Game development should not be a gig economy. It is often treated as such so studio execs can pocket more money by dropping staff at release to pad their own wallets. There are plenty of game companies, and millions of companies in other sectors, that reinvest that capital into the company.
But what about other forms of entertainment? Movies! Books! Music!
Royalties. This would be another solution.
Tagging @theneverfox because they might find the thought of royalties vs continued Dev interesting.
I do find it interesting…I don’t think it addresses the problem, but it sounds like a great idea
Realistically, how much are companies going to pay out in royalties? As little as they can get away with
Let’s say it’s 2% of a game that made $100M - you’re looking at tens of thousands each when it’s all split up. Which is great, maybe even life changing for some of them, but it’s not financial security kind of money
And then let’s say the game flops or gets cancelled… Well that’s not going to help much, so you can’t really rely on it
So I think the idea is great, but it’s still just fiddling with the knobs of capitalism
I’m absolutely ready to pay 80$ for a game. But then I don’t want to see scummy shit like lootboxes or advanced access in it. If I pay 80$ I expect to see a game release that isn’t half-baked and has to get fixed with hotfixes and patches over the next two months but that just works out of the box and that doesn’t try to get me to spend even more money on it. That also includes no content that they’ve already produced being held back for DLCs.
This has always been my counterpoint for the Nintendo haters when they complain about price. (Although they are a shit company in several other ways) Because when my daughter wants a new switch game if its a top tier Nintendo title its going to be a finished game with zero bugs and zero concern about problematic content for me.
I got bored with Borderlands 3 in one hour. Copy pasta gameplay and I’m tired of the art style and humor. I only paid a fiver but I wish I had bought a burger instead.
I thought Borderlands was lots of fun, but not four games (for now) and a movie (for now) worth of fun. Even two games was pushing it a bit. You can only stretch things out so much.
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