“Maybe after the Marathon catastrophe they will learn-”, no, they won’t. They didn’t after Concord, this isn’t different.
Because with just one success they pull out, the profits, in their eyes, will be infinite, everlasting even…
Let’s not forget that these guys are mad ludopaths at a fundamental level.
Kinda obvious, I know, but is good to remember.
These big companies don’t learn that fast.
The decisions to “invest” in these live service projects were made years ago, and execs are terminally allergic to pulling the plug on something once it’s a couple million deep.
They’re like cruise ships crashing into icebergs, except that once they set a course they aren’t set up to change it even if all the other ships start crashing and sinking.
I think you’re completely right, and I also think they’re work-shopping ways to make their live service concept work. In other words, mature gamers wholly rejected live service money grab games as a concept, and the corporations have decided that instead of accepting that and moving on, they’re going to try to jam as many slightly tweaked iterations down our throats as they can until something sticks. IMO, this is the product of companies being run by golden parachute hopping capitalist predators.
I’ve been stuck on this thought that people making decisions are often idiots.
We’re sort of told that management is smart. That big business leaders are visionaries. If someone’s the director of engineering they’re probably smart right?
No. They’re just people. People that have the skills to get promoted, but those aren’t the same skills to do anything else.
I think it would matter less if there was more competition and more stakes. If some business puts idiots in charge and the whole company dies, okay. But instead we have Google just shitting the bed for years, and there aren’t consequences.
This is a capitalist hell
There’s also that whole thing about people getting promoted to management positions without actually learning how to manage anything. Failing upward, I think it’s called? So they might have been good at the lower level position they were in and then get promoted to a position they have no idea what they are doing in.
I’ve had so many jobs tell me they hired me to eventually become a manager, and then never actually show me how to manage shit. Just because I am good at cleaning toilets doesn’t mean I can manage a team of janitors.
Oh yeah that’s the Peter principle I think. Or closely related.
Someone is good at job A, so they promoted to B. They’re good at B, so they get promoted to C. They’re kind of bad at C, so they stay there.
Over time, all roles fill up with people who are kind of bad.
Peter Principle
Yeah, that’s the phrase I was looking for lol
No matter how many times studios fail and close live service games, players continue to flock to them and dump money on them instead of supporting great indie studios and projects allowing the cycle to continue.
If that was true, most live service games trying to be the next Fortnite would be considered successes; not be shut down 2-3 months after launch. lol
No, because they fail to be “the next fortnite” but enough players flock to the “new shiny thing” to make it viable to try. They still make money off of those games in the beginning with predatory sales tactics, they just don’t maintain enough steam or make enough money in the companies eyes.
I mean, I understand where you’re going but I don’t remember many people throwing money at Condord, Babylon Fall, Anthem, etc., but the usual ones, Fortnite and the like.
And people ARE playing indie games, especially on PC, it’s just that there are so many coming out every day that it’s overwhelming and it’s more common for them to be unprofitable than becoming the next Hollow Knight.
The point is if they can make the next big thing it is worth the attempt for how much money it makes, and people constantly supporting those kinds of games drives the larger companies to chase the dragon. They will also make some money in the attempt a lot of the time, making them more likely to keep trying.
It is the same with microtransactions. Everyone hates them, yet enough people use them to make it massively profitable.
Be the change you want to see. Instead of making a post complaining about executive decisions, make a post about the great indie games you played recently and get the word out about them.
I wish this was a shower thought but it’s just plain reality for AAA studios.
I think the misunderstanding here is that because there will always be an Overwatch/LoL/WoW/StarCraft/StreetFighter/SuperMarioWorld/PacMan/Pong that exists, and because this event appears in the statistics to be random, the financiers have a confirmation/perception bias that this is something you can force by shotgunning the market with product. A failure to realize that massive blowout successes are not because of random statistics and hidden secret variables in the market, they’re from a mix of unpredictable behaviors that may or may not even occur.
I recently started playing Disney Speedstorm as a fun casual kart game without Nintendo.
The gameplay is fantastic. The music bangs. The netcode is… alright. The game is fun!
But holy crap am I glad I don’t care about cosmetics and characters. This game is printing money on the backs of parent’s credit cards. Assuming everything was unlockable, you’re probably looking at 4-5 figures.
I’d gladly pay $80 for a game of this quality, but this kind of predatory nonsense should be illegal. And until it is, I can understand why companies are drawn to making games like this - it’s an unpatched infinite money glitch.
