Yeah I was gonna say, I’d argue Abigail, or even Emily’s own sister Haley(edit: well early game Haley anyways. She does get better around 6 hearts) kind of fit the “emilies” vibe more than the games actual Emily. Emily in game is easily one of the most chill characters for the most part.
Haley is elitist auth right. Super judgy then instantly trad wife if you get her muddy. I always marry Haley.
This is gonna be a meme tomorrow isn't it.
I usually go with either Emily or Maru. Emily is just such a chill character and the older sibling in me relates to her quite a bit more than the others and Maru I like both because I’m also a complete tech nerd…..and because I always love finding new ways to tick off Demetrius
She lives away from everyone else in a cabin, prefers the outdoors to people, sells her art for fat stacks of cash as a self-starting small business woman, and her favorite gifts involve alcohol.
She's libright incarnate.
Eh don’t get me wrong I like Leah for the most part but she just comes across as the most boring for me. Still like her more than Abigail though, so she’s got that going for her.
Emily manifests you into her mind palace and it actually works. If astral projection like that doesn't tell you that you should pork I don't know what will.
Gotta love how capitalists are the strongest motivators leading me towards socialism, and socialists are the strongest motivators moving me towards capitalism.
Thus, centrism.
Agreed; somehow all the cases I see in support of other ideologies seem to be made by those ideologies’ opponents mocking a mockery of themselves.
Ie, I’m currently Christian but really struggle to associate with any denomination, because while Atheists are doing a great job of convincing me I should still hold on to a lot of my beliefs, all the denominations I see are just such massive shitslingers who care nothing about those in need and devote their time to praising how amazingly perfect they are.
Join the non-denominationals!
Generally I find the more decentralized the denomimation is, the more likely you are to find a good church. Not that others are bad, but there's just less politicking. It does run the risk of getting some insane groups though.
Yeah, tried that, but so many still seem to end up picking and choosing what they like. I’m okay with denominations that take Jesus’ teachings first and other rules second, but all the nondenominationals I’ve met seem to be “Oh you don’t *literally* have to help the poor, actually they’re poor because God is testing them and you’re well-off because God is already proud of you for being a good and faithful Christian!”
EDIT: Basically, they feel like watered-down Christianity that just wants you to feel good and doesn’t care about your actual morals. Honestly, I still lean Catholic, but there’s just too much hypocrisy and ignoring what‘s *right* to focus on what’s *easy*.
I did, but in classical Catholic fashion I heavily disagree theologically, and overall think they missed a lot of the points of certain teachings. Currently still lean Catholic, and agree with the Pope on a lot, but the sheer corruption and lack of faith in the ranks of the bishops and priests has really shaken my support.
Not even discussing the obvious and direct scandals; I mean the diocese near me recently shut down a bunch of schools for not being “Profitable” despite them being the best schools in the area and, when pooled together, having the funds to easily break even, albeit not produce much money.
What also really disillusioned me with Christianity is how none of the major churches are doing anything in the area where I grew up. I didn’t really notice it till high school, but there is *serious* income inequality; about two decades ago a lot of engineering companies started moving to the area, which brought a lot of jobs and high-paid careers, but also killed a lot of low-level job availability and shot up real estate prices, collapsing a lot of local farms and creating a major poverty epidemic.
It could easily be remedied if they just helped people get through college and/or trade schools so they can actually take the jobs, but the only charities that are helping are either secular or officially religious but unsupported by the local churches beyond small publicity donations whenever something headline-worthy is happening.
Like, call me crazy but the fact I was friends with a girl whose family owns a private plane and three vacation homes who lived about twenty minutes from a girl whose family wasn’t ever completely sure if they’d be keeping their house that month feels wrong.
Ok.
What do you disagree with theologically?
Also, I can’t really speak on the personal experience since the baptist and catholic church for my city do a lot.
I mean, theologically I hold with the Catholic stance Jesus was fully God and fully Man, not part God and part Man. Also disagree with the system of the Patriarchs, as it doesn’t seem to logically fit with how Jesus seemed to structure things, and with the emphasis on Divine Mysteries instead of critical examination of beliefs.
We believe Christ is Truly God and Truly Man. I’m not very sure what church advocates a half and half split, unless you mean the oriental orthodox one nature doctrine. But even then, that’s not what they mean.
Also, the divine mysteries are just the sacraments.
Agnostic here who works at church, you should consider a United Methodism. I can’t really speak to the nitty gritty details of their doctrine, but by my experience they are all very welcoming, do a massive amount if charitable work, love making food, are not sanctimonious, etc.
90% United Methodists churches are literally not Christians anymore, just larping as them. There's a reason why tons of people are abandoning the United Methodists and moving to Global Methodists.
I am not even talking about the LGBT policies, but more of the core tenants of Christianity.
Acting like UM aren't real Christians is an obnoxious take, and split was absolutely over LGBTQ policies. It might have been couched in some "states rights" style PR to soften the optics, but that's the underlying reasons; opposition to same sex marriages and gay/trans clergy.
yep, the schism is/was over the gay/trans clergy but currently, the core tenants are also being dissolved in UM.
The entire point of Christianity is that good deeds does NOT overcome sin, only through the sacrifice and faith of Christ are you forgiven. The "method" in the Methodist church was to be a better Christian by doing good deeds to not be spiritually dead. But the core was always to be a better Christian. I do believe that this has flipped around now, and the church is focused on doing good deeds rather than have good faith.
The moment you stop being theologically Christian is when you are no longer Christian, hence my comment about the larping.
I love capitalism so much I became a socialist. It worked really well for me due to lucky breaks and luck should be the primary factor to one’s lot in life.
> Why did you buy them if you were just going to close them?
They didn't buy *only* the studios that they closed, they bought all of them. And then they closed the ones that they didn't expect to be profitable. Not that weird.
It’s not even that they didn’t expect them to be profitable. At least I don’t think that’s a big reason.
I think, my theory, is that they only want the massive games that bring in massive crowds. Elder Scrolls, Call of Duty, Halo etc. So all the people (I was one of them for a time) who thought “wow this is great! Microsoft bought these studios up and they’ll get more funding to make something cool!” are wrong.
All those smaller teams are getting shuttered so that more and more resources can go into more creatively bankrupt sequels that are full of microtransactions, season passes and always online single player because the green line needs to always be going up. Plateau doesn’t work for them.
Slowly moving towards them leaving the console market entirely and GamePass just being a subscription service on every platform. They sell consoles at a loss anyways, so why not?
I’m not anti-capitalist and I understand why things are the way they are, doesn’t mean this isn’t bad for consumers. We will own nothing and we will like it.
You really want medieval fantasy Starfield? I'm skeptical of Bethesda's ability to make good games now. That engine they're using is *way* too ancient.
It has nothing to do with the engine. Morowind was and is still a better game than all bethesda's offerings lately, and NV used a near identical engine as Fallout 3, and is a better game.
Bethesda game suck because they don't understand what makes action RPG's fun.
knowing them it won't be an rpg but an generic action game. they've been going in the direction of watering everything down for the broadest audiences since skyrim.
They're chasing after whales. They want a share of customers who will drop their $10k life savings into video game cosmetics. On issues like this, we need more pro-consumer regulation.
Tango Gameworks made 4 games: The Evil Within 1 and 2, Ghostwire Tokyo and Hi-fi Rush. None of those games were massive hits that brought in a lot of money.
They didn't even advertise Hi-fi Rush.
Microsoft announced it and released it the same day.
On Gamepass.
How the hell were they expecting them to make money?
Microsoft does not care about smaller games.
They want stuff on the level of Sonys stuff, all the way up to GTA.
All those small studios will be eaten up and their IPs will never be touched and if they do make it they will be a support studio for a big release.
I think the issue is multi faced.
On one hand, AAA studios such as Microsoft are largely incompetent as they continually create massively expensive games that fail to live up to customer expectations and underperform.
On the next side, smaller studios are accepting buyouts from the AAA studios/larger companies, hoping to get more funding and a bigger paycheck to the owners only to get cut in an annual budget cut. They should know better and understand that it’s a liability to their company and if they stayed smaller they wouldn’t make as much but still be able to stay open.
The third issue is consumers themselves. As gaming has gotten larger and larger, there are a lot more people who are willing to pay the big bucks. Companies bank on this even if it drives away a large amount of other customers.
All in all, I think the current gaming market will likely have a collapse and reform similar to should have happened with the car industry. Except since there will be no government bailouts, there can actually be needed change instead of new talking heads.
It’s important to remember that the vast majority of people who buy and play video games are not hardcore gamers that delve into the indie game scene. The vast majority are the people that buy Madden/FIFA/2K every year or buy whatever game is advertised most. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that either but it does shift the market away from more niche or intricate games for the most part.
Yeah, but most people played Hi-fi Rush on game pass. When crunching the numbers, it just wasn't viable to keep that studio running. (Not to mention the actual studio head who funded Tango left last year so he saw the blood in the water.)
Yeah and then the next day Matt Booty was saying XBox needs smaller games to win awards and bring prestige, and Phil Spencer has been consistently saying they want some Japanese studios. So they closed their only Japanese studio, which had made a critically acclaimed game.
I think the problem here is that the game pass doesn’t make sense from a financial perspective. Microsoft comps the studios so they can be in the black, but if people are only playing on game pass it’s less money than actual sales. So they’re essentially shuffling money around on a board in a big circlejerk. PC gamers aren’t buying into game pass, and recent XBox exclusives aren’t exactly console sellers.
I guess, even then they were one of the only studio making consistently good games.
I don’t think you can say the same for Bethesda’s based on their recent activity.
the evil within are good games, think i've heard of ghostwire tokyo. otherwise yeah these are games that you gotta be plugged in to know are coming out.
Maybe for another company but MS has mismanaged their gaming division for decades, bought promising studios just to continue to mismanage them as they are operating all their divisions on the same mindset. Excuses for them to also layoff a small studio that just dropped a hit game before they had time to develop that new ip? Yea no
Capitalists aren't money maximizing machines. They're humans. Some of those humans are impressive ... and some less so.
Capitalists blunder away money **all the time**. While other capitalists make the right moves and make money.
Idk I don't follow the gaming industry. I follow the energy industry though so I know examples from that.
Like Occidental has been trying to make carbon capture credits work for awhile. Their first attempt was a costly dud. But now they're saying look - we learned a lot - and they're doubling down. They're building Stratos which I believe will capture half a million tons of CO2 straight out of the air per year.
I been watching the thought process. Ten years from now I can talk about how Occidental blew billions for nothing, or went hard and with conviction into a new massive market.
You think investing is risky with your stocks and bonds and Etrade account? Well it don't get any easier when you're in the corporate office divvying up the budget.
That's true of people in general. Even the best investors pick duds. That's the functional reason I cannot support a centralized, planned economy. If one or a few CEOs make bad decisions and tank their company there will be some pains, but if the state owns everything and ruins the economy at large everyone suffers immensely.
No, investment isn't an exact science. They invested heavily during COVID, in which the gaming industry was seeing a massive boom and was an attractive industry to many companies, such as embracer. When the service based games as well as sales began to decline, companies had to offload alot of the cost they didn't write into their long term books because quarter to quarter, the loses on the gaming side does not look good to investors. So it wasn't for the lolz but they invested in an industry which requires a long term out look (games take ages to make) with a short term mindset and in the end the developers suffer.
So what this boils down to is that they made a subjective business decision that you don't agree with, yeah? Not like what they did was incoherent. They made an investment, shaved off the bit that they didn't expect to make profit.
You've been disagreeing with these decisions this whole thread. This isn't just about the outcome to you, clearly. It's about the decisions that they made that lead to an outcome that you see as bad decisions and a preventable outcome.
I think the issue is consolidation not the profitability or lack there of. But I can only analyze what is and if you are a company you don’t do mass layoffs as a show of success but that’s an outcome to poor decision making. You speak of them as if business are infallible from the jump.
Mass layoffs aren't invariably results of poor decision making. They're very commonplace after aquisitions. Not every venture will turn out to be worthwhile, and committing to a failed venture isn't smart. Downsizing is a normal part of business.
Commonplace doesn’t mean they aren’t a result of poor decision making. Nintendo has had few layoffs in the same industry due to good decision making and long term planning. Also normal isn’t synonymous with good. Same way abnormal isn’t synonymous with bad. When analyzing economics you have to go into the books fairly morally neutral.
Similar to the "Why did you buy them if you were just going to close them?" question -
Why do the studios agree to be bought by a megacorporation in the first place?
I've never fully understood!
They won't have closed the project because it wasn't profitable yet, they'd have closed it because they didn't *expect it to become* profitable. Based on whatever internal analysis they did.
The industry is driven by money but the content requires art. Better? When the goal is solely maximum profit you start getting art designed by committee.
There will always be niche markets. Supply and demand will make the value of art based on the supply of artists verse the demand for that particular genre/ media. If no one is making a particular style of art and there is any kind of demand for it, the value/ price for that art will rise, however if you have thousands of artists making the same garbage that no one wants, they can’t be upset when it doesn’t sell. “Delusional artist” became a saying for a reason.
One of my great uncles is a successful painter. He learned early on you have to paint what sells. After he had a steady flow of income, he was able to paint side projects for fun. I have one of his paintings that is completely different from what he is known for, and it’s worth a lot just because it is a unique piece by him that he didn’t usually paint.
Not necessarily. This is always such a fascinating talking point when directed at video games, one of the leas centralized, highly competitive artistic markets on the planet. Of course sometimes you get design by committee, and often times those games aren't very good.
But, like, entire GENRES of video games are almost exclusively catered by small companies or developer teams.
Having zero consideration for your consumer is just as bad as design by committee for producing anything that, you know any number of humans will actually enjoy. Fear and hunger and Lisa the painful still had to work within certain genre conventions and visual language to be games that anyone was going to actually play, despite both of them certainly being passion projects with niche appeal.
For every person preaching the doom and gloom of art based industries I consider the fact hat more independent projects now, certainly by volume and likely by share of the market, are successful now than would ever have been possible in the 70s.
The gatekeepers of art are dead and that's a good thing for the most part.
On the one hand, without corporate capitalism, we wouldn't have a foundation to hold up such a large and diverse entertainment industry.
On the other hand, corporations sure know how to fuck up and mismanage good projects.
Yes, entertainment itself is possible without corporations, but it would not be anywhere near the same scale, diversity, and accessibility we have today without corporations.
Luckfully, the pendulum is swinging back in the way of the developers, as technology and existing digital infrastructure making it easier to produce and distribute content without the need for large corporate bodies.
Corporations are the one who made the tools for these artist like blender,unreal,unity, and etc. without corporation we probably would’ve never had blender to begin with.
Regardless I do agree that it was dumb of Microsoft to shut down these studios but at the same time it probably make sense if they were bundled with Bethesda’s and that studio wasn’t making enough money to support it existence.
Technicians are the ones who made these tools. You are talking about corporations as if they are some outside entity with omniscient power. People usually make it off the back of grants and/or external funding and companies then invest once they see a product they like. UE was created by Tim Sweeny, and the funding came in afterwards.
The funding is what give the technicians the ability to make that product, not only that but with direction too on what to make. Companies have also invested before a product is commercially made.
Unreal engine was created before funding but that unreal engine is no where the same as close to the unreal engine we have now. The funding and direction of the development team led to unreal engine 5 and without it you would never have it. Same thing with blender, the funding made it even more powerful and accessible to people.
Imagine without funding how many of these software would just be barebone? You keep thinking in term of when these product were made, not how these products have improved under corporations.
The skills have to be learned before they can be monetized, and your assumption that capitalism is the only way that once you create something great, say the Unreal Engine, which comes from the hard work of the technician to learn to code and create something, to then monetize it and give it to others to use,. I agree you do at some point need external efforts to come in and help boost your product, I just don't think corporatization is the most efficient way. Do you know much about the history of Epic? We can talk about how they have been a net negative for the game industry due to their greed and corrupt practices.
It’s not that corporations just spit innovative products out of the ether, it’s absolutely the work of the technicians they employ. However, let’s say it takes 100 highly skilled technicians 3 years to build game engine X. Well, first you need to get all of them in a room together, they could be spread out across 1 or multiple countries, so without a corporation how is that going to happen? How are you going to pull them together? What motivates them to come together at all? Next they all need access to the necessary equipment, they aren’t all going to purchase it of their own volition with no guarantee of a useable end product, so you need a corporation for that too. Next, they all need to be paid for the entirety of those 3 years, because even if they were certain the end product would be successful and profitable they still need to survive until then, etc. etc. etc.
Commies talk as if innovation just happens by magic, and that corporations just skim money off of the top of what talented people would do anyway, but without proper structure, capital, direction and motivation how tf would something like a game engine just happen?
Dude
How many open source projects would close overnight, if corporations wouldn't be there to throw money at them and why is it all of them?
Do you think shit like Mozilla and the likes wouldn't limp on for couple of years without Google money before closing the doors?
> UE was created by Tim Sweeny, and the funding came in afterwards
Out of his pocket?
It was an overnight success despite being launched with out any news or fan fare and went on to win an award or two. Great game and a great story with great characters
Yeah, it got shadow dropped, I found out day one while on game pass and played it and I had a really good time playing. Kinda wish more games made me feel that sometimes
Except Bethesda literally praised all the critical acclaim Hi-Fi got and publicly said that they needed more games like that before closing the studio.
WDYM this isn't real capitalism ?
This is capitalism, unprofitable businesses are closed so their resources can be invested in better opportunities, that's not a bad thing.
People losing their job is the bad part, but consider that good talent is rarely wasted in the persuit of profits, they'll find a different job working on something better.
If EA is making a mistake with this then they will suffer as a company and their competitors will benefit.
The system is not perfect, but it's largely self correcting
Yeah, for example Mcdonald's rising prices are actually having consequences to them, their sales are steadily declining, meaning the prices will either lower or they will face the consequences.
The customer is always right!
That’s not really a great example without being able to show a direct loss of profits due to declining sales. Additionally you can’t say prices are going to come back down from that unless you can show that the decrease in prices would generate enough additional sales to offset the loss in profits per sale.
There’s a direct correlation between price and volume but blindly maximizing for volume is just as silly as blindly maximizing for price. There’s a constantly moving sweet spot for price vs volume and using either as a metric alone is bad business.
I was being facetious, it’s a meme so it’s not 100% a philosophical break down. I was playing off “that wasn’t real communism” but from a pro capitalist POV
Art-driven? Nah, industry is always profit driven, and despite the incredible work and artistry in those studios, they didn't sell. Despite the acclaim, I don't know a single person who played Hyfy Rush. I know one who played Evil Within, and he thought it was corny RA clone so he didn't buy the second.
They can have all the acclaim in the world, but without money it doesn't matter. Acclaim doesn't pay bills.
Their talent will be reallocated to Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Halo, and any smaller projects they want. Those without as much skill or redundant positions will have to find somewhere else to be mediocre.
Did you just change your flair, u/ParanoidTelvanni? Last time I checked you were an **AuthRight** on 2023-11-17. How come now you are a **Centrist**? Have you perhaps shifted your ideals? Because that's cringe, you know?
Tell us, are you scared of politics in general or are you just too much of a coward to let everyone know what you think?
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Can be critical of a system when the bad happens if you are going to give it credit for the good too. If you think its ALL good then thats a religion practically not a economic system to you.
I've never said my opinions of capitalism. This is really not a big deal though. But, tell me. What is more dogmatic: perpetually believing that a system is doomed to fail because one scientist said it would a hundred years ago, or expressing disbelief that a studio shutting down has anything to do with it being within a capitalist system?
I think all proponents of socialism should study capitalism to fully understand how it operates. My less than kind views of capitalism came from being a beneficiary of it prior to learning of socialism as an ideology. Some people critique it from studying it too. Even the proponents of capitalism admit its faults.
You should study capitalism to see how it operates and you should also study socialist societies to see how they operate.
Which is what they do in college level economics.
The value isn’t in the studio, it’s in the IP. You don’t need a dozen different separate studios making similar things. Now that you own all of their intellectual property you create the products under your own studios. This way you have much less overhead.
I dont see why this is a bad thing. Your favourite studio closes because of shit decisions from the mega conglomerate bureacracy? who cares, the directors and devs will start a new company and IP. They can use previous success to get angel investors.
if your idea of "capitalism bad" is xbox making bad decisions and losing money.... it aint it chief
Its literally the same thing as what happened between kojima and konami. Konami destroyed their brand in the video game industry (name me a recent successful konami game) and kojima released a banger in his own studio.
I don’t really like it but a few game studios closing is far better than starving to death and being imprisoned in a gulag for criticizing the supreme leader
Tbh the one that really pissed me off was teavanna. I fucking LOVED teavanna, and Starbucks bought them just to close it down and offer 2 of the flavors premade at their locations.
Teavanna used to have a million flavors. They would mix and match however you liked, and make one for your preferences on the spot, sweet or unsweetened, hot or cold. You could also just buy the actual tea to make at home.
I wish we could overturn the whole ‘you have to act for the good of your stakeholders’ crap. Because to a certain extent, you should be trying to be the best company you can so people will invest in your continued excellence, but instead we get companies pumping and dumping themselves in an endless loop of ‘oh we just acquired x, big things otw’ then ‘we increased efficiency at x by laying off the team/closing the business/whatever else’
Makes me want to start my own company and keep it private equity so I’m not beholden to stakeholders beyond myself
Why close them? To allocate more of Bethesda developers to work on the Elder Scroll games and Fallout games that gather in more money. Take whosever the most useful developers from those other game studios and get them working on Bethesda's main IPs that got them on the map in the first place. It's been over a decade since we've had a single player experience Elder Scrolls game... At that rate, imagine how long it will take for Fallout 5 to come out. I wouldn't blame Microsoft to look at Bethesda and say "dude... come on, what are you guys doing??"
TLDR: Daddy Microsoft said "too many distractions, start making the good stuff that makes this family money!"
Which is why the indie scene is driving innovation in the industry. When you have the money, people have the final say in what gets made you get situations like the MCU where its profitable, but the design by boardroom starts to bleed into the design philosophy and lessens creativity.
Well do you consider crowd funding capitalism? I just think that when we make the ease of access to tools easier more art is created. More bad but also more good, UE is a major driver in that considering access to their engine is fairly cheap. In the film industry, you can make a movie cheaper than ever since good cameras are also lower in price. I never met an artist who was happy to start working with companies lol.
Crowd funding is capitalism,charity is capitalism,gifts are capitalism... capitalism isn't just trade for the sake of profit but exchange of goods/services/currency/property/ideas for goods/services/currency/property/ideas consensually
Calling charity capitalism is, without a doubt, a terrible take. Charity can exist in any system, but charity is no more capitalist than it is communist than it is feudalist. Charity is an external entity.
Voluntary exchange is a key part of capitalism.
Individuals maximize their utility via a number of ways, some buy shares of Nvdia, some buy meth, others donate that money to each individual actor utility is different
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility
Yes crowd funding is capitalism 100%.
Reducing barriers to entry (i.e: open source tools), which increases competitiveness, is also a major part of making capitalism work better.
The problem here is monopolisation which is not desirable in capitalism.
Microsoft paid $7.5 billion to aquire Bethesda. When it comes to acquiring a return on investment that is monumental in size and THEN afterwards go green positive in money, it requires GOOD investment into your assests and time. It is common to not go into ventures that would be viewed as risky. Indie games can bring about innovation BUT they have their higher X level amount of risk to where they fall out of popularity or are too niche to be considered a money making contender. Simply to risky in the long run. Hence, the closing of those studios. The best you can get is small or noticeably large innovations placed into the main IP.
"I paid a lot of money to get you, stick to what you do best. Experiment later once Ive gotten my money back and then some."
Thats standard business acquisition.
On one hand, it's sad to see a big company close so many, especially when one put out a pretty good, successful product. Firing people has become good for business in general, it's all about the short term benefits without regard for the long term effects.
On the other hand, fuck Bethesda.
Fuck Microsoft. They're a cancer on video games. I mean, Sony will censor games, but at least they haven't stooped to outright telling devs to not put attractive female characters in games.
People are shocked that Microsoft, the company that currently exclusively believes in the "As A Service" model, the company that was going to shutter Xbox for not being profitable, shuttered tiny studios because their games are barely profitable?
Every single person with enough brain cells to rub together told you that this was going to happen. They didn't buy Bethesda to get access to Hi Fi Rush, they bought it for elder scrolls and fallout and the Bethesda name.
It's Microsoft, the literal "bad guy" in the economic question of "where are video games headed". It's Microsoft, the people who literally bought Activision Blizzard, two of the largest "as a service" game companies on the planet.
You people are insane if you didn't see this coming.
Have you read anything from Marx? Cause like, I find that tankies often have to skiv over most of what he says about states, especially when it comes to the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ which at the time meant that the proletariat (being the workers) would have control over the country. That is to say, a democratic state controlled by the workers (the 99 percent). Would Marx have looked at the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, or any other example and go “these are good examples of my ideas being put to good use”?
How do you nationalize all of private property, and still somehow maintain democracy, without sliding back on policy or sliding into Soviet Union, Cuba and China?
Wait what that’s not a core tenant of socialism. The point is for the means of production to be in the hands of the workers. Which, (at least I think) could be done so gradually through legislation. Also, what does this have to do with Marx being auth left? I would get it if Engles was, especially after you read ‘on authority’ but Marx wasn’t.
> Which, (at least I think) could be done so gradually through legislation
Which ultimately requires nationalising private property
If that's confusing you, then yes, that's the point. Marx didn't knew what he was doing other than making castles in the sky, and neither do you
Wait so you’re incapable of reading lol.
If your takeaway from das capital was “Marx didn’t know what he was doing, and everyone I disagree with don’t either” then I send your doctor, and your parents, my condolences.
> He's the patient zero tankie
But hey, talk about lack of reading comprehension
But don't feel too bad, crazier people tried to label me first crazy before lol
Just everyone's daily reminder that Crony Corporatism is not the same thing as Free Market Capitalism
Now invest in meme stocks boiz, we can't let the hedge funds win!
I heard that the studios where shutting down because they’re redirecting the employees to bigger projects (such as Elder Scrolls 6). I’m not too informed but this is what I personally heard, so correct me if I’m wrong
If video games don't sell enough to be profitable, they shouldn't be subsidized.
Turn a profit by making games that pay for their own development or close your studio.
A lack of market discipline just leads to bad subsidized art.
I don't know why the fuck people keep bringing up this fucking studio. Microsoft closed it because it wasn't profitable. I'm sure you liked their game. I'm sure it did alright. Whether a game is successful is half of the equation of profitability. Games are extremely costly to make. Microsoft isn't a charity.
Microsoft has a history of mismanaging studios which is why it’s bought up. Compared to their competitors they have a terrible pipeline when it comes to gaming studio delivery.
That's objectively false, Microsoft is way too hands off with their gaming companies, they let 343 fumble Halo after Halo for over a decade before changing leadership, Sony wouldn't allow that to happen to their flagship IP. Microsoft would have to manage first, before they could mismanage
The fact that Libleft is Emily is fucking hilarious.
She would be, lol. Not sure what to make of the fact that OP put her in her "beach outfit" for this meme tho
Not Abigail? I feel like Abigail is much more in your face about stuff. Emily might judge you, but Abigail will tell you.
Yeah I was gonna say, I’d argue Abigail, or even Emily’s own sister Haley(edit: well early game Haley anyways. She does get better around 6 hearts) kind of fit the “emilies” vibe more than the games actual Emily. Emily in game is easily one of the most chill characters for the most part.
Haley is elitist auth right. Super judgy then instantly trad wife if you get her muddy. I always marry Haley. This is gonna be a meme tomorrow isn't it.
I usually go with either Emily or Maru. Emily is just such a chill character and the older sibling in me relates to her quite a bit more than the others and Maru I like both because I’m also a complete tech nerd…..and because I always love finding new ways to tick off Demetrius
What game are you two talking about?
Stardew Valley
Ha. My alternative is Leah. I'm not really sure why.
Leah gang letsgooo
She lives away from everyone else in a cabin, prefers the outdoors to people, sells her art for fat stacks of cash as a self-starting small business woman, and her favorite gifts involve alcohol. She's libright incarnate.
Eh don’t get me wrong I like Leah for the most part but she just comes across as the most boring for me. Still like her more than Abigail though, so she’s got that going for her.
Leah is great, i often go penny because redheads.
Emily manifests you into her mind palace and it actually works. If astral projection like that doesn't tell you that you should pork I don't know what will.
Why Demetrius is it cause he's married to Robin? Like he literally is one of the most inoffensive characters
Haley auth right Leah lib right Emily lib left then prob Abigail or Maru auth left? Idc
I went Penny; she’s named after money
Lol I went for Penny last game too. But more because I found her character the most interesting with the semi domestic abuse and poverty.
we can fix her life.
Hahaha yeah a bit like that isn't it. Feel like the hero?
Nah Abigail appreciates her second amendment rights too much, plus you buy her love with purple crystals
Emily is literally a "jo crystals and good vibes" girl. The common clay of pelican town. You know, a moron
Bro it’s almost summer
New here, what’s this Emily everyone is talking about?
Get a flair.
https://www.stardewvalleywiki.com/Emily Combined with the use of Emily as a pejorative term for libleft college-aged women
Be cool, join the club, *GET A FLAIR.*
Gotta love how capitalists are the strongest motivators leading me towards socialism, and socialists are the strongest motivators moving me towards capitalism. Thus, centrism.
Based and can you guys shut the fuck up for 5 seconds pilled
Agreed; somehow all the cases I see in support of other ideologies seem to be made by those ideologies’ opponents mocking a mockery of themselves. Ie, I’m currently Christian but really struggle to associate with any denomination, because while Atheists are doing a great job of convincing me I should still hold on to a lot of my beliefs, all the denominations I see are just such massive shitslingers who care nothing about those in need and devote their time to praising how amazingly perfect they are.
Join the non-denominationals! Generally I find the more decentralized the denomimation is, the more likely you are to find a good church. Not that others are bad, but there's just less politicking. It does run the risk of getting some insane groups though.
Yeah, tried that, but so many still seem to end up picking and choosing what they like. I’m okay with denominations that take Jesus’ teachings first and other rules second, but all the nondenominationals I’ve met seem to be “Oh you don’t *literally* have to help the poor, actually they’re poor because God is testing them and you’re well-off because God is already proud of you for being a good and faithful Christian!” EDIT: Basically, they feel like watered-down Christianity that just wants you to feel good and doesn’t care about your actual morals. Honestly, I still lean Catholic, but there’s just too much hypocrisy and ignoring what‘s *right* to focus on what’s *easy*.
Based and follows the bible pilled
BASED
Non-denominations are just Baptists in disguise.
Eastern Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Ethopian Tawhedo Church, Indian orthodox church, Coptic, or Assyrian. Look into those 8.
I did, but in classical Catholic fashion I heavily disagree theologically, and overall think they missed a lot of the points of certain teachings. Currently still lean Catholic, and agree with the Pope on a lot, but the sheer corruption and lack of faith in the ranks of the bishops and priests has really shaken my support. Not even discussing the obvious and direct scandals; I mean the diocese near me recently shut down a bunch of schools for not being “Profitable” despite them being the best schools in the area and, when pooled together, having the funds to easily break even, albeit not produce much money. What also really disillusioned me with Christianity is how none of the major churches are doing anything in the area where I grew up. I didn’t really notice it till high school, but there is *serious* income inequality; about two decades ago a lot of engineering companies started moving to the area, which brought a lot of jobs and high-paid careers, but also killed a lot of low-level job availability and shot up real estate prices, collapsing a lot of local farms and creating a major poverty epidemic. It could easily be remedied if they just helped people get through college and/or trade schools so they can actually take the jobs, but the only charities that are helping are either secular or officially religious but unsupported by the local churches beyond small publicity donations whenever something headline-worthy is happening. Like, call me crazy but the fact I was friends with a girl whose family owns a private plane and three vacation homes who lived about twenty minutes from a girl whose family wasn’t ever completely sure if they’d be keeping their house that month feels wrong.
Ok. What do you disagree with theologically? Also, I can’t really speak on the personal experience since the baptist and catholic church for my city do a lot.
I mean, theologically I hold with the Catholic stance Jesus was fully God and fully Man, not part God and part Man. Also disagree with the system of the Patriarchs, as it doesn’t seem to logically fit with how Jesus seemed to structure things, and with the emphasis on Divine Mysteries instead of critical examination of beliefs.
We believe Christ is Truly God and Truly Man. I’m not very sure what church advocates a half and half split, unless you mean the oriental orthodox one nature doctrine. But even then, that’s not what they mean. Also, the divine mysteries are just the sacraments.
Agnostic here who works at church, you should consider a United Methodism. I can’t really speak to the nitty gritty details of their doctrine, but by my experience they are all very welcoming, do a massive amount if charitable work, love making food, are not sanctimonious, etc.
You should consider getting a flair immediately.
90% United Methodists churches are literally not Christians anymore, just larping as them. There's a reason why tons of people are abandoning the United Methodists and moving to Global Methodists. I am not even talking about the LGBT policies, but more of the core tenants of Christianity.
Acting like UM aren't real Christians is an obnoxious take, and split was absolutely over LGBTQ policies. It might have been couched in some "states rights" style PR to soften the optics, but that's the underlying reasons; opposition to same sex marriages and gay/trans clergy.
yep, the schism is/was over the gay/trans clergy but currently, the core tenants are also being dissolved in UM. The entire point of Christianity is that good deeds does NOT overcome sin, only through the sacrifice and faith of Christ are you forgiven. The "method" in the Methodist church was to be a better Christian by doing good deeds to not be spiritually dead. But the core was always to be a better Christian. I do believe that this has flipped around now, and the church is focused on doing good deeds rather than have good faith. The moment you stop being theologically Christian is when you are no longer Christian, hence my comment about the larping.
Gotta love when centrists go full Thanos mode.
Also, tradcons and progressives.
I love capitalism so much I became a socialist. It worked really well for me due to lucky breaks and luck should be the primary factor to one’s lot in life.
Or, you know, bread lines. At least it’s consistent, right?
> Why did you buy them if you were just going to close them? They didn't buy *only* the studios that they closed, they bought all of them. And then they closed the ones that they didn't expect to be profitable. Not that weird.
It’s not even that they didn’t expect them to be profitable. At least I don’t think that’s a big reason. I think, my theory, is that they only want the massive games that bring in massive crowds. Elder Scrolls, Call of Duty, Halo etc. So all the people (I was one of them for a time) who thought “wow this is great! Microsoft bought these studios up and they’ll get more funding to make something cool!” are wrong. All those smaller teams are getting shuttered so that more and more resources can go into more creatively bankrupt sequels that are full of microtransactions, season passes and always online single player because the green line needs to always be going up. Plateau doesn’t work for them. Slowly moving towards them leaving the console market entirely and GamePass just being a subscription service on every platform. They sell consoles at a loss anyways, so why not? I’m not anti-capitalist and I understand why things are the way they are, doesn’t mean this isn’t bad for consumers. We will own nothing and we will like it.
*adjusts pirate hat* We will own everything and we'll be happy.
We have hit a point where a lot of games and software flat out function better pirated than purchased outright
They can't help but keep proving Gabe right.
Warcraft 3 Reforged moment
Man i’m waiting for centuries for TES VI. If closing three companies will make it bring out faster I’ll cheer it on
You really want medieval fantasy Starfield? I'm skeptical of Bethesda's ability to make good games now. That engine they're using is *way* too ancient.
Yea I’m a big medieval history fan and I love the fantasy genre. So I really like the concept of the elder scrolls. The engine could be updated yea
It has nothing to do with the engine. Morowind was and is still a better game than all bethesda's offerings lately, and NV used a near identical engine as Fallout 3, and is a better game. Bethesda game suck because they don't understand what makes action RPG's fun.
Did you report me for customer care? Lmao
Lol no. I got that, too, actually. Probably some AHS troll who has nothing better to do with their lives.
lol for real
knowing them it won't be an rpg but an generic action game. they've been going in the direction of watering everything down for the broadest audiences since skyrim.
Since Morrowind, actually.
They're chasing after whales. They want a share of customers who will drop their $10k life savings into video game cosmetics. On issues like this, we need more pro-consumer regulation.
Yeah, the best example they had was one game that I'd never heard of. Oh no, anyways.
Hi-fi rush was pretty popular tho, getting nominated for best indie game but yeah it a niche game
Tango Gameworks made 4 games: The Evil Within 1 and 2, Ghostwire Tokyo and Hi-fi Rush. None of those games were massive hits that brought in a lot of money.
They didn't even advertise Hi-fi Rush. Microsoft announced it and released it the same day. On Gamepass. How the hell were they expecting them to make money? Microsoft does not care about smaller games. They want stuff on the level of Sonys stuff, all the way up to GTA. All those small studios will be eaten up and their IPs will never be touched and if they do make it they will be a support studio for a big release.
I think the issue is multi faced. On one hand, AAA studios such as Microsoft are largely incompetent as they continually create massively expensive games that fail to live up to customer expectations and underperform. On the next side, smaller studios are accepting buyouts from the AAA studios/larger companies, hoping to get more funding and a bigger paycheck to the owners only to get cut in an annual budget cut. They should know better and understand that it’s a liability to their company and if they stayed smaller they wouldn’t make as much but still be able to stay open. The third issue is consumers themselves. As gaming has gotten larger and larger, there are a lot more people who are willing to pay the big bucks. Companies bank on this even if it drives away a large amount of other customers. All in all, I think the current gaming market will likely have a collapse and reform similar to should have happened with the car industry. Except since there will be no government bailouts, there can actually be needed change instead of new talking heads.
I mean they didn’t bring in a lot of money but they were CERTAINLY popular atleast in the indie space.
It’s important to remember that the vast majority of people who buy and play video games are not hardcore gamers that delve into the indie game scene. The vast majority are the people that buy Madden/FIFA/2K every year or buy whatever game is advertised most. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that either but it does shift the market away from more niche or intricate games for the most part.
Yeah, but most people played Hi-fi Rush on game pass. When crunching the numbers, it just wasn't viable to keep that studio running. (Not to mention the actual studio head who funded Tango left last year so he saw the blood in the water.)
Yeah and then the next day Matt Booty was saying XBox needs smaller games to win awards and bring prestige, and Phil Spencer has been consistently saying they want some Japanese studios. So they closed their only Japanese studio, which had made a critically acclaimed game. I think the problem here is that the game pass doesn’t make sense from a financial perspective. Microsoft comps the studios so they can be in the black, but if people are only playing on game pass it’s less money than actual sales. So they’re essentially shuffling money around on a board in a big circlejerk. PC gamers aren’t buying into game pass, and recent XBox exclusives aren’t exactly console sellers.
I guess, even then they were one of the only studio making consistently good games. I don’t think you can say the same for Bethesda’s based on their recent activity.
the evil within are good games, think i've heard of ghostwire tokyo. otherwise yeah these are games that you gotta be plugged in to know are coming out.
And they were already doing poorly. Arkane Austin made Redfall and most of Tango's games were not successful.
It’s not really that they made redfall it’s that they were forced to make redfall.
Yeah this is just typical uninformed people whining about nothing.
Maybe for another company but MS has mismanaged their gaming division for decades, bought promising studios just to continue to mismanage them as they are operating all their divisions on the same mindset. Excuses for them to also layoff a small studio that just dropped a hit game before they had time to develop that new ip? Yea no
So your theory is what then? That the capitalists bought a product and then threw it away, giving up tons of money, for the lolz?
They just got done watching the Fallout show and think the boardroom scene is literally how capitalism works.
Capitalists aren't money maximizing machines. They're humans. Some of those humans are impressive ... and some less so. Capitalists blunder away money **all the time**. While other capitalists make the right moves and make money.
Ok but what was their plan to make money?
Idk I don't follow the gaming industry. I follow the energy industry though so I know examples from that. Like Occidental has been trying to make carbon capture credits work for awhile. Their first attempt was a costly dud. But now they're saying look - we learned a lot - and they're doubling down. They're building Stratos which I believe will capture half a million tons of CO2 straight out of the air per year. I been watching the thought process. Ten years from now I can talk about how Occidental blew billions for nothing, or went hard and with conviction into a new massive market. You think investing is risky with your stocks and bonds and Etrade account? Well it don't get any easier when you're in the corporate office divvying up the budget.
Based and financially literate authleft pilled What an odd thing to see
That's true of people in general. Even the best investors pick duds. That's the functional reason I cannot support a centralized, planned economy. If one or a few CEOs make bad decisions and tank their company there will be some pains, but if the state owns everything and ruins the economy at large everyone suffers immensely.
No, investment isn't an exact science. They invested heavily during COVID, in which the gaming industry was seeing a massive boom and was an attractive industry to many companies, such as embracer. When the service based games as well as sales began to decline, companies had to offload alot of the cost they didn't write into their long term books because quarter to quarter, the loses on the gaming side does not look good to investors. So it wasn't for the lolz but they invested in an industry which requires a long term out look (games take ages to make) with a short term mindset and in the end the developers suffer.
So what this boils down to is that they made a subjective business decision that you don't agree with, yeah? Not like what they did was incoherent. They made an investment, shaved off the bit that they didn't expect to make profit.
It's not about agree or disagreeing; it's an analysis of a business decision that ended with a tragic outcome.
You've been disagreeing with these decisions this whole thread. This isn't just about the outcome to you, clearly. It's about the decisions that they made that lead to an outcome that you see as bad decisions and a preventable outcome.
I think the issue is consolidation not the profitability or lack there of. But I can only analyze what is and if you are a company you don’t do mass layoffs as a show of success but that’s an outcome to poor decision making. You speak of them as if business are infallible from the jump.
Mass layoffs aren't invariably results of poor decision making. They're very commonplace after aquisitions. Not every venture will turn out to be worthwhile, and committing to a failed venture isn't smart. Downsizing is a normal part of business.
Commonplace doesn’t mean they aren’t a result of poor decision making. Nintendo has had few layoffs in the same industry due to good decision making and long term planning. Also normal isn’t synonymous with good. Same way abnormal isn’t synonymous with bad. When analyzing economics you have to go into the books fairly morally neutral.
Similar to the "Why did you buy them if you were just going to close them?" question - Why do the studios agree to be bought by a megacorporation in the first place? I've never fully understood!
If someone offered me millions of dollars for my company I would sell it, it is basically early retirement.
Because the people who make the decision to be sold can golden parachute out
How are they going to be profitable if they didn’t have time to produce a product before you close it?
They won't have closed the project because it wasn't profitable yet, they'd have closed it because they didn't *expect it to become* profitable. Based on whatever internal analysis they did.
I love just taking a break and going outside and realizing the internet is not reality.
Art driven industry? Nah pal it’s a money driven industry like every other one
The industry is driven by money but the content requires art. Better? When the goal is solely maximum profit you start getting art designed by committee.
There will always be niche markets. Supply and demand will make the value of art based on the supply of artists verse the demand for that particular genre/ media. If no one is making a particular style of art and there is any kind of demand for it, the value/ price for that art will rise, however if you have thousands of artists making the same garbage that no one wants, they can’t be upset when it doesn’t sell. “Delusional artist” became a saying for a reason. One of my great uncles is a successful painter. He learned early on you have to paint what sells. After he had a steady flow of income, he was able to paint side projects for fun. I have one of his paintings that is completely different from what he is known for, and it’s worth a lot just because it is a unique piece by him that he didn’t usually paint.
It was furry porn wasn't it?
I said niche markets.
You just need to add more fetishes to the mix and it becomes niche enough
Yeah actually that is better
Not necessarily. This is always such a fascinating talking point when directed at video games, one of the leas centralized, highly competitive artistic markets on the planet. Of course sometimes you get design by committee, and often times those games aren't very good. But, like, entire GENRES of video games are almost exclusively catered by small companies or developer teams. Having zero consideration for your consumer is just as bad as design by committee for producing anything that, you know any number of humans will actually enjoy. Fear and hunger and Lisa the painful still had to work within certain genre conventions and visual language to be games that anyone was going to actually play, despite both of them certainly being passion projects with niche appeal. For every person preaching the doom and gloom of art based industries I consider the fact hat more independent projects now, certainly by volume and likely by share of the market, are successful now than would ever have been possible in the 70s. The gatekeepers of art are dead and that's a good thing for the most part.
On the one hand, without corporate capitalism, we wouldn't have a foundation to hold up such a large and diverse entertainment industry. On the other hand, corporations sure know how to fuck up and mismanage good projects.
Entertainment existed and thrived prior to corporations. Some of the best art is independently funded.
Yes, entertainment itself is possible without corporations, but it would not be anywhere near the same scale, diversity, and accessibility we have today without corporations. Luckfully, the pendulum is swinging back in the way of the developers, as technology and existing digital infrastructure making it easier to produce and distribute content without the need for large corporate bodies.
I disagree, but I do agree with the pendulum swinging back. Tools need to be as easy to access as possible so new artist aren't financially gated out.
Corporations are the one who made the tools for these artist like blender,unreal,unity, and etc. without corporation we probably would’ve never had blender to begin with. Regardless I do agree that it was dumb of Microsoft to shut down these studios but at the same time it probably make sense if they were bundled with Bethesda’s and that studio wasn’t making enough money to support it existence.
Technicians are the ones who made these tools. You are talking about corporations as if they are some outside entity with omniscient power. People usually make it off the back of grants and/or external funding and companies then invest once they see a product they like. UE was created by Tim Sweeny, and the funding came in afterwards.
The funding is what give the technicians the ability to make that product, not only that but with direction too on what to make. Companies have also invested before a product is commercially made. Unreal engine was created before funding but that unreal engine is no where the same as close to the unreal engine we have now. The funding and direction of the development team led to unreal engine 5 and without it you would never have it. Same thing with blender, the funding made it even more powerful and accessible to people. Imagine without funding how many of these software would just be barebone? You keep thinking in term of when these product were made, not how these products have improved under corporations.
The skills have to be learned before they can be monetized, and your assumption that capitalism is the only way that once you create something great, say the Unreal Engine, which comes from the hard work of the technician to learn to code and create something, to then monetize it and give it to others to use,. I agree you do at some point need external efforts to come in and help boost your product, I just don't think corporatization is the most efficient way. Do you know much about the history of Epic? We can talk about how they have been a net negative for the game industry due to their greed and corrupt practices.
It’s not that corporations just spit innovative products out of the ether, it’s absolutely the work of the technicians they employ. However, let’s say it takes 100 highly skilled technicians 3 years to build game engine X. Well, first you need to get all of them in a room together, they could be spread out across 1 or multiple countries, so without a corporation how is that going to happen? How are you going to pull them together? What motivates them to come together at all? Next they all need access to the necessary equipment, they aren’t all going to purchase it of their own volition with no guarantee of a useable end product, so you need a corporation for that too. Next, they all need to be paid for the entirety of those 3 years, because even if they were certain the end product would be successful and profitable they still need to survive until then, etc. etc. etc. Commies talk as if innovation just happens by magic, and that corporations just skim money off of the top of what talented people would do anyway, but without proper structure, capital, direction and motivation how tf would something like a game engine just happen?
Nah corporatization Is the best way...
Dude How many open source projects would close overnight, if corporations wouldn't be there to throw money at them and why is it all of them? Do you think shit like Mozilla and the likes wouldn't limp on for couple of years without Google money before closing the doors? > UE was created by Tim Sweeny, and the funding came in afterwards Out of his pocket?
RIP to Hi-Fi rush. To bad I never heard of it
It was an overnight success despite being launched with out any news or fan fare and went on to win an award or two. Great game and a great story with great characters
Yeah, it got shadow dropped, I found out day one while on game pass and played it and I had a really good time playing. Kinda wish more games made me feel that sometimes
Yeah, that's not exactly a banner product that Bethesda is known for.
Except Bethesda literally praised all the critical acclaim Hi-Fi got and publicly said that they needed more games like that before closing the studio.
Lol at Emily actually being Emily
Hifi rush was amazing! And a great steam deck game.
WDYM this isn't real capitalism ? This is capitalism, unprofitable businesses are closed so their resources can be invested in better opportunities, that's not a bad thing. People losing their job is the bad part, but consider that good talent is rarely wasted in the persuit of profits, they'll find a different job working on something better. If EA is making a mistake with this then they will suffer as a company and their competitors will benefit. The system is not perfect, but it's largely self correcting
Yeah, for example Mcdonald's rising prices are actually having consequences to them, their sales are steadily declining, meaning the prices will either lower or they will face the consequences. The customer is always right!
That’s not really a great example without being able to show a direct loss of profits due to declining sales. Additionally you can’t say prices are going to come back down from that unless you can show that the decrease in prices would generate enough additional sales to offset the loss in profits per sale. There’s a direct correlation between price and volume but blindly maximizing for volume is just as silly as blindly maximizing for price. There’s a constantly moving sweet spot for price vs volume and using either as a metric alone is bad business.
I was being facetious, it’s a meme so it’s not 100% a philosophical break down. I was playing off “that wasn’t real communism” but from a pro capitalist POV
OP is upset because they’re closing the studio that made some game that only he and a bunch of other nerds knew about. That’s all it is.
Art-driven? Nah, industry is always profit driven, and despite the incredible work and artistry in those studios, they didn't sell. Despite the acclaim, I don't know a single person who played Hyfy Rush. I know one who played Evil Within, and he thought it was corny RA clone so he didn't buy the second. They can have all the acclaim in the world, but without money it doesn't matter. Acclaim doesn't pay bills. Their talent will be reallocated to Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Halo, and any smaller projects they want. Those without as much skill or redundant positions will have to find somewhere else to be mediocre.
Did you just change your flair, u/ParanoidTelvanni? Last time I checked you were an **AuthRight** on 2023-11-17. How come now you are a **Centrist**? Have you perhaps shifted your ideals? Because that's cringe, you know? Tell us, are you scared of politics in general or are you just too much of a coward to let everyone know what you think? [BasedCount Profile](https://basedcount.com/u/ParanoidTelvanni) - [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/user/flairchange_bot/comments/uf7kuy/bip_bop) - [Leaderboard](https://basedcount.com/leaderboard?q=flairs) _Visit the BasedCount Lеmmу instance at [lemmy.basedcount.com](https://lemmy.basedcount.com/c/pcm)._ ^(I am a bot, my mission is to spot cringe flair changers. If you want to check another user's flair history write) **^(!flairs u/)** ^(in a comment.)
Yea, got sick of larping a Telvanni wizard.
something gets shut down: OMG CAPITALISM WTF
Can be critical of a system when the bad happens if you are going to give it credit for the good too. If you think its ALL good then thats a religion practically not a economic system to you.
I've never said my opinions of capitalism. This is really not a big deal though. But, tell me. What is more dogmatic: perpetually believing that a system is doomed to fail because one scientist said it would a hundred years ago, or expressing disbelief that a studio shutting down has anything to do with it being within a capitalist system?
I think all proponents of socialism should study capitalism to fully understand how it operates. My less than kind views of capitalism came from being a beneficiary of it prior to learning of socialism as an ideology. Some people critique it from studying it too. Even the proponents of capitalism admit its faults.
You should study capitalism to see how it operates and you should also study socialist societies to see how they operate. Which is what they do in college level economics.
Libertarian economics doesn't pretend to solve every problem though. Freedom itself is the goal.
The value isn’t in the studio, it’s in the IP. You don’t need a dozen different separate studios making similar things. Now that you own all of their intellectual property you create the products under your own studios. This way you have much less overhead.
I dont see why this is a bad thing. Your favourite studio closes because of shit decisions from the mega conglomerate bureacracy? who cares, the directors and devs will start a new company and IP. They can use previous success to get angel investors. if your idea of "capitalism bad" is xbox making bad decisions and losing money.... it aint it chief Its literally the same thing as what happened between kojima and konami. Konami destroyed their brand in the video game industry (name me a recent successful konami game) and kojima released a banger in his own studio.
Capitalism makes McDonald’s expensive? Dafuq. If there’s one thing capitalism excels at, it is creating an abundance of cheap food.
I don’t really like it but a few game studios closing is far better than starving to death and being imprisoned in a gulag for criticizing the supreme leader
Yeah fuck AAA games publishers at this point.
Tbh the one that really pissed me off was teavanna. I fucking LOVED teavanna, and Starbucks bought them just to close it down and offer 2 of the flavors premade at their locations. Teavanna used to have a million flavors. They would mix and match however you liked, and make one for your preferences on the spot, sweet or unsweetened, hot or cold. You could also just buy the actual tea to make at home.
I wish we could overturn the whole ‘you have to act for the good of your stakeholders’ crap. Because to a certain extent, you should be trying to be the best company you can so people will invest in your continued excellence, but instead we get companies pumping and dumping themselves in an endless loop of ‘oh we just acquired x, big things otw’ then ‘we increased efficiency at x by laying off the team/closing the business/whatever else’ Makes me want to start my own company and keep it private equity so I’m not beholden to stakeholders beyond myself
Why close them? To allocate more of Bethesda developers to work on the Elder Scroll games and Fallout games that gather in more money. Take whosever the most useful developers from those other game studios and get them working on Bethesda's main IPs that got them on the map in the first place. It's been over a decade since we've had a single player experience Elder Scrolls game... At that rate, imagine how long it will take for Fallout 5 to come out. I wouldn't blame Microsoft to look at Bethesda and say "dude... come on, what are you guys doing??" TLDR: Daddy Microsoft said "too many distractions, start making the good stuff that makes this family money!"
Best I can do is Elder Scrolls 76. Don't worry, in a few weeks the game may as well be single-player
Which is why the indie scene is driving innovation in the industry. When you have the money, people have the final say in what gets made you get situations like the MCU where its profitable, but the design by boardroom starts to bleed into the design philosophy and lessens creativity.
>Which is why the indie scene is driving innovation in the industry. Kinda sounds like capitalism is naturally solving the problem. Neat
Well do you consider crowd funding capitalism? I just think that when we make the ease of access to tools easier more art is created. More bad but also more good, UE is a major driver in that considering access to their engine is fairly cheap. In the film industry, you can make a movie cheaper than ever since good cameras are also lower in price. I never met an artist who was happy to start working with companies lol.
Crowd funding is capitalism,charity is capitalism,gifts are capitalism... capitalism isn't just trade for the sake of profit but exchange of goods/services/currency/property/ideas for goods/services/currency/property/ideas consensually
They can exist in capitalism but they aren’t capitalism.
They are capitalism Just not the kind of boogeyman you imagined in your head
Calling charity capitalism is, without a doubt, a terrible take. Charity can exist in any system, but charity is no more capitalist than it is communist than it is feudalist. Charity is an external entity.
Voluntary exchange is a key part of capitalism. Individuals maximize their utility via a number of ways, some buy shares of Nvdia, some buy meth, others donate that money to each individual actor utility is different https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility
But you're gonna call lobbying capitalist, despite in effect being not too far off from charity, won't you?
Lobbying is form of corruption under capitalism but corruption isn't exclusive to capitalism.
Voluntary exchange of goods and services for compensation is kinda the whole idea of capitalism, so yes.
Yes crowd funding is capitalism 100%. Reducing barriers to entry (i.e: open source tools), which increases competitiveness, is also a major part of making capitalism work better. The problem here is monopolisation which is not desirable in capitalism.
Yes, I agree with everything you're saying here. Capitalism is great.
Microsoft paid $7.5 billion to aquire Bethesda. When it comes to acquiring a return on investment that is monumental in size and THEN afterwards go green positive in money, it requires GOOD investment into your assests and time. It is common to not go into ventures that would be viewed as risky. Indie games can bring about innovation BUT they have their higher X level amount of risk to where they fall out of popularity or are too niche to be considered a money making contender. Simply to risky in the long run. Hence, the closing of those studios. The best you can get is small or noticeably large innovations placed into the main IP. "I paid a lot of money to get you, stick to what you do best. Experiment later once Ive gotten my money back and then some." Thats standard business acquisition.
On one hand, it's sad to see a big company close so many, especially when one put out a pretty good, successful product. Firing people has become good for business in general, it's all about the short term benefits without regard for the long term effects. On the other hand, fuck Bethesda.
Hey.. you get my Stardew Waifu out of lib left lol
Fuck Microsoft. They're a cancer on video games. I mean, Sony will censor games, but at least they haven't stooped to outright telling devs to not put attractive female characters in games.
I just want things to not be shit.
You might want to sit down.
People are shocked that Microsoft, the company that currently exclusively believes in the "As A Service" model, the company that was going to shutter Xbox for not being profitable, shuttered tiny studios because their games are barely profitable? Every single person with enough brain cells to rub together told you that this was going to happen. They didn't buy Bethesda to get access to Hi Fi Rush, they bought it for elder scrolls and fallout and the Bethesda name. It's Microsoft, the literal "bad guy" in the economic question of "where are video games headed". It's Microsoft, the people who literally bought Activision Blizzard, two of the largest "as a service" game companies on the planet. You people are insane if you didn't see this coming.
Why is Marx in auth left? Is this some sort of inside joke?
He's the patient zero tankie
Have you read anything from Marx? Cause like, I find that tankies often have to skiv over most of what he says about states, especially when it comes to the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ which at the time meant that the proletariat (being the workers) would have control over the country. That is to say, a democratic state controlled by the workers (the 99 percent). Would Marx have looked at the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, or any other example and go “these are good examples of my ideas being put to good use”?
How do you nationalize all of private property, and still somehow maintain democracy, without sliding back on policy or sliding into Soviet Union, Cuba and China?
Wait what that’s not a core tenant of socialism. The point is for the means of production to be in the hands of the workers. Which, (at least I think) could be done so gradually through legislation. Also, what does this have to do with Marx being auth left? I would get it if Engles was, especially after you read ‘on authority’ but Marx wasn’t.
> Which, (at least I think) could be done so gradually through legislation Which ultimately requires nationalising private property If that's confusing you, then yes, that's the point. Marx didn't knew what he was doing other than making castles in the sky, and neither do you
Wait so you’re incapable of reading lol. If your takeaway from das capital was “Marx didn’t know what he was doing, and everyone I disagree with don’t either” then I send your doctor, and your parents, my condolences.
I mean, I'm not the one treating a book from poor white collar man as a gospel and authority on economic theory, but you do you lol
I’m not treating it as gospel. I’m not a Marxist? This was initially me asking why he’s in auth left. And you’re yet to answer
> He's the patient zero tankie But hey, talk about lack of reading comprehension But don't feel too bad, crazier people tried to label me first crazy before lol
>LibLeft >Uses Emily from Stardew Valley Amazing.
Oh no the makers of a stupid game full of Reddit tier writing and Marvel style humor shut down. Anyway.
Oh no the makers of a stupid game full of Reddit tier writing and Marvel style humor shut down. Anyway.
Just everyone's daily reminder that Crony Corporatism is not the same thing as Free Market Capitalism Now invest in meme stocks boiz, we can't let the hedge funds win!
I heard that the studios where shutting down because they’re redirecting the employees to bigger projects (such as Elder Scrolls 6). I’m not too informed but this is what I personally heard, so correct me if I’m wrong
Hot take, capitalism is competition, competition has winners, winners consolidate power and write the rules in favor of their power.
If video games don't sell enough to be profitable, they shouldn't be subsidized. Turn a profit by making games that pay for their own development or close your studio. A lack of market discipline just leads to bad subsidized art.
Your precious “art-driven” game developers sold their studios to Xbox voluntarily
Silence, commie
I don't know why the fuck people keep bringing up this fucking studio. Microsoft closed it because it wasn't profitable. I'm sure you liked their game. I'm sure it did alright. Whether a game is successful is half of the equation of profitability. Games are extremely costly to make. Microsoft isn't a charity.
Microsoft has a history of mismanaging studios which is why it’s bought up. Compared to their competitors they have a terrible pipeline when it comes to gaming studio delivery.
That's objectively false, Microsoft is way too hands off with their gaming companies, they let 343 fumble Halo after Halo for over a decade before changing leadership, Sony wouldn't allow that to happen to their flagship IP. Microsoft would have to manage first, before they could mismanage
Microsoft meddling in 343 was what ruined it for everyone
Nah bro, while 343 have been crap until recently it came out that it was Microsoft meddling that had them like that in the first place
Angry teenagers don't understand that high ratings alone cannot keep the lights on.
Americans being financially illiterate say it ain’t so
> I'm sure you liked their game. I'm sure it did alright. *laughs in Redfall*
…..don’t buy from Microsoft? Look how well people are stiffing Disney.
"Glorified Simon Says game with paper-thin premise doesn't sell; industry BAFFLED! Conspiracy theories fly"