Fiscal Responsibility, Or A Study In Game Publisher Stupidity (The Jimquisition)
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2023
- / jimquisition
/ jimsterling
www.thejimporium.com
Epic Games laid off over 800 people because management decided to gamble on Metaverse Magic Beans. Capcom's boss thinks game prices are too low. What do these two things have in common? They're examples of how industry leaders are irresponsible with their money and pass the consequences onto anybody but themselves.
Also, a special friend returns to The Jimquisition...
(Video's official full title is: Fiscal Responsibility, Or How Game Publishers Keep Painting Themselves Into A Monetary Corner Before Punishing Everybody Else For Their Short-Sighted F**king Stupidity)
#Epic #Layoffs #Capcom #Money #Monetization #NFTs #Metaverse #Politics #Microsoft #Bethesda #Activision #Jimquisition #JimSterling #JamesStephanieSterling #StephanieSterling #Games #Gaming #Videogames - Ігри
I have actually missed miniature fantasy action Willem Dafoe. I'm actually happy you managed to find him again.
legendary return.
I was actually thinking about where he went a few weeks ago, during a run where I was listening to Podquisition, and I'm happy to see the bit back!
Seconded!
I assumed he was off trying to kill all the pandas
@@VecTron5Again?
It's important to remember that a recession doesn't increase costs. A recession is a failure to grow, nothing about it requires prices to increase. Corporations use recession as an excuse to charge more and pay less, a practice which only serves to prevent real growth from returning.
It's almost like CEOs either have no idea what they are doing or are actively trying to hurt us.
@@jamesrule1338 Or that by its very nature, corporatism demands anything that is not a large company suffer when the infinite growth model isn't working.
The second one
@@scythecam It's both.
It’s really gross how many situations are treated as disasters not because a company’s losing money but because a company isn’t making quite as much money as before.
The amount of harm done by investors panicking and companies treating sustainability as unsustainable is truly horrific.
In a recession, corporations are still raking in millions but because they want to make more than they are, they destroy the financial futures of thousands of people.
And they do it while whining about how expensive it is to do business and pleading poverty, wiping crocodile tears away with a fistful of dollars.
Now now, don't insult seagulls by comparing them to execs. They're an important part of the ecosystem, while we'd all be much better off without the execs.
Fuck yes, Ariento. I get a kick out of seeing seagulls.
I want to punch my 🍆 off when an exec opens his mouth
Plus, at least seagulls are relatively entertaining to watch if you're waiting in a McDonald's parking lot or something
I like to call capitalists prions, they're both a horrific anomaly that corrupts and destroys anything and everything it touches.
@@pyrrhicvictory5844Execs don't literally swoop down and steal your cheeseburger though. 🤔
They do it figuratively instead 😄
But without Executives and CEOs and Directors, who would _create_ all the jawbs? It's a well-known fact that jawbs don't just create themselves, like some kind of... "supply and demand" situation, or anything. And the dang government has no business paying people to, say, build homes or provide healthcare or anything! No, we need rich people to gently custom-tailor jawbs for everyone, which is definitely something they do and can be relied upon to do for everyone who needs one and works hard enough!
/s
One of the greatest tragedies is that Wall Street likes it when a company lays off a bunch of people and increases the value of the shares when any sane person would see it as a sign that something is not right and should be devalued
That's because the stock market is itself largely one huge grift at this point. Gone are the days of long-term investing in stable industries, now it's all about buying low and selling high, a game of chicken where the goal is to stay in just long enough for the price of a stock to peak, before bailing out and moving onto the next.
@@EmeralBookwise Big true
@@EmeralBookwiseits literally robots trading nowadays
Hey it's makeing the company more effecient. BY FORCE!
Wall Street values rich parasites over the working class.
Remember when Iwata took a pay cut so he didn't have to fire his employees. Literally evidence that CEOs can prevent this but just choose to dispose of their workers
It's absolutely bonkers to consider that companies like EA or Activision could fire one single employee, and with the money saved from that single firing, finance another "Triple-A" game every single year. The idea that people like Kotick or Wilson provide so much value to these companies that they are worth more than a major new game release every single year isn't just preposterous, it's utterly insane.
It's not 1 person, lol. Sterling gives the figure as 'around 800 workers'. It's just that in English, not every plural gets an 's' on the end. A 'layoff' is a 'layoff' no matter how many people.
Also, one can't give an opinion on 'recession', there either is one or there isn't. Which is why I now have to stop watching this video... it's bogus. There is no 'world recession' or even a 'recession' on either side of the Atlantic. You can literally look it up on the internet, you're on the internet right now
Exactly...
Wanna know the best part? This year EA was willing to pay a ton of cash to keep the FIFA name in FC 24. They backed down because FIFA wanted to sell the rights to everyone this time around.
They provide no value to the company, its performance or the quality or value of its products, true. Because that's not what they're for. Amoebic waste like Kotick are there to provide value to the shareholders, to look out for _their_ interests, not those of the customers, nor the company as a whole, and certainly not of the workers who actually _earn_ the income. They are there to drive slaves, ruin lives and make sure the company regularly craps out a shit product for twats that will, with marketing, somehow keep selling well.
My advice to you, whether you be gamer or game developer: Go indie, and don't look back. Long live _actual_ games, made by real people with genuine creativity. Mainstream is for people who still haven't figured out that they're paying 60 or 70 or 100 dollars a pop, for largely the same couple of games with a slightly different dress each time. The Bethesda Game. The Call of Headshooty Game. The Big Blockbuster Uncharted Climbing Narrative Action-Adventure Whateverthefuck Game.
Why? Just go play Loop Hero, Ender Lilies, Nova Drift, Raft, Cultic... there's a zillion awesome games out there, and if you need help finding them, there's youtubers like Civvie to help you with that.
"Just because there's a recession" needs to become the new "It's one banana, Michael, what could it cost? Ten dollars?".
There's always money in the banana stand!
@@ILikedGooglePlus no touching!
There is no recession, I hate it when people think they can give it as an opinion. A country is either IN RECESSION or IT ISN'T, it's not an opinion, lol.
We're literally in the best economy (in the States) in human history, admittedly it's much worse in Britain, but still not in recession.
There you go... economics 101... which on YooTewb makes you smarter than 99.99999999999999999999999999999% of people on the platform, you're welcome.
Since America dropped 2 nukes and made then a vassal state
@@WTFViewerBeen that way for awhile now
I've heard people say CEOs deserve their ridiculous salaries because they 'take all the risk' but weirdly enough they can never provide examples of CEOs actually being punished (or even being all that inconvenienced) when they screw up
This also employs that workers don't take risks by working somewhere that may go under.
@@vxicepickxvor just, I dunno, lay a bunch of its workers off maybe
The risks CEO's take are only "bigger" insofar as they might only make tens of millions in a bad year, rather than hundreds of millions in a good year. Either way, they are still rich, so rich that they will never struggle for want or need, and at worst might have to cut back on extravagantly lavish luxuries.
Because workers are sub humans.
Workers only risk losing their jobs and not being able to feed their families.
CEOs risk becoming sub humans. And having to find an actual job.
Workers are already there.
Which for most part isn't even a risk they actually take, because most got where they are due to privilege and would never end up with minimum wage job.
@@EmeralBookwise many risk jail. Because they won't have enough money to pay off all their victims.
Every single worker in America needs a union and contractual protections of their job. There is no profit without labor. Organizing and stand in solidarity for better working conditions.
Preaching to the choir here, but the folk that need to hear thus aren't even in the church lol.
In Iceland, you legally *have* to be part of a union. Even the unemployed are unionised!
Absolutely brother
Except for cops. Cops should never be allowed to unionize.
@@queenvagabond8787have the unemployed ever been on strike? How did they go about that exactly?
I really like that you point out that layoffs are a corporation indulging and a conscious choice. Corps love to play the victim whilst giving the rest of us a P45.
The "just because there's a recession you won't [go without some minor luxury]" thing illustrates a general social problem, namely that the people who make the decisions genuinely can't imagine _having no money._ Not having less money than you'd like, or having to liquidate some assets you'd rather keep, or wanting to be made whole after some up-front payment, but simply being out of money and still having bills to pay. That is not a thing that happens in their universe.
My best impression of Jacob Rees-Mogg, is simply (imagining) him saying,
“The problem with poor people, is that they just need to have more money”
Because that really is the absurd simplicity with which these people think. Or don’t, even.
If there's ANYTHING the writers strike should tell people it's that companies can't do shit by themselves. YOU HAVE ALL THE POWER PEOPLE! DEMAND BETTER!
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
When possible yes
@@bleakautomaton4808no, always. THIS is what lets companies treat you like subhuman shit. Not "when it's convenient", but right goddamn now. I'm still waiting for everyone to stop paying their mortgages and loans. That'll be the day...
In all fairness you kind of need a union for something like that.. and the system is very much designed to not incentivize these sorts of things.. hence how hard it's been for the glimmering attempts at unionizing in the games industry.. they also fall prey in America at least to a series of laws that were passed in the 90s and early 2000s across the states that basically strip a lot of the overtime and protection limits etc from software developers.. now most software developers make good money in America.. that's the standard and it's a competition between people that demand that salary.. video games though were kind of from the ground up over the last two decades and at this point you have a fresh generation that simply doesn't know any better and the institutions for video games largely start this indoctrination, and that's to say for those that go to school for video game design at this point.. the rest is just you know good old-fashioned company culture.. so it's it's a multi-point effort to make the American video game industry really really toxic.. and it's unique to a degree in the software development world although they have occasionally been trying every once in awhile to replicate it.. the difference is night and day.
@jakedill1304 you ain't wrong but at the same time organising a union is something that can happen during a strike. If every dev just walked off the job what the fuk are management going to do? I'm a union rep for most places I've worked at (aus btw) a few emails to the right people and your off to the races. Devs are usually very well connected to devs of other companies. No one wants to be the one to go first but it would spiderweb out from one company to the next. Hop on a go-fund-me, twitch or something to start a support program for the out of work devs, while my faith in humanity is bottom of the barrel I think there's enough people who give a shit to support a workers strike.
Tim Sweeney should be forced to sit down and pick between one of the following:
1. Take a huge pay cut (Iwata style) and re-hire all laid off employees
2. Be laid off himself because he clearly sucks at his job and should be let go
It would do you good to learn who Tim Sweeney is. He isn't a "random exec". Its his solo/indie company. He started it from zero. He is the original worker. He made the Unreal engine and Unreal back in the day. The point being, he is playing with his own company and his own money. He cannot be "let go".
There should be a maximum wage system implemented. Anything earned over that has to go to charity or tax.
Just tax. Charity has long become a means for the wealthy to hide money and still control it while pretending to be giving it away.
Tie it to the wage of the lowest paid employees or contractors. The maximum wage can only be X times higher than the lowest in a company. The trick would be defining it legally in such a way that it can't be weaseled out of by contractors or agreements with other companies.
@@ASpaceOstrich And includes things like stock options, benefits, etc.
If we could all 'only' earn a million dollars a year, how many more people could?
@@ASpaceOstrich The even bigger trick would be doing something like this in the first place when corporations have so much sway over politics.
I can strongly recommend the Behind the Bastards podcast episodes on Jack Welch - the General Electric CEO that came up with, among other odious ideas, the whole 'lay off thousands of workers to fluff up shareholder dividends' thing that has become so commonplace now.
Tbh I can always recommend Behind the Bastards. The episode about Elite Panic is also delightful.
You know who won't casually obliterate thousands of livelihoods in order to make the number on a spreadsheet increase slightly?
@@SpoopySquid*MY MOM!*
Just a regular show joke, lol
That one broke me.
I tried listening to an episode on Amway today but couldn't stand the presenter.
As the old saying goes, "CEOs are extremely expensive, why not replace them with automation?"
I never forget the connection I made with medieval peasants and dragons being just super wealthy people hoarding all the gold and killing anyone that bothers them.
I was just struck by something Steph said: execs routinely say that video games are too expensive to make for a $60 price tag (plus other predatory charges), but movies are routinely made for equal or more amounts of money, yet their price tags are quite a bit lower...$10?(it's $15+ where i live) Does a hit movie *really* generate that many more purchases than a hit game?
Honestly, depending on the movie, maybe yes? But there are plenty of other reasons that might be involved - difference in distributions? a stronger history of leadership by filmmakers rather than by executives? a consumer base less willing to take bullshit???
Hollywood massively cooks the books, there’s stories of movies making a hundreds of millions in revenue and then still being a “loss” because the studios bill their own shit excessively (tax loophole apparently).
There’s been actors who were promised a cut of the movies profits who then also got fucked because of it.
In sheer numbers the gaming industry already surpassed the gross of the movie industry though. And as Steph pointed out before: 60 dollars is usually the price of entry (deluxe/CE editions, MTX, season passes, battle passes etc).
The talking heads of corporations have been lying for so long now that a lot of people started to believe the bullshit.
While a movie is in theaters it is generating revenue for every person who sees it every time they see it. If a family of four goes to a movie, that's four tickets sold, and if they want to see it a second time, that's four more tickets.
Meanwhile, a If that same family buy a video game, everyone in that family can play it multiple times for only the single upfront cost... and when that family is done with the game (assuming it was a physical release copy) they can resell it to another family who can likewise do all of the same without the corporation ever seeing another dime.
So, yeah, a hit movie can potentially rake in way more money than a video game does... well, or at least upfront money. After factoring in predatory micro transactions, the most egregious of which having no upper cap and being a perpetual money sink, video games come back out on top again.
Films do bring in more purchases (maybe not more profit) because the cost for entry is low. The average person can afford $10-20 to spend on entertainment more than they can afford $60-70. A movie is easier to localize because it's two hours with a set amount of dialogue compared to a game with 60 hours of text and spoken words with multiple branching paths that need to be translated so a film can be sold in more countries. There's a much lower barrier to entry to play a movie where you just need access to a theater, a streaming service, or a DVD/Blu-Ray player to watch it instead of $500 for a console or $1000+ for a PC.
At the end of the day, millions more people pay to view blockbuster movies than video games because it costs them less money to do so.
@@originalscreenname44: less money, and also less time. Playing a 30+ hour game is a much bigger commitment than watching a 2 hour movie. Not to mention, movies are a more passive form of media, and so you can potentially do other things while watching a movie. Meanwhile, video games require constant player input and outside of cutscenes about the only other thing you can do while playing a game is maybe listen to a podcast.
"In a very special treat, I have, for you, the return of a very, very special boy. I think you know who he is!" Not gonna lie, I was kinda hoping for the Corn Flakes Homunculus raging for unionization with a serious of unintelligible shrieks. But it is good to see miniature fantasy Willem Dafoe.
I miss the T Rex. But I think what this says is that we all know far too much about Steph's toy collection.
Er-
@@christineherrmann205 *the box vibrates* That big one is their leader.
I was hoping for the Cornflakes Homunculus too!
CEOs in the game industry are incompetent, to a ludicrous degree.
That's because a lot of them, not all, but a lot came in from other industries when they saw how much money video games were making. They don't give a shit about making good games, they only care about getting bonuses and pleasing shareholders. MBAs are parasites that are infecting everything from games to education to healthcare.
CEOs are incompetent, to a ludicrous degree*.
FTFY.
@@shis1988Well, you beat me to it.
They're not incompetent, they're just playing a different game to everyone else.
The game is called "rinse everyone and everything for every penny, then torch the place on your way out."
It's more of an institutionised thing, tbh: here they're having to 'grow' after an especially freak of growth period, due to C-19, but thanks for playing.
In the eyes of corporations humans are resources, and resources are to be exploited.
That's why they have departments called 'human resources' or 'human capital'
In the eyes of corporations, humans are office supplies.
Whenever anyone tries to defend the necessity for CEOs and such, bring up how so many smaller, indie developers seem to have infinitesimally fewer issues than major, corporate studios. Issues exist, sure, but never to the sheer mindboggling scope of publishers and developers that have overlords "seagulling" all over the people actually doing the work.
Company size introduces communication bottlenecks. Hierarchies and processes are brought in to ease communication at the cost of the people at the top losing sight of what's happening further down.
Imagine what these companies could do if, instead of shovelling huge piles of money into a few graphics-rich, live-service mega-games, they put that money into a hundred smaller projects made by smaller teams who can work more freely.
Releasing buggy rushed junk and then barely ever (or never) patching anything - when indies do it there can be an understandable reason (though not always) and barely ever an understandable reason when the triple-As do it.
Bioware, Volition, Arkane… The list goes on. Forced by the suits to make live service games they didn’t want to make
As if Anthem wasn't enough now they're being tortured to death with Dreadwolf.
You can't quantify artistic merit on a spreadsheet.
There's no formula for excellent style
Making something truly great requires you to *gasp* take risks. And as a company gets larger and larger, risks are something that becomes increasingly difficult.
@@Quintessence4444the reason Dreadwolf is taking so long is that EA kept changing the requirements on them, such as requiring it to be a live service. In the last several years, it's been allowed to return to being a normal single player game like BioWare wanted to make all along. I think that's a win for the devs.
Aside from the ones laid off recently. Fuck EA...
The grocery industry have a term for what videogame execs did during the "not raising prices" era. Shrinkflation, where manufacturers put less in the box, whilst keeping the price the same. We're going to see it happening a lot in supermarkets as this cost of greed crisis deepens.
It’s been happening for at least the past year. Look at the number of ounces of potato chips or even soup that’s in the container.
10:29 this timestamp is fir them!
@@Ramsey276one Ha! Amen to that!
The no-layoff layoffs also include purposefully making workers so miserable that they quit. Difficult to pull off on a mass scale but easily doable on a department-by-department plan or when directed at specific people.
Yeah
Absolutely. It’s gonna be part of the report I’m working on. It’s of especial interest to me, as someone who has been in the “jump before your pushed” situation before.
I remember reading a disturbing story about some medieval town that had merchants who ripped off customers boiled alive in cauldrons. I'm starting to think they had the right idea.
that's a funny way to spell 'aspirational'!
Sometimes you just have to go back to the classics. And the classics are absolutely shitting on corps that plan and plot how to screw over their workforce.
"Malicious compliance" I think is something like that?
We have a political party in the United States that will, at a moment's notice if they could, give more tax breaks for wealthy individuals and multi billion dollar corporations while undercutting average citizens out of every basic human right, social services and assistance programs just so a fraction of a percent of people can make an extra buck in profit.
An unfortunate epilogue to Epic laying off workers is the fact they apparently added a "share the wealth" emote to Fortnite. Also, it wouldn't surprise me if the people who just got laid off decide to band together and make at least one new videogame company out of sheer spite.
Spite is a powerful force, so i wouldn't be surprised
@@Damian_1989 I have a saying which goes as follows: It's amazing what you can do when fueled by spite.
The people laid off weren't developers mostly. Some may have development skills, but most of the positions were administrative. Not really the kind of people that make games.
@@lpnp9477 It's not just developers at game companies lol
Holy shit, the Glitch McConnell loading wheel got a hearty chuckle out of me. Well done, Steph.
"It's never fraud. It's normal game development till the money stops rolling in, then it's bankruptcy. Then you wait and start it all over again." - Chris Roberts
(This is a joke)
Where did this quote appear?
That applies to every company on the planet. That also applies to even your favourite ones. How are you struggling with that basic concept? Ah I see you are under the impression that businesses under our current economic system owes you something. My bad.
@@1inchPunchBowlwho the fuck has a "favourite company"? I don't bloody own anything why would I care about the success or failure of a well of endless suffering?
@@1inchPunchBowl Uh, yeah, we all KNOW it applies to every corpo. What the hell're you doing? OP didn't suggest otherwise. Are you defending Epic or something? Like a good consoomer? lol
So that's why he has done s-t with Scam Citizen.
As somebody who was making plans to start my own video game company through outside investors and admittedly my privilege, it never ceases to baffle me that instead of admitting they need help, the upper management continues to make absolutely bone-headed decisions and then act surprised when they backfire. Seriously, you hire these people for a reason! _Ask them_ what the best decision is! It really reminds me of nonsense like the Roblox dating app, made by people with no tie to the game itself and only see a potential Metaverse to promise investors. People are finally seeing that billionaires are modern-day corrupt nobles, and there’s hardly a better time than now to break out the guillotines.
Great video as always, Steph. As the dream CEO of my own game company, I fully intend to staff people who are capable of staying off the stock market and actually care about making games, and you sadly have way more insight than the average executive. Make your workers work less for more pay! It’s almost as if a stable, happy working environment is entirely *positive!*
I just dont understand why they started this sudden backslide in the past decade and a half?? Have they not seen how allowing developers to make full, finished, complete experiences, and paying them fair wages, always pretty much worked out in most major cases? It literally works, and they still get to pocket some pretty hefty change no less, so what gives?
You think it's bad when executives do it? It is!
Then, look at the American legislative body! It gets so much worse.
@@ramenbomberdeluxe4958Trump gave them the chance to get much worse, and they’re addicted to that power surge. I’d argue 2016 was the last year Western products were unironically “good,” before a corporate con-artist becoming president encouraged Western executives to go mask-off; and even with the Democrats taking back control of the White House, they can’t reverse course because that’d scare off the investors they’ve joined in a wanking, jizz-soaked circlejerk of lying about infinite growth. All the more reason to vote blue in the next election; hit ‘em where it hurts.
Democrat sweep, take me the nuggeting fuck home, country roads.
@@ramenbomberdeluxe4958because there's a possibility that they might make more money if they rip everyone off and pull off some sort of miracle where they make something that becomes wildly successful for the least money possible, which is their mandate; they are legally obliged to maximise profits for shareholders. And because executives are usually clueless about things their companies create, and are supposedly hired by those firms because they are skilled at BUSINESS™, they have no way of understanding that they don't have much chance of achieving it, and they don't take notice of creatives because what do those people (ugh!) know about BUSINESS™? So it happens time and time again...
Video games have become immensely popular and mainstream in the timeframe you describe. These business-minded vampires have been attracted by the profits involved.
I wish you luck, the norm of the gaming industry is what allows it to be so lucrative to investors in the first place, if you ever get there, a comically large sack of gold coins will materialize in your office with a big scroll with a dotted line at the end, that will be the true test of your morals, if not then I hope there is enough of a group that keeps your workers and your company stable.
Capcom could not be more on top of the world than they are now with the quality of their recent/upcoming games, but you can always count on the C-suite to swoop in and shit all over any good will accrued by the developers.
Edit: I made this comment about 1/3 of the way in, and then Sterling used the same analogy. Im too lazy to think of another.
The pandemic gave a lot of corporations confidence that indeed, people will still spend. Hell they’ paid even more than usual. Videogames and the hobby spaces (DnD/tabletop games) saw exponential boosts to sales and participation since everyone was stuck at home and now they’re all convinced everyone’s just got money wait to give even if the world itself is on fire.
While not realising that the money they spent on games during the pandemic they now spend on other activities. In my country this year there was record high numbers of people going on vacation abroad. During the pandemic the restaurant business almost collapsed (and for some it did) but now people are eating out more than ever. People bought a lot of games during the pandemic because they were bored and stuck. Now they can go out and do stuff. Why spend money on video games when you can go outside and hang out with friends which we haven't really been able to do for two years??
long before COVID companies did all kinds of exploitative crap and customers still ate it up, just look at how much those ultimate team modes in sports games make every year.
Its so ridiculous. Like, we got a lot of stimulus payments the first year and a half of the pandemic. I made more money in unemployment than i had in my entire life, and my family got to experience what stability is actually like. We dont have any of that now. Qe're heading into the 4th year of the pandemic (pretending is isnt still going strong globally is absurd, a pandemic is over when its over???), People are getting sick over and over again, dying or getting long covid, just bc these businesses force us back to work and had the nerve to try and make it more precarious.
Like of course people will give up video games. Only some delusional business brained asshole would think otherwise
That was a rather unique situation. The stimulus checks (for people living in the US) and the lack of commuting costs meant that people who could work from home had a lot of extra money to spend, money that is no longer there.
@@alexanderflack566 Yeah I was able to finally buy a PSVR and a Switch Lite thanks to those checks.
Hey Steph, there was a massive recession in the early '90s too! And in the early '80s while some of us were babies! It's almost like capitalism keeps failing over and over on a semi-regular schedule because it doesn't actually work!
That bit about keeping staff on probationary periods hit me deep. I'm on probation at my new job for 2 frickin years! It's for only $20/hr in California too.
2 years?! That sounds like some crap that should be illegal.
That's insane.
In my experience, a probationary period is followed by being let go and replaced by a new underpaid worker (or adding the work to another employee's workload).
*[Corporation hit itself in its **-confusion-** psychopathy]*
I love that you never punch down and only punch up
The thing about this housing crisis is the fact it has been a crisis for much longer than most people think. Rental affordability is a huge problem in most larger cities and has been for a long time, but it only became a housing crisis once the upper middle class could not afford their mortgages anymore. This crisis compounds for the unfortunate lot who were already trapped in the rental market.
Born in the 90's. We've been in an economic recession for literally my entire life, it just isn't defined as one by economists so nobody was panicking. But the corporate race to the bottom bullshit and lack of wage growth has been strangling the economy to death. They're just running out of ways to hide it.
"Video games are too cheap"
So cheap I haven't bought a game in 5 years... because they cost almost a hundred dollars. Sorry, but I'm not laying down a good chunk of my rent for a product I can't even play a demo of.
Same.
Feels like Monkey Island was right all along - _"Never spend more than 20 bucks on a computer game"_
You need to know how to buy I buy games regularly, games 5 to 8 years old and in sale, but games that fancy my taste, sometimes... I bought unnecessary things... But not that often
@@donnerrizza5104 Most games made in the last ten years suck imo
The only games I buy anymore are cheap indies or ones on sale, and even then I've only bought about three or four over the last six years
@@jingbot1071 I enjoyed nier automata, and lots of indies but hey if you don't find anything good that's bad luck
As a Dutch person I'm ashamed and enraged at our government for providing a tax haven for so many scummy companies.
I love describing it more as a basement that's being rented to dodge tax.
If it was even possible and if I could bring my family with me, I'd glad to return to my grandparents' country The Netherlands. They have said it is very overcrowded, which would also be another barrier.
The Epic mass-shitcanning was on the cards from the moment Donald Mustard “retired.” Hell, it was pretty predictable with the launch of UEFN and the massive drive towards generating income through “user generated content.” We could probably have predicted it when Tencent bought a huge chunk of the company too, of course.
Some disclosure here, I am a Fortnite creator and I have a youtube channel about it - I’ve made approximately $200 over the last year since getting my SAC code.
So they basically took a bunch of creative people and, before kicking them to the curb, made them create the tools that would be used by people who would effectively replace them.
And once again I will point out that this is not just with video games. The whole reason I found creative was because I was at the lowest point of my life, having suffered ill health both physically and mentally, and getting fired by my own employer who had, coincidentally, been bought by a private equity company.
Is anyone still reading this rant? Anyway, I will end on two more notes. I was taken out for a meal once, having managed a team through a massive emergency they rewarded me with a fancy meal and hotel room that must have cost significantly more than I made in a month. One of those Private Equity people took me aside and told me this. “No one ever gets rich with a salary job. Your best bet is to have a really good idea, build it, and sell it to people like him.”
Final thought, of course they view people as commodities, as replaceable cogs… a Human Resource if you will. And it makes me sick.
Read all the way to the end. Just so you know. You have my sympathy.
Also that statement when pulled aside... screw this world sometimes man. Most people don't even WANT to be rich, they just want to make enough to live. It's just that the world is so terrible now, so against those not privileged that being rich is now the ONLY way to do that....
@@ReikuYin Thank you. It means a lot.
In my last employer (software development, not games), we moved a huge set of projects overseas. The teams there were shit-hot and talented. They then closed the overseas offices after a couple of years - with the projects having to be restarted from scratch by the local teams. Millions of dollars of development expense - lives upended in terms of folks having to find new jobs. Nothing to show for it. Execs still got their bonuses of course. And the sales numbers showed it was amongst our best years in decades.
Its not stupidity; its malice
There's one thing i wanna add and it does regard Nintendo being smarter than the average triple A publisher. Satoro iwata was "The Last Human CEO in gaming". He actually worked hia way to his position, he understood game development and how it works, he took proper fiscil responsibility when Nintendo was under performing. He took two pay cuts of 50% to stop layoffs when the 3DS and Wiiu were flopping, WHIKE HOSPITALIZED!!! He was the last and after he died it all got worse.
As a recent victim of a tech company lay-offs, I can confirm that some layoffs are hidden under more HR/public perception sensitive descriptions.
I just got laid off and I'm probably not showing in the statistics. Cause I was put to work under an "umbrella project" and the "project" got cancelled. That means me and my closest coworkers go without a job now, and so does our closest boss.
15:29 - 16:00 You know, thinking about this part... This doesn't actually sound like a business at all, it sounds more like a money laundering scheme disguised as a legitimate business (I mean, most companies do, but that's a major problem)
The tech industry generally has had 2 management styles for decades, the Seagull manager (flies in, shits all over everything, and flies back out again); or the Mushroom manager (keep everyone in the dark, and feed them a load of shit to keep them working). These enlightened times seem to demonstrate a con-joining of the two, into something beyond my capacity to process.
At this point I'm not just waiting for a second gaming crash but an entire entertainment industry crash as a lot of the problems we see in the games business we also see in other entertainment sectors and hopefully some of the companies that replace these juggernauts won't make the same mistakes they did
I had asked about Miniature Fantasy Willem Dafoe's sabbatical back in June, and it's wonderful to know your little co-host is back. But the questions from that last time were never answered! During his sabbatical (from what we now know was a trip to the box), has he finally bested Spiderman? Has he managed to paint a beautiful work of art that would bring tears to the eyes of those who laid eyes on it? Has he finally found his way into the Xenomorph Queen’s heart to produce a new species of Xenomorph in a loving embrace that transcends their differences (for who of us to judge who is the more alien of the two!).
I hope AAA prices rise. I'm excited to see the next games industry crash. These executives are going to drive the industry off a cliff one way or another.
The games industry/capitalism is imploding and it's only a matter of time till the government regulates them. These companies are so out of control, there needs to be an investigation into their shady ass dealings.
Except that nowadays executive driving industry into the ground is a feature.. somehow they're still fine.. at worst folds into something else, or gets bailed out etc.. is a siphon between real money and magic money.. and for some reason whenever they lose all the magic money they seem to get it replaced with the real money, it just doesn't go back you know for some reason. But I've seen so many companies that crash and burn for no other reason than to make a quarterly, then they jump off the train as it crashes and started to ride again..
It's bizarre but the days of Rockefeller and Carnegie style capitalism are somewhat ideal by comparison to the modern Milton Friedman capitalism.. at the very least, the older ways usually involved somebody creating a sustaining legacy, doing so in a horrible way naturally.. but usually with some semblance of pride and with the general idea to make a business that is successful and sustaining and growing.. rather than the modern interpretation where what the company actually does or how it does it doesn't really matter as long as the shareholders get be held to..
It's actually kind of a miracle that a lot of technology companies still have some sort of basic standards in the products they make.. and when it comes to things like cars.. despite that they're always trying to push the line and usually succeeding.. if there weren't the standards in place, I can only imagine the misery that would entail.. and it already does anyways LOL..
The problem with all the executives running companies off the cliff is not that the companies are done and they're out of the game.. the problem is that they take everybody with them eventually.. and the system is so designed to do this, and I don't even know if it was designed to do this so much as that it happened to end up doing this in the end.. I'm sure there was definitely some forethought in certain things but.. the people in The current financial industries are not the people that were there before and that continues with a distillation into the current trends where you have a very large amount of people that are not very bright and they don't care to be bright because they're rewarded for being selfish and they the system for them works.
Plus it can always get so much worse.. it will get so much worse before there might be a pushback or an actual proper collapse.. And at some point when you start to do the eat the Rich thing.. at that point then you have some options but a lot of them aren't good ones either, is that requires people to be intelligent and make decisions and rebuild things and.. the system kind of disincentivize that as well, and there's enough generations with it under its belt that I genuinely don't think people would know what to do to try to rebuild something.. plus they just got pushed to a point where they started eating the rich.. so.. not exactly in the clearest State of mind, that's also a feature LOL.
that said it's the video game industry we're talking about specifically and it would be nice if these companies could just die.. but unfortunately there are much larger companies that are much more financially responsible in other mediums, despite being surprisingly similar in the gaming one for their various departments..
So every time one of these larger companies goes down, the Microsoft and the Sony and the whatever have you reach in and scoop up the remains and well in some cases that actually might be a good thing, for instance I was actually a proponent of Microsoft eating Activision.. mostly because Microsoft has company wide standards that are so much better than activations and whatever employees remained would have better lives theoretically just by nature of osmosis..not saying Microsoft is perfect or that throughout the company there aren't ups and downs or that whatever translated would be what they should have.. but it would be probably almost undoubtedly better just just by the simple nature of company policies that are so on the opposite scale of the way Activision Blizzard ran.
But at the same time.. if you're talking about the gaming industry and better games and whatnot, the more that happens the less you're going to get any of that.. the more consolidates the lower the standards you're going to go.. and the lower the price to entry when coming from a large corporation like for instance the game pass.. also the lower the standards are going to go and the higher the control they have over the system.. like at that point you're just being spoon fed which is kind of the way it always has been with consoles but.. at the very least in the old days you got to keep the spoon LOL..
There's a lot of good options but none of them really are good on the large scale.. hopefully the smaller scale can step up but.. the smaller scale is not what it used to be, and people talk about how there's all these indie games and whatnot and yes that is true but at the same time.. these are not the people that are pushing technology, or design or ways to experience things like it was back in the day when pretty much every studio would be what we would call an indie studio, a larger of that but.. the top studios were 30 people on the higher end in some cases.. maybe some more support staff depending on what they were doing.. and in the case of the large more conglomerated studios like origin, you would have multiple teams working on many different games like looking glass for instance was a subsection of that, and then they were subdivided into multiple things going on at once..
Problem is with this model is it's you know hard to eat.. you had to get money up front, then you had to succeed if you were an independent studio..and at the end of the 90s when the game industry was crashing and there were so many studios closing down.. a lot of them went to larger publishers and got Incorporated, sometimes sometimes it was a intentional crushing to drive them into that.. which is definitely something that's still going on today.. but as it turns out going to EA or Activision was not always exactly what people thought it would be as.. they thought they would now get to eat, and on paper that made sense but then. If you ever took a look behind EA shed you'd see where the actual end was going to go for that.. either got absorbed and or died on your own.. to eventually if you got absorbed often be cut off and put down as you were now at the whim of a publicly traded company.
And the ones that didn't would end up getting sent to Bobby kotick's puzzle basement, like Raven did for a decade.. and Raven was one of the ones that thought they were home free, having survived by being Incorporated, and daring to try to make their own game.. which was sabotage more or less, and then for some reason they disappeared for a decade, as a civie would say into the call of duty mines.
Lol... I hope you never lose that sense of hope!@@jsc315
I think we need things to become devestatingly worse than just a crash, in order for massive calls for actual change and revolutionary reforms.
Because I think under Capitalism, we will only see things overall get worse and no amount of small fixes is going to change that.
With AI/Automation poised to become the next major disrupter, we can bet our non-existent bank savings, it will benefit corporations that own it. (despite Game actors/writers strike for AI provisions)
Tax the 1% and use that to do away with Capitalism.
In the example of the Games industry.
+ More support and access to open source/Public options - software, platforms, distribution etc..
+ Government industry stimulating loans - low or no interest loans for start ups and studios wanting to go independent - the pay back will be an industry that injects money back into society, not 1% shareholders.
+ Union protection and rights, if working for large corporations.
+ Consumer side - consumer protections - monetary alert and labelling (to easily inform parents), budgetting/cap system for microtransactions/lootboxes (Can set a budget and have an alert that will tell you how much you spend - this is good for those who have gambling addictions)
+ Push for DRM-Free standards - Offline or corporate server and services independent.
- Bring back P2P, LAN, adhoc, splitscreen and AI improved bots for multiplayer options - no longer need to rely on corporate servers for multiplayer and extends the life of games instead of being shutdown when the servers are switch off.
+ More budget and investment in game development and developers, less on overblown marketing and company stocks.
+ Increase the capital gains tax on shareholders and fire ceo's the likes of Bobby Kotick, Unity ceo....just fire all the major publisher CEO's
+ Throw Games as a service down in the toilet like - Live service games, GamePass, Xcloud etc..
Surprised you didn't mention that era where Square made a whole new engine for every game, then turned around saying every game failed.
Microsoft: "According to Microsoft's latest financial reports the company has $111.26 B in cash and cash equivalents."
Also Microsoft: "Microsoft announced a new round of layoffs yesterday (July 10), adding to the 10,000 jobs cut at the start of the year."
Oh my god, I genuinely clapped when you brought out Miniature Fantasy Willem Dafoe! We've missed him! 😂😂😂
That intro was the BEST thing I've seen this year~!
Well now that sag-aftra have wrapped up the writer's negotiations and walked away with a healthy slab of the studio's rear ends slung over their shoulder (with actors reportedly not far behind), apparently a video game worker strike is also on the cards. If so this will be a good year for collective bargaining if nothing else good in this world!
Ah, the bit where Epic Games CEO laid off hundreds of people instead of taking a personal pay cut which would have save Epic way more money than the lay offs.
I find myself consistently reminded of those few nobel game companies, like Super Giant, who actually take worker health and prosperity seriously.
The best games in recent history are almost always made by companies who give a shit, and rarely by those who blindly stumble towards endless profit.
1:24 "What have you been up to?"
[Goblin Bloggin' into plays, followed by the What's Up With Gobby? segment intro]
I'm excited about the report on the no-layoff myth you mentioned you're working on. Another phenomenon that might fit in the report is bogus performance improvement plans. PIPs can be a legit, useful managing tool, but they can also be used to cover the company's ass when they want to ax employees without admitting to layoffs. Just pick the lowest performing employees (even if their performance would normally be considered adequate), set unrealistic goals for accomplishing the PIP, shift the goalposts throughout, and if the employee still manages to do well, just say they didn't and fire them anyway.
Unfortunately, I only know about these anecdotally and don't know how one would go about studying them as a potential systemic issue. But if you can figure it out, it could be worth looking into.
He's right. During a recession people will spend money on luxury goods and services specifically because it's a recession. They'll do so to feel more like it doesn't affect them. The problem is Execs know this and are willing to take advantage of it.
An absolute banger of insight and incision. Penetrative journalism, if you will.
Oh myyy! 🫢
I cannot overstate my joy at seeing the triumphant return of Miniature Fantasy Willem Dafoe
Established corporations make money in mostly four ways, which all screw employees, consumers, and even the general public: 1) layoffs, 2) acquisition benders, 3) stock buybacks, and 4) heavily relying on planned obsolescence. This is why I was against the MS purchase of Activision. They will continue to "grow" by buying companies then slashing the staff. Growth right there! Not to mention MS is already a monopoly. People don't pay enough attention to this stuff and criticize the corporations that do it. Great job pointing it out Stephanie!
NetDragon Websoft used an AI as its CEO. Their stocks climbed rapidly and their operations cost were cut in half. I've said it once and I'll say it until I'm blue in the face: fire CEOs and hire AIs to replace them.
A rock with googly eyes stuck on it would likely outperform most CEOs
They're simply managing their compressible costs. When I first heard that phrase, my immediate thought was a trash compactor full of people. Which it effectively is.
Wonderful and very apt. Thank you I always appreciate the greed being called out and all their ridiculous methods exposed!
This isn't a recession. It's a full on depression. For instance I bought a 4 pack of frozen haddock fritters and they were $8 compared to 3 years ago when they were $4.50. Rent in my area has increased over 100% over the last few years. Meanwhile minimum wage has gone up less than 25%.
All bosses need to be held accountable for their actions, plain and simple.
It's about "disciplining" (and not in the fun consensual way) labor. Frequent broad layoffs are a tool for keeping wages and salaries down. The games industry has been on it for decades, escalated exuberantly in the last year by the larger software industry.
I remember well during the waning days of my time in retail hell, one of our notorious loiterers was loitering around the store asking for handouts like usual. Homeboy asked me if I'd moved back out on my own again as if it was any of his business to begin with and when I said that the job didn't pay enough for that, his words of wisdom were "Figure it out". Well, I did figure it out. I quit a month or so later and went to a job that paid half again as much as I had been making there after 5 years.
So I guess the developers DIDNT benefit from that 70 dollar price bump?
Remember when Epic games was known for making Jazz Jackrabbit?
Simpler times...
My university (Where I study game design) was hosting a games and fashion seminar event with an employee from Epic last night. Me and my friend walked out halfway through after we could tolerate their metaverse bullshit no longer. She literally said: “there are really two types of creatives, the programmers who want to really work on the tools and then the business and strategists!” That's the part where we walked out.
After a week of bs game reviews that feel like adds, watching this video is like a breath of fresh sanity. THANK YOU FOR YOUR WORK
It is absolutely bonkers that there's not a single law in place that prohibits giving bonuses to executives and CEOs if they their companies incur in massive lay offs! As always you totally nailed it Stephanie!!! 👏👏👏
*shakes his head* I worked as a business consultant within the UK financial sector, I was there during the 2008 financial crash. The manager incharge of the product line made it clear to us that letting people go was not an option. Having asked him why, at a later point, he explained that as a manager he was as equally responsible for the product and for the staff. Staff can not operate at peck levels when they are panicing every day that they're about to be fired. I can honestly say that throughout my years as a consultant, my work helped people not to have to live with that fear. To me, the jobs I helped secure is more important than the money I saved the business. I just wish the gaming industry cared as much about their staff as they do regarding money.
I wish I had an Emotional Support Fantasy Willam DaFoe...
YEP all of this! I think it's insane regular people have to bend over backwards to get terrible LOANS for things they need like housing and transportation but companies can just buy and ton of things they don't need and then lay off people to not pay them and that's just legal? It shouldn't be legal to lay people off if your company can "afford" to buy out other companies and stuff, like that should show they didn't need to lay people off and it should be considered fraud imo.
100%
"Dangling the promise of a job"
I did volunteer work for Prima Games back when they relaunched their site, the same time they released their Syria guide.
I worked alone, running the site, keeping the news feed up to date, admin on the forum, and dealing with customer emails (literal hundreds per day whenever a new guide kaubched).
All with the promise if a job afterwards.
This was around 6 months of solid work, no pay.
Took Christmas off.
Came back to my account being locked and the new employee that had replaced me asking for help...he was being paid...
Bob The Angry Flower last week now Kids in the Hall this week?! What in the Canadian reference is going on?! I love it!
This is what happens when a native Buffalonian co-edits :P
People only hate you because you're right.
*gamers, not people
Jim's savage truths had me laughing & crying at the same time.
Can I say that I really love how your voice is changing? Your transition is amazing!!
Also no one mentions how the industry is moving heavier towards contracting, often offering permanent roles as bait into convincing devs to be a contractor but not giving the previous higher wage contractors used to have over internals, and then casting them aside at the first sign of fiscal platuea. And canning contractors doesn't count as layoffs, regardless of if they are only mid term. Also check the credits of the next big game you play, you'll see the majority of the team are external.
we're a naturally optimistic person and we need your videos to remind us that this kind of stuff is constantly happening!
With unions on the rise once again(and winning), I would say there is more to be optimistic about than in the past.
@@empanada223 There is *a lot* to be optimistic about, which is why we need Stephanie to constantly keep grounding us, like when we say we are optimistic, we mean like, VERY optimistic all the time :P
Fancier editing tricks on this one!
Regarding the langage around layoffs, I think "indulging in" is a good start, but "engaging in" or "commiting the act of", fit better, as they sound more criminal.
I’d buy the narrative of “having to” do layoffs… if they didn’t coincide with executive bonuses
I was laid off early this year. I was told repeatedly " knows it only hires the best people for the job. So has no doubt that these employees we're depriving an income will have no trouble finding new opportunities." I have had 2 interviews in the 9 months since then. I would not describe anything about what I've been through as "no trouble."
Corporate execs should face criminal charges for layoffs. Hell, in France it isn't even legal to perform layoffs.
The Avacado toast thing increasingly comes off as out of touch. Is avocado toast really that much more expensive than bologna and American cheese? It sure as hell tastes better, and generally I’d wager is healthier. I can usually make 2-4 avocado toasts per avocado (depending on the size of the avocado). A couple bucks for a bag of Avocado’s at the store…🤔
I know this isn't remotely the point, but as a long time viewer, I actually cried out in joy at the sight of Miniature Fantasy William Defoe. So glad he was found.
This was an amazing episode! Well done!
Congrats on the 770K!
I wish you'd put the name of the games in the video clips in. Sometimes there's games that look fun that I'd like to buy.
Not gonna lie, I was crestfallen when the "returning surprise" was a Willem Dafoe doll and _not_ the venerable Duke Amiel du H'ardcore.
It's every CEO's dream to be a landlord.
Accept my humble offering of engagement to please the algorithm gods!
Starfield isn't a reskinned Fallout 3. It's a reskinned Fallout 4.
Which is, itself, a reskinned Fallout 3.
@@shis1988 Which itself is a reskinned Oblivion.
"So old to be considered for Dreadnought service."
Am I just a dork or was that a 40k ref?