I have two articles here which describe the core of the reason why I want the modern video game industry to crash and burn.
Here is the first article.
"Developer of legendary CRPG thinks the team behind the beloved hit is gone forever, and that the company 'will forever stay a one game studio'"Despite being
yet another article that doesn't mention the name of the game they're talking about until two paragraphs into the article, this is still a pretty good article. Though that is mostly because of the excerpted quote they got from one of ZA/UM's few remaining employees (or, rather, that GamesRadar pulled from
another, more in-depth, better article, to which they at least had the decency to link).
Argo Tuulik, soon-to-be-unemployed writer at ZA/UM, says it best:
"The individuals of ZA/UM, the cultural movement, have left the corporate body behind like the King Cobra slithering out of its dead skin. It's the people on top - the motherfuckers in sailing shoes and bowties - that fucked Harry, fucked Kim, [...] fucked Elysium, fucked you and me too. They are not artists, they are professional fuckers." (And he says even more like that in
that other article.)
This is a prime example of the reason why I want the modern video game industry to crash and burn.
Here is the second article.
"'We don't have shareholders, but we also don't think about them,' Larian Studios uses its stage time at the DICE Awards to speak out against a brutal industry climate"At least as of right now (and ignoring the ludicrous 30% "preference share" that Tencent owns in them, which puts lie to the bullshit claim that Larian "doesn't have any shareholders"), Larian is probably the closest thing to what I would want video game companies to be like after the industry crashes and burns. At least of the big so-called "AAA" companies, anyway.
That said, here's the thing, though. Even if you do ignore the asinine 30 percent share that Tencent owns, Larian actually does have another group of "shareholders," as one of the comments points out. Those "shareholders" are Swen Vincke and his wife, i.e. the founders/owners of the company. Perhaps that bodes well for the continued existence of Larian into the future. We'll see. As long as Swen Vincke continues to believe that "building games that are actually fun is going to make you the most money," then Larian is in a good place. But if, in the future, what Swen Vincke considers to be "actually fun" doesn't align with what the game-buying public sees as "actually fun," then they'll be in trouble. Or if and when Swen Vincke ever decides that he needs money more than he needs to "build games that are actually fun," you can be sure that Larian will start doing the same shit that the rest of the modern video game industry does, or else will be sold to the highest bidder, who will then do that shit. Or, more likely, when Swen Vincke and his wife decide that they are done "building games that are actually fun," retire, and leave/sell the company to someone else (or else they die and someone else simply inherits the company), probably that person will be the one who runs the company into the ground, or else probably will be the one who sells it out to other people who will run the company into the ground. Again, we'll see. I'm not optimistic.
I complain a lot about specific things like DRM and microtransactions and DLC-gutting and "always online" bullshit and "live service" bullshit and the "glorious digital future" bullshit, but those things are just means to an end. The end goal for the people who do all that reprehensible horseshit is simply to make the line go up for the shareholders, and by extension, the owners of the company (who typically are among those who are the largest shareholders, so in the end it makes little difference). And if those who run the company at the behest of the owners/shareholders
don't do that shit, or if they do it
badly, in such a way that it makes the line go down even a little bit and loses the shareholders money, then they will be replaced by someone who
will do it, or who will do it "
better" (i.e. in a way more aligned with gouging out as much money as possible, uncaring of how this affects the long-term health of the company). This end goal is at the expense of the people who buy the games and also at the expense of the people who actually make the games. The shareholders and company owners generally don't give a fickle flying fuck about the people who buy video games (as long as they continue to pay increasingly exorbitant prices to buy them and continue to blithely suck down all the additional sewer sludge [DRM, etc.] that the company shits out) or about the people who actually make the video games (as long as they continue to show up to work in exceedingly horrific conditions and for as little pay as possible). They only care about themselves and their bottom lines. And that's the real, main reason why the modern video game industry needs to crash and burn to the ground.
Also, obviously, this is true not just of the modern video game industry, but of pretty much
anything and
everything that is touched in any way by "investors" and "shareholders."
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