of companies that use applicant-tracking systems that auto-reject in some cases the majority of applicants, including qualified ones, all for the sake of "efficiency". So many companies use it, and yet so many complain about people being unemployed.
As someone who's been following the games industry a lot closer then most of my friends, I'd love to see more videos and coverage on the industry like this.
I’m an avid gamer and I’ve never even heard of half of these groups. Finding out Take-Two AND EA are owned by an even bigger entity is like finding out that Oryx was coming to avenge Crota in Destiny 1. I don’t use that comparison for nothing: They both gain power through exploiting everyone that isn’t them: Power is gained from killing & pillaging whole civilizations, and then it gets cycled up from thrall to acolytes to knights… all the way up to Oryx, Savathun, & Xivu Arath themselves.
It's also like Team Fortress 2, where RED and BLU, the two conglomerates that each rule half the world, are themselves subsidiaries of Mann Co., which is ITSELF a subsidiary of the ultimate MegaCorp, TF Industries, which rules the entire world in secret through all of those subsidiaries.
The games industry has been a cesspool for a looong time. Games are sold for higher than ever, unfinished, stripped of features left out for DLC sales, live service pay to win junk, now they're going all digital so you don't really own it and can't sell it once you buy it...i quit playing along to the game industry years ago.
"Our goal is to maximize shareholder value in any given situation" The next time you're defending capitalism simply because it's the only thing you've ever known, ask yourself if THIS is how you truly believe our society should be structured.
Just because the capitalism has taoen a bad turn doesnt mean capitalism isnt good goffball. We wouldnt have had any of the good times in gaming or movies or anything if it wasnt for capitalism. So sick of you stupid children. You dont know what you're talking about. We wouldnt have any video games at all if it werent for people with a dream to make art and money at the same time.
"The next time you're defending *communism* simply because it's the only thing you've ever known, ask yourself if THIS is how you truly believe our society should be structured." Easy fix.
Everyone, including the fans, hated the game SO much. It was disgusting to see the level of vitriol. Embracer sucks but let's remember what happened there. It was brutal.
Remember the ending of Saint's Row 2? It's not politically correct to make a corporation, and it's CEO the villain.. because Blackrock, Vanguard, and other conglomerates are who own the world. 💯
New Saints Row wasn’t even that bad if you took it as a “how do you do fellow kids?” thing and just laughed at all the stupid and weird creative decisions. Gameplay wasn’t all that different from SR 2-3 and the character creator was pretty impressively detailed. It’s a solid 6-7/10 game tbh, get it as cheap as you can and adjust your expectations properly and you’ll have a fun few hours.
This is the exact thing the whole "antiwoke" people are obfuscating by focusing on something that doesn't matter. This here is the real issue. The rest is only a symptom.
@@jaspermay5813For example: Things like the Killmonger haircut or the complete disappearance of conventionally attractive women in gaming, especially when Sweet Baby Games is involved. The anti-woke crowd is focusing on those and blaming the fall of gaming on them while completely glossing over corporate greed and SBG's toxic work culture.
What I find funny is what if the stuff the antiwoke crowd was used as a means for them to complain about that we all focus on them while these big companies slip something while we were focused on what the antiwoke talks about. Like they could rail about something that we pay to attention to them and make our own takes at them while a big company slips something in that actually does hurt everyone but the shareholders.
It’s both, actually. At its core, “woke” is a cynical commodification and convenient refocusing of the desire to rebel. Can’t Occupy Wall St anymore, but Wall St will happily finance your movement to “Decolonize Columbus” because it poses zero threat to them and further divides any solidarity. And before you reflexively decide I’m some reactionary, consider the response to Oct 7 protests which in many ways did threaten the same financiers behind “woke”. The instant you’re a threat, you’re suddenly not stunning and brave
Sure, because capitalism made Spider-Man 2 a rainbow narrative garbage, Suicide Squad killing the male JL members the most humiliating way and so much more garbage.
I hate to break it to you, TH-cam does the same. You're mixing capitalism with crony corporatism, like every socialist that doesn't understand economics.
For gods sake can we stop naming companies and just name the idiots who are making these decisions directly? Don’t like Activision Blizzard? Call out Bobby Kotick, he’s in charge. Don’t let Bobby Kotick keep getting away with his practices he keeps letting the made up entity Activision Blizzard take the blame for.
Bobby ko tick isn’t only person making that decision and matter fact companies like McKinsey and Co push idea of layoff as proper company thing to other companies which increase number of layoffs.
@@skylerlightning4620 every company has internal leadership. That means humans with names are making decisions. Just because other external forces suggest bad practices doesn’t make the decision makers any less responsible. This is a productive line of thought. So, if the CEO Bobby K isn’t calling the shots for Blizzard who is? Your ability to call out my ignorance is proof you’re somone who’s capable and worth learning from.
@@Mustachioed_Mollusk No because the idiots making these decisions are just as replaceable as everyone else. The only difference is that they get paid after they take the fall for said decisions.
They’re monopolizing the video game industry, which is going to lead to a shit load of shitty games and an increase in investment gains. We will be paying ever increasing costs and get ever decreasing quality. It happens in every industry.
I’ve been saying it for a minute now. Indy game developers really need to consider becoming worker cooperatives. 1 More incentive to put in better quality work since the money made will be split more evenly for their labor and there won’t be an outside factor that pushes them to rush an unfinished product, 2 developer/workers have more say since the org is akin to a democracy with chosen leaders from their own ranks or previous bosses who they could trust, who can’t make decisions for the org without a vote from the developers. 3 way more worker involvement in day to day company operations since they have more power and representation within a cooperative than in a corporation where you only focus on your position and nothing more. A cooperative set up like that would be a godsend on game quality and working conditions since it’s the developers who have more power and say so on how they implement their innovation and creativity in their projects.
This is definitely happening, the biggest problem is getting funding at the start, paying even a small team for the time it takes to make a game can easily cost hundreds of thousands and you're not getting that much money without steep requirements from the publishers or infesters paying that. So for small studios unless you're already successful it's often a choice of working for a very low wage or even free and having a part time job to pay the bills or having to deal with investors.
There is at least another computer based industry where it is happening. Surprisingly, many people don't have an eye for quality to know what's going on behind the scenes.
Nah. It's capitalism when you have things like money market funds, where the stockholders care nothing about the long-term value of the company they own majority control of.
Reason why Nintendo's Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and FromSoftware's Elden Ring retained their workers (and was also HIRING workers) is because they aren't a part of the American game developers plagued with greedy shareholders with no care for the quality of games. They are Japanese developers who do care about what they make. It's crazy what's been going on specifically in the U.S.. This doesn't include the fact that the unsustainable AAA gaming model is also contributing to it's destruction, but companies like Nintendo saw that issue coming 20 years ago and are avoiding being a part of that incoming catastrophe.
It's kind of crazy because Japan was originally known for being where game developers are treated more cruelly. Working such crazy hours that they sleep under their desks...but here everyone gets fired.
I think you are simplifying it. Nintendo is relentlessly profit driven and they exploit people. The difference is that Nintendo has an established market presence and experience enough to know that they will make more money in the long run if they have good quality. It is not any pure passion for art... It is a case of consolidation that also has pitfalls: they charge a lot for their games, they are so huge and well established it is virtually impossible to compete, etc, etc. Sure their business model is better than short term ROI driven stuff, but it is still far from perfect. None of that has to do with country... both places live under capitalism, with very bad labour protection.
@@haruhisuzumiya6650 As I said, they learnt what is more profitable. And they can "afford" to do it because they have a more or less unique position in the market due to reputation and fan base. That, however, does not prevent them from releasing awful games with outdated techniques and hardware, especially coming out of third party studios they exploit and press - a quick look at the library of games of the Switch will show that. The market cannot be made of a bunch of Nintendos, also because Nintendo won the competition in their niche (and eliminated their competitors) - think of Sega, for example. Competitions presuppose winners, and winners use their advantage to end competition - that is an issue with capitalism. Moreover, Nintendo's "x-factor" is there precisely because the business model described in this video exists.
@@00Platypus00your reply doesnt even address what the OP said, really felt like you just didnt want nintendo to get a good light. Next time breath, read what has been said and write a proper response
So you want overworked people who are paid less to work more? And you want rushed games? People pushed to the brink by executives that know NOtHiNG about games, who then fire half their team once a project is done? This is the same flawed assumption that anyone advocating for workers rights has to deal with. This idea that we succumb to some fantasy communist takeover the instant we make companies care about anything besides money. It's absurd. Maximizing shareholder value does NOT mean better products. It means making people DO MORE with LESS HELP. It means FIRING STAFF and overworking the rest. It means CHARGING MORE FOR THE SAME PRODUCTS. Making better products is the SLOWEST way to maximizing shareholder value. You do it by BUYING UP, FIRING AND DOWNSIZING, CHARGING MORE FOR THE SAME, MAKING MORE ADS (not better products), and then **STOCK BUYBACKS** on all the money you make. All that can be done in just a tiny fraction of the time it takes to make a good product.
This has been a problem in games for a long time. It just got REALLY bad lately. It's why, as a programmer, I abandoned any dreams of getting into games before I even started. I am SO excited for the union push. A strong union could have put me into games twenty years ago.
Games like anything else under capitalism just become a vessel for speculative investment. And the only goal of games companies becomes not making video games, but making money. With that shift goes all incentives for creativity, originality, and quality control. Then the goal just becomes to emulate other games that have done well, to make everything as cheaply and (almost more importantly) quickly as possible. Making a good game that sells well isn’t enough. You always have to be making new games that sell more than the old ones, receive better reviews, and have more influence on culture, cause that’s what capitalism really cares about, growth for growths sake.
I don't think it's capitalism. It's mutual funds. The stock market where companies have products that are "how much can we extract from other companies in the short term" are the primary problem.
@@PlazDreamweaver I find that acceptable because the alternatives have killed so many people. I'm not defending capitalism. I'm pointing out that the alternatives we know of are far worse.
Those 3 businessman looked like people I would never want near my games. We need to figure out how to keep games in the hands of people who care about games. (I get that I'm judging a book by the cover, but if I was betting on it, I'd say they don't give 2 shits about games besides the money it can bring)
Thank you to the developers who spoke up with their name and faces shown here. It takes a lot of courage at risk of hiring companies and the ire of video game fans who just want to hate
But you can have a capitalist system that doesn’t lead to corruption and corporate greed. You CAN have that. I believe I saw a brief glimpse of it when I was born in the mid early 2000’s, but who knows if that’s real.
Greedy Baby Inc necked themselves, the endless credit of DEI isn't endless. It killed Arkane and Volition, proper money managing isn't a joke. The Clowns saying it's Capitalism need a reality check and a course in business money management 101, than people being forced to listen to their bad regurgitating of Marxist theory, that helps no one.
Video games are art. Capitalism hates art. Shareholders and executives hate art. But they like products. And soon thats all AAA games will be going forward
@@brian.phillips1985you guys sometimes act like USSR was a heaven on earth. I can assure you it was furthest away from it. In terms of art too. And some good things came out of it mostly by accident or in moments when east had to open a bit for the west
*Appreciate your videos! I’m 54 and younger generations should know there’s no shortcut to acquiring wealth, but there are ways to go about it. Fellow millionaires don’t tell the poor/middle class they need the knowledge of finance coaches to help build their wealth. If anyone here needs a good coach, here’s it..*
What they don't realize is that people don't play videogames for a living, we play them to escape life, so if they make it too hard or shit to play, then we won't buy their product.
Unions aren't the only answer, the examples you used to show it doesn't have to be like this were from Japan. Japan has much stricter labour laws, where a company must prove it was under an existential threat before they can do any mass layoffs. This doesn't just protect workers, but creates a culture of longevity where you might not do a mass hiring during the pandemic because it was understandably a situation that would come to pass. Japan still has shareholder capitalism, but it's stricter laws protect the workers and force the companies to run more sustainable business practices.
Japan does not have shareholder capitalism btw. No country does. You should look up what tht is lol. Just because there are shareholders, doesnt make it shareholder capitalism lmao
Wait, are you telling me that infinite growth is not possible???? that capitalism does not work???? Nobody could've guessed. By the way, this is not something exclusive of the video-game industry, just name an aero-space company that shows the same symptoms (hint: it begins with "Boe" and ends with "ing")
What a silly take. Capitalism works and the concept of infinite growth (within reason) is viable as there's always the potential for more sales, what doesn't work are unsustainable strategies that place profit ahead of value. AAA studios have forgotten that this is a two-way system and are trying to turn consumers into cattle, and it's exactly why we're heading for an industry crash.
Just as an important tip to anyone in or around the industry: *Crunching does not increase productivity!* even for a day or two, the reduction in morale and productivity will fall below what is compensated by the increase in hours. If your management is forcing you to crunch, they are either *a)* incompetent and don't know how to manage teams (let alone creative teams) or worse *b)* are doing it for the point of cruelty, possibly as a means of venting their frustration with the realities of development. Doubly so if they see games as just another commodity they can churn as product like potato chips or stamped-steel sprockets.
Game companies, and more specifically, game publishers, don't want games to be marketed or sold like in the 1990s: Buy one copy, keep it forever as long as you have the hardware to run it, share it with a friend to build hype and motivate him to buy a copy. I remember "spawning" being a thing for Blizzard titles like Warcraft 2 or Starcraft. Today, like Adobe and Autodesk, publishers want to lock gamers into a _subscription._ Continuous revenue, earnings growth, happy shareholders who don't sue at a slight fluctuation of profit. They don't want games to be shared or resold, so they tack on DRM in the name of "stopping piracy and cheating", locking out players if the DRM software doesn't like their system for some reason. Remember, folks, _locking down software is an attack on honest users._ People who fly the Jolly Roger online don't care about DRM because they're running a build that patched that stuff out. So the next logical step is to require every single game in the publisher's library to phone home to a server to _prove_ that they're not committing copyright infringement because in corporate America, customers are presumed guilty before proven innocent, if they're even given a chance to argue their case at all. Well, like many things in economics, even subscription games have diminishing returns. We tend to play the latest and greatest (and most expensive) games, leaving us with less time to play older titles, meaning it's harder to justify punching in the credit card details for that microtransaction or even to keep that subscription going. So that global network of server instances designed to somehow prove a customer isn't a dirty rotten thief starts costing more money to maintain and support than the income from the subscription. Accountants don't like that, management gets spooked, the game is canceled no matter how many hundreds of thousands of players they had daily. And the best part: Even if you manage to save your copy of that now-abandoned game from the bit bucket, there's no way you can legitimately play it because the server it phones home to no longer exists. And now that all that support infrastructure is no longer needed, the IT staff keeping the lights on and the developers who squashed bugs up to this point are now laid off. It's never been about the customer/user. It's always been about the shareholder, the owner class. And the market was overdue for a correction.
I feel like if we want good games in our favourite franchises, the only way to do it is to come together as a community and purchase the intellectual property rights, then fund the studio through a Patreon-esque donation system, so that people are paid to make good games, not chase profits.
I think especially for indie games this could work. But unfortunately crowdfunding games have an extremely bad rep for good reasons. Then we end up in a situation where the good ones lost their IPs to unethical investors.
That's what we're trying to have done for Tiger Grounds Studios. We have a patreon if you want to be an early supporter. We also have an IG page we post our smaller projects to. We have a game, a film, and a book in the works atm. I'm heading our game dev team.
Wokeness and capitalism are destroying pc and console games in different aspects. One instead of giving an option of variety, forces is down our throats (gay, black (in reality non-samurai) Yasuke ac shadows). Other is censoring games (in order to make investments safer from controversy) and making games similar to slot/money machines of mobile games so players can "enjoy" that unreal grinding mechanics even on 60$+ game or pay additional money to have a more normal progress. So, in essence, players are currently more often punished for playing a new game than rewarded, and that is the reason why we are returning to older games we own. I simply do not want to pay 60$ for a game that feels like any progress is unnecessary grindy, and on top of it was censored to not even accidetly offend anybody. I will play a game that doesn't feel like a scam which I most likely alredy own or can buy for 5$ because it's old, which is also a reason why the AAA gaming industry economically suffers. Truth to be told, a lot of modern games are simply too bad to even consider purchase. I bought ac origins, and it was meh. After that, oddysey and valhalla and booth were meh. (Story wise, ok, gameplay much, much worse than ac2). So when I heard that ac shadows would be not just grindy and repetitive, but also woke, it's just too much to buy this.
@@digiryde I’m already going to wait forever after it’s release for GTA 6 to be discounted and everyone thinks I’m crazy for not getting the hype. I understand the hype, I’m just not personally exited for the game. I was more excited for GTA 6 before it was announced, back when Rockstar’s reputation was rock-solid. After the way they butchered GTA Online and are bound to double down on monetization for GTA 6’s Online (just look at RDR2 Online to confirm) I have trust that it will be a good game. I don’t trust Rockstar, they last they released a full title was RDR2 and a LOT has changed since then and Rockstar has had more than a few moments of bullshit-ery to have me skeptical. They’re going to have GTA Plus for GTA 6 and I can only imagine what they’re going to lock behind a paywall. I literally haven’t even watch the trailer for the game. I don’t intend to. Rockstar is more than welcome to prove me wrong but I know better than to put my faith in some faceless corporation. As far as GTA 6 goes, I could not care less. Even Naughty Dog managed to ruin their reputation. Another company with a rock-solid portfolio that went down the drain after a bunch of short-sighted decisions. I will NEVER pre-order a game again, that’s just begging for the game to come out unfinished. The corpos already made their bag, why finish something that’s already sold?
So I agree it’s greed but it’s also driven by ideology of the writers themselves. Games used to be about having fun and even when your losing it’s about having fun but now it’s about chasing the latest fad and making strong female protagonist for the sake of saying that the game has a strong female protagonist. Why not just go back to basics make a game that is fun for the sake of being fun rather than for greed or for social justice?
The issue isn't capitalism - not to say it's perfect -, the issue is the a fundamental degradation and dismantling of the underlying elements which make voluntary trade function. As a civilization, we in the West, have basically spent the last 100 years tearing apart and discarding all the things that made us great. Systems capitalism don't just "work" in a vacuum, they require high trust societies with high moral standards. It's kinda funny that people say some variation of "capitalism is to blame" with a straight face when every Western country has a mix economy with tendencies tread into the socialist. We are, objectively, less capitalist than we were even two decades ago.
Gaming isnt dying lol If it were dead there wouldnt be so many microtransactions. It's just thriving in a way tht gamers of old don't enjoy seeing 😂 All capitlism has done has realised that hey these consumers/gamers have massive egos and would do anything to be ahead of their peers so lets give them tht opportunity by making them pay for it lmfao Ofc outside the microtransactions, games can keep being launched broken because of preorders and updates to fix the mess after the hype was sold into. As for the games get canceled, nobody cares other than a niche audience that would never make the game reach desired profit margins. The market will only ever shift when consumers decide they've had enough and as the market is predominantly kids and mobile gaming, thts just a faded dream
@@zerog1037 Yeah, I think gamers are a consumer group, not a community. And like other unorganized consumer groups they have a vastly inflated sense of individual importance.
this is why i decided to become an indie game dev. I felt like , If we want games made with passion instead of ruined by greed, we gotta make them ourselves. Cause gamers just have no tolerance for corporate bs ruining their games. And I am so thankful, I'm loving it. I feel like it's the dawn of an indie game renaissance
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Has anyone ever said: “thank god these shareholders were here to make everyone’s lives better.?”
They do when the shareholders investment funds the start of development. You can imagine how their thoughts change when the shareholders decide it's not profitable enough and shut down the company
the owner who sold the shares
Shareholder + Capitalism = Corporate Socialism.
The globalists invented “shareholder capitalism” by putting communistic fascistic feudalist elements into it and called it capitalism. This is about gobbling up money and control while hiding behind the face of “everyone will be happy”
Or… “You’ll own nothing and you will be happy.”
- WEF
Yes when a company is getting formed and the investors put in their money so the product can get started being produced because no one works for free.
The shareholders are everyone with a retirement account.
Dear Indie Game Co.,
If you love game, stay indie.
Going public leads to shareholder butchery.
This gets to the other side of the coin though. The tools for making high quality games have become better and better over the last few years, so we are seeing a lot of that experimentation going on there. The difference in gameplay between a million dollar game and a 100 million dollar game has shrunk to nothing..... so in many ways it is a golden era if you just want to play games.
Staying private and taking investor money creates the same problem. What's a game studio to do?
@@factorfitness3713 do what valve does, stay entirely enclosed
@@factorfitness3713 hire good lawyers, make sure whatever investment agreement has a path to survival if the investor's interests no longer align with the company.
@@factorfitness3713 Sell the video games and run off the money from customers?
Crowd fund maybe?
“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”― Edward Abbey
Yes, earth is sick…
Similarities are astonishing.
Admirable sentiment, except for the fact that the guy who said that was an anarchist and an environmentalist, essentially the worst policies that can happen to industrial development are advocated by his lot.
Growth for Growths sake is how society developed from preindustrial feudal setup to a position where half the world population isn't dying from fever, dysentery or starvation. This kind of parasitic sentimentalism is most prevalent amongst activist types.
Productivity increases growth
And wages Should keep up with productivity, it's when the latter fails that resentment flourishes along with the kind of m0r0nic ideals peddled by the people in the comment section.
@@t.s.d.1376Industrialisation has brought many bad things and good. I could see the benefit of it's theoretical disassembly from an anarchist/environmealist perspective. Things need balance and I don't think it's wrong to include others with different views which could bring new and improved ideas to the table. We have to somehow deal with this growth which benefits few and inhibits the prime condition of a system built up of all of us looking for happiness, security, safety.
@@t.s.d.1376 thats the idea behind modern capitalism though. if a company fails to profit and/or grow, they fail, although there is no need or requirement for growth. Capitalism makes business owners behave as a cancer cell, and then turns away as cancer destroys society
I’m a veterinarian who owned her own practice for over thirty years. During that time, I’ve watched private equity buy out single-owner practices more and more, to the point that only three practices in my county are not corporate-owned. They buy animal hospitals, fire most of the staff, raise prices, and don’t care how many animals now cannot get good care because they can’t afford it.
It took years of planning and my willingness to take a few hundred thousand dollars less than Corporate offered me in order to be able to sell my animal hospital to an associate vet who started at our place as a teenage volunteer and joined our practice years later as a doctor. But, there are too many owners who cannot turn down what private equity people offer.
Silly man, pets don't have money, so why should they get care?
This is sarcasm, just saying.
@@kristophermichaud4467 Interesting that you assume I’m a man, though, especially since I said in the original comment that I’m a woman. Or is that part of the sarcasm? I can’t even keep track anymore.
@@Debbie338 You literally have Debbie in your name as well.
@@Debbie338yeah, I also assumed that was part of the sarcasm.
That's integrity. You are what makes America great! Those who want to make it "great again" means getting people like you out.
Corporate greed is ruining video games, food, electricity, clothing, the ground, the air...
Our Lives....
It's called capitalism
@@TheZiarex Yup, failed capitalism.
@@jessejamez5985it's just the natural progression of capitalism to get worse and worse and to consolidate wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands
because they are incentivized to do so, anything and everything becomes legal the more money you have, so why wouldn't you use that money to break bend and rewrite the rules and get more money?
@@jessejamez5985 That's not failed capitalism. That's highly successful capitalism rapidly approaching its endgame. You might even call it late stage capitalism.
@dirkthewrench why wouldn't u use money to break and bend rules? Bc not every human being has a goal to be ultra wealthy and in power
This has been the pattern that has been plaguing US industries for decades. Focusing on shareholder short term profits only, has been dragging down the viability of most sectors in the long term.
I read that it used to be that companies reinvested so much the shareholders had to sue to get their cut. Now the focus is exclusively shareholder even over the company's health.
@@Smethells2023it's not the end result of capitalism. A lot of it has to do with the government allowing too much consolidation.
The big question no one asks is where did the companies get the money to buy up their competitors. The answer is the federal reserve. Inflation isn't rising prices, but an expansion of the money supply. Big banks and their customers get access to money before the rising prices happen. They buy up their competitors at low interest rates and then pay the money back with devalued dollars. This leads to consolidation which of course allows companies to be less competitive.
@technozombie789 You're describing Capitalism.
@@PrettyGuardian I'm not. Capital is excess time/labor/productivity. Capitalism is the system where individuals control the capital.
It's important to understand that money is a representation of time/labor/productivity. When the federal reserve creates money they are essentially saying this made up thing is equal in value to the labor of the people. That's not capitalism it's theft and it dilutes the value of the labor.
In short printing money devalues labor. Reducing the supply of money increases the value of labor.
It represents a fundamental change in the way the stock market works. It used to be a place for long-term investment. Investors made their money by collecting regular dividends. Now, the stock market is a casino, and investors make their money by holding stocks for only a short tine before selling them at a profit..
CEOs and shareholders don't code. They dont create games. They dont even play games. Workers do the work.
I have a hard time believing CEOs and shareholders even have souls. Let alone the people who speak FOR those money-grubbers.
You ever seen Bobby Kotick talk? Dude is literally the exact type of “bug-eyed salamander” Bo Burnham was talking about. Not just Zuck.
Yeah but a piece of paper says they own it so that is worth them being paid billions. Checkmate liberal
I was working on a kids educational game for the Ipad a long time ago that had a cute little racing feature . It was cute but that's it . I'll never forget the day the CEO ( who was absolutely not a gamer) came in, saw a near final version of the races , and excitedly and genuinely proclaimed " WE'RE GOING TO BE THE GRAN TURISMO OF ANIMAL RACING!!! ".
He seiously thought we'd kick off a major line of animal racing games when it as just a neat minigame we implemented into the game but if it was up to him we'd be on Animal Racers 7 .
Capitalism is based on exploitation ...and mericans think it's freedom . Brainwashed from birth It's a slaver system , we do all the work and the rich get the profit...AND ITS ALWAYS BEEN THAT WAY !!
Yeah, but at least give some credit where it's due. The management class has to staff the company, manage the logistics, and most importantly, keep the money coming in so they can pay the workers to work. It's not nearly as easy as people think. Personally, I respect the hell out of game companies that are run by gamers and former developers, but that's not reality in most of the industry because running a business is its own skill set and it's very different from the artistic and technical side of making a great game.
I genuinely don’t understand how “buy a company to then fire the workers and close the project” is even legal and normal. Corporations should be liable for that stuff. It’s totally leads to monopolies, worse conditions for workers and worse products for consumers.
That's the whole point.
the automotive industry did the same thing with public transportation
That's Capitalism(TM).
Clothing industry is the same.
Capitalism
Same thing with movies. “I’m an investor. I want to invest $10M in a product and I want $25M back. Therefore the product needs to have all the features consumers like according to market research. And avoid anything controversial that may lose consumers. So we will create shiny, meaningless fluff and market it heavily.”
Then act all surprised when it doesn’t do well
"I wanna be, I wanna be, like Disney." 🤑
Not really meaningless if thts wht consumers want
@@zerog1037 It’s not what the consumer wants. It’s a poor imitation of what consumers want.
@@NothingIsKnown00 I mean it is what consumers want though lol
If it wasn't then we wouldn't be getting this garbage anymore. You have to understand that these companies need to make a profit and they can only do tht if you buy their garbage. Unfortunately, most consumers enjoy the microtransactions, the paywalls and the pre-orders because gamers have massive egos
"Companies don't want to make money. They want to make ALL of the money.
This is why you'll see layoffs and cutbacks no matter how successful a company is.
The more they make, the more they expect, and they'll gut anyone to get it."
- James Stephanie Sterling
Wendigo
I don't know who that person is, but I've been saying the same thing for the last 25 years.
@@thej3799 I started following their content about a decade ago when they were primarily a game reviewer, and while they still do that to a degree, their videos over the past few years are more about addressing issues with the gaming industry as a whole, especially in corporate "AAA" spaces.
They're also an indie pro wrestler!
Corporations want their slave labor back in full.
which will eventually lead to them gutting themselves
As a certain video game critic says, "They don't want your money. They want all the money."
Thank God for her
Honestly we stan Commander Sterling
"Oh my God, you don't want Earth... you want everything!" - Cpt Jacob Keyes, Halo
Best solution is for companies to use AI to train off of employees work so that games can be developed better with less workers working less hours. Then these developers can be able to do productive things in the economy instead of making children games
@@chiquita683 Weak troll, detected, try harder next time
Shareholders are such a blight.
Blame the Supreme Court. In Dodge vs Ford Motor Co they made the ruling that publically held companies must put the interests of shareholders over employees, customers and the community.
@@2avcrm "My ambition is to employ still more men, to spread the benefits of this industrial system to the greatest possible number, to help them build up their lives and their homes. To do this we are putting the greatest share of our profits back in the business." - Henry Ford 1916.... Russell C. Ostrander argued that "this company was in business for profit, Ford could not turn it into a charity. "... paying employees and making customers pay less is considered charity...
@@2avcrm And that actually makes sense in a system where shareholder interests align with consumer interests.
@@2avcrm And what led to that ruling? The cold hard logic of capitalism. Infinite growth at all costs, the ideology of cancer.
Yeah people who have absolutely nothing to offer to the entire equation should not be controlling everything.
Maybe Microsoft shouldn't have spent 75 billion on buying Activision/blizzard.
They said the same bs oh this is good for us and will allow us to be more competitive while paying our workers
Then they proceed to axe 3 studios that had highly successful games.
These monopolies are complete trash.
Buying the competition to crush them is an established business strategy.
@@fgoindarkg ah so you admit it's a shit practice.
@@Apheleion well no, it is a good strategy. It’s just not good for consumers. But who cares about them?
I wonder if you feel the same about Sony or is this just a fanboy comment. Also which 3 studios are you talking about that were successful?
@@tyeekessaris4682 who wouldn't feel the same about sony? Not a fan boy, I work in games. They closed Arkane Studios, Tango Gameworks, and Axed a massive chunk of people from Bethesda. Before the closures of these studios and mass firings microsoft said we need more award winning games all 3 of these studios gave them this. Hell Hi -Fi Rush from Tango Gamesworks won them a Game Award, Developers Choice Award and a freaking BAFTA.
Former game designer here. After 7 years in game development, I left. I was so tired of companies' greed and really low salaries. Companies only want money, not to build a great game with immersive gameplay and a strong community.
Where did you go instead? It seems extremely tough to leave such a passionate field behind entirely
@@NighttimeJuneau Move to UX field temporarily, but want to go to finance sector. I just realized I want to have some money for my family and save more for retirement because I don't trust our government (I'm in the EU). Yes, this is hard, but unfortunately, circumstances are stronger than my wishes.
Yep I’ve been in AAA at prestigious studios for 5 plus years and am considering leaving now. This industry is dying very quickly.
Low salaries lmao
Now I've heard it all
Btw seeing as you want to move to finance, you should know tht Is a lot more stressful and although the pay isn't bad and more reliable, you won't ever be paid as much as you could be paid as a game developer unless you become a CFO.
The industry is being pushed forward by indie devs. AAA gaming is at an all time low, but at the same time indies are experiencing a bit of a renaissance.
You can REALLY tell the difference as a player when devs are allowed to fully realize their vision
Rainworld does that for me.
It's a game no pure corporate AAA studio would ever consider because it's difficult and frustrating, and its art style is unusual and non-commercial, as is the game play.
But you can feel the attention and soul that was spent making it.
Its wild to buy a ton of talent then immediately lay them off
But look how much number go up!
@@SpoopySquidcapitalism line go up
Talent doesn't matter when your views aren't "politically correct"
They don't care about the developers, they only want the IPs. Ironically, those IPs became popular because of the developers; without them, they are nothing.
They aren't buying talent, they are buying IP and product name recognition. And for some reason, so many consumers want to buy the same game 20+ times in a row like CoD or Battlefield. Each year that the new (old) game comes out, for some reason people want to pay another 60 dollars +microtransactions.
Shareholders are a problem but it is also the consumers that are funding this slop model. Stop buying this slop of infinite sequels with microtransactions and start supporting more indi game devs.
We all remember the studio shutdowns Microsoft did, despite the fact Hi-Fi Rush was a success and one a game award, they still shut down the studio.
I don't if anyone who watches and read comments will agree, but there is a reason many gaming channels are saying Nintendo has won the console war. And let us not forget what Satoru Iwata did during the Wii U era, where he took a pay cut to help pay for employee salaries. Do you think Phil Spencer will do that?
Something that needs to be pointed out with Nintendo's executive pay cuts, in Japan, their labor laws make it extremely hard to lay off workers, so you end up with executive pay cuts instead.
@@BigOnAnime94thank you for saying this. American corporate sector is just not a good environment for game making beyond small companies (former Blizzard, obsidian, etc.)
@@Woozy.0 Yeah, it's terrible. Stronger labor laws would go a long way, as well as unions.
I learned about Japan's stronger labor laws thanks to a video Good Vibes Gaming put out months back. For Japanese companies, their American subsidaries had layoffs, but not the Japanese ones. The difference strong labor laws that favor the workers make.
We also have to remember that Nintendo is extremely litigious against any projects to preserve legacy Nintendo code and software to the point that any fan games of Pokémon get attacked by Nintendo even if they're never going to sell and never on a Nintendo hardware
@@BigOnAnime94 As a result, passionate Japanese devs are more likely to make a name for themselves, and thus have their work recognized
"This company"
Gamers: which one?
Deadass tbh
💯
“Most of them”
Gamers™️: sweet baby?
Gamers: of course not 😂
Even with more than 6 decades shorter of a history than cinema, and 2 to 3 decades shorter than television, gaming has a long and storied history of studios, developers, and for lack of a better word, maestros.
Man you could replace video games with anything. Greed corrupts EVERYTHING.
*capitalism
@@00Platypus00 capitalism is greed as an ideology imo. Which isn’t to say it’s exclusive to it, just the best expression of it.
@@Garbageman28 I'd say that capitalism rewards greed and egotistical behaviour, yes.
@@00Platypus00Yes, capitalism's purpose is to maximize greed and benefit the few at the cost of the many.
Capitalism is only bad when you have a lot of ✡️ in your country
Gaming company CEOs and shareholders who don't play games and/or program.... is like hiring a clown as a hospital administrator.
There's nothing worse for an industry than investors.
@@cabbagenut it’s not quite that simple but in a lot cases, yes.
Dodge v. Ford is largely to blame for this, unfortunately
Investors aren’t in it to create wealth. Hell, they’re not in it to even make wealth…
They’re only in it to accumulate power so they can feel important, when they actually have no redeemable attributes that makes them important.
Investment is actually the way most businesses get funded and can be a great resource for bringing a product to market. The problem is when the people who funded your product choose their agenda over the development of your product as the priority. Now, your product is not what it promised, but a lesser version of itself. That is why we are seeing a failure of products, not just in the gaming industry, but in all businesses where these investment firms are active.
I find that laughable.
Investors are the way of the future. Not workers. Workers are worse for the industry as a whole.
Shareholders back at it again
also DEI hires and women
And jews
@@sean7221you can’t just group an entire religion and blame them for your problems when it’s a specific part of the group that causes them
@@kohtalainenalias DEI is just another fashionable corporate idea that is ham-fistedly jammed into everything. It's a symptom of corporate-think.
Wokeness back at it again.
don't buy big games. buy from small independent studios.
Or use emulators, playing GameCube 3ds and Wii games on my phone is awesome and less expensive! Lol
Don’t buy Elden ring DLC, don’t buy Baldur’s gate 3, don’t buy stalker 2, don’t buy Alan wake 2, don’t buy anything from CDPR…
Acting like every AAA games are bad is just ridiculous
They sell out too. It's the American dream to make something valuable and sell it.
Don't buy rainbow garbage.
The problem with independent games is that they never attract a large player base. Its fine for rimworld for example but when you want to play sw: bf2 youll never get the full experience with bots
I call them corporate games. AAA titles are now owned by billion dollar companies who want to get every last dollar out of the games they fund.
Ubishaft are now AAAA they tell me, and I can only rent their games.
Former industry employee that was laid off here.
If your dream involves working for someone else, don't chase it. Don't follow your dreams. Because they will exploit you and your passion. Better to change your dream.
Better to eat dez nutz
Fight back. Unionise. Organise. Take back. Nothing but taxing the rich (hard) and regulating big capital will save this civilization.
My dream isn’t to work for someone else. Mine is to be a masterful character artist who expands his own brand and business which belongs solely to himself.
I’m forced to work for someone else by voices not my own.
Hey, question, is Unity still the best option for indie devs? I don't want to have to let Matt Bromberg fuck my mom every time someone downloads my game.
@@jamfilledjarsHello masterful freelance artist. Thank you for your artistic contributions to GTA 9. Unfortunately, we have decided not to pay you.
Private equity really is messing everything up.
EVERYTHING.
Not everything. Just everything they touch...
that being true, it's not their fault everyone wants their money and sells their soul to them.
@@alphastratus6623Thing is, they will eventually reach all industries. The ones that are not affected are probably too small right now, but they will be reached eventually
@@Jeffcrocodile it kind of is, they basically make it the only chance to survive in many cases
don't pre-order games. wait until a game releases, listen to reviewers (while avoiding spoilers if you care about that) and don't get caught up in the hype. Buy indie games and reward good industry behavior
and it should go without saying but don't blame the people making the games they are doing their best in a broken system.
Also find reviewers you trust. Many assessments feel more like press releases than independent reviews, so it's important to do your due diligence.
I've been doing that for a few years; I buy most of the games on Sales a few months (or even years) after release (unless they are cheap since release).
Yeah, never understood that shit, unless you are a content creator you don't need to play the game day 1, especially since it's a digital product, it will never run out.
The only games that make some sense to play day 1 are multiplayer stuff, and MMO expansions, and in the case of expansions only if you want to profit of any exploit that slip past the devs, or you care about "worlds first" and stuff like that.
The problem is oeople who know nothing of making video games, like buisness execs and outside consultants, are running the buisness.
We were never in a meritocracy in a corporate-controlled society.
@@fieryrebirth But the shit is going to hit the roof one day when merit will count once again. Boom and bust cycles you know.
@@dvoiceotruth Late capitalism and corporatism is designed to alienate when the accountants and exploiting executives take control of all your hard labor to the point that common consensus ties "most rich person" = "Most hard working person". Oh... wait... Look at Elon Musk. He LOVES taking credit for things he didn't do - in fact, it's how his "brand" works.
Hear me out, make a gaming studio and stay private. Don't sell to any publicly traded company.
That's kinda hard to do. Valve has managed so far because they own Steam.
@@grzyruth9205 Of course it's hard to do. Otherwise, it would be the normal way of doing business. But as the video pointed out, there's a sudden influx of talent needing a job, and you, yes you, could be that employer!
The reality is that gaming studio would have to have other income streams.
Good luck with that when your game is going to sell for 5 dollars on steam
This is my plan. If anyone wants to follow what I’m doing I’m about to release mostly all my indie games completely free to play, and launch my brand with merch for support my work instead of in game purchases. I’m doing everything privately, just like I have with my music
In other words, art turned into business, and that business has failed to produce art.
Unlimited growth is unattainable.
Why? Everything in this world is finite and has limits.
That’s what he said.
@@razorback9999able bruh
Unlimited credit is more an unattainable, it's a company killer.
@@AlanWilhelm-fv7to lol this is serious. stop making me laugh
The Hardware industry has also been appalling for health of "The Gaming Industry". Price gouging and rebadging old stuff as new and poor QA has left a bad taste in the mouths of those who're informed, which affects the enthusiasts and influencers, which filters out further.
It’s not just this industry. Fast food industry is going through the same thing, investors making bets that covid sales would continue.
People used food and entertainment to cope. Now they will go back to old patterns
The 1% are ruining games. Weird.
How can game CEOs take away millions and lay everyone off ?? Weird.
I watched another video exposing this problem. Their main point was that the corporate side expected extreme monetary success on every project, like gaining 20x or 100x the money spent on development, not just above 1x, which is all that's necessary to keep a studio going. If they didn't meet those absolute supremacist predation numbers, and just gained even something like x5, the studios were closed. The corporate side is expecting Genshin Impact levels of constant extreme success (which is only "successful" because it syphons as much money as possible from it's players in return for the most worthless reward possible, like 0 desirable characters for 100 dollars). It is truly an abomination, it is destroying the *ENTIRE* industry in search of the single most profitable, most abusive, most worthless studio, leaving nothing but dust all around.
That's not what art is, not what preferences are, not what games are, and that's beyond boring. There's supposed to be diversity in art, genres, art styles, narrative, not the same garbage over and over again with literally no alternative, that's a monopoly's nightmare, sheep that eat the same grass and never complain. It really is societally cannibalistic lunacy, the consumption of the world, simply for the purpose of increasing a number. These corporations shouldn't have billions of dollars and shouldn't fuel economies in the most destructive way possible, they should be playing cookie clicker in jail for trying to destroy the world for their benefit.
Game devs need to unionize!!
We're trying but it's difficult, especially as there are decent enough swaths of people and disciplines that are surprisingly against (or at least, passively neutral to) unions. Part it comes from the Silicon Valley individualism/meritocracy/etc mentality.
Edit: I might add that many, if not most, of the current game unions tend to be focused around QA who are historically the most at-risk.
@@PhotonBeast It's why the west coast liberal and the east coast liberal aren't the same. One is more collectivist than the other. Silicon Valley types are only liberal on the Internet.
@@PhotonBeastAs a construction worker with software developer friends, I've noticed that software development is very similar to construction. Look at those trade unions for ways to adapt, not at unions tied to specific workplaces.
@@PhotonBeast hey since you know people gaming industry I got couple question I like to ask. How many of you guys heard of GODOT since is 3D game engine that you can download for free on steam and how many you are unable to become independent (indie) developers due to non compete agreement.
@@PhotonBeast how many game developers do you know have heard game engine GODOT as when I decided look into being independent (indie) game developer it seem like to be only free one that I know of for 3D games.
as somone that was affected by the embracer group layoffs, I'm here for the embracer slander. I haven't been in the AAA industry long but I'm already so fucking exhausted, Id love nothing more then to go indie someday but there's even less job security there, My goal is to get experience in the industry that I can then take into the indie scene later in life
Is it slander if it's true though?
@@AttenuatedNecronym applying your stereotypes of a cringe discord mod to everyone that's a mod is pretty stupid and in fact, does not make it true, as another reply said they're basically doing customer service for a studio and publisher for free, they should be honored in some way
The Saints Row reboot being a total and utter failure had nothing to do with Embracer, it was squarely on the developers being weirdos making games for other weirdos who don't even like games, although they did drag other studios down with them because Embracer owned them all.
@@paranoidpanzerpenguin5262 an Extremly broad and naive assesment considering thats the game I worked on and was my first gig in the industry, and I can say for sure thats NOT what happened. Volition was an extremely mismanaged studio, development was a mess, boiling it down to "yea these hundreds of people that all worked on the game are weirdos that don't like or play games" is extremely naive.
If I had to boil it down to ONE thing, it would probably be management as a whole, Volition doesn't have game directors, The job of a game director is someone that keeps the game moving towards a specific vision, they get the final say in everything, without a game director you run into issues where individual teams and people kinda just do their own things which resulted in a lot of mismatched ideas and half baked things that don't really mesh well together at all. Considering the story itself, I think the main problem with it was the fact that a lot of people at volition where tired of saints row and didnt want to work on it anymore, a lot of these people have spent most of their career working on saints row and wanted to do something else but where forced to make a game they didnt want because SR was the companies cash cow, I think every big thing that the fans hated can be tied back to that in one way or another, some attempt from people at volition to do something different while still at the end of the day being forced to make a sr game. and I don't think thats healthy. I think a game director unifying the vision for the game and steering everyone towards what makes a SR game a SR game would have gone a long way to kept those visions from straying away. Pretty much everyone has their own opinions on what a game should be or what they want to make, you need someone to keep people on coarse or else the game ends up becoming a mess. And this goes for all games, not just saints row, Poor management and communication of ideas will kill any game. Theres a lot of other company wide logistical issues in how things where managed, bleeding staff, and drama with deep silver and a former writer that all had massive implications on the game as well that all lead to the final product, generalizing it into "the devs are weirdos" is such a bad faith assessment.
at the end of the day, volition wasn't closed because of saints row, Saints row did better financially then most people online would assume and volition was gearing up to work on something new, we where only laid off after the deal with the saudis fell through and embracer realized they didn't have the money to keep a lot of studios afloat anymore. If SR did really well would volition still would of been closed? probably not, we wouldn't of been lower on the chopping block if that's the case, but if the deal went through 100% volition would still be alive and kicking. Considering the fact that gearbox was put up for sale within weeks of volition being closed as well and at that time volition was under gearbox there was talks of why volition wasn't just sold off with gearbox, and its speculated that embracer closed volition to make their bottom line look better in the short term for the shareholders rather then waiting out a bit longer and selling us off with gearbox for a higher price. at the end of the day its just greed.
shareholders ruin everything
Same old story here. Greed destroys everything good. The middle class? Gone. Gaming? Gone. Social media? Gone. All sacrificed for shareholder profit.
reliable vehicles are also gone....only a few cars made IN JAPAN are still built well, like the Mazda Miata
@@fortheloveofnoise China has also made the repair parts market into a compete shithole of fake crap. Even name brand stuff isn't a sure thing anymore.
Talked to a few people that were involved with some of the acquisitions by Embracer, specifically. That guy running Embracer was really just a billionaire who "liked collecting cool things" and wanted to "collect" companies he thought were "cool". Literally no greater strategy at the top of Embracer than that. So its collapse was inevitable. F'ing crazy.
I seriously hope Valve doesn't sell Steam to Microsoft. Microsoft is way big enough as is........
...why would you think this would happen? Valve is privately owned, and GabeN can do whatever he wants.
@@PaulGuy Gabe is getting up there in years. Who knows what will happen when he passes, and whoever inherits the company might have a different vision.
Unless...... and hear me out, he chooses his heir Willy Wonka style. Giving out a "golden ticket" to the Bellevue office through cosmetic purchases in TF2.
When our government was trying to look legitimate they would break up trust monopolies. That was before I was born, though.
If that ever becomes a prospect there is no way that should be legal. That's too much of a captured market.
After the shit that Microsoft had to eat at the start of the year? Hell no! No fucking way Valve is shilling out just to be shut down a month later.😂
Not understood at the corporate level, what a shocker! CEOs who don't know how their company actually works.
They work for the share holders
When you can no longer feed your God of greed, it will eat you.
Commie.
@@malcontender6319and?
@@malcontender6319 come on dude. socialism doesn't have to be authoritarian. if you're a free thinker, you'll understand that
@@malcontender6319braindead?
It's really funny that CEOs do this to "increase shareholder profit" because the way that they do business ends up making them lose even more money.
Doesn't matter to them, they'll maximize short term profits and then get a golden parachute out when the company is about to implode. Then get hired elsewhere.
CEO turnover has increased too. If you can make such gobs of money in five years that you are financially independent, you don't need to care what happens on year seven.
Reminds me of companies that use applicant-tracking systems that auto-reject in some cases the majority of applicants, including qualified ones, all for the sake of "efficiency". So many companies use it, and yet so many complain about people being unemployed.
Private equity firms believe if they buy a studio that they own all the customers also. They don't.
Embrace is the worst. They keep buying and laying off like it's easy portfolio garbage
They're not doing that no more,they're trying to sell all the studios now.
@@needleninja it looks good on paper tho!
Microsoft also did this
As someone who's been following the games industry a lot closer then most of my friends, I'd love to see more videos and coverage on the industry like this.
I’m an avid gamer and I’ve never even heard of half of these groups. Finding out Take-Two AND EA are owned by an even bigger entity is like finding out that Oryx was coming to avenge Crota in Destiny 1. I don’t use that comparison for nothing: They both gain power through exploiting everyone that isn’t them: Power is gained from killing & pillaging whole civilizations, and then it gets cycled up from thrall to acolytes to knights… all the way up to Oryx, Savathun, & Xivu Arath themselves.
same boat, I'd heard of Embracer but the ties to the Saudi Royals had me shaking my head. I guess it's no surprise when you think about it but damn...
I understood "Destiny 1" at least.
It's also like Team Fortress 2, where RED and BLU, the two conglomerates that each rule half the world, are themselves subsidiaries of Mann Co., which is ITSELF a subsidiary of the ultimate MegaCorp, TF Industries, which rules the entire world in secret through all of those subsidiaries.
I don't say this lightly, but corporations are like Voldemortt and gamers are like Peter Parker.
This week on.. When Rich People "Know Best"..
The games industry has been a cesspool for a looong time. Games are sold for higher than ever, unfinished, stripped of features left out for DLC sales, live service pay to win junk, now they're going all digital so you don't really own it and can't sell it once you buy it...i quit playing along to the game industry years ago.
This is a issue plaguing the entire industry and I'm glad to see other people who don't play video games notice what company's are doing to genre
"Our goal is to maximize shareholder value in any given situation"
The next time you're defending capitalism simply because it's the only thing you've ever known, ask yourself if THIS is how you truly believe our society should be structured.
@@JohnnyD1993 Not a capitalism issue? Shareholders are the capital in capitalism. Fuck outta here with your Nazi bullshit.
Capitalism it's not the issue there, just ban publicly trading companies and you can have the best of both worlds
Just because the capitalism has taoen a bad turn doesnt mean capitalism isnt good goffball. We wouldnt have had any of the good times in gaming or movies or anything if it wasnt for capitalism. So sick of you stupid children. You dont know what you're talking about. We wouldnt have any video games at all if it werent for people with a dream to make art and money at the same time.
"The next time you're defending *communism* simply because it's the only thing you've ever known, ask yourself if THIS is how you truly believe our society should be structured."
Easy fix.
@@malcontender6319lolwut, you ok? 😂
Saints Row was an iconic franchiss for me growing up, It's sad to see corporation greed destroy everything we love
Everyone, including the fans, hated the game SO much. It was disgusting to see the level of vitriol. Embracer sucks but let's remember what happened there. It was brutal.
Johnny gat would have never let this stand.
Remember the ending of Saint's Row 2? It's not politically correct to make a corporation, and it's CEO the villain.. because Blackrock, Vanguard, and other conglomerates are who own the world. 💯
If the original Saints Row series came out today, it would be slammed by the alt-right as "woke" because of the racially diverse characters. 😄😄
New Saints Row wasn’t even that bad if you took it as a “how do you do fellow kids?” thing and just laughed at all the stupid and weird creative decisions. Gameplay wasn’t all that different from SR 2-3 and the character creator was pretty impressively detailed. It’s a solid 6-7/10 game tbh, get it as cheap as you can and adjust your expectations properly and you’ll have a fun few hours.
Private equity is the death of all industries. Same that’s happened to food industry, medical, construction, gaming, media, etc.
This is the exact thing the whole "antiwoke" people are obfuscating by focusing on something that doesn't matter.
This here is the real issue. The rest is only a symptom.
What exactly are the 'antiwoke' focusing on that doesn't matter and is only a symptom of what you call the real issue?
@@jaspermay5813For example: Things like the Killmonger haircut or the complete disappearance of conventionally attractive women in gaming, especially when Sweet Baby Games is involved. The anti-woke crowd is focusing on those and blaming the fall of gaming on them while completely glossing over corporate greed and SBG's toxic work culture.
They are half right. The easy DEI money credit killed two studios. Easy credit is never easy.
What I find funny is what if the stuff the antiwoke crowd was used as a means for them to complain about that we all focus on them while these big companies slip something while we were focused on what the antiwoke talks about.
Like they could rail about something that we pay to attention to them and make our own takes at them while a big company slips something in that actually does hurt everyone but the shareholders.
It’s both, actually. At its core, “woke” is a cynical commodification and convenient refocusing of the desire to rebel. Can’t Occupy Wall St anymore, but Wall St will happily finance your movement to “Decolonize Columbus” because it poses zero threat to them and further divides any solidarity. And before you reflexively decide I’m some reactionary, consider the response to Oct 7 protests which in many ways did threaten the same financiers behind “woke”. The instant you’re a threat, you’re suddenly not stunning and brave
Is definitely capitalism! Hedge funds are ruining our favorite household gaming companies!
Mutual funds ruin anything they invest in. They suck the profit out of the reputation, then ditch the company when it's a PoS.
Or maybe are just removing the old rotten one to give space to the new ones.
Sure, because capitalism made Spider-Man 2 a rainbow narrative garbage, Suicide Squad killing the male JL members the most humiliating way and so much more garbage.
@@juangracia6394
No.
Gott strafe dich.
I hate to break it to you, TH-cam does the same. You're mixing capitalism with crony corporatism, like every socialist that doesn't understand economics.
For gods sake can we stop naming companies and just name the idiots who are making these decisions directly?
Don’t like Activision Blizzard? Call out Bobby Kotick, he’s in charge. Don’t let Bobby Kotick keep getting away with his practices he keeps letting the made up entity Activision Blizzard take the blame for.
Bobby ko tick isn’t only person making that decision and matter fact companies like McKinsey and Co push idea of layoff as proper company thing to other companies which increase number of layoffs.
@@skylerlightning4620 every company has internal leadership. That means humans with names are making decisions.
Just because other external forces suggest bad practices doesn’t make the decision makers any less responsible.
This is a productive line of thought.
So, if the CEO Bobby K isn’t calling the shots for Blizzard who is? Your ability to call out my ignorance is proof you’re somone who’s capable and worth learning from.
@@Mustachioed_Mollusk No because the idiots making these decisions are just as replaceable as everyone else.
The only difference is that they get paid after they take the fall for said decisions.
Activision blizzard was his ambition while I empathize with the employees, it's still the failure to reign in management
@@Mustachioed_Molluskprobably the guy who greenlight Diablo immortal
Thank you for covering this! As someone who works in gaming media it's so important to have these stories shared outside of the industry.
They’re monopolizing the video game industry, which is going to lead to a shit load of shitty games and an increase in investment gains. We will be paying ever increasing costs and get ever decreasing quality. It happens in every industry.
I’ve been saying it for a minute now. Indy game developers really need to consider becoming worker cooperatives. 1 More incentive to put in better quality work since the money made will be split more evenly for their labor and there won’t be an outside factor that pushes them to rush an unfinished product, 2 developer/workers have more say since the org is akin to a democracy with chosen leaders from their own ranks or previous bosses who they could trust, who can’t make decisions for the org without a vote from the developers. 3 way more worker involvement in day to day company operations since they have more power and representation within a cooperative than in a corporation where you only focus on your position and nothing more.
A cooperative set up like that would be a godsend on game quality and working conditions since it’s the developers who have more power and say so on how they implement their innovation and creativity in their projects.
This is definitely happening, the biggest problem is getting funding at the start, paying even a small team for the time it takes to make a game can easily cost hundreds of thousands and you're not getting that much money without steep requirements from the publishers or infesters paying that. So for small studios unless you're already successful it's often a choice of working for a very low wage or even free and having a part time job to pay the bills or having to deal with investors.
This is capitalism in EVERY industry.
There is at least another computer based industry where it is happening. Surprisingly, many people don't have an eye for quality to know what's going on behind the scenes.
Nah. It's capitalism when you have things like money market funds, where the stockholders care nothing about the long-term value of the company they own majority control of.
The workers should own the companies they work in, and always keep a majority of the shares.
@@luddity Yeah. We call that capitalism. Nobody is stopping you from doing this.
@@darrennew8211This is basically what private equity is doing
This world sucks.
@@walterlippmann4361 …mega balls.
No surprises here, simply the logical result of the economic system everyone is defending so dearly...
Sadly, there's not really any better alternative. Needs more regulation, though.
@@darrennew8211😬
"Capitalism sucks!" "You're right! What system would you use?" "Socialism!" "Ok bud..."
Please read into market socialism. Private equity and shareholders are not the end all be all of market economies. @@darrennew8211
@@darrennew8211 That's what those under feudalism said. Same with those under monarchies.
A little adjacent to the topic : the quality of EVERYTHING is spiraling down due to private equity.
It’s not just games , it’s everything , the health industry , education , ect . Capitalism needs to be regulated
More government to solve all society's woes, sounds like Marxism, what could go wrong?!
Reason why Nintendo's Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and FromSoftware's Elden Ring retained their workers (and was also HIRING workers) is because they aren't a part of the American game developers plagued with greedy shareholders with no care for the quality of games. They are Japanese developers who do care about what they make. It's crazy what's been going on specifically in the U.S.. This doesn't include the fact that the unsustainable AAA gaming model is also contributing to it's destruction, but companies like Nintendo saw that issue coming 20 years ago and are avoiding being a part of that incoming catastrophe.
It's kind of crazy because Japan was originally known for being where game developers are treated more cruelly. Working such crazy hours that they sleep under their desks...but here everyone gets fired.
I think you are simplifying it. Nintendo is relentlessly profit driven and they exploit people. The difference is that Nintendo has an established market presence and experience enough to know that they will make more money in the long run if they have good quality. It is not any pure passion for art... It is a case of consolidation that also has pitfalls: they charge a lot for their games, they are so huge and well established it is virtually impossible to compete, etc, etc. Sure their business model is better than short term ROI driven stuff, but it is still far from perfect.
None of that has to do with country... both places live under capitalism, with very bad labour protection.
@@00Platypus00Nintendo learnt that endless money won't keep your company afloat
Having an ecosystem does
@@haruhisuzumiya6650 As I said, they learnt what is more profitable. And they can "afford" to do it because they have a more or less unique position in the market due to reputation and fan base. That, however, does not prevent them from releasing awful games with outdated techniques and hardware, especially coming out of third party studios they exploit and press - a quick look at the library of games of the Switch will show that. The market cannot be made of a bunch of Nintendos, also because Nintendo won the competition in their niche (and eliminated their competitors) - think of Sega, for example. Competitions presuppose winners, and winners use their advantage to end competition - that is an issue with capitalism. Moreover, Nintendo's "x-factor" is there precisely because the business model described in this video exists.
@@00Platypus00your reply doesnt even address what the OP said, really felt like you just didnt want nintendo to get a good light.
Next time breath, read what has been said and write a proper response
"I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less and I’m not kidding"
So you want overworked people who are paid less to work more? And you want rushed games? People pushed to the brink by executives that know NOtHiNG about games, who then fire half their team once a project is done?
This is the same flawed assumption that anyone advocating for workers rights has to deal with. This idea that we succumb to some fantasy communist takeover the instant we make companies care about anything besides money. It's absurd.
Maximizing shareholder value does NOT mean better products. It means making people DO MORE with LESS HELP. It means FIRING STAFF and overworking the rest. It means CHARGING MORE FOR THE SAME PRODUCTS.
Making better products is the SLOWEST way to maximizing shareholder value. You do it by BUYING UP, FIRING AND DOWNSIZING, CHARGING MORE FOR THE SAME, MAKING MORE ADS (not better products), and then **STOCK BUYBACKS** on all the money you make. All that can be done in just a tiny fraction of the time it takes to make a good product.
Who said that again? Because I totally agree.
@@bjhalei thick circle toons
Just look at Disco Elysium and what happened to them, its profits over people and their art
Maybe their game was more an Art project, then it didn't fail. Why are Marxists like you so materialistic?!
It didn't help that the Director of Disco Elysium was a literal communist
When Hi-fi Rush's developer was canned after critical acclaim and selling way above expectations, it kinda broke me :(
This has been a problem in games for a long time. It just got REALLY bad lately. It's why, as a programmer, I abandoned any dreams of getting into games before I even started. I am SO excited for the union push. A strong union could have put me into games twenty years ago.
Games like anything else under capitalism just become a vessel for speculative investment. And the only goal of games companies becomes not making video games, but making money. With that shift goes all incentives for creativity, originality, and quality control. Then the goal just becomes to emulate other games that have done well, to make everything as cheaply and (almost more importantly) quickly as possible. Making a good game that sells well isn’t enough. You always have to be making new games that sell more than the old ones, receive better reviews, and have more influence on culture, cause that’s what capitalism really cares about, growth for growths sake.
I don't think it's capitalism. It's mutual funds. The stock market where companies have products that are "how much can we extract from other companies in the short term" are the primary problem.
Like a cancer cell.
@@darrennew8211You're in the replies of every comment that mentions capitalism, defending capitalism. It seems very disingenuous, if you ask me.
@@PlazDreamweaver I find that acceptable because the alternatives have killed so many people. I'm not defending capitalism. I'm pointing out that the alternatives we know of are far worse.
All you people saying capitalism is the problem but don’t propose a solution.
Those 3 businessman looked like people I would never want near my games. We need to figure out how to keep games in the hands of people who care about games. (I get that I'm judging a book by the cover, but if I was betting on it, I'd say they don't give 2 shits about games besides the money it can bring)
It's pretty much all industries across the world. I don't play video games, but this doesn't surprise me.
DEI is a big problem destroying games
No, it isn't. That is just a scapegoat narrative precisely to let corporate greed off the hook. Watch the video.
If every bike was sold with unremoveable training wheels. Bike sales would tank
Thank you to the developers who spoke up with their name and faces shown here. It takes a lot of courage at risk of hiring companies and the ire of video game fans who just want to hate
capitalists....the problem is capitalists
But you can have a capitalist system that doesn’t lead to corruption and corporate greed. You CAN have that.
I believe I saw a brief glimpse of it when I was born in the mid early 2000’s, but who knows if that’s real.
@@WrottJackson every empire has its peak
@@steveweast475 try telling that to the suits.
@@WrottJackson and now comes the downfall
@@WrottJackson capitalism can never work because the number always has to go up exponentially even past multiple infinities.
You mean to tell me it's not Sweet Baby Inc? I'm shocked, I tell you! Shocked!!
Greedy Baby Inc necked themselves, the endless credit of DEI isn't endless. It killed Arkane and Volition, proper money managing isn't a joke. The Clowns saying it's Capitalism need a reality check and a course in business money management 101, than people being forced to listen to their bad regurgitating of Marxist theory, that helps no one.
They’re a big part or symptom of the problem too, you know.
@@tackywhale5664 LOL whatever you say, chief
Sweet baby inc is just a company that works like: YOU NEED PAY FOR OUR CONSULTANTS OR YOUR GAME WILL FLOP. So capitalism but rainbow.
DEI points are pushed by these types of companies, ones like blackrock. And trust me, it’s not out of altruism.
Doesn't help that new games are made for an audience that doesn't play games.
Video games are art. Capitalism hates art. Shareholders and executives hate art. But they like products. And soon thats all AAA games will be going forward
Looking at old Soviet art, I think communism hates art more.
@@kalidesuAre you joking? So much good art came from the USSR
@@kalidesu let me remind you exactly which part of the world modern "art" comes from (hint, it's the western hemisphere).
@@brian.phillips1985you guys sometimes act like USSR was a heaven on earth. I can assure you it was furthest away from it. In terms of art too. And some good things came out of it mostly by accident or in moments when east had to open a bit for the west
@racingraptor4758 Good art means good country apparently
I'm also pissed about the fate of Deus Ex
Augment your capitalism
So you're telling me capitalism is ruining another thing? Shock, surprise. Not really.
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Elizabeth Greenhunts
get to her with the name
What they don't realize is that people don't play videogames for a living, we play them to escape life, so if they make it too hard or shit to play, then we won't buy their product.
Unions aren't the only answer, the examples you used to show it doesn't have to be like this were from Japan. Japan has much stricter labour laws, where a company must prove it was under an existential threat before they can do any mass layoffs. This doesn't just protect workers, but creates a culture of longevity where you might not do a mass hiring during the pandemic because it was understandably a situation that would come to pass. Japan still has shareholder capitalism, but it's stricter laws protect the workers and force the companies to run more sustainable business practices.
Japan has started to change. Lifetime jobs are on the way out.
Depending on legislation is always weaker than a union you control yourself.
I fail to see how a union would change the final product lol
Japan does not have shareholder capitalism btw. No country does. You should look up what tht is lol. Just because there are shareholders, doesnt make it shareholder capitalism lmao
Also f sustainable business practices. Tht is wht caused most of the mess to begin with
@@zerog1037 My impression of Japanese companies is the keiretsu. Which looks suspiciously like cartels to me.
Wait, are you telling me that infinite growth is not possible???? that capitalism does not work????
Nobody could've guessed.
By the way, this is not something exclusive of the video-game industry, just name an aero-space company that shows the same symptoms (hint: it begins with "Boe" and ends with "ing")
What a silly take. Capitalism works and the concept of infinite growth (within reason) is viable as there's always the potential for more sales, what doesn't work are unsustainable strategies that place profit ahead of value. AAA studios have forgotten that this is a two-way system and are trying to turn consumers into cattle, and it's exactly why we're heading for an industry crash.
capitalism works fine its just that the same human greed that allows society to flourish is now actively working against us
So this is why Kerbal Space Program 2 is practically dead...
Paradox can have an entire video unto themselves. Bellular has pretty good coverage of what's plaguing Paradox games, incl KSP2.
This is why I’ve stuck to indie games mostly lately.
Just as an important tip to anyone in or around the industry: *Crunching does not increase productivity!* even for a day or two, the reduction in morale and productivity will fall below what is compensated by the increase in hours. If your management is forcing you to crunch, they are either *a)* incompetent and don't know how to manage teams (let alone creative teams) or worse *b)* are doing it for the point of cruelty, possibly as a means of venting their frustration with the realities of development. Doubly so if they see games as just another commodity they can churn as product like potato chips or stamped-steel sprockets.
Game companies, and more specifically, game publishers, don't want games to be marketed or sold like in the 1990s: Buy one copy, keep it forever as long as you have the hardware to run it, share it with a friend to build hype and motivate him to buy a copy. I remember "spawning" being a thing for Blizzard titles like Warcraft 2 or Starcraft.
Today, like Adobe and Autodesk, publishers want to lock gamers into a _subscription._ Continuous revenue, earnings growth, happy shareholders who don't sue at a slight fluctuation of profit. They don't want games to be shared or resold, so they tack on DRM in the name of "stopping piracy and cheating", locking out players if the DRM software doesn't like their system for some reason. Remember, folks, _locking down software is an attack on honest users._ People who fly the Jolly Roger online don't care about DRM because they're running a build that patched that stuff out. So the next logical step is to require every single game in the publisher's library to phone home to a server to _prove_ that they're not committing copyright infringement because in corporate America, customers are presumed guilty before proven innocent, if they're even given a chance to argue their case at all.
Well, like many things in economics, even subscription games have diminishing returns. We tend to play the latest and greatest (and most expensive) games, leaving us with less time to play older titles, meaning it's harder to justify punching in the credit card details for that microtransaction or even to keep that subscription going. So that global network of server instances designed to somehow prove a customer isn't a dirty rotten thief starts costing more money to maintain and support than the income from the subscription. Accountants don't like that, management gets spooked, the game is canceled no matter how many hundreds of thousands of players they had daily.
And the best part: Even if you manage to save your copy of that now-abandoned game from the bit bucket, there's no way you can legitimately play it because the server it phones home to no longer exists. And now that all that support infrastructure is no longer needed, the IT staff keeping the lights on and the developers who squashed bugs up to this point are now laid off.
It's never been about the customer/user. It's always been about the shareholder, the owner class. And the market was overdue for a correction.
I feel like if we want good games in our favourite franchises, the only way to do it is to come together as a community and purchase the intellectual property rights, then fund the studio through a Patreon-esque donation system, so that people are paid to make good games, not chase profits.
that's a pretty cool idea. I'd pitch in. Bonus points if the studios running the actual game production could be run like a co-operative.
Yeah right…
I think especially for indie games this could work. But unfortunately crowdfunding games have an extremely bad rep for good reasons. Then we end up in a situation where the good ones lost their IPs to unethical investors.
That's what we're trying to have done for Tiger Grounds Studios. We have a patreon if you want to be an early supporter. We also have an IG page we post our smaller projects to.
We have a game, a film, and a book in the works atm. I'm heading our game dev team.
Sounds like a subscription model. Who will be in charge of the money? You’re going to need a ceo and board of directors.
8:11 we see this with corporate sanitization and copypaste slop of modern gsming as well as every other market
Gaming CEOs are acting exactly like that Smiling Friends character from the 1st episode of season 2.
It's my IP to do nothing with
Wokeness and capitalism are destroying pc and console games in different aspects.
One instead of giving an option of variety, forces is down our throats (gay, black (in reality non-samurai) Yasuke ac shadows).
Other is censoring games (in order to make investments safer from controversy) and making games similar to slot/money machines of mobile games so players can "enjoy" that unreal grinding mechanics even on 60$+ game or pay additional money to have a more normal progress.
So, in essence, players are currently more often punished for playing a new game than rewarded, and that is the reason why we are returning to older games we own.
I simply do not want to pay 60$ for a game that feels like any progress is unnecessary grindy, and on top of it was censored to not even accidetly offend anybody.
I will play a game that doesn't feel like a scam which I most likely alredy own or can buy for 5$ because it's old, which is also a reason why the AAA gaming industry economically suffers.
Truth to be told, a lot of modern games are simply too bad to even consider purchase. I bought ac origins, and it was meh. After that, oddysey and valhalla and booth were meh. (Story wise, ok, gameplay much, much worse than ac2).
So when I heard that ac shadows would be not just grindy and repetitive, but also woke, it's just too much to buy this.
Isn't it Ironic, that their obsession with excessive monetization, is what is driving them to ruin?
Think of all the money that gamers will save not having as many games worth buying due to these companies.
@@digiryde I’m already going to wait forever after it’s release for GTA 6 to be discounted and everyone thinks I’m crazy for not getting the hype.
I understand the hype, I’m just not personally exited for the game. I was more excited for GTA 6 before it was announced, back when Rockstar’s reputation was rock-solid.
After the way they butchered GTA Online and are bound to double down on monetization for GTA 6’s Online (just look at RDR2 Online to confirm) I have trust that it will be a good game.
I don’t trust Rockstar, they last they released a full title was RDR2 and a LOT has changed since then and Rockstar has had more than a few moments of bullshit-ery to have me skeptical. They’re going to have GTA Plus for GTA 6 and I can only imagine what they’re going to lock behind a paywall.
I literally haven’t even watch the trailer for the game. I don’t intend to. Rockstar is more than welcome to prove me wrong but I know better than to put my faith in some faceless corporation.
As far as GTA 6 goes, I could not care less. Even Naughty Dog managed to ruin their reputation. Another company with a rock-solid portfolio that went down the drain after a bunch of short-sighted decisions.
I will NEVER pre-order a game again, that’s just begging for the game to come out unfinished. The corpos already made their bag, why finish something that’s already sold?
So I agree it’s greed but it’s also driven by ideology of the writers themselves. Games used to be about having fun and even when your losing it’s about having fun but now it’s about chasing the latest fad and making strong female protagonist for the sake of saying that the game has a strong female protagonist. Why not just go back to basics make a game that is fun for the sake of being fun rather than for greed or for social justice?
I’m a card carrying capitalist but unchecked capitalism is dangerous. It ruins companies. Watching gaming slowly die has been painful to experience.
The issue isn't capitalism - not to say it's perfect -, the issue is the a fundamental degradation and dismantling of the underlying elements which make voluntary trade function. As a civilization, we in the West, have basically spent the last 100 years tearing apart and discarding all the things that made us great. Systems capitalism don't just "work" in a vacuum, they require high trust societies with high moral standards.
It's kinda funny that people say some variation of "capitalism is to blame" with a straight face when every Western country has a mix economy with tendencies tread into the socialist. We are, objectively, less capitalist than we were even two decades ago.
I think the greatest threat to capitalism is fools standing on a wreck so big it can't be unseen screaming "The ONLY alternative to me is communism!"
It's more technically correct to say greed is to blame.
Gaming isnt dying lol
If it were dead there wouldnt be so many microtransactions. It's just thriving in a way tht gamers of old don't enjoy seeing 😂
All capitlism has done has realised that hey these consumers/gamers have massive egos and would do anything to be ahead of their peers so lets give them tht opportunity by making them pay for it lmfao
Ofc outside the microtransactions, games can keep being launched broken because of preorders and updates to fix the mess after the hype was sold into.
As for the games get canceled, nobody cares other than a niche audience that would never make the game reach desired profit margins.
The market will only ever shift when consumers decide they've had enough and as the market is predominantly kids and mobile gaming, thts just a faded dream
@@zerog1037 Yeah, I think gamers are a consumer group, not a community. And like other unorganized consumer groups they have a vastly inflated sense of individual importance.
The word investors makes me shudder each time I hear it.
this is why i decided to become an indie game dev. I felt like , If we want games made with passion instead of ruined by greed, we gotta make them ourselves. Cause gamers just have no tolerance for corporate bs ruining their games. And I am so thankful, I'm loving it. I feel like it's the dawn of an indie game renaissance
Fursonally, i'm pivoting from web/SaaS to indie mobile + vr game dev.
I shall join u in your quest, (while wearing my quest ;p)
@@vir2plus I don't have a headset or id be making vr games. It's an under served market. I wish you the best with it