The cycle of mass layoffs in game development isn’t a problem of the industry’s inherent “instability.” It’s a problem of exploitation.
  • Donjuanme@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1082·
    6 months ago

    Stop

    Buying

    AAA

    Games

    Stop

    And don’t confuse high budget indie studios with AAA game developers

      • overload@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        16·
        6 months ago

        Same, bonus points if you don’t even buy the AAA game when it’s on sale, instead buy an indie game with that money.

      • 7U5K3N@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        132·
        6 months ago

        Man this is the way… I just started fo4. Got the bundle with all dlc for like $30.

        2 days later got the massive patch.

        And if runs on Linux… patient gaming is the best way

        • kratoz29@lemm.eeEnglish
          15·
          6 months ago

          patient gaming is the best way

          I think being a patient gamer makes more sense nowadays (or at least since PS3/PS4 days) than it did before.

          Many games are unfinished, unoptimized or need patches, and all this annoying experience is for the users which I like to call “unpaid beta testers” then when all the needed fixes arrive we can fully enjoy the best experience, at the best price.

        • kratoz29@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          6 months ago

          If you are gonna play them right away, I don’t see why you should not!

    • insomniac_lemon@kbin.social
      41·
      6 months ago

      And don’t confuse high budget indie studios with AAA game developers

      On the other hand, there are a lot of publishers out there who really shouldn’t have things called indie when they’re involved.

      The ones who have struck gold (perhaps multiple times) and are already worth multiple millions, publicly traded or even owned largely by investment firms. Some like this still footing everything on the players (crowdfunding and then early access) and on top of all of that going onto places like Imgur and Reddit and doing unpaid marketing there (doesn’t seem great for the actual devs, and then there are things like multiple accounts/sockpuppets/deleting+reposting etc).

      And even without the unpaid marketing stuff, a publisher has a lot of ways to screw over developers and/or players usually with the goal of money in some form.

    • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
      98·
      6 months ago

      This is a nonsense take.

      The Last of Us, Elden Ring, Baldur’s Gate 3, God of War, Doom. There are plenty of AAA games worth your time and money. Every bit as lovingly crafted as your precious indie darlings.

      Maybe stop buying them blindly because you’ve seen a flashy ad for them on TV. There’s plenty of bad AAA games that do all the gameplay competently but have literally nothing to say. Where you can’t feel the touch of the designer at all, and all you can hear in it’s place is a hubbub of design-by-committee noise. The only thing those games have to say is “give me your money”.

      • Lileath@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        8·
        6 months ago

        Larian Studios who made Baldur’s Gate 3 could technichally be called an Indie dev despite the big budget and employee count. The company is privately owned by its founder and the games are self published.

      • frezik@midwest.socialEnglish
        4·
        6 months ago

        Notice that other than Baldur’s Gate and Elden Ring, those are pretty old titles at this point. The AAA studios are doing everything they can to make sure those nightmares never happen again.

      • Donjuanme@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        6 months ago

        I would argue elden ring (haven’t played, not my style but heard many good things about it) and bg3 are not AAA studios, they don’t release high budget games frequently, they focus on one genre, and don’t have much (especially large budget titles) outside of that area of focus.

        That list is also staggeringly small compared to The list it’s derived from, and I would say whatever list includes those games has a much larger “awful titles” section to go along with it. If anything I would say the games you listed (that are from multi title developers) are the exceptions that proves the “don’t buy AAA titles” rule.

  • gaael@lemmy.worldEnglish
    59·
    6 months ago

    That’s true, and it’s a subset of another reality: execs are ruining life.

  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.networkEnglish
    581·
    6 months ago

    It’s the unchecked capitalism.

    Better labor protection and antitrust laws would help, but the fundamental push is towards maximum exploitation of worker and customer. Power consolidates and then abuse for profit becomes easy.

    • Asafum@feddit.nlEnglish
      7·
      6 months ago

      I’m trying my hardest to not buy any “AAA” game. The major corporations have lost me as a customer, I’ll only be buying indie games.

      … except monster hunter… It’s been part of my life too long and it’s one of like 3 game series I always play with an old friend lol

      • Jax@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        6 months ago

        Yeah capcom is one of those weird ones. Really aggressive monetization but god damnit the games are good.

  • yamanii@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18·
    6 months ago

    What’s happening to games in this gen is just what happened to the larger tech industry before, MBAs that pretend to be human are put in charge of a product after creators already made it successful.

  • Mossy Feathers (They/Them)@pawb.socialEnglish
    11·
    6 months ago

    I wonder… does anyone know how many shares in a company you have to own before you can call-in during shareholder meetings to ask questions? I’m wondering if we could push back against this by “”“asking questions”“” that make majority shareholders aware of the damage companies are doing to their own brands. I know modern capitalism is all about “money today, fuck tomorrow”, but I wonder how many shareholders would be happy knowing that companies would probably make more money if they’d stop cannibalizing studios and franchises.

    You know, play into their greed and make convincing arguments about how their decisions are ultimately robbing them of money.

  • PerogiBoi@lemmy.caEnglish
    8·
    6 months ago

    Execs should be made to provide benefits to society. I saw we blend them into nutrient paste and use it to make food for our hungry people.

    • Asafum@feddit.nlEnglish
      6·
      6 months ago

      Take this with a grain of salt because I can’t think of the proper search terms to verify what I think I remember reading:

      Once upon a time corporations couldn’t be created unless they proved a benefit to society. We really need to go back to that…

      Edit: with more time I found something.

      "In the United States, the first important industrial corporation seems to have been the Boston Manufacturing Co., which was founded in 1813.

      Experimental in nature and spaced out in time, these early ventures grew mostly independent of one another (the article mentioned older companies from around the world that I left out) But they had one thing in common: even as for-profit ventures, they were explicitly required to serve the common good.

      For the first companies, the privilege of incorporation, often via royal charter, was granted selectively to facilitate activities that contributed to the population’s welfare, such as the construction of roads, canals, hospitals and schools. Allowing shareholders to profit was seen as a means to that end. Companies were deeply interwoven within the country’s or town’s social fabric, and were meant to contribute to its collective prosperity"

      Source (I know, it’s not a source I’d use for a college paper): https://qz.com/work/1188731/the-idea-that-companies-should-benefit-society-is-as-old-as-capitalism

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        6 months ago

        I mean, the earliest corporations were colonial expeditions, so it would depend on your definition of “benefit to society” to say if that was really a good thing.

        • applepie@kbin.social
          1·
          6 months ago

          Well at leads “youur country’s” peasants benefited some how… We can’t even get that from these parasites

          • Buddahriffic@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            6 months ago

            It was good at the time because it was an improvement from the feudal system that basically said the king owns everything and allows subordinates to manage things for him with more layers down to serfs who were bound to the land they lived on. The people benefited because initially ownership spread out and different owners would compete with each other to attract workers or renters.

            At this point, the issue is that things are getting consolidated and looking more and more like the feudal system, only with corporations at the top owning most assets instead of kings (which also creates a layer of indirection obscuring the true owners behind the corporations, other than some of the more attention seeking ones like Musk, Gates, or Bezos).

            The exploitation of the colonized people and stealing their resources acted as a multiplier to this. Supply increased, so prices decreased for demand to meet the new supply.

  • Beetschnapps@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    6 months ago

    “Even when you believe you’ve found yourself the right job, it can evaporate in an instant, and then you are suddenly competing against hundreds or thousands of people for every job position,” Kai said.

  • JokeDeity@lemm.eeEnglish
    3·
    6 months ago

    Remove video games. Execs and more importantly shareholders, are ruining the fucking world.