The excuses people make for multibillion dollar publishers have to stop. They ignore so many ways in which the “AAA” game industry both makes money and takes shortcuts.
From tax havens to worker mistreatment, from the avoidance of royalties to the sheer amount executives make in compensation, the game industry actually has it EASY while pretending it’s got it hard. Let’s look at all this.
This sounds more like a systemic problem of unregulated capitalism.
a) The USA lacks worker protection laws and regulations
b) Freelancer should not sign contracts they don’t like
In Austria we have by law a max. 60 work-hours per week / a minimum of 25 days of vacation per year / mandatory social security which needs to be provided by the employer.
“Ubisoft throws shade at EA”
*twospidermenpointingateachother.jpg*
These companies are literally the same as “real world” corporations. No matter how much they earn, the top 5% of work pyramid, general “somethings”, executives and all the sort always take the lion cut of any profit. Sure, they should earn more than average coder or animator, because their heavy responsibility includes making decisions successful enough so that these average coders and animators would actually have a job.
Unfortunately humans are garbage beings and just like hundreds of years of history proved, 99% of the time those at the top have no problem using their power and position to conveniently pocket more than they should ethically and definetily more than they should officially, “by contract”.
With that in mind it’s just baffling how some people act like Activison and such are not the same as some major pharmaceutical, oil, electronics or any other corporation. People at the top keep getting away with being greedy, so they keep getting greedier and exploit both their workers and clients more and more.
If the actor who played Nico in GTA 4 would have gotten even half a cent from every unit sold as a royalty, he would have made somewhere around $42k in the first month. And, frankly, I would have been happy to have had the price of GTA 4 hiked up from $59.99 to an even $60 to do it.
And it’s bizarre that companies still trot out the idea that single player is dead. God of War, Uncharted 4, Spider-Man, Last of Us Remastered, Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Witcher 3, Nier: Automata, and Final Fantasy XV all sold over 1 million copies and most of those are in the top 10 best selling PS4 games.
It is outright disgusting how the gaming industry became a prime example of what kind of abusive situation a unregulated market will eventually lead to. But thank god for you, Jim Sterling, for not becoming tired in pointing out industry bullshit.
I don’t feel pressured to buy mtx. Because I don’t play games that contain them.
Not just video games. Corporations of all varieties spout the old “we can’t afford it” bullshit when it comes to paying their employees properly, all while raking in utterly mind-blowing profits. As time goes on, I find myself drifting further and further left, to the point now where I’d probably be considered a radical by most, and if anything, I’m surprised I seem to be the exception rather than the norm.
They can throw their greedy MTX right into their ***SKELETON WARRIOR*** !
I’ve never been susceptible to loot boxes because I honestly don’t give a shit about stuff in them, and I refuse to spend money on something that only gives me a CHANCE of getting what I want (except charity raffles, if I know the charity isn’t a scam).
But yeah, that shit’s exploitative to those who get hooked on it. I only took a few years of psychology in college before changing majors and since then have just sort of casually studied it on my own, but the basics of operant conditioning explain why those games generate compulsive spending behaviors. That was shit we got into in the 101 class, so even the most basic grasp of psychology will tell you that, yes, they are exploitative.
I hate when people defend loot boxes and mtx, saying it helps developers. When it never does, it helps publishers, they rarely ever share
So uh, yeah. Unionize the workplaces. Eat the rich. Boot the management.
While the microtransactions don’t typically target me, I can’t deny that they ARE predatory. I’ve never even considered buying lootboxes in a paid game, and just quit playing the game if I feel pressured. I would love to see microtransactions in paid games disappear, but it’s never going to happen.
Yeah, Devs need to unionize. Thats really the only real world solution I can see actually helping them out. The ability to have unions is something wars have been fought over. These things are important. Those fatcats aint going to just wake up and have a change of heart
Jim, I’m starting to suspect you’re a bit of a socialist.
And I like it. Keep fightin’.
100-hour work weeks. Let’s break that down:
24 hours in every daily cycle, so that’s 168 hours total in any week. Subtracting those work hours, we get 68 hours left.
Assuming that any of these workers are getting a healthy 9 hours average each day for sleep (but let’s be real, they’re probably not), we get 63 hours total for sleeping.
That leaves 5 hours. What’re those five hours for? Family? Free time? _Eating?_ How does someone live if their job consumes their life like this?
Better question: Are they paid overtime for this?
The fact that fanboys are defending them shows you how brainwashing does indeed work.
Jim – your videos are brilliant which is why I am proud to be a patreon for you. You tell it like it is and you are very important for the gaming industry. Also, when you do Skeletor I literally can’t have a drink in my hands or I will drop it on the floor laughing. Thank you and keep up the great work. Oh, last, last thing – it was disgusting what Digital Homicide tried to do to you and glad you ripped them a new one. Rock on mate!
None of these CEOs will ever match Satoru Iwata, a man who understood cuts had to be made at the TOP first in order to maintain morale and avoid layoffs. I’d like to see any of these guys cut their own salaries.
There are no industries this doesn’t apply to.
This isn’t capitalism ‘gone wrong’. This is what was planned from the start.
It’s literally killing people now. Capitalism is a death cult, where we worship the wealthy.