The state of the Industry and Capitalism

[Chazore]

JRPGfan said:

Man this video hits right in the feels.

Corp greed, and CEO catering to Shareholders...  who have no clue about gaming,
what made these companies big and popular, and who dont care about the product at all, only the profits. 

I've said the same thing with the Live services type games.
That because returns can sometimes be 20 times bigger than say a good "normal" successfull game (say a one and done), even if chances of it failing are 10-15 times higher, the lure of the profits a GaaS game can make, makes them gamble for it.  Which might make bussiness sense, if it only takes 1 mega hit, to more than make up for alot of failours.

The thing is, as a consumer, its gonna suck..... dev times are so long already, and no one wants to see a million failed GaaS games, much less play them.

Steve Jobs was the GOAT.

There is a disconnect between the consumer (gamer) and the shareholders (that are trend chaseing, and only care for possible profits returns)

That's the thing, he knew way back then what was coming before any of us were even born, and by the time he saw it unfolding, he had basically passed on by, as the rest of the industry just went about doing what he talked about 2 decades prior. 

The other part that gets me, I can't remember the dev who said it, but I remember reading a tweet from them last year, where they said something along the lines of: "While we were making those games people loved so much, the ones that would always make fun of us for being nerds, would slowly catch up and fill in the ranks, now they're the ones running the show, and we're the ones looking for another job". 

I mean it makes sense to a point, if you look at those disinterested in gaming, who only focus on making money and know how to make it, decide to invade one of the world's most popular and booming markets, to make said money. They don't seem to care about the overall health of the customer/product relationships, and only focus on the line going up or down, and attending those share holder calls, to make sure things go smoothly with them (not the customer, we only get PR and still have to pay for everything else).

As much as I liked playing Helldivers 2, I honestly don't see that game having long-term success, mostly because Sony is likely to demand more payout from the game itself, and it is so far the least predatory live service game on the market, but it's also not going to make money from the few who decide to spend money on super credits for what amounts to a £10/$10 warbond pack (compared to other cash shops, like Diablo IV's one, where you buy a horse armour for a whopping $30, it makes HD2's one MT so small).

I just feel like Live service games are designed at the core to have to make a lot of money to keep those lights on, but to also fund whoever runs it for another game, because you can't just run a live service title and just be at a neutral line throughout it's lifespan (it has to cover it's costs and ongoing services, but HD2 has likely covered this by now). I just wish we could return to SP only games, and MP only based games with dedicated servers, instead of amalgamations like PVPVE, extraction games, all of which end up being a blend of PVE/PVP and made into live service models (I honestly don't believe in either of those recent combinations, since PVE SP games have worked just fine since gaming began, and PVP only works fine as well, as long as it is supported). 

Personally I'd love to see shareholders go, or at least be paid less attention to, but I know how the current state of capitalism works, you piss off the shareholders, they not only take their money from you, but they'll also dispose of their shares as well, double tanking any company, whilst all customers get to do is stop buying a product and maybe selling some of the few shares they own (this is why I hate the amount of power shareholders have over the customer).