Cliff Notes – Video game companies are lying to us about everything – Reader’s Feature
- The current leadership in the video game industry prioritises investor interests over the needs of gamers, leading to baffling business decisions and job cuts despite substantial profits.
- Publishers are increasingly focused on live service games and AI, ignoring the demand for single-player experiences, as they cater to investor expectations rather than gamer preferences.
- The industry’s issues stem from greedy executives and indifferent investors, with little regard for the long-term health of gaming or the welfare of developers and employees.
Video game companies are lying to us about everything – Reader’s Feature
You are not their customer (ESRB)
A reader is sceptical about the current leadership in the video games industry and worries that the needs of gamers are not the priority for publishers.
The games industry is in such a strange place at the moment. On the one hand we have amazing games being released, with things like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Blue Prince, and Monster Hunter Wilds. And on the other we have publishers acting like monsters, cutting hundreds of jobs at a time, while making billions in profits. Not only that but making business decisions so stupid that its left ordinary gamers like me absolutely baffled.
It’s not just the obsession with live service games (which Sony proved this week they still can’t shake) but the total refusal to deal with the rising cost of making games, with anything other than price rises. When even Nintendo sees that as the only answer you know they’re not even trying to address the problems, and that’s what got me to thinking.
It seems to me that nobody high up in the games industry is in the slightest bit interested in being a custododian, as you might say, of gaming. Nobody is looking out for its long term health, nobody cares whether people lose their jobs or developers go under, and definitely nobody cares about art.
You might call me naïve for even thinking any of these things were possible but whenever something bad happens in gaming I think back to that awful photo of Phil Spencer (the head of Xbox) and the head of Blizzard at the time, standing in front of hundreds of Blizzard employees, a huge number of which got laid off only a few days later.
Both men must’ve known that at the time but they’re both grinning away as if they’re at a pop concert, soaking up the adulation from their ‘fans’.
Nobody in charge of a game publisher is in the role for anything other than themselves. They don’t even care about the company, just their own money, bonuses, and eventual golden parachute. Remember when the head of Microsoft had Game Pass targets removed from the list of things he had to do to get a bonus? These people don’t care about anything but their own bank balance.
They’re only human, I suppose you could say. I’m not sure I would be any different if I was earning $10 million a year. But then recently I was watching a video by Alanah Pearce, who used to work at Sony Santa Monica, about everything that’s going on. It’s very interesting, and only 20 minutes long, so I advise everyone to watch.
A lot of it was familiar to me from things GC has said in the past, about publishers not being interested in what gamers want but instead what will please investors. They make money from selling games, obviously, but that takes time to filter through. Most of the actual cash flow, as I understand, comes from investors and venture capitalists.
What this video makes clear, is that we ordinary people are not even the customers of these companies, of Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, EA, Ubisoft and the rest. The investors are. Everything games publishers do they do for them. Once you realise that all the dumb decisions suddenly start to make sense.
There’s too many live service games and gamers want more single-player games, but it never happens. Why? Because investors know about Fortnite, Minecraft, and the rest and they want more of that. Even just the potential of a hit of that scale is far more important to them than just a modest profit from a normal game.
Already sick of hearing about AI in games? Tough. Investors love it. Even if it doesn’t work and it’s going to ruin the economy by putting so many people out of work, if they find out AI is involved they’re more likely to invest. And it’ll be the same for whatever dumb buzzword is next in tech, just like it was for NFTs.
Games are getting too expensive to make so maybe we should cut budgets and shorten games… that doesn’t make sense to investors. They don’t understand, or want to understand, gaming so the only logical thing to them is to put more money in to get more money out.
If any publisher tries to pretend to you that they’re doing it for the gamers or give a damn about what the game is or who’s making it… they’re lying. All they’re interested in is what pleases investors. Even laying people off is part of that, because that’s what investors expect any company to do, that isn’t showing infinite growth.
Everything bad that’s happening to the games industry right now is because of greedy execs looking out for themselves and uncaring investors looking for easy money. Any good games that come out of that is purely a side product and no one that could make things better has any interest in doing so. Publishers don’t care about games, and they definitely don’t care about you.
By reader Grackle
Why are they smiling? (ResetEra)
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