"You say we're misinformed, but you never fucking inform us!" This little gold nugget of truth is one that is worth remembering throughout life. If someone accuses you of doing something wrong or misunderstanding, but refuse to ever help you rectify the issue, you have to wonder what they'd stand to lose if you knew the truth.
Well, I've heard that in US law too, but specifically "ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it" (though there are actual exceptions to that rule given in law classes.) But I'd say this is different in that it's not just that we "don't know" but that the people accusing gamers of being misinformed are the ones actively lying to us or just outright refusing to tell us about what they are claiming we're misinformed about. At some point you have to assume the people will draw their own conclusions. But then again, Coke has actually successfully defended themselves in US court from claims of false advertising by basically saying "you shouldn't have believed us." so who knows.
Merling Stoss that law is against ignorance and not misinformation. If you are accused of beign misinformed then they first to prove that you could have informed yourself for that law to work so they have to show the truth.
you also have to wonder if they're just clueless. some people like to accuse others of "doing something the wrong way" but never bother to explain how to do it correctly. usually those people are full of shit and just want to start drama.
Hm. If I'm very loudly shit at maths and someone tells me I'm wrong that doesn't mean they're then obligated to tutor me in trigonometry, y'know? I'd say the suspicion applies if the someone in question is an entity with power. If someone's coming at an individual with that attitude they might be sea lioning, whether they know it or not.
Hi AAA Game Development Community, We are listening and hear that you're upset and unhappy with public perception. We are determining how we can improve your feelings and hope to have a plan for your problem in the future. Thanks for the great feedback keep it coming! -Customers
"Games are too expensive to make" EA CEO's Annual Salary ~$20,000,000 + bonuses I'm sorry, I think they misspoke, what they meant was...EXECUTIVES are too expensive PAY...so they have to charge us more money so they can pay the people that make the games, the investors, and the executives, and then have enough left over to bulk up those golden parachutes JIC. I just love how we, as a society, always jump to increasing prices or cutting the peoples pay at the bottom. Like there is some kind of massive taboo against questioning the *sacred right* of executives to pay themselves whatever the hell amount they want, to the detriment of their own businesses and society as a whole. Look, executives salaries and perks are *NOT* ordained by God, the gods, aliens, or any other higher being, and what's more they are actually controlled by the collective will of all the investors. Maybe games wouldn't cost so much to make if the people who had the least direct input took SEVEN figure salaries instead of eight.
Bethesda needed to hire a former Enron CEO whose never played a game in his life and pay him premium prices otherwise they'll never make it in the big leagues! They need that Enron business acumen in order of The Elder Scrolls to be a success, ya know? And people wonder why Bethesda's gotten so scummy...
But if they don't pay their executives Scrooge McDuckian levels of "compensation", how will they ever retain the best "talent"? Everybody knows that tall men who look good in a suit are expensive.
Imagine you pay $10 to go see a movie. You sit down and start watching, and everything is good up until about ten minutes in when a plank of wood pops up from the floor to block your view. The plank has a sign on it saying, "Sorry, but this scene is for premium customers only. You can watch this scene for an additional $5." _Nobody would fucking stand for it._
Where the fuck are you going where you are only paying 10$ for a movie ticket? I'm having issues following the metaphor for the really low price there. Please edit your post to have 20$ for the movie ticket and 10$ for the whole "premium movie scenes" (and on each movie scene). (Please do not edit your post, I am being silly)
It's not just gamers that are angry, talented devlopers are leaving the industry in droves. Why should I spend my time and energy working 50+ hour weeks for some faceless corporation only to get made redundant at the end of the project? Rather, I can take my programming skills into the software industry, I do a lot of the same stuff, get paid more, work less hours and are more job-stable. They call upon our passions to drive us in the games in lieu of decent working conditions, pay, overtime, and job stability... Frankly, fuck that.
Aria Ravenhart, I don't think it is so bad you should not try working there if you really want. There are some decent indie studios. But general software dev is payed better, I agree.
For example see Hideo Kojima. Konami treated him like a Metal Gear factory for decades and then scrubbed him off of everything like he meant nothing, now Sony is letting him do as he pleases and he's making something that looks amazing and is intriguing people.
DrMattsuu Yeah man, I went to school for game design, and even the learning environment suffers these same issues. you would have to be the biggest idiot or masochist to want to be a modern game dev.
Years after going into programming for the boring old logistics industry, an old college lab partner got in touch with me, and he'd love to vouch for me to work for his employer's game company. Great! How about the deets? >20% pay cut, muuuuuuuuuuuch higher level of expectations and responsibilities, longer hours, fewer benefits, more crunch time. But hey! Passion!
"Developers at Bioware and EA are feeling demoralized" *_GOOD!_* This is the first evidence I've _ever_ seen of EA or Bioware actually having heard a single fucking word we've been saying for _years._
Yep then after that one of their douche podcasters will try to convince viewers that lootboxes are acceptable.......again because it’s hapened before, ign beyond defended SW BF2 lootboxes
I mentioned it on one of igns videos a couple months ago and Alanah Pierce directly replied and tried to damage control because I called her ass out. It was fucking hilarious
As a person who works in the industry, I'm actually including you in a paper. However, I am not casting blame, I'm actually praising journalists like yourself and YongYea and a handful of others. Thanks for all that you do, once it is published I'll make sure to tag you for it :)
Do you know where you'll be publishing it? I'd like to read that too, whenever it's done. I think a mixture of academic criticism in opposition to Jim's more earnest opinion is a sound way of countering industry misinformation, and legitimizing our grievances.
While I do enjoy Yong yea`s contents, I simple cannot praise him completely when he writes comments like this "EDIT: Hey devs, with all due respect, we can talk about "nuanced" once your monetization schemes become less blatant in their predatory and manipulative nature." that`s a perfect example of ignorant comment that a youtuber makes and ends up giving people the wrong idea and blaming the wrong people. With the amount of likes and replies he got on this comment we can be sure that at least one person will start blaming devs incorrectly.
Guilty until proven innocent , courtesy of EA's own reputation. If you thought all Devs are angels entranced by the art of game-making, I dare you to justify Destiny 2.
Will be superbunnyhop in the paper too then? :) There are so few good journalists in the industry, but like Jim, he is one of the incredible good ones. But since you are doing a paper about that, i suppose you know. :)
It's always been wierd to me how people say that "games are too expensive to make" as if the developers are powerless to affect that price. The cost of game development is not some law of nature.
You are a terrible person for choosing to support yourself, and possibly a family, in semi-gainful employment with a company that I have some kind of moral outrage toward even if that outrage isn't justified. How can you live with yourself?
Hal Motley having worked for BP and tesco it’s not helpful when someone like Jim stirs the shit because we the attendant get the flak not are bosses . Instead of stirring please aim people’s anger at the right targets not the poor guy on the shop floor .
Was in the same postion, another company (can't mention names), i been the boots on the grounds as well, while rich people made some shitty decisions meaning the boots on the ground would get another barrage of angry consumers going for them. I will never agree with threatening and bing rude to the people personally who are on the ground who have to do what ever is dictated from above, but i won't feel like we need to be more forgiving in our anger about the state of the industry just because the boots on the ground are having a nervebreakdown.
I personally believe that everyone should be forced to work customer service for a short time every 5 years or so, just so that assholes will understand this. The customer service person is just doing their job, they don't make the policies. Harassing the employees is pointless and just puts more anger in the world. Trying to get a grocery store employee to explain to you why they're so greedy as to raise the price of milk 25 cents is just an exercise in cruelty against someone who has no control over the facets of their employment. Rage against the execs who decided that even though nothing changed in the manufacturing costs, they think they can squeeze a bit more out of you.
Couldn't say it better. Although, it's only that good because it's a response, a high-quality conversational video among the sea of high-quality analytic and reportive material, taking the cake for being just as good but also refreshingly new. I hope Jim will only do that kind of videos seldom, otherwise the emotional message will inevitably dilute. Can't say what number is ideal for this kind of videos, though, it all highly depends on the state of the industry, current problems, community leanings, etc. With current climate, perhaps one or two a year? In 2015 I'd say one in three years, so eh... as I said, I don't know ^_^
“Granny Weatherwax was often angry. She considered it one of her strong points. Genuine anger was one of the world's greatest creative forces. But you had to learn how to control it. That didn't mean you let it trickle away. It meant you dammed it, carefully, let it develop a working head, let it drown whole valleys of the mind and then, just when the whole structure was about to collapse, opened a tiny pipeline at the base and let the iron-hard stream of wrath power the turbines of revenge.” ― Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters
I was really disappointed in the Extra Credits video because I feel like the entire deal with publishers avoiding paying taxes completely debunks the idea that they need more money to keep making games the way they are. They are making more money every year and being greedier than ever.
If I may, I thought the point of the EC video was to say that since games apparently "need" these microtransactions (Keeping in mind EC does work with a lot of ground level people in the industry and half the team are people working at ground level for some of these big publishers) that games should have their price increased INSTEAD of the extra monetization. And I can agree with that a little. If you don't think your full product is worth $60 and instead want me to pay $80 for it, fine. If I am really interested in your product then I'll pay the extra $20. But doing this thing where you sell us the game in chunks so it costs $150 by the time we're done, just makes me bitter after the fact and turns me into an angry customer. I think that's part of what they were trying to get at.
yeah it was a very broad statement from them. i had hoped they would go more into details or provide more substance. i actually unsubscribed after that.
Rebuttal: This is basic economics . . . if you can't make a profit selling your game for $60, then raise the price. If consumers won't buy your product at a higher price that means you spent too much making it and the market has judged your product a failure. The solution is NOT to hide the actual price of the game behind a casino mechanism so that consumers don't really know the actual price. That latter course presents an inherent conflict of interest between maximizing the gaming experience for your consumers when they believe they have paid full price for a full game, and encouraging them to participate in the various side schemes to sell them the rest of the game. The casino approach may very well be aided by designing an incomplete or grindy game and relying on the "sunk cost fallacy" to extract money from consumers they would not have paid had they known what the actual price would end up being before they opted to participate.
Honestly, I don't think that is a rebuttal as much as one of the logical consequences of the argument laid out here. I don't think you're wrong, but it doesn't refute what Jim lays out in the video, at least in my eyes.
Well, if Developers and Publishers didn't put most of the budget into Marketing and Merchandise (Bungie, I'm looking at you here), they would actually make some money with their product and the 60$/€/etc. price tag.
Hey guys did you catch that? Devs think were entitled for wanting fair multiplayer in our $60 titles. Or how we just want the same cosmetics that used to just be included in the asking price if you would just put in the effort to earn them. We're entitled because we dont all want to be held to the standard of the lowest - common - denominator. Were entiled because we are watching an industry that many of use love burn to the ground, and arent supposed to say a word. Yeah, your god damn right were entiled. As long as were pumping money into this shitfest we're god damn entiled to voice our fucking opinion. If you dont like it, make an effort to change it, or get out the fucking way for the companies that give a shit about the people paying their bills.
Well I`m sure you didn`t catch that because if you had you would have seen that Jim was trying to explain Devs don`t make decisions and you shouldn`t blame them, but the publishers. Sadly you used your entitlement to have an ignorant opinion. Pay attention next time, kid.
Luiz eduardo it was the anonymous devs that called us entitled and misinformed, not the publisher. He may have generalized a bit, but was obviously directing it at those devs who do think that and not all devs in general. Also calling someone a kid doesn't make you sound mature, quite the opposite in fact.
Luiz eduardo And you missed my point. But its cool, I got you I dont mind making my thoughts a bit clearer. The line "gamers are entitled" is everywhere and thrown around rather haphazardly. Not just by this dev whom honestly I got no ill will towards, but by the gaming press, publishers, other gamers and bad actors in general. Regardless of how much merit the communities complaints are. IE the recent lootbox issue with Battlefront 2. These are the groups I was more directing towards. Beyond that are you suggesting that as a paying customer im not allowed to voice an opinion on a product? Especially one that its obviously predatory in nature?
Holy crap, Jim, you realized you more or less made your thesis statement as RUclips personality with this video, right? Like, this is it. That this is who you are as a consumer advocate, right? And let me say, it's wonderful. Thank God for you, Jim.
Here in germany, we had a brilliant politic cabaretist. In one of his shows, he had a line, wich fits in to this topic perfectly. "Where is it, the wrath of the people? People have lost their righteus wrath, lost the willingness to stand up against something, wailing in their feeling of being unable to make a change. And that is why, if you actualy manage to developit, this kind of wrath is something precious, something to behold, to take care of, to tend carefully. It's nothing you want to waste on something trivial." His name is Georg Schramm btw. Not dead, but not active on the stage anymore :/
Publishers spend 10 billion dollars making some horseshit trailer, completely overhauled by a third party animation studio. Then take another 20 billion dollars and put it into such aggressive marketing it makes Nintendo and Sega of the 90s blush. And then they spend another 10 billion dollars on "RUclips Creators" to hype their underdeveloped, deathmarch nightmare to little tweenie-boppers. Meanwhile actual production budget: four bucks and a coupon to Red Lobster.
Then they tell us "games are too expensive." But why'd you spend so damn much on trailers and marketing? "Because you have to. You don't understand business." No, maybe you're forcing a failed business model and then trying to pass the burden onto us, and then act like "games are too expensive to make, we can't help it!" It makes me sad but it makes me laugh in how stupid it is yet how many people buy into this apologist bullshit.
The numbers here are slightly exaggerated (Understatement of the century) but the gist of it is accurate. Publishers are spending too much money outside of the actual development of the game. Wanna know what is the best form of advertisement ever? The one that doesn't merely follow trends but creates them and molds the entire industry in its wake? The one that allows you to retain a hardcore base of players in your games practically forever and grants you both goodwill and an incredible long tail of revenue that often surpasses the release window revenue? A GOOD GAME. Put more money into making the games good. Longer more flesh out campaigns, inventive multiplayer mechanics. Polished challenging gameplay. Extra modes. And DON'T SULLY THE FINAL PRODUCT with all of the bullshit predatory schemes. At the very least, launch the damn games as their complete envisioned package, well optimized and bug free. A writer doesn't end his story in the middle of Chapter 7 out of 45 to release an unedited E-book on Amazon for 20$ with a 15$ season pass and a note that says : "I'll finish the story proper soon, and don't worry about the spelling errors, I might fix them... eventually. By the way here's a loot box that allows certain blanks in the sentences to by magically filled in at random! Its a "Book as a service platform" kinda deal. Ain't that amazing?" Doesn't that sounds ridiculous? Would anyone buy into that? NO! Of course they wouldn't. And yet video game publishers are doing it. Every. Single. God. Damn. Day. No wonder people are angry.
@@egoalter1276 yeah, thanks to marketing tactics such as "no microtransactions in our game, pal" and in 2 months the game gets an update that adds them. and of course, the "whales".
“Truly evil people cry out in pain after striking you.” - Polish proverb. Forgive me if I feel no sympathy for these multi-billion dollar corporations who extort consumers.
Bottom line? The invention of the corporate entity was a mistake. It's an ingenious device for achieving individual profit without individual accountability. I guarantee you if we had a face and a name to direct this anger at, we would NOT be seeing half the corporate bullshit we do now. In the meantime, we will continue to stab at corporate publishers for continuing to fuck up our games.
At least in the U.S., too many of the responsibilities of incorporation have been removed, offloaded, and neglected (partially due to the improper amounts of money, social power, and legislative influence the investor class has cultivated), while the privileges have only ballooned, spoiled brats that they are.
Exactly. AAA games from companies like EA are sanitized, focus group-tested products designed to maximize profits. There is neither art nor soul in them. It's no different than a bad movie or music production company. And yet we seem to be okay with holding those kinds of companies more accountable than we do gaming publishers...
Sektor30 That's just one side of the spectrum. There are just as many (Though not as prominent and widely recognized) companies or indie devs that put honest to god PASSION into what they do. It's just that the big stinkers (Ubisoft, EA, Konami, etc.) are the ones making all the big bucks because consumers want what's "big" and "next gen". They prey on the people who succumb to mob mentality and those who can't be bothered to stick up for themselves as consumers.
Are you suggesting that they are the same......NAH.....just because they......NAH..........that is one of the most bold speculations on Boglin lore, next you will say that Amiel Du Hardcore is related to those two.
StarTsurugi are you implying that this sexual Adonis is the sexual tyrannosaurs SterDust? I can see your confusion my lad but no one man could be the alpha and omega of lustful desire....then again Jim is no mere man 😮
I never needed youtubers to tell me EA are assholes. I've been done supporting them years ago but people standing up to publishers like EA is VERY VERY needed! I thank channels like this one and any others fighting back! Thank you Jim!
Can we just agree that the existing shareholder dominion model is the root of so much ongoing evil in just about every industry? Seriously, wherever you turn, it always boils down to "it's wrong, despicable and ruins the product itself, but it's what shareholers want and decided on".
“Anger is just anger. It isn't good. It isn't bad. It just is. What you do with it is what matters. It's like anything else. You can use it to build or to destroy. You just have to make the choice." "Constructive anger," the demon said, her voice dripping sarcasm. Also known as passion," I said quietly. "Passion has overthrown tyrants and freed prisoners and slaves. Passion has brought justice where there was savagery. Passion has created freedom where there was nothing but fear. Passion has helped souls rise from the ashes of their horrible lives and build something better, stronger, more beautiful.” ― Jim Butcher, White Night A fitting quote for this episode
And yet CD Project Red managed to make a huge enjoyable open *single-player only* world without one single loot box or microtransaction involved and *gasp* made a lot of money
I would LOVE to get the exact costs and profits for witcher 3 and say middle earth shadow of war. Just how much did they make per customer from which sources and how big of a difference did it make?
Zenimax (Bethesda) is still independent Publisher/Developer and they release standard DLC expansions. Given they have an issue with the modding side of things but Doom, Wolfenstien, and Dishonored stand on their own.
That’s what’s so galling. Almost none of this is going into tech or art for the game. It’s cheaper than it has ever been to make a “AAA” looking and feeling game and most of what makes a game good (writing and good core mechanics) are fairly cheap in the long run to get. Games aren’t too expensive to make. There is not even the faintest whiff of an argument there. Games are too expensive to publish because publishers want to make all the money off the backs of the creators’ work. And to those claiming it’s to keep a steady stream of content flowing, that argument is nonsense. That content is only free to you. They’re making more money than they would have just selling the content. It’s not about dividing the player base. It’s about making more cash.
I worked as an online marketing consultant for a web-bureau, you'd be surprised how many companies came to us, paid us hundreds of thousands to build the website while saying no to advertising, then coming to us months later complaining that nobody ever visits their precious site. No wonder, no-one knows it exists. Same with games.
Björn Bergström not entirely true. PUBG sold incredibly well for a small amount of advertising. There are plenty of games that sold well with zero advertising money. Hell the big publishers don't need advertising as everyone knows about call of duty, Battlefield, and Grand theft auto.
Mark Wiebe Thanks to a good product and time in early access for the word to spread via WoM. A certain amount of advertising are needed to a) make new customers, b) remind previous customers of ur existence and c) having a presence in the same space as ur competitors. In other words, not to get too far behind.
Some people wonder why I subscribe to the jimquisition, this video, right here, one of his best. All the anger and fury of the populace is constantly being directed at the wrong people is a massive problem worldwide, in every avenue of everyday life even. Blame needs to go to the top, not the bottem, as much as the top tells us it's all everyone else's fault. It's okay to be angry, it's a human response when being threatened or challenged. But it's not okay to direct it at those who are not threatening or challenging us. It's time people stop being lazy about information they recive and be critical about it. Thank you Jim for trying to be a freaking voice of logic, common sense, and critical thinking to all the unreasonable, cowardly, and misguided people who take part in the game industry.
I crack up at the people that actually think that revenue from microtransactions actually make it back to the developers. The executives and shareholders take it all.
Butbutbut have you not heard of trickle-down? In exchange for all that revenue going to executives and shareholders, developers are graciously allowed to work more. Sometimes even for a wage! /s
Thats literally why I became an indie... I Was working 80 hours a week as a dev and tech to make ends meet but the amount you are paid for development positions is abysmal. You go into game development because you love games as an art form and expression of what you think, not to be rich. Because realistically, you wont make a lot of money.
Absolutely spot on. The big games corporations didn't need any help from youtubers in creating a firestorm of unmitigated anger they did it all by themselves, they lit the fuse now they're reaping the whirlwind. With every shady MTX scheme they patent and implement they pour oceans of fuel on the fire. Guys like Jim and other youtubers only reflect and report the existing reality of the anger of gamers they do not cause it or stoke it. We and Jim and every other non-delusional gamer and youtuber didn't start the fire the corporations are the arsonists, their wounds are self inflicted. Their response is classic kill the messenger because you don't like what they're saying. As for anger, personally I prefer "Righteous indignation", It's more accurate as it's entirely justified. No corporation in any industry or business is "entitled" to a customers money. Also channel your anger into not buying their games, don't target individuals, hit them were it hurts them most, their revenue.
I think what annoyed me the most about Extra Credits video is that it didn't say jack shit. They basically at the beginning said that they have contracts that won't allow them to divulge most of the information that would make what they're saying mean anything. I'm sorry, but as great as I generally find Extra Credits, I'm not really willing to just take their word for it. It's actually dumb they tried, because they've almost never asked us to before. A huge reason why Extra Credits is so good is because of how much information they provide to prove whatever their point is. Did they think they'd built up enough good will that we'd just take what they had to say at face value? Seriously though, when you start a conversation with "I have all the information that could prove my point, but I'm not allowed to talk about pretty much all of it." Do you actually think that helps? Like, I'm just supposed to believe you? The real question here is, why in the fuck is all of this so smoke and mirrors? Why, exactly, is telling us how much this stuff costs, so forbidden? I mean, a person might sound paranoid, but one might think "Well, shit, they're probably lying to us." You know, the idea that everything is getting more and more expensive, though they can't ever show us that. We don't really get to know what kind of money they make, any of the sales. Essentially, we're trying to have a conversation, but one side of the conversation doesn't have enough information, and the side that does have the information, won't fucking share it, but we're supposed to assume that there's absolutely no way they'd lie about any of it. Oh no. There's surely no benefit to lying about this stuff. Also, I despised the idea that Extra Credits put forward that the onus was on the customer, rather than the creators. Essentially, games cost to much (so they say, with absolutely no evidence) so we as consumers need to either pony up more money just to buy the game, or we have to accept shitty monetization schemes. Extra Credits did generally denounce the predatory stuff, and I actually generally don't have a problem with microtransactions and dlc done right, but the idea that we have to simply accept that the ONLY option is that we pay more in some form or another. Are they even trying to change how they do things? I mean, if it's so damn expensive, maybe look into making it cheaper? I mean, we know of small indie companies who have had massive success with relatively small budgets, so why exactly am I supposed to buy into the "it's to expensive" concept?
I look at it as, if they've furnished a good, complete game, and because it's popular, they take the time to add in extra levels, skins, items, etc. (without any pay to win factors involved in any competitive games) and allow you to buy what you want(no loot box scenarios), there's nothing wrong with that. Games like Overwatch, for example, if they got rid of the lootboxes, and instead allowed people to simply buy what skins, emotes, etc. they wanted, would be an acceptable place to put these microtransactions, since you wouldn't have to pay for them if you didn't want them (I wouldn't mind lootboxes if you couldn't buy them, maybe.... that's a whole other discussion). Long story short, in some games, it's clear that they scrapped content from the released game so that they can sell it as dlc, and that's bullshit. When you get a good game that doesn't have this issue, I see nothing wrong with microtransactions. I don't mind companies making money, I just hate when they use predatory behaviors, or when they short change the customer by holding back content so they can sell it to you later. I guess that most single player games don't have a lot of room for this kind of stuff, which is almost certainly the real reason that the larger companies are backing away from them. It isn't that we don't want them, we absolutely do, it's that they can't safely monetize the crap out of them without looking like complete heels, though they often do anyway with the nonsense they regularly pull. In games like call of duty, battlefield, cs:go and such, where people will play these games for years to come, it only makes sense from a business perspective to capitalize on the continuing popularity of your games by selling weapons skins, emotes, and such, so long as you keep any pay to win factors out of it. Have I changed your mind that some microtransactions, in the right games are okay, or do you disagree?
Figured Jim would mention Extra Credits, no surprise they said games should be more expensive as they deal with the worker bees, not the ones counting the money. They want better work places with more money... but guess what, raising the price won't do that, all that cash goes through tax free shell companies, making more money won't change that, cause the ones in charge are lying, they have money and you don't get it to make your game/workplace/day better cause you are not the all powerful shareholder... you are not the boss
Yep, I've said it before and I'll repeat it now: if you want to support the developers, don't buy their games, or their DLC, or any microtransactions or loot boxes in their games. Get the address of their headquarters and mail them a check. They'll see a lot more money that way than if you give Activision or EA $60 for the game + $50 for the season pass + who knows how much on microtransactions.
The mistake people make is thinking that higher cost = more money for the workers, which never fucking happens. A lot of people are wowed by Trump's new tax cut because companies buy publicity, announcing they suddenly can afford to give employees a miniscule one-time bonus (meanwhile, they're richer than ever and still laying off workers). It's a fucking scam. Why do the publishers not have to account for their bloated budgets? Why do we allow them to funnel money into offshore accounts? None of that goes back to developers. The rich just get richer. We've got decades of documentation on how this shit does not work, come on people.
@mjc0961 "Yep, I've said it before and I'll repeat it now: if you want to support the developers, don't buy their games, or their DLC, or any microtransactions or loot boxes in their games. Get the address of their headquarters and mail them a check. " This is dumb and ignorant as shit. Some pocket change won't help the devs if all of their games underperform to the point where no publisher wants to hire them. Your idea would only ever possibly be viable if almost *everyone* that would've bought the game sent their money to the devs. I'm talking like +90% here. Because the devs would need enough money to pay ALL of their employees and expenses at ALL TIMES (unless you think firing people or letting people go without pay is a viable option). So how exactly do you plan on making this happen? You didn't think your brilliant plan all the way through.
You know what's demoralizing for people on the ground level of a company like EA? Working at a company like EA that views them as no more important than a cog in a machine that can be taken out and replaced with one fresh off the assembly line should it no longer perfectly fulfill its purpose. But no, angry people on the internet are what's wrong with video games today.
It really feels like they're trying to tug at our heartstrings with this. I have all the respect in the world for those who create games, and wish they'd leave the Activisions and EAs out there, to find work with smaller studios, or even start their own. Their talents deserve better.
I agree, they hide behind their employees whenever it suits them, and casts them out the moment they are done with them. Not just in the gaming industry that happens in almost every industry. Once its time to plea for tax breaks or aid from the government they plead holding up their employees as totems of poverty, then balk when its time to support said employees with healthcare or reasonable wages.
Cthuluman3 They act like you should support EA to support the developers, but you could spend a million dollars on FIFA and only the tiniest fraction would be seen by their employees. No matter how much you buy their games or give their company money it won't really support them, other than their studio not being shit canned.
As one of the peons for a MUCH hated company that Jim has mentioned, and who has received a lot of the frustration firsthand (after all, we peons are the face of the company), I'd like to say this: Of course I'm going to have much of the disgust for my employer focused towards me. If you can't handle that, find a job where you either don't deal with people, or with a less hated corporation. On a side note, most customers are very pleasant towards me.
I find it honestly sad that people can't discern the difference between an employee and the company. People like you are just doing your job. Doing what you're hired to do. If anyone has worked in a corporate environment it works much the same; You are hired for your skill set and given a task within that skill set to perform. Often with an endless chain of management eventually trickling down to you giving you instruction and task. You're not the one calling for fucking loot boxes with gated off stats in them. I find it fucking disgusting that people seem to attack those simply making a buck, upping their resume credits and improving their skills. I just hope you're doing alright for yourself as it appears most of these companies don't seem to pay well for the hours and work put in.
Honestly, I have nothing but sympathy for the people who are ground up into a pulpy lubricant for the treads of the gaming industry to shudder forward on. These hapless thralls who make up the masonry of this dark tower aren't to blame for all the corruption. The messengers? I perhaps feel most sorry for them. The powers that be nail another satanic decree into the corpses hanging in the town square, proclaiming their latest profane machination, and then hide behind poor Stiny the PR Minion who has to bear the brunt of the backlash for yet further sins against all decency. The mob then crucifies them, while the true ministers of the evil of the day are left to continue their vile schemes. If I personally direct my hatred at someone, it's going to be executive - director level or higher. People with the actual authority to make these terrible decisions, not the poor fools chasing their childhood dreams and finding themselves laboring on the bridge of the SS Clusterfuck.
Thank you for the work you do. Please keep making quality content... for your employer to gate off and sell at premium as "optional". God I'd hate to be a Dev for a large company, I already hate being a manufacturer for a large company.
sechren Maybe the most well written RUclips comment in history. To call that evocative would be quite an understatement. I felt like I was reading some Frank Underwood monologue, or something. (May he RIP.)
Yeah, no... No youtuber made me angry at EA. EA made me angry at EA. I still remember Mass Effect 3 and it's ending, and it was the straw that broke this camel's back. I made a promise after watching it that i wouldn't buy another game from them, and i intend to keep it. Considering how many companies are almost at the same point with me, It's a really good thing that in the past 2 years i found some really great "indie" games, like Stardew Valley, Warframe, and Rogue Legacy.
Well, most hardcore gamers know by now that Polygon and Kotaku are literal trash when it comes to reviews or even news that often contain crapton of false info, so they gotta appeal to somebody, so they focus a lot on making their websites a safe space where any casual player can feel welcome.
Regarding the intro, that Extra Credits video really did take me back a bit. I usually agree with them wholeheartedly about their conclusions, but I couldn't square it at all this time. They could do with a bit more righteous anger!
The Extra Credit guys tend to side with devs given they have a long history with them. I know they want to believe they are helping but we have numerous cases of people proving this myth is wrong and a lie.
Yeah me too, especially given how they missed the most obvious conclusion about game costs: maybe they are just to high. It annoys me because I really like the EC team, and that is a really, really basic thing to forget. I get as a developer you are going to want all the money you can get to deliver your vision but the world just does not work like that.
I'd argue that those free DLC are only possible because the games drive sales of the Switch, and once you actually own the Switch, you are more likely to buy further Nintendo products. And since Nintendo then continues to sell you games on their own platform rather than Steam, they don't lose 30% of their revenue to a third party.
You mention that publishers keep things hidden, only telling the truth to shareholders. It's important to note that they're required, by law, to tell the truth to shareholders. So they hide and lie to everyone and only speak the truth when not doing so would send them to jail (or a fine).
"When directed efficiently and channeled accordingly anger can create some change." Damn straight. Greedy corporations in every industry deserve our directed rage.
Extra Credits' argument omits one very important point, and that is although inflation has meant that technically, $60 is less money than it was when that price point became standard, for most low-to-middle income families, wages have totally stagnated. For a lot of people, $60 is just as much outlay as it was in the 1990s. This idea that $60 'isn't much money anymore' says less about the reality of game development, and more to an overall ignorance of what your average punter can actually afford.
Beaucephal That's because the executives and shareholders are in their ivory towers, looking out upon the unwashed masses, not understanding why they can't afford a week's with of groceries for their product. Surely they can, no MUST, be able to afford more. For the more the product makes, the bigger the bonus they get.
Even as an avid gamer, I still very much agree that this industry, especially this generation, needs a harsh kick in the family jewels. Thank you, Jim, for being among the many to deliver it.
I saw a "Daily reminder" thread on /r/Gaming with "Don't Preorder Anthem". I know its gonna mean people at Bioware are upset that people aren't interested in preorders/multiple editions/season passes etc, but if that's what it takes to get the greedy assholes at their corporate overlord EA, its a price I'm willing to pay.
EA is just mustache twirling villains.... eh, you coppers will never take me alive!!!! ---- why do you do these disgusting things??? because I like the see the veins in your temple throb...... ----- you vill talk......ve have vays of making you talk.....strap him in.....
Game developers have a built in method of fighting the used game market: Make your fucking game good enough, with enough content and fun mechanics that people don't want to sell or trade it in. There are some games that I'll never sell or trade because they're worth playing over and over again. That extra credits video was complete horse shit. Games are cheaper to make today than they've ever been. The only reason they're as expensive as they are is because AAA publishers insist on pushing the graphics as high as they can in a neverending dick waving contest which also serves to make current gen platforms into last gen platforms so you're forced to buy new hardware.
Sure, but you can't blame the devs, they're not the ones making these decisions, but they're the ones getting the short end of the stick because people don't understand how these corporations work. I'm sure many of the 'boots on the ground' working at EA are insanely talented people who just want to make the best games possible, but their hands are tied by the suits at the top who don't give a shit about the games, as long as they can please the shareholders and extricate as much profit as possible from the consumer.
Something to keep in mind, people please don't start harassing the extra credits team. I personally didn't agree with their video either, but I don't think their intention was to be corporate apologists, besides like Jim said, all that anger is better spent focusing it at the suits.
MayanExpression Yeah I don't think it was thier intention either, especially considering that they have multiple videos on avoiding predatory practices that hurt consumers (like thier Skinner box video).
This! I saw the video and while I didn't like it either, I'm fairly certain their underlying intent was Games should cost $15 upfront and remove all this ridiculous extra crap that makes us pay another $60 for more of the same game. Higher base price INSTEAD of Microtransactions/DLC, NOT WITH Microtransactions/DLC
This. Yeah lets just pay them more money and hope they don't just find another excuse like "Customer Choice!" to pump their games full of microtransactions and lootboxes! Ahhh sarcasm on the internet! Anyway I'd give it six months before we're paying a higher base price and microtransactions. Why do I believe this? Because that's how every corporation ever has always behaved since ever. It will only stop when we stop buying games that have this kind of crap going on.
That's the unfortunate truth to the matter. EC's heart might have been in the right place as they do have a viewpoint most other popular game information outlets on youtube don't have (being very close to the development side of things) But it is a lofty goal. Corporations just don't play nice when being assholes to customers is more lucrative. But who knows, with the amount of recent backlash maybe that point where the majority finally stops buying their lies isn't too far off after all.
Why are people acting like video games don't cost a lot of money? People have a right to be upset about being preyed on. Destiny 2 Year 1 is a $90 game. Year 2 will surely be another $40. And that doesn't even include the cost of emotes, shaders, etc. that the game is designed for you to buy in addition. If they want players to be constantly givung them money, then make Destiny a subscription like WoW.
If anyone falls prey to Destiny 2's still shitty system for monetizing their expansion packs considering _everything_ that's happened, they don't deserve any more sympathy than what has already been given.
To get a subscription, you have to constantly push out quality content, which costs time and money, and publishers don't want to. They want the most money with the least effort, and selling loot boxes to whales and gambling addicts does exactly that.
Probably because, just like with cell phones, they only see how much they pay upfront and not how much they've spent in total. $60 upfront with $40 in DLC of whatever variety over the course of a few months is an easier pill to swallow than $100 upfront.
Except shaders and emotes COST NOTHING!!! You literally get them out the wazoo and now there are gonna make the shaders permanant anyways! Not to mention that you get so much bright dust that you can buy every emote, shader or ornament easy just by playing and hitting your weekly goals you don't even have to be a try hard because a casual like me already has over 10k bright dust and most of the "loot box " content without buying any "loot boxes". Its not freaking broken p2w shit like warframe or even worse the microtransaction matchmaking from war thunder where matchmaking is influenced on how much gold or real money you spend in the game.
Holyshit... that was possibly one of the best scripts you've ever written and delivered. I don't know how people don't understand that the collective anger of the community is targeted at the soulless shitheels that actually run these companies, not the developers themselves.
It's probably important to note that some people really do attack the developers rather than the big-wigs. Hell, as someone who regularly bashes publishers myself, I had a friend in the meat who thought I bashed developers because it's so common.
I'm pretty sure devs don't climb to the top of the corporate ladder in companies like EA, not that I've ever heard of, that's just not how it works. The guys at the top come from sales and marketing and almost certainly know nothing about game development, and the people who actually make the games will never see that kind of money or have any say in what the company does.
This is what I don't understand... We've seen enormous successes with indie games like Binding Of Isaac, Don't Starve, Road Redemption, Darkest Dungeon, The Sexy Brutale, Faster Than Light, Limbo, Terraria, Starbound... games made by a small handful of people that likely haven't ever worked with the more complex development tools used within the triple A gaming scene, and with a tiny budget have managed to become overnight success stories and sell millions of copies. The developers in companies like Bioware and Bungie, those complaining about the 'anxiety' created by enormous community anger, there's nothing stopping them from doing what Westwood Studios did when EA bought them out, all quit because they knew EA would destroy them, then set up a new company called Petroglpyh which went on to make Star Wars: Empire At War and 8 Bit Armies/Hordes/Aliens, or Shinji Mikami who left Capcom and set up Tango Gameworks to make The Evil within, or Flying Wild Hog which is comprised of the developers involved in the creation of the Painkiller series, who all quit People Can Fly and made Flying Wild Hog the moment Epic Games bought the company then went on to reboot the classic Shadow Warrior into an amazing FPS experience that only they can deliver. The gaming industry is full of success stories of developers leaving companies because big Triple A publishers sank their greasy claws in and the inevitable doom was the only thing that could follow, setting up new companies or signing on to already existing ones with better work ethics and continuing to make successful games. These developers have the talent to create games that look as beautiful as Anthem or possess solid gameplay like Doom, so why do they continue to cower inside the offices of EA or Activision or Ubisoft when they could leave and make something THEY want to make without the worry of some big business manager destroying any integrity the game has? The only way this message is REALLY going to get through to these huge publishers is if the developers really do start leaving en masse because they perceive these publishers as a sinking ship with no lifeboats, and the way Activision, Ubisoft and EA have been acting lately, that day may come sooner than expected.
You're mostly right yet the whole Petroglyph game studio had a fraction of the Westwood staff. They said it themselves. People assumed they're all westwood yet they ended up creating another studio called 'Jetblue' for some mobile game thing, or something like that. They splintered off into many different studios and jobs. But yeah, you're mostly right.
Sorry, it just really bugs me with the state the Triple A industry is when there are so many simple ways of fixing the problem. I mean, for starters, Publishers aren't even needed in the gaming industry anymore. They were created to handle marketing and the printing of physical copies of games, but with gaming shifting so heavily to digital distribution now, publishers simply aren't necessary anymore. We hear about games now by trailers that pop up on the PSN store, Xbox Live Store and Steam, and it's the developers that make the trailers, not the publishers, but it's the publishers that pull the strings and force in microtransactions and monetization, and the devs that follow them blindly. Ninja Theory showed the world that a 'Triple A' game does not need a publisher to be a good or successfull game and can make something that looks fantastic even on a tight budget when they made Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, now we just need other devs to follow suit.
This video really felt like a culmination of what the Jimquisition has been discussing for years now. Really strong episode. If you were going to go out on top, this would've been the episode to do that with. ;)
Anger (Jimquisition) Except everytime Jim says "Miss information" We are Number One Plays Except everytime One is said, a comparison video between a game's trailer and game play. Sorry, has a meme flashback, you don't understand, I WAS THERE! xD
Funny, if I were working on Anthem I'd be more worried about having EA as my publisher than a few RUclipsrs not sharing the same opinion towards their publisher.
agreed anyone that want to bring up the excuses they game industry been feeding us for years you can just throw this video at them and tell them to educate yourself
No? As someone who has spoken with demoralized developers, it's because most devs actually care about making games for gamers. So, if a large and vocal chunk of your audience keeps calling you shit and your work trash, then do you honestly think you'd be more positively disposed to them? And if you aren't well-disposed to the people you make games for, then why are you making games? And before you say it, yes, the people I've spoken to don't want any of the shit you don't want - micro-transactions, DLCs, loot-boxes etc. They want to make cool games. And it's hard to make cool games when the director of your company comes in, tells you that *his* boss told him you have to code all this awful crap in, and if you don't do it, you're fired. So you compromise. And you hope that someone with the power to take your boss's boss to task can kill off these trends already. So go for the boss's boss. Because that's the guy pushing the agendas you're angry about, and the guy the developers don't have the power to challenge.
Wholly agreed with Turidus. It's pretty clear you just let loose on this one. I know a couple of people in Bioware right now (worked with them until about a year ago at another Edmonton company,) and at least one of them is also an avid viewer of you, so it's especially interesting / curious for me to see what's going on with this and to ask their opinions on the ground.
The "We're still at $60" is fallacious in another dimension: ALL OTHER SOFTWARE HAS GOTTEN CHEAPER. * Windows 95 MSRP: $209 -- Windows 10 MSRP: $119 * Office 2000: 339, -- Office 16: $169 * Photoshop CS: $649 -- Photoshop Elements today $120 * TurboTax Basic 2003: $30 -- TurboTax Basic 2016 FREE * Norton 2003: $70 -- Norton Deluxe today: $30 * NaturallySpeaking 7: $200 -- NaturallySpeaking 13 - $175 Tech has gotten cheaper across the board: Memory, Hard Drives, Monitors, TV's, Appliances, and SOFTWARE. So they're right, Games should not be $60 anymore. They should be cheaper.
I'm by no means in the games should be more expensive camp but comparing that type of software to games in terms of how much resources it costs doesn't make much sense lol.
The resources for some things (game code) have gone up, while others (Graphics engine, Distribution, etc) have gone down. Alongside the much larger audience (Industry up nearly 2x since 2003) it's not clear from inputs alone which way the price should go. However, since the rest of the broader industry is moving universally DOWN, it's at least a safe starting presumption, and much more sound a position than saying they should be more expensive.
Awomen to this! I might not be an economic genius, or even part of the industry, but even I can grasp this simple fact: If the marketable population grows, you sell more Units! This is the biggest reason why I can never accept the 'cost of production is too high' excuse, the more Units being moved the less risky the market is. As more and more people in what we should stop calling 'the third world' get online these companies will see more Units being moved. Even keeping the fixed final price, what we consumers pay for it, steady the Gaming Industry would still be see an exponential growth in profits due to number of sales climbing over that last decade as well. This is because the cost of producing a single Unit is not a 1:1 value, but a number that changes depending on how many Units are produced. If a board-of-directors understand anything it is how 'risk management' works, reduce risk to their share price is a big part of what the board does. I am sure they are using a simple formula to calculate the 'base cost per unit' before boasting to the shareholders that they can not only sell the Unit for more then said cost, but throw in additional revue methods like Micro-Transactions for even more pure, unadulterated, profit.
Jim, I've been a fan and followed your work since the early Escapist days. And I really think this is your best, most complete and thought out video. It is that amazing, in my opinion. It includes and summizes every idea and lines of thoughts of your previous videos, and delivers a strong, all-along coherent message about the depressing and angering current state of the industry. Really, thank you for the quality content. And, of course, thank God for You.
There is not enough popcorn in the world for this. Massive corporations being mad that people have finally gotten sick of their BS is like, my favorite thing in the world.
Developers/Publishers don't like being negatively effected by their consumers? Well too damn bad because for years consumers have been negatively effected by Developers/Publishers with shady business practices. Welcome to the freaking conversation!
I used to work at a major free-to-play mobile company, and I overheard a conversation where one dev explained to a qa tester what a 'whale' was. I will never forget his response, to quote: "A whale is person with more money than sense". He then proceeded to explain how they noticed a guy bought every thing in a recent game, so they shoved a bunch of ephemeral crap in there as quickly as possible just because they knew that guy would buy it.
Oh god that's sad and if that's what one game developer is like, then how many of him are like that out there? You should be making games primarily because it's a passion and not some get rich quick scheme. Yes money has to be made, but you'll sink faster with that mentality.
Unfortunately the job security is so bad, game developers (of all kinds, not just programmers) would much rather hang on to a job they hate and do things they don't like, rather than take a chance at making 'art', or whatever.
Accuse people of misinformation meanwhile the industry do review embargo, NDA contract, copyright claim, video takedown, edited down video to hide as much information from the customer because the publisher doesn't trust their own product.
I agreed with what Jim said in this video. Of course we are angry, because the obnoxious business practices of big compains are making us angry. And just like someone said already: If they can't make any serious profit from their products (games), then they need to learn to be more efficient with their budgets. I really like Extra Credits, but their episode on the games' price disappointed me a bit.
Have you ever noticed that when people write articles on this problem of 'toxicity' or 'anger' they always have very complicated reasons for why it is the fault of *everyone but themselves?* Whether it's publishers or RUclipsrs or every manchild who ever dared step into a basement, toxicity is definitely someone else's fault. Never mind the fact that most huge bouts of outrage and backlash come from false promises and massive disappointment; you know, like how every games media site under the sun wrote articles on No Man's Sky and its multiplayer features and its very complex AI generating the universe? Just a week or two back PCGamer told me that Vermintide 2 is *my* "next big co-op game" despite the writer only having played a demo - it's just my next purchase apparently. I hope they're right, I would hate to be disappointed. It might make me angry.
The problem with that logic is that you don't take into account the situation from each person involved in the game with the buyer being the most fucked and the corporation being the least. If the buyer does their research and then get what they were not told is coming for $60, being pissed is fair.
Caesar Yet research isn't done by the consumer and the most screwed party is the developer. The consumer will always find a way to blame anyone but themselves, which goes with the whole "costumer is always right" philosophy. As for the developer side of things the consumer will only back the positive. If Andromeda was done by Bethesda then the minority wouldn't have really complained. Also if the were reasonable as it was developed by a new team then ME probably wouldn't be a dead series, which it would help if that dead horse argument on ME3 got left alone as well.
Honestly surprised you didn't mention that if the $60 price tag was raised these microtransactions and loot boxes won't be removed unlike what Extra Credit said that they would be.
"You say we're misinformed, but you never fucking inform us!"
This little gold nugget of truth is one that is worth remembering throughout life. If someone accuses you of doing something wrong or misunderstanding, but refuse to ever help you rectify the issue, you have to wonder what they'd stand to lose if you knew the truth.
Roast Goose Haha, a good point. In UK law, they have that covered with the statement, and this is no lie, "not knowing is no excuse"
Well, I've heard that in US law too, but specifically "ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it" (though there are actual exceptions to that rule given in law classes.)
But I'd say this is different in that it's not just that we "don't know" but that the people accusing gamers of being misinformed are the ones actively lying to us or just outright refusing to tell us about what they are claiming we're misinformed about. At some point you have to assume the people will draw their own conclusions.
But then again, Coke has actually successfully defended themselves in US court from claims of false advertising by basically saying "you shouldn't have believed us." so who knows.
Merling Stoss that law is against ignorance and not misinformation. If you are accused of beign misinformed then they first to prove that you could have informed yourself for that law to work so they have to show the truth.
you also have to wonder if they're just clueless. some people like to accuse others of "doing something the wrong way" but never bother to explain how to do it correctly. usually those people are full of shit and just want to start drama.
Hm. If I'm very loudly shit at maths and someone tells me I'm wrong that doesn't mean they're then obligated to tutor me in trigonometry, y'know? I'd say the suspicion applies if the someone in question is an entity with power. If someone's coming at an individual with that attitude they might be sea lioning, whether they know it or not.
Hi AAA Game Development Community, We are listening and hear that you're upset and unhappy with public perception. We are determining how we can improve your feelings and hope to have a plan for your problem in the future. Thanks for the great feedback keep it coming!
-Customers
Robert Leong sounds like something bungie would say lmao
PS: Our intent was to provide developers with a sense of pride and accomplishment.
Bungie 😂
Lol, god we should just all start posting that in articles saying youtubers are too angry, haha.
That was amazing.
"Games are too expensive to make"
EA CEO's Annual Salary ~$20,000,000 + bonuses
I'm sorry, I think they misspoke, what they meant was...EXECUTIVES are too expensive PAY...so they have to charge us more money so they can pay the people that make the games, the investors, and the executives, and then have enough left over to bulk up those golden parachutes JIC.
I just love how we, as a society, always jump to increasing prices or cutting the peoples pay at the bottom. Like there is some kind of massive taboo against questioning the *sacred right* of executives to pay themselves whatever the hell amount they want, to the detriment of their own businesses and society as a whole. Look, executives salaries and perks are *NOT* ordained by God, the gods, aliens, or any other higher being, and what's more they are actually controlled by the collective will of all the investors. Maybe games wouldn't cost so much to make if the people who had the least direct input took SEVEN figure salaries instead of eight.
Bethesda needed to hire a former Enron CEO whose never played a game in his life and pay him premium prices otherwise they'll never make it in the big leagues! They need that Enron business acumen in order of The Elder Scrolls to be a success, ya know?
And people wonder why Bethesda's gotten so scummy...
But if they don't pay their executives Scrooge McDuckian levels of "compensation", how will they ever retain the best "talent"? Everybody knows that tall men who look good in a suit are expensive.
this should be top comment. the problem is money men infecting the games industry.
To be fair, you could remove the "games" part of that and it'd apply to literally any industry. :D
Jordan Thomas well said.
*What other industries blame the consumer when the product they sell doesn't perform they way they want it to?*
Marvel comics.
are you talking about the movies or comics?
Some people in film industry
Let's not forget when the music industry tried to sue its customer base into keep buying physical media.
Cell Phones... which
...Radioshack which went out of business because of that attitude.
Imagine you pay $10 to go see a movie. You sit down and start watching, and everything is good up until about ten minutes in when a plank of wood pops up from the floor to block your view. The plank has a sign on it saying, "Sorry, but this scene is for premium customers only. You can watch this scene for an additional $5." _Nobody would fucking stand for it._
And those who would *stand* for it would be called pirates (cause they'd be peaking over it without permission).
These days, plenty of people would. And they would likely be paying enough to justify the continued practice.
This is why we can't have nice things.
Where the fuck are you going where you are only paying 10$ for a movie ticket? I'm having issues following the metaphor for the really low price there.
Please edit your post to have 20$ for the movie ticket and 10$ for the whole "premium movie scenes" (and on each movie scene).
(Please do not edit your post, I am being silly)
At my local theater, a movie ticket is only $6 if you go before 6 PM on a Tuesday.
Katrina Payne I very rarely pay more than AUD$10 (US$7) for a movie ticket to a mainstream movie (thanks to cinebuzz and/or Belmont forum).
It's not just gamers that are angry, talented devlopers are leaving the industry in droves. Why should I spend my time and energy working 50+ hour weeks for some faceless corporation only to get made redundant at the end of the project? Rather, I can take my programming skills into the software industry, I do a lot of the same stuff, get paid more, work less hours and are more job-stable. They call upon our passions to drive us in the games in lieu of decent working conditions, pay, overtime, and job stability... Frankly, fuck that.
that's why I didn't even really consider studying to become a game dev, I loves programming and Games but NO
Aria Ravenhart, I don't think it is so bad you should not try working there if you really want. There are some decent indie studios. But general software dev is payed better, I agree.
For example see Hideo Kojima. Konami treated him like a Metal Gear factory for decades and then scrubbed him off of everything like he meant nothing, now Sony is letting him do as he pleases and he's making something that looks amazing and is intriguing people.
DrMattsuu Yeah man, I went to school for game design, and even the learning environment suffers these same issues. you would have to be the biggest idiot or masochist to want to be a modern game dev.
Years after going into programming for the boring old logistics industry, an old college lab partner got in touch with me, and he'd love to vouch for me to work for his employer's game company. Great! How about the deets? >20% pay cut, muuuuuuuuuuuch higher level of expectations and responsibilities, longer hours, fewer benefits, more crunch time. But hey! Passion!
Imagine this argument in any other industry.
"How dare people be angry that this bridge is held together with duct tape, engineering is expensive!"
I think we should try and get Jim knighted for his services to the public #sirjimftw
ALL HAIL QUEEN JIM!
NOOOO! Sir Jim Fucking Sterling Son!
Hey, that's a good idea.
It's Jim Fucking Sterling Son! He will knight himself, before making himself the king
I read "ftw" as "sjw" and got really concerned for a second.
EA wish they had the charisma of a Disney villian.
That one guy A disney character has humanity, they are the Borg...they have zero humanity.
JRGProjects heeeey... Don't insult the Borg
Well, they certainly have the charisma of one Jack Spicer, since they like jacking our cash from our pockets...
EA
Rogue
Strength: 12
Dexterity: 18
Constitution: 7
Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma: 3
But at least they start with Thieves’ Tools
EA is more like an amorphous cloud of greed.
"Developers at Bioware and EA are feeling demoralized"
*_GOOD!_*
This is the first evidence I've _ever_ seen of EA or Bioware actually having heard a single fucking word we've been saying for _years._
Any minute now, ign is gonna parrot this verbatim and pathetically try to pass it off as their own opinion
chris johnson lol... you don't say!
Drill queen born depressed
Yep then after that one of their douche podcasters will try to convince viewers that lootboxes are acceptable.......again because it’s hapened before, ign beyond defended SW BF2 lootboxes
I mentioned it on one of igns videos a couple months ago and Alanah Pierce directly replied and tried to damage control because I called her ass out. It was fucking hilarious
Java Monsoon wow you’re emotional
As a person who works in the industry, I'm actually including you in a paper. However, I am not casting blame, I'm actually praising journalists like yourself and YongYea and a handful of others.
Thanks for all that you do, once it is published I'll make sure to tag you for it :)
Can you post a link to that paper whenever it's published?
Do you know where you'll be publishing it? I'd like to read that too, whenever it's done. I think a mixture of academic criticism in opposition to Jim's more earnest opinion is a sound way of countering industry misinformation, and legitimizing our grievances.
While I do enjoy Yong yea`s contents, I simple cannot praise him completely when he writes comments like this "EDIT: Hey devs, with all due respect, we can talk about "nuanced" once your monetization schemes become less blatant in their predatory and manipulative nature."
that`s a perfect example of ignorant comment that a youtuber makes and ends up giving people the wrong idea and blaming the wrong people. With the amount of likes and replies he got on this comment we can be sure that at least one person will start blaming devs incorrectly.
Guilty until proven innocent , courtesy of EA's own reputation. If you thought all Devs are angels entranced by the art of game-making, I dare you to justify Destiny 2.
Will be superbunnyhop in the paper too then? :)
There are so few good journalists in the industry, but like Jim, he is one of the incredible good ones. But since you are doing a paper about that, i suppose you know. :)
It's always been wierd to me how people say that "games are too expensive to make" as if the developers are powerless to affect that price. The cost of game development is not some law of nature.
Market pressure forces growth of budgets, especially marketing.
Having worked at BP as an attendant, I agree with your line of reasoning Jim.
You are a terrible person for choosing to support yourself, and possibly a family, in semi-gainful employment with a company that I have some kind of moral outrage toward even if that outrage isn't justified. How can you live with yourself?
Jacob Stacey It was opposite my accomodation, I applied sort of as a joke. :-)
Hal Motley having worked for BP and tesco it’s not helpful when someone like Jim stirs the shit because we the attendant get the flak not are bosses .
Instead of stirring please aim people’s anger at the right targets not the poor guy on the shop floor .
Was in the same postion, another company (can't mention names), i been the boots on the grounds as well, while rich people made some shitty decisions meaning the boots on the ground would get another barrage of angry consumers going for them. I will never agree with threatening and bing rude to the people personally who are on the ground who have to do what ever is dictated from above, but i won't feel like we need to be more forgiving in our anger about the state of the industry just because the boots on the ground are having a nervebreakdown.
I personally believe that everyone should be forced to work customer service for a short time every 5 years or so, just so that assholes will understand this. The customer service person is just doing their job, they don't make the policies. Harassing the employees is pointless and just puts more anger in the world. Trying to get a grocery store employee to explain to you why they're so greedy as to raise the price of milk 25 cents is just an exercise in cruelty against someone who has no control over the facets of their employment. Rage against the execs who decided that even though nothing changed in the manufacturing costs, they think they can squeeze a bit more out of you.
AAA games can't survive at the current price point without additional monetization? Then perish.
Yeah, bring it on. Or maybe they could just, y'know, learn to not bloat their budgets into unsustainability.
Exactly. Fuck 'em. Plenty of amazing developers selling great shit for $20 or less.
Exactly, let the "free market" kill them off. Been playing indie games for years now at half the price.
im just wishing for another video game crash so we can start over
legion999 that won’t happen since people are too obsessed with graphic these days which take a huge chunk of the budget
Perhaps the greatest Jimquisition of all time.
Oddallus Agreed
So far. I can't wait until he releases one that tops this one in about a year and a half's time
My thoughts exactly. This comment needs to be higher on the list.
Couldn't say it better.
Although, it's only that good because it's a response, a high-quality conversational video among the sea of high-quality analytic and reportive material, taking the cake for being just as good but also refreshingly new. I hope Jim will only do that kind of videos seldom, otherwise the emotional message will inevitably dilute. Can't say what number is ideal for this kind of videos, though, it all highly depends on the state of the industry, current problems, community leanings, etc. With current climate, perhaps one or two a year? In 2015 I'd say one in three years, so eh... as I said, I don't know ^_^
I hesitantly agree. This was damn fine work.
“Granny Weatherwax was often angry. She considered it one of her strong points. Genuine anger was one of the world's greatest creative forces. But you had to learn how to control it. That didn't mean you let it trickle away. It meant you dammed it, carefully, let it develop a working head, let it drown whole valleys of the mind and then, just when the whole structure was about to collapse, opened a tiny pipeline at the base and let the iron-hard stream of wrath power the turbines of revenge.”
― Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters
"May he rest in peace"
Terry Pratchett was an incredibly intelligent man. May he have an incredible journey and even more fascinating stories to tell wherever he is now.
I was really disappointed in the Extra Credits video because I feel like the entire deal with publishers avoiding paying taxes completely debunks the idea that they need more money to keep making games the way they are. They are making more money every year and being greedier than ever.
If I may, I thought the point of the EC video was to say that since games apparently "need" these microtransactions (Keeping in mind EC does work with a lot of ground level people in the industry and half the team are people working at ground level for some of these big publishers) that games should have their price increased INSTEAD of the extra monetization. And I can agree with that a little. If you don't think your full product is worth $60 and instead want me to pay $80 for it, fine. If I am really interested in your product then I'll pay the extra $20. But doing this thing where you sell us the game in chunks so it costs $150 by the time we're done, just makes me bitter after the fact and turns me into an angry customer. I think that's part of what they were trying to get at.
yeah it was a very broad statement from them. i had hoped they would go more into details or provide more substance. i actually unsubscribed after that.
Rebuttal: This is basic economics . . . if you can't make a profit selling your game for $60, then raise the price. If consumers won't buy your product at a higher price that means you spent too much making it and the market has judged your product a failure. The solution is NOT to hide the actual price of the game behind a casino mechanism so that consumers don't really know the actual price. That latter course presents an inherent conflict of interest between maximizing the gaming experience for your consumers when they believe they have paid full price for a full game, and encouraging them to participate in the various side schemes to sell them the rest of the game. The casino approach may very well be aided by designing an incomplete or grindy game and relying on the "sunk cost fallacy" to extract money from consumers they would not have paid had they known what the actual price would end up being before they opted to participate.
Honestly, I don't think that is a rebuttal as much as one of the logical consequences of the argument laid out here. I don't think you're wrong, but it doesn't refute what Jim lays out in the video, at least in my eyes.
Well, if Developers and Publishers didn't put most of the budget into Marketing and Merchandise (Bungie, I'm looking at you here), they would actually make some money with their product and the 60$/€/etc. price tag.
Hey guys did you catch that? Devs think were entitled for wanting fair multiplayer in our $60 titles. Or how we just want the same cosmetics that used to just be included in the asking price if you would just put in the effort to earn them. We're entitled because we dont all want to be held to the standard of the lowest - common - denominator. Were entiled because we are watching an industry that many of use love burn to the ground, and arent supposed to say a word.
Yeah, your god damn right were entiled. As long as were pumping money into this shitfest we're god damn entiled to voice our fucking opinion. If you dont like it, make an effort to change it, or get out the fucking way for the companies that give a shit about the people paying their bills.
Lets pay their games with food boxes.
Well I`m sure you didn`t catch that because if you had you would have seen that Jim was trying to explain Devs don`t make decisions and you shouldn`t blame them, but the publishers.
Sadly you used your entitlement to have an ignorant opinion. Pay attention next time, kid.
Luiz eduardo it was the anonymous devs that called us entitled and misinformed, not the publisher. He may have generalized a bit, but was obviously directing it at those devs who do think that and not all devs in general. Also calling someone a kid doesn't make you sound mature, quite the opposite in fact.
Luiz eduardo And you missed my point. But its cool, I got you I dont mind making my thoughts a bit clearer.
The line "gamers are entitled" is everywhere and thrown around rather haphazardly. Not just by this dev whom honestly I got no ill will towards, but by the gaming press, publishers, other gamers and bad actors in general. Regardless of how much merit the communities complaints are. IE the recent lootbox issue with Battlefront 2. These are the groups I was more directing towards.
Beyond that are you suggesting that as a paying customer im not allowed to voice an opinion on a product? Especially one that its obviously predatory in nature?
Holy crap, Jim, you realized you more or less made your thesis statement as RUclips personality with this video, right? Like, this is it. That this is who you are as a consumer advocate, right? And let me say, it's wonderful. Thank God for you, Jim.
I was saying the same thing. This is his best video ever. I mean that sincerely. What do you think?
Here in germany, we had a brilliant politic cabaretist. In one of his shows, he had a line, wich fits in to this topic perfectly.
"Where is it, the wrath of the people? People have lost their righteus wrath, lost the willingness to stand up against something, wailing in their feeling of being unable to make a change. And that is why, if you actualy manage to developit, this kind of wrath is something precious, something to behold, to take care of, to tend carefully. It's nothing you want to waste on something trivial."
His name is Georg Schramm btw. Not dead, but not active on the stage anymore :/
lol it fits your country perfectly
Jim can say "triple" normally, and "a" normally, but whenever those two are anywhere near each other it's "tRipLe AaaAA".
i would like AaaAA tRipLe pattie and cheese burger, hold the mayo.
Publishers spend 10 billion dollars making some horseshit trailer, completely overhauled by a third party animation studio. Then take another 20 billion dollars and put it into such aggressive marketing it makes Nintendo and Sega of the 90s blush. And then they spend another 10 billion dollars on "RUclips Creators" to hype their underdeveloped, deathmarch nightmare to little tweenie-boppers. Meanwhile actual production budget: four bucks and a coupon to Red Lobster.
Then they tell us "games are too expensive." But why'd you spend so damn much on trailers and marketing? "Because you have to. You don't understand business." No, maybe you're forcing a failed business model and then trying to pass the burden onto us, and then act like "games are too expensive to make, we can't help it!" It makes me sad but it makes me laugh in how stupid it is yet how many people buy into this apologist bullshit.
I wouldn't be surprised if actual lobsters are part of the budget.
The numbers here are slightly exaggerated (Understatement of the century) but the gist of it is accurate. Publishers are spending too much money outside of the actual development of the game. Wanna know what is the best form of advertisement ever? The one that doesn't merely follow trends but creates them and molds the entire industry in its wake? The one that allows you to retain a hardcore base of players in your games practically forever and grants you both goodwill and an incredible long tail of revenue that often surpasses the release window revenue?
A GOOD GAME.
Put more money into making the games good. Longer more flesh out campaigns, inventive multiplayer mechanics. Polished challenging gameplay. Extra modes. And DON'T SULLY THE FINAL PRODUCT with all of the bullshit predatory schemes. At the very least, launch the damn games as their complete envisioned package, well optimized and bug free. A writer doesn't end his story in the middle of Chapter 7 out of 45 to release an unedited E-book on Amazon for 20$ with a 15$ season pass and a note that says : "I'll finish the story proper soon, and don't worry about the spelling errors, I might fix them... eventually. By the way here's a loot box that allows certain blanks in the sentences to by magically filled in at random! Its a "Book as a service platform" kinda deal. Ain't that amazing?" Doesn't that sounds ridiculous? Would anyone buy into that? NO! Of course they wouldn't. And yet video game publishers are doing it. Every. Single. God. Damn. Day. No wonder people are angry.
Thing is, if the business model was failed, they wouldn't be making money. But they are, because we are sheep and we buy their garbage anyways.
@@egoalter1276 yeah, thanks to marketing tactics such as "no microtransactions in our game, pal" and in 2 months the game gets an update that adds them. and of course, the "whales".
"Don't like it? Vote with your wallets!"
No wait we didn't mean it. You're hurting the developers' feelings.
To be fair no publisher has ever said to not give them money.
@@Crispman_777 and that's only because publishers only have pr shit to spout around
“Truly evil people cry out in pain after striking you.” - Polish proverb.
Forgive me if I feel no sympathy for these multi-billion dollar corporations who extort consumers.
This was the most beautifully poetic anger directing I've ever witnessed. Thank God for Jim Sterling.
Bottom line? The invention of the corporate entity was a mistake. It's an ingenious device for achieving individual profit without individual accountability. I guarantee you if we had a face and a name to direct this anger at, we would NOT be seeing half the corporate bullshit we do now.
In the meantime, we will continue to stab at corporate publishers for continuing to fuck up our games.
you glue some shit together and you call it invention? nice one.
Far shakier creations have been called inventions. The corporation is one that's just managed to stick around.
Gluing a rock on a stick makes it a spear. Think about it.
Indeed. While companies still exist, these terrible practices will keep being shoved into our games.
At least in the U.S., too many of the responsibilities of incorporation have been removed, offloaded, and neglected (partially due to the improper amounts of money, social power, and legislative influence the investor class has cultivated), while the privileges have only ballooned, spoiled brats that they are.
Games no longer feel like somebodys idea brought to life. They just feel like a quarterly profit increase
Sektor30 Nintendo and indie games.
Exactly. AAA games from companies like EA are sanitized, focus group-tested products designed to maximize profits. There is neither art nor soul in them. It's no different than a bad movie or music production company. And yet we seem to be okay with holding those kinds of companies more accountable than we do gaming publishers...
Sektor30 Capitalism is the vampiric parasite of the arts
Sektor30 That's just one side of the spectrum. There are just as many (Though not as prominent and widely recognized) companies or indie devs that put honest to god PASSION into what they do. It's just that the big stinkers (Ubisoft, EA, Konami, etc.) are the ones making all the big bucks because consumers want what's "big" and "next gen". They prey on the people who succumb to mob mentality and those who can't be bothered to stick up for themselves as consumers.
You play the wrong games. Stop playing triple A shite.
That guy looks suspiciously like STERDUST... Nah, must be a coincidence.
Are you suggesting that they are the same......NAH.....just because they......NAH..........that is one of the most bold speculations on Boglin lore, next you will say that Amiel Du Hardcore is related to those two.
Maybe a evil twin?
😂😂😂 or chungus
StarTsurugi are you implying that this sexual Adonis is the sexual tyrannosaurs SterDust? I can see your confusion my lad but no one man could be the alpha and omega of lustful desire....then again Jim is no mere man 😮
But, have they ever appeared onscreen together?
I never needed youtubers to tell me EA are assholes. I've been done supporting them years ago but people standing up to publishers like EA is VERY VERY needed! I thank channels like this one and any others fighting back! Thank you Jim!
EA lost my Business afer seeing how they CRUSHED the soul out of C&C3!
Can we just agree that the existing shareholder dominion model is the root of so much ongoing evil in just about every industry? Seriously, wherever you turn, it always boils down to "it's wrong, despicable and ruins the product itself, but it's what shareholers want and decided on".
“Anger is just anger. It isn't good. It isn't bad. It just is. What you do with it is what matters. It's like anything else. You can use it to build or to destroy. You just have to make the choice."
"Constructive anger," the demon said, her voice dripping sarcasm.
Also known as passion," I said quietly. "Passion has overthrown tyrants and freed prisoners and slaves. Passion has brought justice where there was savagery. Passion has created freedom where there was nothing but fear. Passion has helped souls rise from the ashes of their horrible lives and build something better, stronger, more beautiful.”
― Jim Butcher, White Night
A fitting quote for this episode
I love that series, I NEED the next installment soon.
And yet CD Project Red managed to make a huge enjoyable open *single-player only* world without one single loot box or microtransaction involved and *gasp* made a lot of money
I would LOVE to get the exact costs and profits for witcher 3 and say middle earth shadow of war. Just how much did they make per customer from which sources and how big of a difference did it make?
Zyy920 we should just start comparing every game to Witcher 3, maybe publishers will get the hint eventually
But they didn't make ALL the money, and in the eyes of the AAA gaming industry, that's abject failure.
The counterargument I've heard is "But the cost of living is lower in Poland, therefore development costs are as well."
To which I reply: "Then move."
Zenimax (Bethesda) is still independent Publisher/Developer and they release standard DLC expansions. Given they have an issue with the modding side of things but Doom, Wolfenstien, and Dishonored stand on their own.
If games are costing too much to make, perhaps they need to budget better, like don't spend millions on advertisement.
You mean don't spend 80 million making the game and then spend 500 million on adverts? Sounds pretty fuckin' crazy mate.
That’s what’s so galling. Almost none of this is going into tech or art for the game. It’s cheaper than it has ever been to make a “AAA” looking and feeling game and most of what makes a game good (writing and good core mechanics) are fairly cheap in the long run to get. Games aren’t too expensive to make. There is not even the faintest whiff of an argument there. Games are too expensive to publish because publishers want to make all the money off the backs of the creators’ work. And to those claiming it’s to keep a steady stream of content flowing, that argument is nonsense. That content is only free to you. They’re making more money than they would have just selling the content. It’s not about dividing the player base. It’s about making more cash.
I worked as an online marketing consultant for a web-bureau, you'd be surprised how many companies came to us, paid us hundreds of thousands to build the website while saying no to advertising, then coming to us months later complaining that nobody ever visits their precious site. No wonder, no-one knows it exists. Same with games.
Björn Bergström not entirely true. PUBG sold incredibly well for a small amount of advertising. There are plenty of games that sold well with zero advertising money. Hell the big publishers don't need advertising as everyone knows about call of duty, Battlefield, and Grand theft auto.
Mark Wiebe Thanks to a good product and time in early access for the word to spread via WoM. A certain amount of advertising are needed to a) make new customers, b) remind previous customers of ur existence and c) having a presence in the same space as ur competitors. In other words, not to get too far behind.
As all of us in House Sterling proclaim,
“Monday. Is. Coming.”
Some people wonder why I subscribe to the jimquisition, this video, right here, one of his best. All the anger and fury of the populace is constantly being directed at the wrong people is a massive problem worldwide, in every avenue of everyday life even. Blame needs to go to the top, not the bottem, as much as the top tells us it's all everyone else's fault. It's okay to be angry, it's a human response when being threatened or challenged. But it's not okay to direct it at those who are not threatening or challenging us. It's time people stop being lazy about information they recive and be critical about it. Thank you Jim for trying to be a freaking voice of logic, common sense, and critical thinking to all the unreasonable, cowardly, and misguided people who take part in the game industry.
Not gonna lie Jim, i've seen almost every Jimquisition you've made and this one, this one is probably THE best one you've made so far. Well done.
I crack up at the people that actually think that revenue from microtransactions actually make it back to the developers. The executives and shareholders take it all.
This ^
Butbutbut have you not heard of trickle-down? In exchange for all that revenue going to executives and shareholders, developers are graciously allowed to work more. Sometimes even for a wage! /s
Exactly! People seem to think that the workers earn it all
is the same shitty salary and soon developer will be replaced by AI. Thats why such race for money.
Thats literally why I became an indie... I Was working 80 hours a week as a dev and tech to make ends meet but the amount you are paid for development positions is abysmal. You go into game development because you love games as an art form and expression of what you think, not to be rich. Because realistically, you wont make a lot of money.
The more hate against publishers like EA and Activision the better.
rhyfel zen way to ignore the whole point of the video
@@MilkmanAssassin way to strawman
This is quite possibly the best video you've ever made so far. Watched it twice without pause. Brilliant!
Bankston Skooma Touché
Without pause? I had to pause it a dozen times to read the various excerpts of emails and articles Jim put up in the vid ;)
I watched it thrice so I'm superior!
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It's because i can't quite catch what he's saying when he's talking too fast.
I agree. This was quite a good episode.
Absolutely spot on. The big games corporations didn't need any help from youtubers in creating a firestorm of unmitigated anger they did it all by themselves, they lit the fuse now they're reaping the whirlwind. With every shady MTX scheme they patent and implement they pour oceans of fuel on the fire.
Guys like Jim and other youtubers only reflect and report the existing reality of the anger of gamers they do not cause it or stoke it. We and Jim and every other non-delusional gamer and youtuber didn't start the fire the corporations are the arsonists, their wounds are self inflicted. Their response is classic kill the messenger because you don't like what they're saying.
As for anger, personally I prefer "Righteous indignation", It's more accurate as it's entirely justified. No corporation in any industry or business is "entitled" to a customers money. Also channel your anger into not buying their games, don't target individuals, hit them were it hurts them most, their revenue.
HORSE ARMOR JIM. I HAVE NEVER FORGOTTEN THE HORSE ARMOR.
The horse armor seems pretty damn good in comparison to some of the DLC and micro-transactions out these days.
The predators are never happy when the prey fights back.
I think what annoyed me the most about Extra Credits video is that it didn't say jack shit. They basically at the beginning said that they have contracts that won't allow them to divulge most of the information that would make what they're saying mean anything. I'm sorry, but as great as I generally find Extra Credits, I'm not really willing to just take their word for it. It's actually dumb they tried, because they've almost never asked us to before. A huge reason why Extra Credits is so good is because of how much information they provide to prove whatever their point is. Did they think they'd built up enough good will that we'd just take what they had to say at face value?
Seriously though, when you start a conversation with "I have all the information that could prove my point, but I'm not allowed to talk about pretty much all of it." Do you actually think that helps? Like, I'm just supposed to believe you? The real question here is, why in the fuck is all of this so smoke and mirrors? Why, exactly, is telling us how much this stuff costs, so forbidden? I mean, a person might sound paranoid, but one might think "Well, shit, they're probably lying to us." You know, the idea that everything is getting more and more expensive, though they can't ever show us that. We don't really get to know what kind of money they make, any of the sales. Essentially, we're trying to have a conversation, but one side of the conversation doesn't have enough information, and the side that does have the information, won't fucking share it, but we're supposed to assume that there's absolutely no way they'd lie about any of it. Oh no. There's surely no benefit to lying about this stuff.
Also, I despised the idea that Extra Credits put forward that the onus was on the customer, rather than the creators. Essentially, games cost to much (so they say, with absolutely no evidence) so we as consumers need to either pony up more money just to buy the game, or we have to accept shitty monetization schemes. Extra Credits did generally denounce the predatory stuff, and I actually generally don't have a problem with microtransactions and dlc done right, but the idea that we have to simply accept that the ONLY option is that we pay more in some form or another. Are they even trying to change how they do things? I mean, if it's so damn expensive, maybe look into making it cheaper? I mean, we know of small indie companies who have had massive success with relatively small budgets, so why exactly am I supposed to buy into the "it's to expensive" concept?
I look at it as, if they've furnished a good, complete game, and because it's popular, they take the time to add in extra levels, skins, items, etc. (without any pay to win factors involved in any competitive games) and allow you to buy what you want(no loot box scenarios), there's nothing wrong with that. Games like Overwatch, for example, if they got rid of the lootboxes, and instead allowed people to simply buy what skins, emotes, etc. they wanted, would be an acceptable place to put these microtransactions, since you wouldn't have to pay for them if you didn't want them (I wouldn't mind lootboxes if you couldn't buy them, maybe.... that's a whole other discussion).
Long story short, in some games, it's clear that they scrapped content from the released game so that they can sell it as dlc, and that's bullshit. When you get a good game that doesn't have this issue, I see nothing wrong with microtransactions. I don't mind companies making money, I just hate when they use predatory behaviors, or when they short change the customer by holding back content so they can sell it to you later. I guess that most single player games don't have a lot of room for this kind of stuff, which is almost certainly the real reason that the larger companies are backing away from them. It isn't that we don't want them, we absolutely do, it's that they can't safely monetize the crap out of them without looking like complete heels, though they often do anyway with the nonsense they regularly pull. In games like call of duty, battlefield, cs:go and such, where people will play these games for years to come, it only makes sense from a business perspective to capitalize on the continuing popularity of your games by selling weapons skins, emotes, and such, so long as you keep any pay to win factors out of it.
Have I changed your mind that some microtransactions, in the right games are okay, or do you disagree?
Figured Jim would mention Extra Credits, no surprise they said games should be more expensive as they deal with the worker bees, not the ones counting the money. They want better work places with more money... but guess what, raising the price won't do that, all that cash goes through tax free shell companies, making more money won't change that, cause the ones in charge are lying, they have money and you don't get it to make your game/workplace/day better cause you are not the all powerful shareholder... you are not the boss
so they fell for trickle down economics.
Yep, I've said it before and I'll repeat it now: if you want to support the developers, don't buy their games, or their DLC, or any microtransactions or loot boxes in their games. Get the address of their headquarters and mail them a check. They'll see a lot more money that way than if you give Activision or EA $60 for the game + $50 for the season pass + who knows how much on microtransactions.
Exactly. Profits float to the top. The only way to get your fair share is to fight for it, and that means unionizing.
The mistake people make is thinking that higher cost = more money for the workers, which never fucking happens. A lot of people are wowed by Trump's new tax cut because companies buy publicity, announcing they suddenly can afford to give employees a miniscule one-time bonus (meanwhile, they're richer than ever and still laying off workers). It's a fucking scam.
Why do the publishers not have to account for their bloated budgets? Why do we allow them to funnel money into offshore accounts? None of that goes back to developers. The rich just get richer. We've got decades of documentation on how this shit does not work, come on people.
@mjc0961
"Yep, I've said it before and I'll repeat it now: if you want to support the developers, don't buy their games, or their DLC, or any microtransactions or loot boxes in their games. Get the address of their headquarters and mail them a check. "
This is dumb and ignorant as shit. Some pocket change won't help the devs if all of their games underperform to the point where no publisher wants to hire them.
Your idea would only ever possibly be viable if almost *everyone* that would've bought the game sent their money to the devs. I'm talking like +90% here. Because the devs would need enough money to pay ALL of their employees and expenses at ALL TIMES (unless you think firing people or letting people go without pay is a viable option). So how exactly do you plan on making this happen? You didn't think your brilliant plan all the way through.
You know what's demoralizing for people on the ground level of a company like EA? Working at a company like EA that views them as no more important than a cog in a machine that can be taken out and replaced with one fresh off the assembly line should it no longer perfectly fulfill its purpose. But no, angry people on the internet are what's wrong with video games today.
It really feels like they're trying to tug at our heartstrings with this. I have all the respect in the world for those who create games, and wish they'd leave the Activisions and EAs out there, to find work with smaller studios, or even start their own. Their talents deserve better.
I agree, they hide behind their employees whenever it suits them, and casts them out the moment they are done with them. Not just in the gaming industry that happens in almost every industry. Once its time to plea for tax breaks or aid from the government they plead holding up their employees as totems of poverty, then balk when its time to support said employees with healthcare or reasonable wages.
Cthuluman3 They act like you should support EA to support the developers, but you could spend a million dollars on FIFA and only the tiniest fraction would be seen by their employees.
No matter how much you buy their games or give their company money it won't really support them, other than their studio not being shit canned.
For a fistful of Sterling. For a few Sterlings more. And the good, the bad, and the Sterling.
So long as Jim doesn't start rambling to an empty chair at the Republican National Convention.
Oh god I read that as For Fisting Jim Sterling 😅 I mean I know he’s a sexual deviants so am I, but that was not a visual I neededz
As one of the peons for a MUCH hated company that Jim has mentioned, and who has received a lot of the frustration firsthand (after all, we peons are the face of the company), I'd like to say this: Of course I'm going to have much of the disgust for my employer focused towards me. If you can't handle that, find a job where you either don't deal with people, or with a less hated corporation. On a side note, most customers are very pleasant towards me.
You are a brave and enlightened soul. Godspeed.
I find it honestly sad that people can't discern the difference between an employee and the company.
People like you are just doing your job. Doing what you're hired to do. If anyone has worked in a corporate environment it works much the same; You are hired for your skill set and given a task within that skill set to perform. Often with an endless chain of management eventually trickling down to you giving you instruction and task. You're not the one calling for fucking loot boxes with gated off stats in them.
I find it fucking disgusting that people seem to attack those simply making a buck, upping their resume credits and improving their skills.
I just hope you're doing alright for yourself as it appears most of these companies don't seem to pay well for the hours and work put in.
Honestly, I have nothing but sympathy for the people who are ground up into a pulpy lubricant for the treads of the gaming industry to shudder forward on. These hapless thralls who make up the masonry of this dark tower aren't to blame for all the corruption.
The messengers? I perhaps feel most sorry for them. The powers that be nail another satanic decree into the corpses hanging in the town square, proclaiming their latest profane machination, and then hide behind poor Stiny the PR Minion who has to bear the brunt of the backlash for yet further sins against all decency. The mob then crucifies them, while the true ministers of the evil of the day are left to continue their vile schemes.
If I personally direct my hatred at someone, it's going to be executive - director level or higher. People with the actual authority to make these terrible decisions, not the poor fools chasing their childhood dreams and finding themselves laboring on the bridge of the SS Clusterfuck.
Thank you for the work you do. Please keep making quality content... for your employer to gate off and sell at premium as "optional". God I'd hate to be a Dev for a large company, I already hate being a manufacturer for a large company.
sechren Maybe the most well written RUclips comment in history. To call that evocative would be quite an understatement. I felt like I was reading some Frank Underwood monologue, or something. (May he RIP.)
This was the culmination of every Jimquisition about the AAA industry and it was glorious, oh so glorious
Yeah, no... No youtuber made me angry at EA. EA made me angry at EA. I still remember Mass Effect 3 and it's ending, and it was the straw that broke this camel's back. I made a promise after watching it that i wouldn't buy another game from them, and i intend to keep it. Considering how many companies are almost at the same point with me, It's a really good thing that in the past 2 years i found some really great "indie" games, like Stardew Valley, Warframe, and Rogue Legacy.
Maybe if EA doesn't want to be hated they could stop buying up beloved game studios, running them into the ground, and shutting them down.
What a surprise, Polygon and Kotaku are still carrying water for gaming companies.
Well, most hardcore gamers know by now that Polygon and Kotaku are literal trash when it comes to reviews or even news that often contain crapton of false info, so they gotta appeal to somebody, so they focus a lot on making their websites a safe space where any casual player can feel welcome.
Regarding the intro, that Extra Credits video really did take me back a bit. I usually agree with them wholeheartedly about their conclusions, but I couldn't square it at all this time. They could do with a bit more righteous anger!
The Extra Credit guys tend to side with devs given they have a long history with them. I know they want to believe they are helping but we have numerous cases of people proving this myth is wrong and a lie.
Yeah me too, especially given how they missed the most obvious conclusion about game costs: maybe they are just to high.
It annoys me because I really like the EC team, and that is a really, really basic thing to forget. I get as a developer you are going to want all the money you can get to deliver your vision but the world just does not work like that.
"Games are too expensive to make!"
ARMS makes all it's DLC free.
Johnny Burnes and Splatoon, Nintendo does DLC right, for free or affordable prices, you get tons of content.
I'd argue that those free DLC are only possible because the games drive sales of the Switch, and once you actually own the Switch, you are more likely to buy further Nintendo products. And since Nintendo then continues to sell you games on their own platform rather than Steam, they don't lose 30% of their revenue to a third party.
You mention that publishers keep things hidden, only telling the truth to shareholders. It's important to note that they're required, by law, to tell the truth to shareholders. So they hide and lie to everyone and only speak the truth when not doing so would send them to jail (or a fine).
Which would be fine if they didn't turn around and whine about how nobody understands what it's really like for them.
So it's the same as minimum wage laws, they would if the law said they could.
And the only thing stopping them from lying to said Stakeholders is loosing money from being sued.. Haha
They lie to shareholders a lot (being optimistic is not technically illegal)
You must be Green. Hate to let you down but people lie, even if that means they are breaking a law.
Extra Credits lost a lot of credibility for me after that video
"When directed efficiently and channeled accordingly anger can create some change." Damn straight. Greedy corporations in every industry deserve our directed rage.
One of your best videos, Jim
Oizo
In Flat Eric's voice: Wa wa wawa
Extra Credits' argument omits one very important point, and that is although inflation has meant that technically, $60 is less money than it was when that price point became standard, for most low-to-middle income families, wages have totally stagnated. For a lot of people, $60 is just as much outlay as it was in the 1990s. This idea that $60 'isn't much money anymore' says less about the reality of game development, and more to an overall ignorance of what your average punter can actually afford.
Beaucephal That's because the executives and shareholders are in their ivory towers, looking out upon the unwashed masses, not understanding why they can't afford a week's with of groceries for their product. Surely they can, no MUST, be able to afford more. For the more the product makes, the bigger the bonus they get.
If you´re feeling down there is nothing better than re-watching an old jimquisition video or in this case The Angry Jim Show.
Even as an avid gamer, I still very much agree that this industry, especially this generation, needs a harsh kick in the family jewels.
Thank you, Jim, for being among the many to deliver it.
I saw a "Daily reminder" thread on /r/Gaming with "Don't Preorder Anthem". I know its gonna mean people at Bioware are upset that people aren't interested in preorders/multiple editions/season passes etc, but if that's what it takes to get the greedy assholes at their corporate overlord EA, its a price I'm willing to pay.
Oh EA. We all know you aren't "Disney Villains". People LIKE Disney Villains.
Greg Bey Yeah they aren't Disney Villains. They're Disney Trash.
EA is just mustache twirling villains....
eh, you coppers will never take me alive!!!!
----
why do you do these disgusting things???
because I like the see the veins in your temple throb......
-----
you vill talk......ve have vays of making you talk.....strap him in.....
Game developers have a built in method of fighting the used game market: Make your fucking game good enough, with enough content and fun mechanics that people don't want to sell or trade it in. There are some games that I'll never sell or trade because they're worth playing over and over again.
That extra credits video was complete horse shit. Games are cheaper to make today than they've ever been. The only reason they're as expensive as they are is because AAA publishers insist on pushing the graphics as high as they can in a neverending dick waving contest which also serves to make current gen platforms into last gen platforms so you're forced to buy new hardware.
Sure, but you can't blame the devs, they're not the ones making these decisions, but they're the ones getting the short end of the stick because people don't understand how these corporations work. I'm sure many of the 'boots on the ground' working at EA are insanely talented people who just want to make the best games possible, but their hands are tied by the suits at the top who don't give a shit about the games, as long as they can please the shareholders and extricate as much profit as possible from the consumer.
No shit. It is a scam business. One person figured it out. how many more needed?
Mathre Graey, you have zero clue what you`re talking about, mate.
Go inform yourself better. Bye.
Luiz eduardo
If you disagree with someone, explain why mate.
Communicate better. Bye.
@MatthewGraey Amen!
Something to keep in mind, people please don't start harassing the extra credits team.
I personally didn't agree with their video either, but I don't think their intention was to be corporate apologists, besides like Jim said, all that anger is better spent focusing it at the suits.
MayanExpression Yeah I don't think it was thier intention either, especially considering that they have multiple videos on avoiding predatory practices that hurt consumers (like thier Skinner box video).
This! I saw the video and while I didn't like it either, I'm fairly certain their underlying intent was Games should cost $15 upfront and remove all this ridiculous extra crap that makes us pay another $60 for more of the same game. Higher base price INSTEAD of Microtransactions/DLC, NOT WITH Microtransactions/DLC
I just decided to dislike their video.
This. Yeah lets just pay them more money and hope they don't just find another excuse like "Customer Choice!" to pump their games full of microtransactions and lootboxes! Ahhh sarcasm on the internet! Anyway I'd give it six months before we're paying a higher base price and microtransactions. Why do I believe this? Because that's how every corporation ever has always behaved since ever. It will only stop when we stop buying games that have this kind of crap going on.
That's the unfortunate truth to the matter. EC's heart might have been in the right place as they do have a viewpoint most other popular game information outlets on youtube don't have (being very close to the development side of things) But it is a lofty goal. Corporations just don't play nice when being assholes to customers is more lucrative. But who knows, with the amount of recent backlash maybe that point where the majority finally stops buying their lies isn't too far off after all.
Why are people acting like video games don't cost a lot of money? People have a right to be upset about being preyed on. Destiny 2 Year 1 is a $90 game. Year 2 will surely be another $40. And that doesn't even include the cost of emotes, shaders, etc. that the game is designed for you to buy in addition. If they want players to be constantly givung them money, then make Destiny a subscription like WoW.
Ron the idea of a Netflix for games like Xbox pass and ps now throws a new spanner in the works for the cost Vs monetisation debate.
If anyone falls prey to Destiny 2's still shitty system for monetizing their expansion packs considering _everything_ that's happened, they don't deserve any more sympathy than what has already been given.
To get a subscription, you have to constantly push out quality content, which costs time and money, and publishers don't want to. They want the most money with the least effort, and selling loot boxes to whales and gambling addicts does exactly that.
Probably because, just like with cell phones, they only see how much they pay upfront and not how much they've spent in total. $60 upfront with $40 in DLC of whatever variety over the course of a few months is an easier pill to swallow than $100 upfront.
Except shaders and emotes COST NOTHING!!! You literally get them out the wazoo and now there are gonna make the shaders permanant anyways! Not to mention that you get so much bright dust that you can buy every emote, shader or ornament easy just by playing and hitting your weekly goals you don't even have to be a try hard because a casual like me already has over 10k bright dust and most of the "loot box " content without buying any "loot boxes". Its not freaking broken p2w shit like warframe or even worse the microtransaction matchmaking from war thunder where matchmaking is influenced on how much gold or real money you spend in the game.
Holyshit... that was possibly one of the best scripts you've ever written and delivered. I don't know how people don't understand that the collective anger of the community is targeted at the soulless shitheels that actually run these companies, not the developers themselves.
Probably it's the devs who hope to climb ranks enough to be making corp CEO type money. They already identify with the shits at the top.
It's probably important to note that some people really do attack the developers rather than the big-wigs. Hell, as someone who regularly bashes publishers myself, I had a friend in the meat who thought I bashed developers because it's so common.
I'm pretty sure devs don't climb to the top of the corporate ladder in companies like EA, not that I've ever heard of, that's just not how it works. The guys at the top come from sales and marketing and almost certainly know nothing about game development, and the people who actually make the games will never see that kind of money or have any say in what the company does.
Absolute killer of an episode
Lay into them Jim, fuck the AAA game industry
Gamers of the World Unite! You have nothing to lose but your Paywalls!
WE WANT SOMETHING ELSE! WE WANT SOMETHING ELSE! WE WANT SOMETHING ELSE!!!!
This is what I don't understand...
We've seen enormous successes with indie games like Binding Of Isaac, Don't Starve, Road Redemption, Darkest Dungeon, The Sexy Brutale, Faster Than Light, Limbo, Terraria, Starbound... games made by a small handful of people that likely haven't ever worked with the more complex development tools used within the triple A gaming scene, and with a tiny budget have managed to become overnight success stories and sell millions of copies.
The developers in companies like Bioware and Bungie, those complaining about the 'anxiety' created by enormous community anger, there's nothing stopping them from doing what Westwood Studios did when EA bought them out, all quit because they knew EA would destroy them, then set up a new company called Petroglpyh which went on to make Star Wars: Empire At War and 8 Bit Armies/Hordes/Aliens, or Shinji Mikami who left Capcom and set up Tango Gameworks to make The Evil within, or Flying Wild Hog which is comprised of the developers involved in the creation of the Painkiller series, who all quit People Can Fly and made Flying Wild Hog the moment Epic Games bought the company then went on to reboot the classic Shadow Warrior into an amazing FPS experience that only they can deliver.
The gaming industry is full of success stories of developers leaving companies because big Triple A publishers sank their greasy claws in and the inevitable doom was the only thing that could follow, setting up new companies or signing on to already existing ones with better work ethics and continuing to make successful games. These developers have the talent to create games that look as beautiful as Anthem or possess solid gameplay like Doom, so why do they continue to cower inside the offices of EA or Activision or Ubisoft when they could leave and make something THEY want to make without the worry of some big business manager destroying any integrity the game has?
The only way this message is REALLY going to get through to these huge publishers is if the developers really do start leaving en masse because they perceive these publishers as a sinking ship with no lifeboats, and the way Activision, Ubisoft and EA have been acting lately, that day may come sooner than expected.
You're mostly right yet the whole Petroglyph game studio had a fraction of the Westwood staff. They said it themselves. People assumed they're all westwood yet they ended up creating another studio called 'Jetblue' for some mobile game thing, or something like that. They splintered off into many different studios and jobs.
But yeah, you're mostly right.
Woah there, Shakespeare... I didn't come to read a whole play
Sorry, it just really bugs me with the state the Triple A industry is when there are so many simple ways of fixing the problem.
I mean, for starters, Publishers aren't even needed in the gaming industry anymore. They were created to handle marketing and the printing of physical copies of games, but with gaming shifting so heavily to digital distribution now, publishers simply aren't necessary anymore. We hear about games now by trailers that pop up on the PSN store, Xbox Live Store and Steam, and it's the developers that make the trailers, not the publishers, but it's the publishers that pull the strings and force in microtransactions and monetization, and the devs that follow them blindly. Ninja Theory showed the world that a 'Triple A' game does not need a publisher to be a good or successfull game and can make something that looks fantastic even on a tight budget when they made Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, now we just need other devs to follow suit.
This video really felt like a culmination of what the Jimquisition has been discussing for years now. Really strong episode. If you were going to go out on top, this would've been the episode to do that with. ;)
Every time this video refers to "miss information" open a second tab and go watch a comparison video between a game and it's trailer.
Anger (Jimquisition) Except everytime Jim says "Miss information" We are Number One Plays Except everytime One is said, a comparison video between a game's trailer and game play.
Sorry, has a meme flashback, you don't understand, I WAS THERE! xD
*misinformation.
Funny, if I were working on Anthem I'd be more worried about having EA as my publisher than a few RUclipsrs not sharing the same opinion towards their publisher.
Connor Handforth i would be putting together my resume
*"Stoking anger."*
You mean telling the truth?
The truth will set your teeth free!
Such a good video. I wish more people would open their eyes. It hurt my brain to see some people defending that shit
Anyone not paid by, you know, the enemy? Of Everyone BTW!
thanks
This is an episode I’ve been waiting for a long time for. Even people who’ve never played video games can learn something from this.
agreed anyone that want to bring up the excuses they game industry been feeding us for years you can just throw this video at them and tell them to educate yourself
What a surprise polygon goes to bat for the publishers not the customers
Anger means people still care. When they give up and move on to something else the publishers will come to miss the anger along with their customers.
Let's think of why they feel demoralised: because they know it's true!
teddybeddy123 agree to that.
Let them go to therapy if the feel demoralized.
No? As someone who has spoken with demoralized developers, it's because most devs actually care about making games for gamers. So, if a large and vocal chunk of your audience keeps calling you shit and your work trash, then do you honestly think you'd be more positively disposed to them? And if you aren't well-disposed to the people you make games for, then why are you making games?
And before you say it, yes, the people I've spoken to don't want any of the shit you don't want - micro-transactions, DLCs, loot-boxes etc. They want to make cool games. And it's hard to make cool games when the director of your company comes in, tells you that *his* boss told him you have to code all this awful crap in, and if you don't do it, you're fired. So you compromise. And you hope that someone with the power to take your boss's boss to task can kill off these trends already.
So go for the boss's boss. Because that's the guy pushing the agendas you're angry about, and the guy the developers don't have the power to challenge.
Daaaaaammmnnnnn. Awesome episode.
Thank you! I tried to push the boat out for this one and was pretty nervous about it going up as a result. So glad you liked it!
Jim Sterling Speech near the end was great.
Wholly agreed with Turidus. It's pretty clear you just let loose on this one.
I know a couple of people in Bioware right now (worked with them until about a year ago at another Edmonton company,) and at least one of them is also an avid viewer of you, so it's especially interesting / curious for me to see what's going on with this and to ask their opinions on the ground.
it is a legit great episode. something you can refer people to when they ask you what your problem with the games industry is.
Truly an amazing episode
The "We're still at $60" is fallacious in another dimension: ALL OTHER SOFTWARE HAS GOTTEN CHEAPER.
* Windows 95 MSRP: $209 -- Windows 10 MSRP: $119
* Office 2000: 339, -- Office 16: $169
* Photoshop CS: $649 -- Photoshop Elements today $120
* TurboTax Basic 2003: $30 -- TurboTax Basic 2016 FREE
* Norton 2003: $70 -- Norton Deluxe today: $30
* NaturallySpeaking 7: $200 -- NaturallySpeaking 13 - $175
Tech has gotten cheaper across the board: Memory, Hard Drives, Monitors, TV's, Appliances, and SOFTWARE.
So they're right, Games should not be $60 anymore. They should be cheaper.
I'm by no means in the games should be more expensive camp but comparing that type of software to games in terms of how much resources it costs doesn't make much sense lol.
Especially with the rise of digital distribution. There's so much less they have to pay for in physical copies now.
The resources for some things (game code) have gone up, while others (Graphics engine, Distribution, etc) have gone down. Alongside the much larger audience (Industry up nearly 2x since 2003) it's not clear from inputs alone which way the price should go.
However, since the rest of the broader industry is moving universally DOWN, it's at least a safe starting presumption, and much more sound a position than saying they should be more expensive.
Awomen to this!
I might not be an economic genius, or even part of the industry, but even I can grasp this simple fact:
If the marketable population grows, you sell more Units!
This is the biggest reason why I can never accept the 'cost of production is too high' excuse, the more Units being moved the less risky the market is. As more and more people in what we should stop calling 'the third world' get online these companies will see more Units being moved. Even keeping the fixed final price, what we consumers pay for it, steady the Gaming Industry would still be see an exponential growth in profits due to number of sales climbing over that last decade as well.
This is because the cost of producing a single Unit is not a 1:1 value, but a number that changes depending on how many Units are produced.
If a board-of-directors understand anything it is how 'risk management' works, reduce risk to their share price is a big part of what the board does. I am sure they are using a simple formula to calculate the 'base cost per unit' before boasting to the shareholders that they can not only sell the Unit for more then said cost, but throw in additional revue methods like Micro-Transactions for even more pure, unadulterated, profit.
THIS should be on trending! Preferably #1
Dead silent.
Slowly starts clapping and stands up as it crescendoes.
Jim, I've been a fan and followed your work since the early Escapist days. And I really think this is your best, most complete and thought out video. It is that amazing, in my opinion.
It includes and summizes every idea and lines of thoughts of your previous videos, and delivers a strong, all-along coherent message about the depressing and angering current state of the industry.
Really, thank you for the quality content. And, of course, thank God for You.
Monday has come. And Monday is always coming. Thank God for You, Mr. Sterling!
There is not enough popcorn in the world for this. Massive corporations being mad that people have finally gotten sick of their BS is like, my favorite thing in the world.
This is my new favourite jimquisition, absolutely brilliant
Amen, Mr. Sterling. That was some truly righteous indignation.
Developers/Publishers don't like being negatively effected by their consumers? Well too damn bad because for years consumers have been negatively effected by Developers/Publishers with shady business practices. Welcome to the freaking conversation!
why does this feel applicable to so much more than video games.
Robert Toronjo Cuz capitalistic greed is everywhere.
This video's ending is so awesomely cathartic, I could watch it on repeat for days in certain days.
I used to work at a major free-to-play mobile company, and I overheard a conversation where one dev explained to a qa tester what a 'whale' was. I will never forget his response, to quote: "A whale is person with more money than sense". He then proceeded to explain how they noticed a guy bought every thing in a recent game, so they shoved a bunch of ephemeral crap in there as quickly as possible just because they knew that guy would buy it.
Oh god that's sad and if that's what one game developer is like, then how many of him are like that out there? You should be making games primarily because it's a passion and not some get rich quick scheme. Yes money has to be made, but you'll sink faster with that mentality.
Unfortunately the job security is so bad, game developers (of all kinds, not just programmers) would much rather hang on to a job they hate and do things they don't like, rather than take a chance at making 'art', or whatever.
Accuse people of misinformation meanwhile the industry do review embargo, NDA contract, copyright claim, video takedown, edited down video to hide as much information from the customer because the publisher doesn't trust their own product.
All this anger and I'm just sat here, chilling, waiting for the Horrid Spider competition results.
I agreed with what Jim said in this video. Of course we are angry, because the obnoxious business practices of big compains are making us angry. And just like someone said already: If they can't make any serious profit from their products (games), then they need to learn to be more efficient with their budgets.
I really like Extra Credits, but their episode on the games' price disappointed me a bit.
Have you ever noticed that when people write articles on this problem of 'toxicity' or 'anger' they always have very complicated reasons for why it is the fault of *everyone but themselves?* Whether it's publishers or RUclipsrs or every manchild who ever dared step into a basement, toxicity is definitely someone else's fault.
Never mind the fact that most huge bouts of outrage and backlash come from false promises and massive disappointment; you know, like how every games media site under the sun wrote articles on No Man's Sky and its multiplayer features and its very complex AI generating the universe?
Just a week or two back PCGamer told me that Vermintide 2 is *my* "next big co-op game" despite the writer only having played a demo - it's just my next purchase apparently. I hope they're right, I would hate to be disappointed. It might make me angry.
did ya enjoy the *DAY ONE* updates that take 2 gigs to download?
We're all immune to our own toxins mate
Fuckin a right my friend.
The problem with that logic is that you don't take into account the situation from each person involved in the game with the buyer being the most fucked and the corporation being the least. If the buyer does their research and then get what they were not told is coming for $60, being pissed is fair.
Caesar Yet research isn't done by the consumer and the most screwed party is the developer. The consumer will always find a way to blame anyone but themselves, which goes with the whole "costumer is always right" philosophy. As for the developer side of things the consumer will only back the positive. If Andromeda was done by Bethesda then the minority wouldn't have really complained. Also if the were reasonable as it was developed by a new team then ME probably wouldn't be a dead series, which it would help if that dead horse argument on ME3 got left alone as well.
This may be your best work. 15:12 - 17:06 in particular nailed it.
Honestly surprised you didn't mention that if the $60 price tag was raised these microtransactions and loot boxes won't be removed unlike what Extra Credit said that they would be.
OHHHH I didn't know we were being so mean! Come back EA, you can rifle through my wallet again all you like. I'm sorry.
Dont forget to invite them to do it to all your friend's wallets too if you want to play together!!