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Between the sexual misconduct scandal, the more recent NFT Quartz PR nightmare from both the outside and inside, as well as a general shake in the AAA industry
by lemoncookiechip 5y ago
Between the sexual misconduct scandal, the more recent NFT Quartz PR nightmare from both the outside and inside, as well as a general shake in the AAA industry due to similar sexual misconducts, allegations of racism and discrimination of minorities, physical abuse, toxic working environments, crunch culture above and beyond what is standard for other industries, mass layoffs after record profit years every year... It is no wonder that people are tired, or that we see more and more big names devs leave and form their own studio alongside with friends every other month. (An example being Activision-Blizzard who keeps bleeding big names and new studios keep forming).
There's no apparent effort from the leadership of the industry to change all the above, as well as a continuous push by publisher for more monetization methods on top of pre-existing ones at the cost of the studio's PR (NFTs being the most recent). Combine this with a general lack of care for the quality of releases at launch or guaranteed long term support for the titles, which leads to animosity and lack of trust from consumers.
There's also the fact, that all of this leads to developers and staff, being harassed on social media by people who don't and don't want to understand and simply want someone to blame.
Also worth mentioning that there's a on-going pandemic for the past 2 years, that has left people both mentally and physically exhausted. So... that probably doesn't help at all when paired with the above.
EDIT: Also worth adding, is the fact that CEOs are earning multi-million dollar bonuses on top of very large salaries (especially when compared to CEOs from other industries) when people are getting paid so poorly that they can't afford to eat (https://www.gamerzunite.com/activision-blizzard-underpays-employees-to-the-point-where-they-cant-afford-food https://www.gamerzunite.com/activision-blizzard-underpays-em...) or get layoff during a record profit year.
- mottosso 5y ago> An example being Activision-Blizzard who keeps bleeding big names and new studios keep forming If there's anything good coming out of all of this, it's this. We need less consolidation overall, and new studios emerging with this level of experience can only be a net-positive for the world.