He has some points but the main one, mentioned in the headline, is shite.
There are plenty of gamers to go around for just about any game, if it’s worth playing.
If we wanna talk about soulless AAA bullshit like live service, or making trash out of a popular existing IP, that’s a different convo. Taking shareholders out of gaming would benefit everyone.
I don’t think private business is the issue. I think publicly traded business is the issue. In a private business, you don’t have quarterly shareholder meetings with the expectation of continuous growth, and then shareholders demanding you fuck everything up.
Many private businesses are also fucked up, but so many others work just fine. Many work great, particularly small business or employee owned business or coops or similar.
Obviously there are a lot of large privately held companies, many of them owned by billionaires, some of whom are very public assholes. Forbes maintains this US-only list (Twitter is 149th and falling): https://www.forbes.com/lists/largest-private-companies/ But, Twitter notwithstanding, most of these giant companies just quietly go about their business. Some of them become conspiracy theory targets (Koch) due to the flex their owners exhibit on the public sphere. And some of this is clearly incorrect in their table (ie: Cargill is not making $1M in revenue per employee – they probably used US employee count, but global revenue).
Large private companies should be paying more taxes, imo, but are not strictly the problem. Large public companies are evil almost across the whole spectrum. The large private companies don’t typically fire 25% of their staff at Christmas just to massage numbers for the quarterly report.
When you look at small companies though (for example, my company is two people, both owners, no employees), I hope you’ll see that we’re just trying to make a living :)
What’s wrong with live service games? Soulless AAA games tend to be live service, but so are good games. All of MMO’s are a live service and many are good games (if MMO’s are your thing).
All of live service games are designed to disappear once they stop making money, which is a nightmare for preservation that doesn’t have to be that way. Also, their incentives are to keep you playing for longer, which is not the same as making sure you have a good time. If you find a player base absolutely angry at the developer behind a game they play, it’s going to be live service, because of these incentives.
Or they don’t disappear, servers are released or reverse engineered and the community takes over. Yeah, in many cases it doesn’t happen and companies often try to prevent that, but then that’s the shitty thing. The fact the game was live service didn’t prevent preservation in itself or require the developer to make a bad game. It often goes together, yes, but it’s not an inherent property of it.
I’d be curious to know what percentage of dead live service games have had pirate or reverse engineered servers come in to save the day, but my gut feeling is that it’s a very, very low number.
He has some points but the main one, mentioned in the headline, is shite.
There are plenty of gamers to go around for just about any game, if it’s worth playing.
If we wanna talk about soulless AAA bullshit like live service, or making trash out of a popular existing IP, that’s a different convo. Taking shareholders out of gaming would benefit everyone.
Taking shareholders out of anything would be a benefit.
Capitalism is humanity’s second biggest mistake. Honestly, if private businesses disappeared altogether, I don’t think they’d be missed.
I don’t think private business is the issue. I think publicly traded business is the issue. In a private business, you don’t have quarterly shareholder meetings with the expectation of continuous growth, and then shareholders demanding you fuck everything up.
Many private businesses are also fucked up, but so many others work just fine. Many work great, particularly small business or employee owned business or coops or similar.
X is a private business.
Obviously there are a lot of large privately held companies, many of them owned by billionaires, some of whom are very public assholes. Forbes maintains this US-only list (Twitter is 149th and falling): https://www.forbes.com/lists/largest-private-companies/ But, Twitter notwithstanding, most of these giant companies just quietly go about their business. Some of them become conspiracy theory targets (Koch) due to the flex their owners exhibit on the public sphere. And some of this is clearly incorrect in their table (ie: Cargill is not making $1M in revenue per employee – they probably used US employee count, but global revenue).
Large private companies should be paying more taxes, imo, but are not strictly the problem. Large public companies are evil almost across the whole spectrum. The large private companies don’t typically fire 25% of their staff at Christmas just to massage numbers for the quarterly report.
When you look at small companies though (for example, my company is two people, both owners, no employees), I hope you’ll see that we’re just trying to make a living :)
I was saying that private control of the means of production are the problem.
Imagine your life for a year without visiting a single private business
What’s wrong with live service games? Soulless AAA games tend to be live service, but so are good games. All of MMO’s are a live service and many are good games (if MMO’s are your thing).
All of live service games are designed to disappear once they stop making money, which is a nightmare for preservation that doesn’t have to be that way. Also, their incentives are to keep you playing for longer, which is not the same as making sure you have a good time. If you find a player base absolutely angry at the developer behind a game they play, it’s going to be live service, because of these incentives.
For real.
One of my favorites was Marvel Heroes. One day it was just gone forever.
Or they don’t disappear, servers are released or reverse engineered and the community takes over. Yeah, in many cases it doesn’t happen and companies often try to prevent that, but then that’s the shitty thing. The fact the game was live service didn’t prevent preservation in itself or require the developer to make a bad game. It often goes together, yes, but it’s not an inherent property of it.
I’d be curious to know what percentage of dead live service games have had pirate or reverse engineered servers come in to save the day, but my gut feeling is that it’s a very, very low number.