No, they’d just interpret it as yet another example of intolerance, because that’s the only explanation they can think of for why anyone wouldn’t want to feel like a “good person” (by their definition).
Nah, even Alyssa would agree. Again, they just exploited something that was there. They ragebaited and it got them the money. Consumers are the dictators of the scene. These publishers and journalists can push out ANY piece they want, if the consumers don't want them, they will adapt and conform to sell what the consumers want.
It's bound to fade a bit as the companies get larger. How many people have jobs where they themselves are passionate about the product? Is someone in accounting or IT for a grocery chain passionate about groceries? Likely not. What matters is that the people are still at least competent and have pride in their own skillset and output, that they are good at their role. But it's likely that such a person in accounting or IT for a grocery chain doesn't despise anyone who shops there. That's where you'd get a real problem.
Same with the "Enable Games" part. Back then many games are self funded. I am not against game companies getting investment of course, that has enabled many great projects that would otherwise never exists. Sadly the gaming industry currently only attract the worst kind of investors: Gamblers. The good kind of investors, the long term ones, still avoid the gaming industry like plague because it is still highly volatile.
i think it can still work if you find the right people. i doubt we would have gotten quite a few classics if all of their devs were hardcore gamers. combination of various talents lead to those results. i think games like Thief or Legacy of Kain series would have been created. a lot of those legendary developers that we know of today, just had the right mindset, be it for writing, game design or things like soundscape. a lot of them came from tech backgrounds that werent game development, because it was a rather new industry.
They probably still are. The point is that they only play the slop they and their peers produce. Think of it like the San Francisco Hippies sniffing their own farts in South Park.
@@schizo_fox >if you find the right people Well, that requires that director plays the games and looking for people who play. It is hard to play games as a director because it is very time consuming job so directors who don't play have an advantage.
What fact? The whole thing is complete bullcrap. The actual fact is that gamers are central to the whole things and gamers are definetly the people who makes games happen. Without gamers nobody would play the games. Without anyone to play the games nobody would think of making games. Without anyone to play the games nobody would fund making games. Gamers are the people in center of the whole things and gamers are the people who make games happen. The games are made for them. Games exist because there are gamers who play them. Everyone knows what happens when some online multiplayer loses their playerbase. The game practically ceases to exist. Why? Not because of funding, not because of those who made the game but because people dont play the game. Games exist because of and for gamers. Gamers might not directly fund or create the games but without them neither would happen. Of course this isn't exclusive to games, any product exists because there are people who consume that product. Without consumer a product wont be made. Its simple as that.
The only industry where the customer is humiliated and insulted without the employee being fired on the spot. And it's so stupid that make you laugh from it.
A lot of higher ups or experienced employees use the reasoning that because we don’t know what they know and aren’t capable of what they can do that means our criticism is baseless because we are ignorant of the process. We’re just statistics to them, that’s why they aren’t afraid to talk down to us, they feel that they have more power by comparison as they surround themselves with people who will agree with them. It even happens with movies in a concept known as failing upwards has independence is punished in the corporate environment.
Been game dev for 20+ years, this guy could not be more correct. IMO in a nutshell, the game industry is rotting with craptivisim and the salvation will come from indie studios to be created by truly talented people upon final collapse of major studios. The industry will heal itself, be patient. Happy new year!
Though not as common as they used to be, there is still plenty of AA studios out there. During the recent Steam Winter Sale, I bought a ton of CRPGs and they are all made by AA studios (since isometric, turn-based rpgs is the kind of game AAA publishers avoid like the plague) There's also a lot of them in Japan.
Indie studios have in recent years also become increasingly captivated with the ideological activistic rot. If an indie studio gets a big hit they'll try to infest and overtake it from the inside. This wont stop unless the disease itself is removed.
I love the implication that journalists, developers, publishers etc… need a 2nd grade style graph to understand such a basic concept. This is the type of subtle condescension I can get behind.
Thanks for showing your support for the channel. From time to time, UA-cam unsubscribes me from channels I watch. The algorithm works in mysterious ways. My goal is to inspire my fellow genuine game developers in the industry and give them hope, so they can feel safe and keep fighting for what they believe in.
All the wrong people are in all the best places to mess everything up and all the best people are in the wrong places where they can't make anything better. But this WILL change.
@@sungrandstudios The people who accepted their services. The game makers. I know we all know BlackRock is up to no good, but BlackRock is just playing on the greed of the companies.
This is shockingly simple. The fact that "journalists" either don't understand this or think they can gaslight others into thinking otherwise perfectly demonstrates the level of their intelligence.
Sadly their gaslighting works on people not too deep into the whole topic. You can't imagine what people like to believe if it fits their current political views
What a shocking twist! I can't believe that the studio that makes, design, narrate, and program the game in the first place is the one responsible for ruining it
I think you are unaware of the expression "He who pays the piper calls the tune". The people providing funding have the ability to demand the game makers do stupid things.
The customer isn't always right. The majority of your customers ARE always right if you want to be successful AND have a loyal and dedicated customer base. Period. Companies can be backed financially in their endeavors, but that doesn't mean customers will accept what is being offered. Its not that complicated. Everything else is gaslighting.
"The customer is always right" only ever meant that if the customer doesn't want what you're selling, then they don't want it. It's their money, and they'll spend it where they think they are getting value or fulfillment.
"The customer is always right" is the first half of the quote, "in matters of taste." is the second half. The customer has every right to determine if a product is worth purchasing or not. And if enough of them feel that it isn't, your market appeal is unsustainable and you go under. Even Rembrandt had to pay the bills.
@@neurotoksyn Exactly this. It doesn't mean that you need to become enslaved by your customers, letting them walk all over you while you submit yourself to their every whim and demand. It just means that whatever the customer asks for with regards to your product, you should do your best to provide it. If they want your car painted in the ugliest color imaginable, you paint it that color. If they want pickles and hot sauce on their pancakes, you put pickles and hot sauce on their pancakes. And if they want attractive characters in their video games? Guess what! You put attractive characters in your video games. Doesn't matter what your personal beliefs about it are. If its what they want, its what they'll buy. If you don't provide what they want, or worse, try to force them to want what you want, they'll simply leave, and go find someone who will give them what they want. This is capitalism 101. And the fact that these self proclaimed business masters at the "AAA" companies can't understand it, is just pathetic.
It took me a lot longer to see what was happening I even defended SBI in 2021 in a discussion, I don't have problems with representation of minorities in games. What opened my eyes where when they started uglifying game characters, specially female but make too, that's my line, fictional characters should not be uglier than real life people. That and the whole gender stupidity.
@@impactsuit9871 The sole fact You have no problems with them already makes You SBI enemy. This might sound confusing but: I had at least two cases where in I was confronted and told that my favorite character is 'deeply offensive, bigoted and obsolete' - One time in gaming when I said Barret was my fave in OG Final Fantasy 7 and other time in movies when I said I love Wesley Snipes Blade - both characters are for some reason deeply despised by SBI crowd and defenders despite being absolutely iconic and beloved. In fact I think it is the main reason: while they state multitude often mutually exclusive arguments as to 'why' they hate them: they hate beloved old time non-white characters because they are beloved and they tend to be beloved because they are superior in every manner to whatever SBI writers can ever hope to create. I also mention it as bit more rare confrontation as in case of female characters.. oh boy: these people tend to absolutely abhor femininity and hate with passion every popular female character depicting be it new one but even more so legacy ones. Bit weird for someone claiming that 'other side' hates women, right? All in all I can say SBI and similar people just hate 'quality' and often use excuse of making characters minority or women as they firmly believe women and minorities cannot be good characters in 1st place so them making them sub-par is perfectly fine as they need to be sub-par. - which is for me quite telling on their side.
Hi, there is a niche group that is missing in the explanation: Crowd Funders They can enable smaller, independent games through crowd-funding. These funders can also be the ones who play the games. But it is rare to see such attempts executed. Contraversies, such as scams and false advertising, have ruined the credibility of these attempts.
@@sungrandstudios What about the main stream media / journalist (who probably dont play the games they are reviewing)? Dont the game developers usually say that since their product is critically acclaimed that it should have not failed?
@@DevilCaller Likely wouldn't fit in any of these circles. Mere spectators if they don't actually play the game, especially because games journalism seems to have less and less of an effect on game success these days.
@@sungrandstudios oh yes, you’re doing great It’s just so silly that so much money is being wasted when I know you and many others could do so so much better.
AAA producer here: Here’s how it goes for western AAA games. Studio heads and publishers do not know what makes a good game and blindly trust game directors Game directors without a clear/good vision rely on playtests and obsessively try to score 10/10 amongst all playtesters (try to please everyone and…) Playtesters are usually small groups of unemployed* people from California who are not necessarily fans of the IP/type of game. and aren’t representative of gamers tastes worldwide. Studios ends up making bland games designed by committee to check publishers boxes *only unemployed people can afford to spend an entire week playing a game for a compensation as small as a couple of old games
@@SethPlato01 I have nothing against Arabs, Jews, Akkadians or Pheonicians. I'm not sure what connection you see between the Semitic people and the World Economic Forum. Maybe check yourself for racist assumptions because I think you just made one
@@SethPlato01 nobody cares about what group you think some unidentified person is. If you dont call out evil, you are straight up a moron. But thanks for the admission I guess? What an odd thing to say by you!
@@ProfessionalTrafficplayer Tell that to @TheAbeKane ... the WEF doesnt have to do, you know!!!!, dont look at the surnames!!! dont look what those guys have in common!!! you bigot!
Imagine actually believing that if he put a good game on his list, people would just not play it. Like, if that worked we would not have lootboxes. But alas, every gamer boycott is one cinematic away from being over.
@@MisterNightfish Ummm...no. It really is the DEI in 2024. People have woken up to the degeneracy. Pattern Recognition Matters. 2024 DEI Fails: Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice league Concord Dustborn Star Wars: Outlaws Flintlock: The Seige of Dawn Tales of Kenzera: ZAU Capes Unknown 9 Dragon Age: Failguard Indiana Jones and the Red Circle ...and more to come. Gamers have spoken. If a company pushes "The Message" in development or hiring...wallets closed.
The best games emerge from the intersection of "playing games" and "making games." However, these days, the industry is driven almost entirely by profit, and the creative spirit has largely been lost. Only projects with "predictable" returns are greenlit. The indie scene, by design, stands as an exception to this trend. Meanwhile, game "journalists" and multimillion corporation apologists continue to cling to the outdated notion that studios still operate under the principle of "we make games we'd love to play." Instead, this idea has long lost to quick profits and schemes to milk as much of it from the players as possible. When it does surface, it’s often thanks to a single, highly motivated leader pushing their team toward a strong, unified vision.
The whole assumption that gamers supposed to be responsible for their games failing I think hinges mostly on the idea, that they feel entitled to your money regardless of the product quality they deliver.
My guess before watching, the world will never know. "Mama" Cass Elliott has been asking who's to blame since 1969. Well, technically, she had asked from 1969 to 1974, but she still hasn't found out. OK, how'd I do... Huh. Not the gamers or UA-camrs. That's actually a really straight forward and expected answer. It's almost as if it shouldn't be this hard for people to figure out. Especially considering the gamers and UA-camrs get told not to buy the game because we aren't welcome in their inclusive club most of the time. Dang, I'm starting to think this isn't a reasonable business model.
I think including marketing would have been interesting to see. I would see them in their own circle but they can have massive influence over a game's financial success.
I mean not really. Doesn’t matter how hard you market something if the game is bad people aren’t going to play it just because your marketing team js killing it. Sony marketed the shit out of that one game that was completely DOA. The game was so uninteresting I don’t even, oh it was concord! lol I saw shit about that game every day and the shorts were decent too but the actual game just didn’t look good. They could have sent someone to my house and gave me a free copy and I still probably wouldn’t have played it lol
On top of quality design, I think there’s one thing studios are missing when starting a game development: identify and quantify the target audience. In other words, do a market analysis. This target audience probably changes, depending on the game mechanics, universe, story, artistic design and many others factors. Failure to identify your expected target audience population may lead to disappointments.
devs, corporations, "my boss"... none of that is my problem. make a good game and i'll buy it. i even buy games i pirate and enjoy, just to prove that i want more of those games. yeah i'll admit i pirate stuff. and i've proven that i pay for ones i actually like. i miss the times of the demos. where ID would give out a full third of their game as "shareware" and if you wanted the rest, buy it, times.
_Traditional Media_ would be an obvious crossover point between "Plays Games" and "Makes Games" since their opinions/approval are the single most direct external drivers of anything controversial which gets approved for inclusion / fundamentally shapes the game.
Game devs went from fighting for shelf space and the players' attention - to beating players with their soap boxes then asking why they don't want the games.
It could have benefited with a few cross boundaries examples. For better and more often for worse, stakeholders/publishers have impacts on the game and can affect it in many direct ways (especially for AAA) There are also people within the "players" that have impacts on the game. For example with competitive games, you often invite pro players at the studio for playtest/direct feedback and etc (we did it a lot on those projects and it was a key factor to their success as we didn't have the expertise to reliably play at that level of skill internally; we're good but not pro player good) Also, there are different kinds directors. Some are either the creative decision makers or sometimes they can be closer to stakeholders when there's no external publishers/stakeholders yet
Ideally all groups mentioned in the video should play games, at least their own games. However what we often see is that they release something that they clearly never played otherwise they would know not to release it in such a bad state or even cancel it if its that bad. For example good developers play the games of the competition not only to steal good ideas but also to identify bad parts and create something that's better. Some have huge egos to the extent that they create the game menus and key bindings to be different from other games just to be "original" and then are shocked that players demand standard solutions to basic functionalities where there's no room to "be creative" and instead focus on the hard part which is the core game loop, art, etc.
@@plasmabat718 It happens in development. Many game makers told that they felt pressured to never question any decisions. Never question any designs. Never question any policies. If they did, they would risk not only to be fired, but to be BANNED from any and all big studios. So they took the knee, bowed their head, and let the ship sail right towards the rocky cliffs.
@@plasmabat718 People that are incapable of taking criticism, so they ban any negative words, opinions, or suggestions. Like Todd Howard with Starfield or Firewalk Studio before Sony shuttered them.
Do not forget the evil billionaires who are controlling them. Don't forget about those seemingly cheap investments that seemingly have so little requirement.
@@rps215 In before "not all", but if you mean soulless groups like Blackrock, yeah. They do want to control the world and the first step is to divide the people.
Very nicely-explained, though it seems the term "stakeholder" is becoming a term for "activist investor." This is not exactly the same thing as a "shareholder," which I think may be what you were describing there. The difference is that generally, shareholders only need to see that a company is continuing to make profits, in order to continue their support of the company, while "stakeholders" often demand specific behavior from the company and/or its representatives (even sometimes employees,) in exchange for their continuing support.
From my point of view as a consumer... gaming is not as bad as people say it is...Indies and middle companies are doing well... The ones in real trouble are big companies, they put themselves in a situation where they have to have big hits consistently, but they invest so much money that the projects are so massive, there is no room to take risks. All these games play the same, have bland appeal and Look like a scam (because the thing is so fucking expensive that just selling copies for thousands is not enough anymore) Big companies just got too big for their own good, They are too fat to do what they used to do
An oversimplification. The spheres might have been isolated at one point but they really are not currently. The people who enable games to be made often meddle with the process of making games and solely have the power to release the game before it is finished and the people who play games often tell the people who make them what they think is popular which obviously changes what game is made in the end. Also games do not necessarily have to be bad to fail financially and as people who supposedly only "play games" are also the people who regular people who play games listen to determine whether a game is good or bad a skewed opinion among those particular people can make a game to fail where it would have succeeded if it was on the game's merits alone. The current problem in the industry seems to be that loudmouths who supposedly play games but mostly care about politics force the people who enable games to put people who also only care about politics into positions of people who make games.
Nope. You don't. Only Thing you can influence is the SUCCESS of a Game. But unless the Devs Finally get their Heads out of their @r$€$ the Industry will keep priducing Turd after Turd.
@@andresruizjordan5937 Pattern Recognition Matters. 2024 DEI Fails: Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice league Concord Dustborn Star Wars: Outlaws Flintlock: The Seige of Dawn Tales of Kenzera: ZAU Capes Unknown 9 Dragon Age: Failguard Indiana Jones and the Red Circle ...and more to come. Gamers have spoken. If a company pushes "The Message" in development or hiring...wallets closed.
@@andresruizjordan5937 Purchases won't directly impact the game design process of a single game, but the feedback loop across multiple games is there. Its why the current gen of SBI games is crashing, while there's hope for games being released 2-3 years from now.
One point of contention, and it is only due to recent events, but i do believe that the streamers and youtubers "MAY" be closer to the "enable" category than you say. i'll give a couple of reasons why: 1. exposure: they give extra marketing reach to enable widespread knowledge of the games which are being sold. 2. kickbacks and in certain circumstances feedback: some games get ea releases which allow devs to see feedback from a wider audience than they normally would in a "beta" release or "early access" release, without doing a full version of either of those. the profitability of those streams may or may not be shared with the creators, but the feedback definitely will give at least a temperature assessment of the waters, as it were. nitpicking, perhaps. i get your points, and they are definitely valid. but you cannot deny the fact that exposure via streams and yt for something like poe2 didn't help enable the game make more money, and also kick feedback to the devs. it's not as much of an isolated system as is portrayed, but in general, you are correct on the large-scale.
No. If they rely on spontaneous exposure given by streamers and youtubers, they're failing their job on marketing. Maybe they're negleting marketing strategies or their marketing is just bad. Either case it's THEIR fault, and if their product were REALLY good, the spontaneous exposure would only benefit them.
Nope. That falls under the marketing category which is a completely seperate entity (i work in marketing). Marketing has no influence on the quality of the product in any capacity. We sure try to influence you into thinking that product A is the real hot sh...you know, but that´s it.
@@backspace3591 Or they could be using exposure by streamers and UA-camrs as their marketing move. We have multiple games where traditional marketing didn't work and it was looking like dime a dozen slop that nobody is talking about and will be forgotten in a year regardless of the game's actual relative success and then they Tweet one culture war thing and proceed to get throated by UA-camrs as a result. At the moment it's like the easiest way to get a cheap, powerful marketing push.
I think you should of allowed a bit over overlap with Content Creators and enabling games and gamers making games. CC's can act as marketing and boost games into the spotlight like Among Us, while gamers are SOLELY responsible for creating the BIGGEST genres in gaming today through things like mods: MOBA's = Mod (DOTA), Tactical Shooters = Mod (CS), Hero Shooters = Mod (TF), Battle Royals = Mod (Arma 2 BR), Survival Shooter = Mod (DayZ), Social Deduction = Mod (Gmod, can't say name on YT). Its like 4chan and meme's, never acknowledged, but always present. When gamers make games, they turn into Gold, because they know what they want, driven only by passion to make something fun.
But thats actually ALTERING the Game from how it way supposed to work/play/Look. Thats Not MAKING the Game at all. 😅 Shoutout to the Modding Community! You Guys Rock! (Sadly, being PC unsavy and Console bound, i never really Benefit from it.)
as a gamer, i've been trying really hard for quite some time to make sure the games i take no part in developing are fit for purpose and good quality. despite my best efforts, the games actually got worse. i almost got depressed over my futile efforts. but thanks to you, i now know not to shoulder the blame
Part of the problem today is that the Streamers and UA-camrs actually fit in the crossover between playing and enabling - as most successful streamers/yts are payrolled to promote the product and unfortunately the sales and perception of a game can be heavily influenced by who's streaming the game and what their review of it is. There's no legitimate reason for something like Poppy's Playtime, Garten of BanBan, Rainbow Friends or Baldi's Basics to even exist... And yet, due to structured collusion between the developers and gaming media, all of these titles are doing just fine thanks very much - shifting tonnes of shifty merch too nonetheless. That aside, this venn diagram pretty much sums it up succinctly in a nutshell.
Because the circles were overlapping I thought there would be some examples for those mixed types. Like: - Backers, finance the game through crowdfunding, but also want to play the game eventually - Beta-Testers, can change the game by giving informed feedback from playing the game prior it's official release
A real shame is that a lot of the time, the actual hands-on devs (programmers, QA, level designers, stuff like those) did their jobs as best they could given their direction, but they're beholden to the executives, management, and sometimes writers. All their hard work can be for nothing if the people in charge make bad decisions or start being awful on social media. Sure they could quit, but they still have to put food on the table. They actually might hate the people making things wrong even more than the players do
I'm programmer, and I would definitely hate managers and directors if they were to make those stupid-ass decisions to put DEI into games I'm developing.
Steakholders always make sure everyone else has their steaks ready, they guard these steaks from thieves, hold them for you if you need to go to the bathroom and bring the rest of unfinished steaks with you to your home, where they keep guarding the steaks until you are hungry again. Steakholders have close connections with the chefs, waiters and consumers.
Holy mother of true. I do not understand why devs these days immediate course of action seeing their game is failing is to attack their audience AND customers. You're the one responsible in making an enjoyable game for your audience, and if it doesn't succeed, it's up to you to learn what you did wrong, and fix the issues. It's like if a chef were to blame the diners for the food having foodborne illness inflicting bacteria when they were the one who made the food. Like, I'm a game dev that graduated fairly recently and haven't publicly released any games yet but even I know that attacking your audience who are also paying to play your games never goes well. So the lesson here folks is when you're in an industry like this, you need to have a sense of responsibility because it falls on you to make something that your audience willy enjoy.
Before people say "Oh, but Gamers, Streamers and UA-camrs can be game devs and can invest in games"... Note the word "can". If somebody is currently playing a game, then they are not currently developing a game. They could be looking for inspiration, but the fact still remains that they are not currently developing the game. Most gamers are not devs. Most streamers are not devs. Most UA-camrs are not devs. Who and what is the game for? Target audience etc. We've been seeing companies spend millions to make games where their target audience was not the typical gamer and they cried foul on those gamers because they lost money on those games. It was their decision to make the game that way. They got called out for it. They still blamed the gamers, thus doubling down, and in some cases tripling down or more.
That’s not true, any major project deliverables and milestones are provided and checked off by the stakeholders if they don’t improve what they see the game does not go forward. They are the final voice of approval.
It's incredibly sad that this even has to be explained in the first place. Anyone with more than 10 IQ would understand this. Says a lot about the people making these absurd stories blaming the consumers/gamers.
I'd argue that players do indirectly enable games. It's their money that helps a company decide if a franchise should continue or if a sequel is even warranted. They are also what keeps live service games alive. However they have no effect on the quality of the current game but their feedback can be used to change the quality of the next if the developer decides to take that feedback on board. However that still makes it entirely the developers responsibility to make a quality product and is not the players fault if the game comes out poor even if their input is used. So while players can't make the game they can definitely enable the next. External funders and stakeholders on the other hand can effect the quality of a game by inserting themselves into the game making process. This is most often seen through publisher pressure to add or remove certain things or even the parent company that's funding the game making demands on what they want. There's plenty of examples you can find of game enablers exerting pressure on a game studio to change the course of a game.
They want we listen to them but they never listening to us, not even one word because they think they're a main character, turned out they're just naive, fool, crazy and ignorant
one thing very important, they just let smth else rule their minds, which feeling is such a failure bc they instantly whining and try to fix it. i don't need ppl or the industries to be "better" i want ppl to stop being brat bc i'm won't responsible for the failure we make or play a games just for funs and entertainment, or best of all, just like a tv movies show. and those kind of company along their useless audiences only make/play the games just to bring their politic beliefs, worst of all they never learn that many ppl don't believe their stuff and they force us to believe it in social media, street, gaming industries even try to bring it into the eastern countries
I feel like something this video misses is that stakeholders actually do have sway in whatever it is the hold stake in, and will sometimes mandate things to the creative team working on it. This happens in cinema and television as well as gaming. Yes, they don't have direct control over the quality of the game, but their demands, if they make any, may cause games to be less appealing. Of course, I don't think this happens in every single case of a game turning out bad, but there probably are a few games out there who turned out bad because investors made too many ridiculous demands.
I thought stakeholders are employees and neighbors etc, not the same as shareholders, as per WEF. Doesn't change the point, which is spot on, but thought I'd point it out as there appears to be some confusion over that. Excellent video!
I doubt it. Shareholders always exert huge pressure on the publisher which in turn hold the dev hostage. You see a lot less problem with private game developers and publishers. That said, they're absolutely NOT to blame for hair trigger, thin-skinned publisher and developers who insult and hate fans. Their paying customer.
CEOs and investors appoint managers who then build the teams and manages the process, if they appoint based on something different than merit like political agenda or nepotism or just minimizing the cost, the result will be according, so it's 100% the "game enablers" fault.
The customer is always right isn’t a customer service phrase but a basic business acknowledgement of the fact that you can’t decide what sells and doesn’t sell. The customer dictates what sales. And so the customer is always right. To argue with or against the customer doesn’t even make sense and it goes to show how insular these companies have become. At the end of the day there’s nothing to stress about. The market will correct itself. For every slop there’s a larian studios or an Asian dev. The industry is deeply afraid of Asia which is why they try their hardest to snub their games. But regardless the Asian game like black myth and marvel rivals and From soft, they all sell
The only thing that should be added is that influence of the stakeholders and investors have while usually being the most disconnected from the reason of video games. They should at least be aware of what the gamers want and not interfere with the gaming culture of a company if the company is already serving that mission. They need to stop trying to inject esg and woke regulations into companies and then wonder why the games they are investing and financing are not selling and resulting in the studios they're investing and financing in going under. There are definitely devs that subscribe to those ideologies or are merely incompetent, but there are also a lot of devs that get shafted when proposing alternatives to new and destructive status quo culture in Western studios and companies in general. The good devs then quit or get fired alongside QA and the company devolves and gets brought by a corporation that gets financed to uphold the cultural status quo and the cycle continues.
I think you mistook stakeholder with shareholder. Shareholders invest and expect interest to their investment. Stakeholders are people/organizations who have overall interest in the company and what it represents. A factory may have some green group as stakeholder as that group is interested in how that factory affects the environment.
They believe that if they throw enough of their ideology at people they will accept it and become the audience. Have to break a few eggs to make an omelette. Mother of all ideological eggs here Jack That being said, I do not anticipate it to work. You can’t push ideology at the expense of everything else
I would add that those who hold stakes and fund do influence the making of a game. No funds no game. So all this garbage or censoring in general is caused by who puts the funds down for this stuff.
He seems to be missing the new group called the activists, which has wormed their way into the industry as the investor activists and the consultants. Each slot into the two upper sections
As a hobby indie dev I can only thank these companies for giving me the confidence that one day I can make a game that performs better than a AAA game!
2 things 1) the idea that gamers are at fault is wildly problematic. To gather any group of people to band together and do anything requires something big enough to effect enough people to gather together and collectively do something. Meaning there needs to be a cause for the people to rally together to stand against. Meaning .... something has to be horribly offensive in the first place to even establish the need for people to gather together to overlook their own differences and band together to try and oppose it. So by saying there's a group of people out there attacking anything means that anything is already offensive enough to gather the group of people to attack it. And 2) Imagine Tyson chicken released a metric ton of chicken that made people sick and killed some others, then went on to blame the customers for being sick and saying that the real problem isn't the chicken, (do you know how hard it is to assemble chicken for sale and get it out to grocery stores in the first place?!) but it's the fault of the consumer for not enjoying the chicken that sickens and kills them. What twisted logic that's being promoted by these industries. Anyone who supports the claim that gamers are at fault are just as flawed as someone saying a consumer is at fault when their food makes them sick.
LOL I was expecting this to go deeper and was totally prepped for the full powerpoint presentation. Enough was said though, so no need for a part 2, I just was strapped in and enthralled.
Today I realized I lack social-intelligence. A cute girl hit on me twice at the grocery store, I gave awkward reactions and then walked away with my grocery cart red faced. It's a good thing I am only a gamer and do not actually make the game.
I would question that stakeholders and funders might more or less directly also influence decisions made by game makers. While it is true that game “makers” create the game, it is also true that decisions might be affected by financial influence or to cater to a specific group of game players.
You should also add the marketing & pr roles into it. When games get bad rep, PR can do a lot to soften it or when false, try to put out the correct story or whatever. When I see a company allowing “any employee” to vent out, it means it doesn’t have a well structured pr department.
Great video as always. I would however argue that players (using that word to group gamers, streamers, and UA-camrs) as a group are stakeholders as well. While each individual player doesn't matter and players do not profit in a financial way, they spend their money to get their share of posivity (joy, escapism,...) out of those games. Furthermore, they might just be the most important stakeholder, after initial funding, because if their expectations are not met, all other groups are going to crumble.
QA testers don't do it for fun. It's a job where they have to submit reports and actively search for bugs, and they are playing buggy versions of the game.
They’re part of the Makes Games circle. @fattiger6957 is correct, its their job to QA. They dont buy the game to play the game, which, if a lot of people do, makes the game successful.
I imagine you did it intentionally, but it is worth noting that game developers are placed outside the intersection of the green and red circles, meaning that developers do not play the games they make. This is significant because it is one of the many causes of the disconnect between what customers (gamers) want and what games end up offering. I would also point out that gamers should probably be placed in the intersection of the red and blue circles. This is because gamers not only play games, we enable their creation with our money when we buy them. This last point is of importance to understand the fact that, if we want videogames to improve, the necessary course of action is not merely complaining online, it is to stop buying bad games.
I was thinking to myself today that this specifically, was a topic that needed to be addressed. The basic structure of a modern AAA studio, and the importance of knowing who makes your games. The people responsible within a corporation for the choices that lead towards a successful or unsuccessful title.
It's also important because most of the big-budget AAA studios are resting on their laurels from decades-old accomplishments. And most of the people who achieved those accomplishments left those studios. See Bioware.
@@nyomanbandarayani6830 You will never have an actual voice in corporate run forums. You can use them for minor tech support issues and game appreciation commentary, but its a limited use tool these days.
I'm not seeing any "narrative correctors" or an uglification department 😼 Nor any reference to broccoli hair 🥦 though yes, that could be a subset of the uglification department 🤔
I think that this cycle may repeat itself, those big companies used to start off small and grew to this size. They started floundering with bad games while new small startups get their footing now, likely becoming big in the future and probably ending up exactly like them.
Oh man.. I love this man.. I have said it before. Such a breath of fresh air.. I love that you are taking your time to explain this, as if you were explaining it to idiots 🙂 Much love from here my man! 🙏 If you recognise me from other comments. I can give you a bonus info, that I am also a professional game developer, and have been in the business for over 25 years now.. but, I don't make bad games 🤜🤛
To be fair everyone on that list can be a gamer so there is a bit of a mix there. However that just makes the point of the devs, or just their bosses being incompetent, stronger. Good video again bro, like your style.
As a Product Manager (and a avid gamer) that runs a team of developers to build products (though not gaming), I find it incredibily silly in how all these game companies don't understand their own customers. This is so fundamental in Product Management 101 that in order to get product market fit, you need to talk to and understand your customer base so that you know what they are willing to pay money for. If you have a great product, $$$ will follow.
Yet again another great video jerrell that makes it very clear I wasn't one of the people that made concord a below average game, they should put this diagram in every game designers office to remind them THEY'RE making the game not US
Quality assurance has turned in to submission assurance, only there to make sure the game passes through Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony. Opinions or concerns from QA arent taken seriously. Soeaking from experience. The company I worked for is long gone. Investors wanted their money, top beass didnt listen to QA, games got pushed out and fairld, company went under, bought up dor a paltey amount while the purchaser runs off woth a billion dollar IP... Nothing here is by desgn at all, totally random happenstance. Couldnt have anything to do with the rest of the world going through the same issues of bad quality in everything... Healthcare, Movies, Music, Education, etc...
![[][][][][] [][] [][𝑥][][][][][][][] | Reveal Trailer](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IhOSQZ8oZ14/mqdefault.jpg)
If a Kotaku journalist saw this video. It would blow their mind.
No, they’d just interpret it as yet another example of intolerance, because that’s the only explanation they can think of for why anyone wouldn’t want to feel like a “good person” (by their definition).
Would it? I think they would turn it into a GG2 slam piece article
Nah, even Alyssa would agree. Again, they just exploited something that was there. They ragebaited and it got them the money. Consumers are the dictators of the scene. These publishers and journalists can push out ANY piece they want, if the consumers don't want them, they will adapt and conform to sell what the consumers want.
They wouldn"t understand the diagram.
how can it blow something that they lack?
I miss the days when the entire "Make Games" sphere was inside the "Play Games" one. Now, they could be completely separate.
It's bound to fade a bit as the companies get larger. How many people have jobs where they themselves are passionate about the product? Is someone in accounting or IT for a grocery chain passionate about groceries? Likely not. What matters is that the people are still at least competent and have pride in their own skillset and output, that they are good at their role. But it's likely that such a person in accounting or IT for a grocery chain doesn't despise anyone who shops there. That's where you'd get a real problem.
Same with the "Enable Games" part. Back then many games are self funded. I am not against game companies getting investment of course, that has enabled many great projects that would otherwise never exists. Sadly the gaming industry currently only attract the worst kind of investors: Gamblers. The good kind of investors, the long term ones, still avoid the gaming industry like plague because it is still highly volatile.
i think it can still work if you find the right people. i doubt we would have gotten quite a few classics if all of their devs were hardcore gamers. combination of various talents lead to those results. i think games like Thief or Legacy of Kain series would have been created. a lot of those legendary developers that we know of today, just had the right mindset, be it for writing, game design or things like soundscape. a lot of them came from tech backgrounds that werent game development, because it was a rather new industry.
They probably still are. The point is that they only play the slop they and their peers produce. Think of it like the San Francisco Hippies sniffing their own farts in South Park.
@@schizo_fox >if you find the right people
Well, that requires that director plays the games and looking for people who play. It is hard to play games as a director because it is very time consuming job so directors who don't play have an advantage.
the fact that this even needs to be explained to some people is crazy
I feel the same.
Yep. Just follow the money.
Oy Vey...it's ez to see what group is behind it all.
Yup
To most people. Not some 😅
What fact? The whole thing is complete bullcrap. The actual fact is that gamers are central to the whole things and gamers are definetly the people who makes games happen.
Without gamers nobody would play the games.
Without anyone to play the games nobody would think of making games.
Without anyone to play the games nobody would fund making games.
Gamers are the people in center of the whole things and gamers are the people who make games happen. The games are made for them. Games exist because there are gamers who play them. Everyone knows what happens when some online multiplayer loses their playerbase. The game practically ceases to exist. Why? Not because of funding, not because of those who made the game but because people dont play the game.
Games exist because of and for gamers. Gamers might not directly fund or create the games but without them neither would happen.
Of course this isn't exclusive to games, any product exists because there are people who consume that product. Without consumer a product wont be made. Its simple as that.
The only industry where the customer is humiliated and insulted without the employee being fired on the spot. And it's so stupid that make you laugh from it.
Well... Not quite the only industry... >.>
*See comics, TV and film industries.
A lot of higher ups or experienced employees use the reasoning that because we don’t know what they know and aren’t capable of what they can do that means our criticism is baseless because we are ignorant of the process. We’re just statistics to them, that’s why they aren’t afraid to talk down to us, they feel that they have more power by comparison as they surround themselves with people who will agree with them. It even happens with movies in a concept known as failing upwards has independence is punished in the corporate environment.
@@ZIGZAG12345 I see them. One says not the only industry and the other says comics, tv, and film industry. Can you see mine?
I see all 5 comments. Mine makes 6.
Been game dev for 20+ years, this guy could not be more correct. IMO in a nutshell, the game industry is rotting with craptivisim and the salvation will come from indie studios to be created by truly talented people upon final collapse of major studios. The industry will heal itself, be patient. Happy new year!
Responsability is a rare quality for devs, keep the good work.
Though not as common as they used to be, there is still plenty of AA studios out there. During the recent Steam Winter Sale, I bought a ton of CRPGs and they are all made by AA studios (since isometric, turn-based rpgs is the kind of game AAA publishers avoid like the plague) There's also a lot of them in Japan.
Indie studios have in recent years also become increasingly captivated with the ideological activistic rot. If an indie studio gets a big hit they'll try to infest and overtake it from the inside.
This wont stop unless the disease itself is removed.
Have you produced anything of note? Mr.Game Dev
The fact that he has built anything puts him above most UA-cam commenters.
I KNEW the World Health Organization was shady!
They were pulling the strings all along!
This was pretty clever. I applaud you.
The WHO and WEF are all snakes
@@sungrandstudios trump told the US to withdraw from who
WHO?
I love the implication that journalists, developers, publishers etc… need a 2nd grade style graph to understand such a basic concept. This is the type of subtle condescension I can get behind.
Hahaha. You get it.
It's the same as the Good-Fast-Cheap triangle. Some really smart employers need to be reminded of how that works on a daily basis.
blame the customers who doesnt want to consume our slop
edit* forgot to call them -ists, -phobes, chuds, etc. if they dont want our slop
How dare those people exercise their right to not spend their own money on the leisure products they don't want!
I blame the customers who have been willingly consuming slop for the last 20 years and enabled publishers and developers to get to where we are now.
"We want a GOOD game!"
"That's sexism towards female devs!!"
you forgot "right wing"
I opened this video to see that I had been unsubscribed from Sungrand Studios. I think you're scaring the industry my guy!
Thanks for showing your support for the channel. From time to time, UA-cam unsubscribes me from channels I watch. The algorithm works in mysterious ways. My goal is to inspire my fellow genuine game developers in the industry and give them hope, so they can feel safe and keep fighting for what they believe in.
I got unsubbed too! Def shady business…
All the wrong people are in all the best places to mess everything up and all the best people are in the wrong places where they can't make anything better. But this WILL change.
I also got unsubbed somehow.....
@@easportssucks4347 yea youtube is still the belly of the beats, monitering everyone.
Savage ending. Happy New Year, Jerrel.
Happy New Year!
Who is to blame? Customers who support these people, executives, BlackRock, DEI department, politicians and lack of law enforcement...
Now who funds BlackRock...
@@Official_RetroMania
It's always the darn government....
Law Enforcement? As much as I think its trash, its not illegal to be a partisan.
A little group of powerful people
@@sungrandstudios The people who accepted their services. The game makers. I know we all know BlackRock is up to no good, but BlackRock is just playing on the greed of the companies.
This is shockingly simple. The fact that "journalists" either don't understand this or think they can gaslight others into thinking otherwise perfectly demonstrates the level of their intelligence.
Sadly their gaslighting works on people not too deep into the whole topic. You can't imagine what people like to believe if it fits their current political views
What a shocking twist!
I can't believe that the studio that makes, design, narrate, and program the game in the first place is the one responsible for ruining it
I'd love to see you do a top 10 of favorite, most memorable, or most impactful games (on game development) you've ever played.
Edit: Game OSTs too
Hey great idea. I'll add this to my list of videos to make. Thank you!
I second this, I would LOVE to hear your opinion on both these things! I cherish your thoughts
I think you are unaware of the expression "He who pays the piper calls the tune".
The people providing funding have the ability to demand the game makers do stupid things.
The customer isn't always right. The majority of your customers ARE always right if you want to be successful AND have a loyal and dedicated customer base. Period.
Companies can be backed financially in their endeavors, but that doesn't mean customers will accept what is being offered. Its not that complicated. Everything else is gaslighting.
"The customer is always right" only ever meant that if the customer doesn't want what you're selling, then they don't want it. It's their money, and they'll spend it where they think they are getting value or fulfillment.
"The customer is always right" is the first half of the quote, "in matters of taste." is the second half.
The customer has every right to determine if a product is worth purchasing or not. And if enough of them feel that it isn't, your market appeal is unsustainable and you go under.
Even Rembrandt had to pay the bills.
The customer is always right just means the market speaks. It's not about an individual customer, it's about the collective.
@@neurotoksyn Exactly this. It doesn't mean that you need to become enslaved by your customers, letting them walk all over you while you submit yourself to their every whim and demand. It just means that whatever the customer asks for with regards to your product, you should do your best to provide it. If they want your car painted in the ugliest color imaginable, you paint it that color. If they want pickles and hot sauce on their pancakes, you put pickles and hot sauce on their pancakes. And if they want attractive characters in their video games? Guess what! You put attractive characters in your video games.
Doesn't matter what your personal beliefs about it are. If its what they want, its what they'll buy. If you don't provide what they want, or worse, try to force them to want what you want, they'll simply leave, and go find someone who will give them what they want. This is capitalism 101. And the fact that these self proclaimed business masters at the "AAA" companies can't understand it, is just pathetic.
wrong the customer is ALWAYS right in matters of taste, can be wrong about anything else.
Me being anti woke anti ESG anti Larry Fink since 2016: NO way!
Some of us have been fighting this war for a very long time.
Welcome to the ball.. 2014 was the year for me when some randoms on internet started calling me 'Comicsgater'
It took me a lot longer to see what was happening I even defended SBI in 2021 in a discussion, I don't have problems with representation of minorities in games.
What opened my eyes where when they started uglifying game characters, specially female but make too, that's my line, fictional characters should not be uglier than real life people.
That and the whole gender stupidity.
@@impactsuit9871 The sole fact You have no problems with them already makes You SBI enemy.
This might sound confusing but: I had at least two cases where in I was confronted and told that my favorite character is 'deeply offensive, bigoted and obsolete' - One time in gaming when I said Barret was my fave in OG Final Fantasy 7 and other time in movies when I said I love Wesley Snipes Blade - both characters are for some reason deeply despised by SBI crowd and defenders despite being absolutely iconic and beloved. In fact I think it is the main reason: while they state multitude often mutually exclusive arguments as to 'why' they hate them: they hate beloved old time non-white characters because they are beloved and they tend to be beloved because they are superior in every manner to whatever SBI writers can ever hope to create.
I also mention it as bit more rare confrontation as in case of female characters.. oh boy: these people tend to absolutely abhor femininity and hate with passion every popular female character depicting be it new one but even more so legacy ones. Bit weird for someone claiming that 'other side' hates women, right?
All in all I can say SBI and similar people just hate 'quality' and often use excuse of making characters minority or women as they firmly believe women and minorities cannot be good characters in 1st place so them making them sub-par is perfectly fine as they need to be sub-par. - which is for me quite telling on their side.
Turns out it's actually China that is the primary financier of ESG.
Hi, there is a niche group that is missing in the explanation: Crowd Funders
They can enable smaller, independent games through crowd-funding. These funders can also be the ones who play the games. But it is rare to see such attempts executed. Contraversies, such as scams and false advertising, have ruined the credibility of these attempts.
That's a good point. Crowd Funders would be described as "External Funders".
@@sungrandstudios What about the main stream media / journalist (who probably dont play the games they are reviewing)? Dont the game developers usually say that since their product is critically acclaimed that it should have not failed?
(See: Zoe Quinn)
@@DevilCaller Likely wouldn't fit in any of these circles. Mere spectators if they don't actually play the game, especially because games journalism seems to have less and less of an effect on game success these days.
Every single game should be funded that way.
We would see how much money they would get to make games like Concord, TLOU2 or spiderman 2
This man should be getting a seven figure salary and making amazing games with these massive budgets instead of the slop we are getting
I'll do my best with my limited budget. By launching my games, I'll work my way up to producing games with bigger budgets.
@@sungrandstudiosI wish you success, that these enormous 7 digit budgets end up being yours to utilize as you see fit. On your terms, no less
@@sungrandstudios oh yes, you’re doing great
It’s just so silly that so much money is being wasted when I know you and many others could do so so much better.
AAA producer here:
Here’s how it goes for western AAA games.
Studio heads and publishers do not know what makes a good game and blindly trust game directors
Game directors without a clear/good vision rely on playtests and obsessively try to score 10/10 amongst all playtesters (try to please everyone and…)
Playtesters are usually small groups of unemployed* people from California who are not necessarily fans of the IP/type of game. and aren’t representative of gamers tastes worldwide.
Studios ends up making bland games designed by committee to check publishers boxes
*only unemployed people can afford to spend an entire week playing a game for a compensation as small as a couple of old games
As long as everyone knows the WEF is a part of the problem, I'm happy. The sooner we remove them, gaming and a whole lot more will be improved
dont be antisemitac....
@@SethPlato01 I have nothing against Arabs, Jews, Akkadians or Pheonicians.
I'm not sure what connection you see between the Semitic people and the World Economic Forum. Maybe check yourself for racist assumptions because I think you just made one
@@SethPlato01 nobody cares about what group you think some unidentified person is. If you dont call out evil, you are straight up a moron. But thanks for the admission I guess? What an odd thing to say by you!
Shhhh....oy vey, stop noticing!!!
@@ProfessionalTrafficplayer Tell that to @TheAbeKane ... the WEF doesnt have to do, you know!!!!, dont look at the surnames!!! dont look what those guys have in common!!! you bigot!
I completely disagree. Its clearly controlled by that one Brazilian guy with a list on Steam.
He holds all the power.
🤣
Imagine actually believing that if he put a good game on his list, people would just not play it. Like, if that worked we would not have lootboxes. But alas, every gamer boycott is one cinematic away from being over.
@@MisterNightfish Ummm...no. It really is the DEI in 2024. People have woken up to the degeneracy.
Pattern Recognition Matters.
2024 DEI Fails:
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice league
Concord
Dustborn
Star Wars: Outlaws
Flintlock: The Seige of Dawn
Tales of Kenzera: ZAU
Capes
Unknown 9
Dragon Age: Failguard
Indiana Jones and the Red Circle
...and more to come.
Gamers have spoken.
If a company pushes "The Message" in development or hiring...wallets closed.
You're so close to 100k! I'm excited for you and the future content you'll bring us.
The best games emerge from the intersection of "playing games" and "making games." However, these days, the industry is driven almost entirely by profit, and the creative spirit has largely been lost. Only projects with "predictable" returns are greenlit. The indie scene, by design, stands as an exception to this trend.
Meanwhile, game "journalists" and multimillion corporation apologists continue to cling to the outdated notion that studios still operate under the principle of "we make games we'd love to play." Instead, this idea has long lost to quick profits and schemes to milk as much of it from the players as possible. When it does surface, it’s often thanks to a single, highly motivated leader pushing their team toward a strong, unified vision.
Fast approaching 100K! Keep grindin’ ma dude.
The whole assumption that gamers supposed to be responsible for their games failing I think hinges mostly on the idea, that they feel entitled to your money regardless of the product quality they deliver.
Well yeah, they worked hard to fellate the investors to give them money, so every consumer is legally obligated to purchase it.
My guess before watching, the world will never know. "Mama" Cass Elliott has been asking who's to blame since 1969. Well, technically, she had asked from 1969 to 1974, but she still hasn't found out.
OK, how'd I do...
Huh. Not the gamers or UA-camrs. That's actually a really straight forward and expected answer. It's almost as if it shouldn't be this hard for people to figure out. Especially considering the gamers and UA-camrs get told not to buy the game because we aren't welcome in their inclusive club most of the time. Dang, I'm starting to think this isn't a reasonable business model.
You've been cooking since I've subbed to you. I've enjoyed all the mental meals you've served.
I really appreciate that. Thank you for enjoying the videos and showing support.
I think including marketing would have been interesting to see. I would see them in their own circle but they can have massive influence over a game's financial success.
I mean not really. Doesn’t matter how hard you market something if the game is bad people aren’t going to play it just because your marketing team js killing it. Sony marketed the shit out of that one game that was completely DOA. The game was so uninteresting I don’t even, oh it was concord! lol I saw shit about that game every day and the shorts were decent too but the actual game just didn’t look good. They could have sent someone to my house and gave me a free copy and I still probably wouldn’t have played it lol
"We have quality insurance"
Do we, though? Do we really?
Automation and AI has been replacing a lot of QA jobs this past year.
There's definitely no QA at CDPR.
Luigi says, NO.
Of course we do. We always QA on production. Just slap a 'Beta' label on it!
@@advertslaxxor Don't forget the ridiculous charge for participating in the beta.
On top of quality design, I think there’s one thing studios are missing when starting a game development: identify and quantify the target audience. In other words, do a market analysis.
This target audience probably changes, depending on the game mechanics, universe, story, artistic design and many others factors.
Failure to identify your expected target audience population may lead to disappointments.
devs, corporations, "my boss"...
none of that is my problem.
make a good game and i'll buy it.
i even buy games i pirate and enjoy, just to prove that i want more of those games.
yeah i'll admit i pirate stuff. and i've proven that i pay for ones i actually like.
i miss the times of the demos. where ID would give out a full third of their game as "shareware" and if you wanted the rest, buy it, times.
_Traditional Media_ would be an obvious crossover point between "Plays Games" and "Makes Games" since their opinions/approval are the single most direct external drivers of anything controversial which gets approved for inclusion / fundamentally shapes the game.
Game devs went from fighting for shelf space and the players' attention - to beating players with their soap boxes then asking why they don't want the games.
Don't forget the unquie class called "activist", which plays the most important role. Also journalists.
It could have benefited with a few cross boundaries examples.
For better and more often for worse, stakeholders/publishers have impacts on the game and can affect it in many direct ways (especially for AAA)
There are also people within the "players" that have impacts on the game. For example with competitive games, you often invite pro players at the studio for playtest/direct feedback and etc (we did it a lot on those projects and it was a key factor to their success as we didn't have the expertise to reliably play at that level of skill internally; we're good but not pro player good)
Also, there are different kinds directors. Some are either the creative decision makers or sometimes they can be closer to stakeholders when there's no external publishers/stakeholders yet
Ideally all groups mentioned in the video should play games, at least their own games. However what we often see is that they release something that they clearly never played otherwise they would know not to release it in such a bad state or even cancel it if its that bad. For example good developers play the games of the competition not only to steal good ideas but also to identify bad parts and create something that's better. Some have huge egos to the extent that they create the game menus and key bindings to be different from other games just to be "original" and then are shocked that players demand standard solutions to basic functionalities where there's no room to "be creative" and instead focus on the hard part which is the core game loop, art, etc.
I don't know _who_ is precisely to blame. But I know _what._
The cultists attitude of toxic positivity that plague the industry.
This a major culprit.
What does toxic positivity look like in this specific context? People trying to shame, ostracize, and exclude anyone that criticizes games?
@@plasmabat718 It happens in development. Many game makers told that they felt pressured to never question any decisions. Never question any designs. Never question any policies. If they did, they would risk not only to be fired, but to be BANNED from any and all big studios. So they took the knee, bowed their head, and let the ship sail right towards the rocky cliffs.
@@plasmabat718 People that are incapable of taking criticism, so they ban any negative words, opinions, or suggestions. Like Todd Howard with Starfield or Firewalk Studio before Sony shuttered them.
Do not forget the evil billionaires who are controlling them. Don't forget about those seemingly cheap investments that seemingly have so little requirement.
@@rps215 In before "not all", but if you mean soulless groups like Blackrock, yeah. They do want to control the world and the first step is to divide the people.
Very nicely-explained, though it seems the term "stakeholder" is becoming a term for "activist investor." This is not exactly the same thing as a "shareholder," which I think may be what you were describing there. The difference is that generally, shareholders only need to see that a company is continuing to make profits, in order to continue their support of the company, while "stakeholders" often demand specific behavior from the company and/or its representatives (even sometimes employees,) in exchange for their continuing support.
"if those compagnie could read this, they would be very upset"
The company owns the art. The artist leaves the company but the art stays and that art is not able to be reproduced by the new artists.
From my point of view as a consumer...
gaming is not as bad as people say it is...Indies and middle companies are doing well...
The ones in real trouble are big companies, they put themselves in a situation where they have to have big hits consistently, but they invest so much money that the projects are so massive, there is no room to take risks. All these games play the same, have bland appeal and Look like a scam (because the thing is so fucking expensive that just selling copies for thousands is not enough anymore)
Big companies just got too big for their own good, They are too fat to do what they used to do
An oversimplification. The spheres might have been isolated at one point but they really are not currently. The people who enable games to be made often meddle with the process of making games and solely have the power to release the game before it is finished and the people who play games often tell the people who make them what they think is popular which obviously changes what game is made in the end. Also games do not necessarily have to be bad to fail financially and as people who supposedly only "play games" are also the people who regular people who play games listen to determine whether a game is good or bad a skewed opinion among those particular people can make a game to fail where it would have succeeded if it was on the game's merits alone. The current problem in the industry seems to be that loudmouths who supposedly play games but mostly care about politics force the people who enable games to put people who also only care about politics into positions of people who make games.
Great comment. That last sentence sums up what has been happening really well.
You, my guy, are a top-notch content creator . Excellently presented.
When I read the title, I was like "I didn't hear people talk about WHO so much after COVID-19, how they involved in this?"...
Sorry, my fault...
Hahaha looks like it is my fault this time, but it is resulting in fun comments.
As a gamer who often identifies as non-buy-nary, I feel like I have some influence on game design.
We are winning.
Nope. You don't.
Only Thing you can influence is the SUCCESS of a Game.
But unless the Devs Finally get their Heads out of their @r$€$ the Industry will keep priducing Turd after Turd.
@@andresruizjordan5937 "Vote with your wallet" is what some say.
@@andresruizjordan5937
Pattern Recognition Matters.
2024 DEI Fails:
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice league
Concord
Dustborn
Star Wars: Outlaws
Flintlock: The Seige of Dawn
Tales of Kenzera: ZAU
Capes
Unknown 9
Dragon Age: Failguard
Indiana Jones and the Red Circle
...and more to come.
Gamers have spoken.
If a company pushes "The Message" in development or hiring...wallets closed.
@@andresruizjordan5937 Purchases won't directly impact the game design process of a single game, but the feedback loop across multiple games is there. Its why the current gen of SBI games is crashing, while there's hope for games being released 2-3 years from now.
One point of contention, and it is only due to recent events, but i do believe that the streamers and youtubers "MAY" be closer to the "enable" category than you say.
i'll give a couple of reasons why:
1. exposure: they give extra marketing reach to enable widespread knowledge of the games which are being sold.
2. kickbacks and in certain circumstances feedback: some games get ea releases which allow devs to see feedback from a wider audience than they normally would in a "beta" release or "early access" release, without doing a full version of either of those. the profitability of those streams may or may not be shared with the creators, but the feedback definitely will give at least a temperature assessment of the waters, as it were.
nitpicking, perhaps. i get your points, and they are definitely valid. but you cannot deny the fact that exposure via streams and yt for something like poe2 didn't help enable the game make more money, and also kick feedback to the devs.
it's not as much of an isolated system as is portrayed, but in general, you are correct on the large-scale.
No. If they rely on spontaneous exposure given by streamers and youtubers, they're failing their job on marketing. Maybe they're negleting marketing strategies or their marketing is just bad. Either case it's THEIR fault, and if their product were REALLY good, the spontaneous exposure would only benefit them.
Nope. That falls under the marketing category which is a completely seperate entity (i work in marketing). Marketing has no influence on the quality of the product in any capacity. We sure try to influence you into thinking that product A is the real hot sh...you know, but that´s it.
@@backspace3591 Or they could be using exposure by streamers and UA-camrs as their marketing move.
We have multiple games where traditional marketing didn't work and it was looking like dime a dozen slop that nobody is talking about and will be forgotten in a year regardless of the game's actual relative success and then they Tweet one culture war thing and proceed to get throated by UA-camrs as a result. At the moment it's like the easiest way to get a cheap, powerful marketing push.
100k is so close I can almost taste it. Congratulations!!!
Great work, team!
I think you should of allowed a bit over overlap with Content Creators and enabling games and gamers making games.
CC's can act as marketing and boost games into the spotlight like Among Us, while gamers are SOLELY responsible for creating the BIGGEST genres in gaming today through things like mods: MOBA's = Mod (DOTA), Tactical Shooters = Mod (CS), Hero Shooters = Mod (TF), Battle Royals = Mod (Arma 2 BR), Survival Shooter = Mod (DayZ), Social Deduction = Mod (Gmod, can't say name on YT). Its like 4chan and meme's, never acknowledged, but always present. When gamers make games, they turn into Gold, because they know what they want, driven only by passion to make something fun.
But thats actually ALTERING the Game from how it way supposed to work/play/Look.
Thats Not MAKING the Game at all. 😅
Shoutout to the Modding Community! You Guys Rock!
(Sadly, being PC unsavy and Console bound, i never really Benefit from it.)
as a gamer, i've been trying really hard for quite some time to make sure the games i take no part in developing are fit for purpose and good quality. despite my best efforts, the games actually got worse. i almost got depressed over my futile efforts. but thanks to you, i now know not to shoulder the blame
if you want to feel better blame others, if you want to get better blame yourself.
Part of the problem today is that the Streamers and UA-camrs actually fit in the crossover between playing and enabling - as most successful streamers/yts are payrolled to promote the product and unfortunately the sales and perception of a game can be heavily influenced by who's streaming the game and what their review of it is.
There's no legitimate reason for something like Poppy's Playtime, Garten of BanBan, Rainbow Friends or Baldi's Basics to even exist... And yet, due to structured collusion between the developers and gaming media, all of these titles are doing just fine thanks very much - shifting tonnes of shifty merch too nonetheless.
That aside, this venn diagram pretty much sums it up succinctly in a nutshell.
They never listen, its like talking to a shoe
Because the circles were overlapping I thought there would be some examples for those mixed types.
Like:
- Backers, finance the game through crowdfunding, but also want to play the game eventually
- Beta-Testers, can change the game by giving informed feedback from playing the game prior it's official release
Name an industry where the business/studio attacks its customers (calling them bigots, racists, sexists, transphobes, etc) and remains successful.
A real shame is that a lot of the time, the actual hands-on devs (programmers, QA, level designers, stuff like those) did their jobs as best they could given their direction, but they're beholden to the executives, management, and sometimes writers. All their hard work can be for nothing if the people in charge make bad decisions or start being awful on social media. Sure they could quit, but they still have to put food on the table. They actually might hate the people making things wrong even more than the players do
I'm programmer, and I would definitely hate managers and directors if they were to make those stupid-ass decisions to put DEI into games I'm developing.
Steakholders always make sure everyone else has their steaks ready, they guard these steaks from thieves, hold them for you if you need to go to the bathroom and bring the rest of unfinished steaks with you to your home, where they keep guarding the steaks until you are hungry again.
Steakholders have close connections with the chefs, waiters and consumers.
Steakholders are truly made of styrofoam wrapped in plastic!
Holy mother of true. I do not understand why devs these days immediate course of action seeing their game is failing is to attack their audience AND customers. You're the one responsible in making an enjoyable game for your audience, and if it doesn't succeed, it's up to you to learn what you did wrong, and fix the issues. It's like if a chef were to blame the diners for the food having foodborne illness inflicting bacteria when they were the one who made the food.
Like, I'm a game dev that graduated fairly recently and haven't publicly released any games yet but even I know that attacking your audience who are also paying to play your games never goes well. So the lesson here folks is when you're in an industry like this, you need to have a sense of responsibility because it falls on you to make something that your audience willy enjoy.
Before people say "Oh, but Gamers, Streamers and UA-camrs can be game devs and can invest in games"... Note the word "can". If somebody is currently playing a game, then they are not currently developing a game. They could be looking for inspiration, but the fact still remains that they are not currently developing the game. Most gamers are not devs. Most streamers are not devs. Most UA-camrs are not devs.
Who and what is the game for? Target audience etc. We've been seeing companies spend millions to make games where their target audience was not the typical gamer and they cried foul on those gamers because they lost money on those games. It was their decision to make the game that way. They got called out for it. They still blamed the gamers, thus doubling down, and in some cases tripling down or more.
As for Journalist and that diagram and where it should go on there if it was... It shouldn't.
That’s not true, any major project deliverables and milestones are provided and checked off by the stakeholders if they don’t improve what they see the game does not go forward. They are the final voice of approval.
It's incredibly sad that this even has to be explained in the first place. Anyone with more than 10 IQ would understand this. Says a lot about the people making these absurd stories blaming the consumers/gamers.
I believe 90% of them know- They just hope most people are too dumb to see what they're doing.
I'd argue that players do indirectly enable games. It's their money that helps a company decide if a franchise should continue or if a sequel is even warranted. They are also what keeps live service games alive. However they have no effect on the quality of the current game but their feedback can be used to change the quality of the next if the developer decides to take that feedback on board. However that still makes it entirely the developers responsibility to make a quality product and is not the players fault if the game comes out poor even if their input is used. So while players can't make the game they can definitely enable the next.
External funders and stakeholders on the other hand can effect the quality of a game by inserting themselves into the game making process. This is most often seen through publisher pressure to add or remove certain things or even the parent company that's funding the game making demands on what they want. There's plenty of examples you can find of game enablers exerting pressure on a game studio to change the course of a game.
They want we listen to them but they never listening to us, not even one word because they think they're a main character, turned out they're just naive, fool, crazy and ignorant
one thing very important, they just let smth else rule their minds, which feeling is such a failure bc they instantly whining and try to fix it. i don't need ppl or the industries to be "better" i want ppl to stop being brat bc i'm won't responsible for the failure
we make or play a games just for funs and entertainment, or best of all, just like a tv movies show. and those kind of company along their useless audiences only make/play the games just to bring their politic beliefs, worst of all they never learn that many ppl don't believe their stuff and they force us to believe it in social media, street, gaming industries even try to bring it into the eastern countries
I feel like something this video misses is that stakeholders actually do have sway in whatever it is the hold stake in, and will sometimes mandate things to the creative team working on it. This happens in cinema and television as well as gaming. Yes, they don't have direct control over the quality of the game, but their demands, if they make any, may cause games to be less appealing. Of course, I don't think this happens in every single case of a game turning out bad, but there probably are a few games out there who turned out bad because investors made too many ridiculous demands.
I thought stakeholders are employees and neighbors etc, not the same as shareholders, as per WEF. Doesn't change the point, which is spot on, but thought I'd point it out as there appears to be some confusion over that. Excellent video!
I doubt it. Shareholders always exert huge pressure on the publisher which in turn hold the dev hostage. You see a lot less problem with private game developers and publishers.
That said, they're absolutely NOT to blame for hair trigger, thin-skinned publisher and developers who insult and hate fans. Their paying customer.
Before these ideological investment were cool, remember that gambler investors demand nasty MTX and drip-fed content being pushed into games.
CEOs and investors appoint managers who then build the teams and manages the process, if they appoint based on something different than merit like political agenda or nepotism or just minimizing the cost, the result will be according, so it's 100% the "game enablers" fault.
The customer is always right isn’t a customer service phrase but a basic business acknowledgement of the fact that you can’t decide what sells and doesn’t sell. The customer dictates what sales. And so the customer is always right.
To argue with or against the customer doesn’t even make sense and it goes to show how insular these companies have become.
At the end of the day there’s nothing to stress about. The market will correct itself. For every slop there’s a larian studios or an Asian dev. The industry is deeply afraid of Asia which is why they try their hardest to snub their games. But regardless the Asian game like black myth and marvel rivals and From soft, they all sell
The only thing that should be added is that influence of the stakeholders and investors have while usually being the most disconnected from the reason of video games.
They should at least be aware of what the gamers want and not interfere with the gaming culture of a company if the company is already serving that mission. They need to stop trying to inject esg and woke regulations into companies and then wonder why the games they are investing and financing are not selling and resulting in the studios they're investing and financing in going under.
There are definitely devs that subscribe to those ideologies or are merely incompetent, but there are also a lot of devs that get shafted when proposing alternatives to new and destructive status quo culture in Western studios and companies in general. The good devs then quit or get fired alongside QA and the company devolves and gets brought by a corporation that gets financed to uphold the cultural status quo and the cycle continues.
I think you mistook stakeholder with shareholder. Shareholders invest and expect interest to their investment. Stakeholders are people/organizations who have overall interest in the company and what it represents. A factory may have some green group as stakeholder as that group is interested in how that factory affects the environment.
They believe that if they throw enough of their ideology at people they will accept it and become the audience.
Have to break a few eggs to make an omelette. Mother of all ideological eggs here Jack
That being said, I do not anticipate it to work. You can’t push ideology at the expense of everything else
I would add that those who hold stakes and fund do influence the making of a game. No funds no game. So all this garbage or censoring in general is caused by who puts the funds down for this stuff.
He seems to be missing the new group called the activists, which has wormed their way into the industry as the investor activists and the consultants. Each slot into the two upper sections
As a hobby indie dev I can only thank these companies for giving me the confidence that one day I can make a game that performs better than a AAA game!
if gta 6 and witcher 4 are going to be woke there will be a war on the internet (gamers vs dei)
Yes, but not quite. The war will be between game developers and their investors.
We've been at war for about 10-15 years.
Welcome to the fight.
GTA6 and Witcher 4 will be woke slop. Guaranteed.
DEI = DOA
Wallets closed.
Yep. Both are DOA. Don't get your hopes up.
2 things
1) the idea that gamers are at fault is wildly problematic. To gather any group of people to band together and do anything requires something big enough to effect enough people to gather together and collectively do something. Meaning there needs to be a cause for the people to rally together to stand against. Meaning .... something has to be horribly offensive in the first place to even establish the need for people to gather together to overlook their own differences and band together to try and oppose it. So by saying there's a group of people out there attacking anything means that anything is already offensive enough to gather the group of people to attack it.
And 2)
Imagine Tyson chicken released a metric ton of chicken that made people sick and killed some others, then went on to blame the customers for being sick and saying that the real problem isn't the chicken, (do you know how hard it is to assemble chicken for sale and get it out to grocery stores in the first place?!) but it's the fault of the consumer for not enjoying the chicken that sickens and kills them.
What twisted logic that's being promoted by these industries. Anyone who supports the claim that gamers are at fault are just as flawed as someone saying a consumer is at fault when their food makes them sick.
I can't belive world health organization is the root of this! *Clenching hands in rage* 😡
Are they also responsible for that awful food pyramid?
LOL I was expecting this to go deeper and was totally prepped for the full powerpoint presentation. Enough was said though, so no need for a part 2, I just was strapped in and enthralled.
Just a _brilliant_ way to make the point _extremely_ *easy to understand* 👌👍!
Today I realized I lack social-intelligence. A cute girl hit on me twice at the grocery store, I gave awkward reactions and then walked away with my grocery cart red faced. It's a good thing I am only a gamer and do not actually make the game.
3:29 "send this to the front" said the battlescared army general
Activists, Journalists, and "gamers" who still support them by buying from them.
I would question that stakeholders and funders might more or less directly also influence decisions made by game makers.
While it is true that game “makers” create the game, it is also true that decisions might be affected by financial influence or to cater to a specific group of game players.
You should also add the marketing & pr roles into it. When games get bad rep, PR can do a lot to soften it or when false, try to put out the correct story or whatever. When I see a company allowing “any employee” to vent out, it means it doesn’t have a well structured pr department.
Great video as always. I would however argue that players (using that word to group gamers, streamers, and UA-camrs) as a group are stakeholders as well. While each individual player doesn't matter and players do not profit in a financial way, they spend their money to get their share of posivity (joy, escapism,...) out of those games.
Furthermore, they might just be the most important stakeholder, after initial funding, because if their expectations are not met, all other groups are going to crumble.
I feel like the red and blue circle should have less overlap.
Quality assurance should go in the overlap between plays and makes games
QA testers don't do it for fun. It's a job where they have to submit reports and actively search for bugs, and they are playing buggy versions of the game.
They’re part of the Makes Games circle. @fattiger6957 is correct, its their job to QA. They dont buy the game to play the game, which, if a lot of people do, makes the game successful.
I imagine you did it intentionally, but it is worth noting that game developers are placed outside the intersection of the green and red circles, meaning that developers do not play the games they make.
This is significant because it is one of the many causes of the disconnect between what customers (gamers) want and what games end up offering.
I would also point out that gamers should probably be placed in the intersection of the red and blue circles.
This is because gamers not only play games, we enable their creation with our money when we buy them.
This last point is of importance to understand the fact that, if we want videogames to improve, the necessary course of action is not merely complaining online, it is to stop buying bad games.
I was thinking to myself today that this specifically, was a topic that needed to be addressed.
The basic structure of a modern AAA studio, and the importance of knowing who makes your games. The people responsible within a corporation for the choices that lead towards a successful or unsuccessful title.
It's also important because most of the big-budget AAA studios are resting on their laurels from decades-old accomplishments. And most of the people who achieved those accomplishments left those studios. See Bioware.
EA will ban you for addressing this problem. I got banned from their discord server and forum
@@nyomanbandarayani6830 You will never have an actual voice in corporate run forums. You can use them for minor tech support issues and game appreciation commentary, but its a limited use tool these days.
I'm not seeing any "narrative correctors" or an uglification department 😼
Nor any reference to broccoli hair 🥦 though yes, that could be a subset of the uglification department 🤔
I think that this cycle may repeat itself, those big companies used to start off small and grew to this size. They started floundering with bad games while new small startups get their footing now, likely becoming big in the future and probably ending up exactly like them.
Oh man.. I love this man.. I have said it before. Such a breath of fresh air.. I love that you are taking your time to explain this, as if you were explaining it to idiots 🙂
Much love from here my man! 🙏
If you recognise me from other comments. I can give you a bonus info, that I am also a professional game developer, and have been in the business for over 25 years now.. but, I don't make bad games 🤜🤛
To be fair everyone on that list can be a gamer so there is a bit of a mix there. However that just makes the point of the devs, or just their bosses being incompetent, stronger.
Good video again bro, like your style.
As a Product Manager (and a avid gamer) that runs a team of developers to build products (though not gaming), I find it incredibily silly in how all these game companies don't understand their own customers. This is so fundamental in Product Management 101 that in order to get product market fit, you need to talk to and understand your customer base so that you know what they are willing to pay money for. If you have a great product, $$$ will follow.
calm deadpan "hot garbage." noice.
They told me it was my fault. And they said I was a bigot. I didn’t know, glad they informed me.
Mind... BLOWN!
Actually, no, I already knew that, but certain people just won't take responsibility for making trash.
Yet again another great video jerrell that makes it very clear I wasn't one of the people that made concord a below average game, they should put this diagram in every game designers office to remind them THEY'RE making the game not US
Quality assurance has turned in to submission assurance, only there to make sure the game passes through Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony. Opinions or concerns from QA arent taken seriously.
Soeaking from experience. The company I worked for is long gone. Investors wanted their money, top beass didnt listen to QA, games got pushed out and fairld, company went under, bought up dor a paltey amount while the purchaser runs off woth a billion dollar IP...
Nothing here is by desgn at all, totally random happenstance. Couldnt have anything to do with the rest of the world going through the same issues of bad quality in everything... Healthcare, Movies, Music, Education, etc...
Apparently I cant spell today and YT doesnt let me edit my posts. Oh well.
This quickly became one of my favorite channels to watch.