2 ms·

Games that gamers want and games that bring in the most money by milking gamers are not the same thing. And publishers will always care about the money first an

Games that gamers want and games that bring in the most money by milking gamers are not the same thing. And publishers will always care about the money first and foremost.

Cumpiler69 2y ago
>And publishers will always care about the money first and foremost. Have you seen their share prices and the garbage games their making with heavy losses? They clearly don't care about making money. If they did they wouldn't be doing what they're doing. Perfect example is Ubisoft.
- jsheard 2y ago
  What do you think they care about then, if they're not trying (but in some cases failing) to make money? Is this the point where we invoke conspiracy theories about the games industry trying to destroy itself on purpose due to some vaguely defined woke agenda?
  - Cumpiler69 2y ago
    How come some little known games studios manage to make good games consistently that sell well and why does Ubisoft keep failing despite ownings some of the biggest IPs in the industry when their audience keep telling them what their mistakes are but they keep ignoring. So yeah, it's intentional, not a conspiracy. It's the emperor's new clothes. Nobody working there wants to point out flaws in the games they're making (like having a black samurai in medieval Japan as a main character) for fear of being called a racist/bigott, so everyone goes along with it till the studio collapses.
    - jsheard 2y ago
      I don't particularly enjoy Ubisofts games, they're the definition of bland uninspired AAA slop, but they are profitable. As a publicly traded company their financials have to be transparent so we know for a fact they were net positive over FY 2024.
      - Cumpiler69 2y ago
        Their share price today is lower than in 2008. Unadjusted for inflation. Ubisoft is always making profit but their profit margin getting smaller and smaller so that one day (if this continues), executives will begin to sack developers to keep their high salaries intact while pandering to shareholders.
        jsheard 2y ago
        Funny you should choose 2008 as the reference point because they did a 2:1 stock split right at the end of that year (i.e. the stock price halved but they doubled the number of stocks in circulation, keeping the companies value the same). Comparing the price of a single stock now to then is apples and oranges. Their stock price has dropped sharply since its all-time peak in 2018-2021 but I recall they were already being accused of a woke agenda during that peak, for example due to the villain of 2018s Far Cry 5 being a white American conservative preacher. Their stocks decline wouldn't start until 3 years later.
      - sickofparadox 2y ago
        They are held afloat by a few massive live service games, but every single one of their major releases this year has been a disaster. From the comedy of errors in their latest Assasin's Creed game, to the first ever "AAAA" flop Skull and Bones, to Star Wars outlaws, which was so bad the board announced a comprehensive internal review to figure out what went wrong, and the recent announcement of the sunsetting of their "COD killer" XDefiant. They can't coast off of Rainbow 6 Siege forever.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      >How come some little known games studios manage to make good games consistently that sell well because you're ignoring the thousands that failed, I suppose. Survivor's bias will do that. I wouldn't call Torn Banners a large studio and that's the other half of this article. > why does Ubisoft keep failing despite ownings some of the biggest IPs in the industry because "succeeding" for a company the size of ubisoft is no longer just "making a fair profit on games and coasting about to make more games. Which is what most not-large studios strive for. And because they use these failures as an excuse to not say the quiet part out loud in that they are preparing for a recession. You'll at best hear "economic headwinds". People woulda been laid off no matter what. The fact that not just ubisot but virtually every lage studio this year has been doing this shows that this isn't some speciic ubsoft failure. And the profits sugggest this isn't some upcoming 2nd collapse. But you gotta read between the lines, and you're not even reading the same book to begin with.
  - junaru 2y ago
    > What do you think they care about then, if they're not trying (but in some cases failing) to make money? They care about attracting investment fund money and not building a good product and growing their consumer base. There's no conspiracy, ticking woke checkboxes gives you extra points in any consideration, that's a fact in current political climate. Biggest investment funds are those managing retirement funds so even a single fund like that is 'voting with wallets' of hundreds of thousands(if not millions) of its clients that wouldn't support the game company to begin with. If you want to see something grassroots check Grinding Gear Games and their developer interviews for the sequel game (POE2) that will be releasing tomorrow. You will see them engaging in discussion with community for hours, talking about their server infrastructure and how it can fail, releasing numbers of their stress tests and how many players they expect based on preorders (~1 milion). Than again this only happens when your PR person is actually the technical lead that knows the product inside out and not someone interested in quick buck. Guess how many of that team will be fired this christmas... Edit: 10 minutes about their infrastructure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lB3TM5FrsY#t=1h9m50s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lB3TM5FrsY#t=1h9m50s
  - LightHugger 2y ago
    Hmm, there are some companies that are run by openly ideologically driven people who are caught up this. They are very open about their agenda which is also very well defined in conference talks and blog posts, there is no conspiracy theory, just annoying preachy people whose games are undesired by the market. Not sure why you think this is a conspiracy theory.
AlexandrB 2y ago
Absolutely true - but because games are time consuming to make you have to anticipate what will make money in 2-6 years. Faced with this challenge, a lot of studios have fallen back on chasing trends - witness the deluge of "hero shooters" coming out 8 years after Overwatch released. Unfortunately the long time delay means that a trend might already be on its way out by the time your game ships. Worse still, monetization methods sometimes lose their potency/viability over time as bad actors give them a bad name (see what happened with loot boxes).
- Cumpiler69 2y ago
  >Absolutely true - but because games are time consuming to make you have to anticipate what will make money in 2-6 years. Or, hear me out, you can choose to stop chasing fads that might get outdated in 2-6 years, and actually make something original or make something tried and tested that's low-risk on a small budget. Gamers are simple people with simple wishes, they just want to have some fun, some escapism for a few hours, and they'll give you money for it. Sony's Astro bot is a clone of Mario64 but it works. Chasing fads is the laziest thing you can do, because it's easy to present to management/investors.
  - AlexandrB 2y ago
    Making something on a small budget often means smaller returns as well. A large game studio would rather make a couple of billion on a huge AAA game than spread themselves across a dozen projects which collectively won't make the same returns - even if each one is profitable. This is the same reason that movie studios love chasing a few massive blockbusters instead of investing in a bunch of smaller projects. At the end of the day some of this comes down to market incentives. A public company is expected to grow. For a gaming company this means either shipping more games or bigger games. If you ship more games, at some point you start cannibalizing your own sales (e.g. how many different shooters can you make that would have non-overlapping audiences?) so you go bigger. Notice this affliction doesn't affect some of the more successful private, indie studios. Supergiant Games has shipped a pretty long string of hits, but the level of production for each one is relatively constant - they're not aiming for "AAA" graphics or scale. > Chasing fads is the laziest thing you can do, because it's easy to present to management/investors. Totally true, but at the end of the day you have to convince someone to spend $200,000,000+ on development. You need something concrete to point at as a reason why you'll be successful.
alephxyz 2y ago
Yep. Tencent (Fortnite) and Activision/Blizz (overwatch + COD) are printing money while publishers who missed the battle royale train almost all killed themselves trying to release a bunch of failed overwatch clones.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
sotix 2y ago
Elden Ring, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Metaphor: ReFantazio seem to go against this.

Games that gamers want and games that bring in the most money by milking gamers are not the same thing. And publishers will always care about the money first and foremost.

Cumpiler69 2y ago

>And publishers will always care about the money first and foremost. Have you seen their share prices and the garbage games their making with heavy losses? They clearly don't care about making money. If they did they wouldn't be doing what they're doing. Perfect example is Ubisoft.

jsheard 2y ago
What do you think they care about then, if they're not trying (but in some cases failing) to make money? Is this the point where we invoke conspiracy theories about the games industry trying to destroy itself on purpose due to some vaguely defined woke agenda?
- Cumpiler69 2y ago
  How come some little known games studios manage to make good games consistently that sell well and why does Ubisoft keep failing despite ownings some of the biggest IPs in the industry when their audience keep telling them what their mistakes are but they keep ignoring. So yeah, it's intentional, not a conspiracy. It's the emperor's new clothes. Nobody working there wants to point out flaws in the games they're making (like having a black samurai in medieval Japan as a main character) for fear of being called a racist/bigott, so everyone goes along with it till the studio collapses.
  - jsheard 2y ago
    I don't particularly enjoy Ubisofts games, they're the definition of bland uninspired AAA slop, but they are profitable. As a publicly traded company their financials have to be transparent so we know for a fact they were net positive over FY 2024.
    - Cumpiler69 2y ago
      Their share price today is lower than in 2008. Unadjusted for inflation. Ubisoft is always making profit but their profit margin getting smaller and smaller so that one day (if this continues), executives will begin to sack developers to keep their high salaries intact while pandering to shareholders.
      - jsheard 2y ago
        Funny you should choose 2008 as the reference point because they did a 2:1 stock split right at the end of that year (i.e. the stock price halved but they doubled the number of stocks in circulation, keeping the companies value the same). Comparing the price of a single stock now to then is apples and oranges. Their stock price has dropped sharply since its all-time peak in 2018-2021 but I recall they were already being accused of a woke agenda during that peak, for example due to the villain of 2018s Far Cry 5 being a white American conservative preacher. Their stocks decline wouldn't start until 3 years later.
    - sickofparadox 2y ago
      They are held afloat by a few massive live service games, but every single one of their major releases this year has been a disaster. From the comedy of errors in their latest Assasin's Creed game, to the first ever "AAAA" flop Skull and Bones, to Star Wars outlaws, which was so bad the board announced a comprehensive internal review to figure out what went wrong, and the recent announcement of the sunsetting of their "COD killer" XDefiant. They can't coast off of Rainbow 6 Siege forever.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >How come some little known games studios manage to make good games consistently that sell well because you're ignoring the thousands that failed, I suppose. Survivor's bias will do that. I wouldn't call Torn Banners a large studio and that's the other half of this article. > why does Ubisoft keep failing despite ownings some of the biggest IPs in the industry because "succeeding" for a company the size of ubisoft is no longer just "making a fair profit on games and coasting about to make more games. Which is what most not-large studios strive for. And because they use these failures as an excuse to not say the quiet part out loud in that they are preparing for a recession. You'll at best hear "economic headwinds". People woulda been laid off no matter what. The fact that not just ubisot but virtually every lage studio this year has been doing this shows that this isn't some speciic ubsoft failure. And the profits sugggest this isn't some upcoming 2nd collapse. But you gotta read between the lines, and you're not even reading the same book to begin with.
- junaru 2y ago
  > What do you think they care about then, if they're not trying (but in some cases failing) to make money? They care about attracting investment fund money and not building a good product and growing their consumer base. There's no conspiracy, ticking woke checkboxes gives you extra points in any consideration, that's a fact in current political climate. Biggest investment funds are those managing retirement funds so even a single fund like that is 'voting with wallets' of hundreds of thousands(if not millions) of its clients that wouldn't support the game company to begin with. If you want to see something grassroots check Grinding Gear Games and their developer interviews for the sequel game (POE2) that will be releasing tomorrow. You will see them engaging in discussion with community for hours, talking about their server infrastructure and how it can fail, releasing numbers of their stress tests and how many players they expect based on preorders (~1 milion). Than again this only happens when your PR person is actually the technical lead that knows the product inside out and not someone interested in quick buck. Guess how many of that team will be fired this christmas... Edit: 10 minutes about their infrastructure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lB3TM5FrsY#t=1h9m50s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lB3TM5FrsY#t=1h9m50s
- LightHugger 2y ago
  Hmm, there are some companies that are run by openly ideologically driven people who are caught up this. They are very open about their agenda which is also very well defined in conference talks and blog posts, there is no conspiracy theory, just annoying preachy people whose games are undesired by the market. Not sure why you think this is a conspiracy theory.

AlexandrB 2y ago

Absolutely true - but because games are time consuming to make you have to anticipate what will make money in 2-6 years. Faced with this challenge, a lot of studios have fallen back on chasing trends - witness the deluge of "hero shooters" coming out 8 years after Overwatch released. Unfortunately the long time delay means that a trend might already be on its way out by the time your game ships. Worse still, monetization methods sometimes lose their potency/viability over time as bad actors give them a bad name (see what happened with loot boxes).

Cumpiler69 2y ago
>Absolutely true - but because games are time consuming to make you have to anticipate what will make money in 2-6 years. Or, hear me out, you can choose to stop chasing fads that might get outdated in 2-6 years, and actually make something original or make something tried and tested that's low-risk on a small budget. Gamers are simple people with simple wishes, they just want to have some fun, some escapism for a few hours, and they'll give you money for it. Sony's Astro bot is a clone of Mario64 but it works. Chasing fads is the laziest thing you can do, because it's easy to present to management/investors.
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  Making something on a small budget often means smaller returns as well. A large game studio would rather make a couple of billion on a huge AAA game than spread themselves across a dozen projects which collectively won't make the same returns - even if each one is profitable. This is the same reason that movie studios love chasing a few massive blockbusters instead of investing in a bunch of smaller projects. At the end of the day some of this comes down to market incentives. A public company is expected to grow. For a gaming company this means either shipping more games or bigger games. If you ship more games, at some point you start cannibalizing your own sales (e.g. how many different shooters can you make that would have non-overlapping audiences?) so you go bigger. Notice this affliction doesn't affect some of the more successful private, indie studios. Supergiant Games has shipped a pretty long string of hits, but the level of production for each one is relatively constant - they're not aiming for "AAA" graphics or scale. > Chasing fads is the laziest thing you can do, because it's easy to present to management/investors. Totally true, but at the end of the day you have to convince someone to spend $200,000,000+ on development. You need something concrete to point at as a reason why you'll be successful.

alephxyz 2y ago

Yep. Tencent (Fortnite) and Activision/Blizz (overwatch + COD) are printing money while publishers who missed the battle royale train almost all killed themselves trying to release a bunch of failed overwatch clones.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

sotix 2y ago

Elden Ring, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Metaphor: ReFantazio seem to go against this.