The creators/venture capital funders got their payday and the MBA's are now in charge as the company must keep increasing profit every quarter...forever.
No, I don’t, because I remember trying to make attempts at making my own game.
Hence being called RPG Maker.
In 2003 when I was like 17 there wasn’t like a fuckin library of games made in RPG Maker, and if there was, it was only known to the super nerds. Knowing what RPG Maker was in 2003 made you a nerd. If you knew of a library of games for RPG Maker, made you like king of nerds.
I’m envious of your nerdom if you had that access.
Honestly, I don’t even know myself. Was very much drunk when I wrote this last night. I’ll keep it up though for a reminder to not get too drunk and write things like this.
RPG Maker XP is what got me into game development when I was 12, I can’t remember the amount of hours I poured into that program. I will always have a sweet spot for them, but I think the art style of the new versions aren’t as good.
I remember my friend at the time made an entire Pokémon game in it, with like 30 different stat modifiers and evolution and everything.
The whole engine fit on a single 3 1/4 in floppy disk. It wasn’t really a very good engine because I seem to remember you had to have the engine to run the games, you couldn’t just bundle them, but if you did have the engine there were quite a few fun things to do.
And the latest version is Unity based. Also, I'd say the only thing that prevents Enterbrain to do a similar move, is simply that they don't even have nearly the same significance & reach as Unity. RPG Maker always was a niche product, even if it a popular one at that. But you don't really see big commercial game releases that are based on it like you do with Unity.
We'll have to see how this Unity thing plays out, but if this isn't going to be the engine's downfall, then it will become a new norm for others to follow.
I can’t speak for everyone, but the transition from one version to another loses almost as many features as it gains. It is especially crappy about its provided sprites, to the point where we keep losing entire sprite types, many sprite sets are just plain unfinished or untested, and they insisted we move from sprites that people could somewhat take seriously to chibi/moe sprites that nobody on Earth can take seriously for an adventure game.
Another issue is that the series keeps releasing new versions that are incremental improvements at best, and they want us to pay a lot of money for each installment and half-sequel with said very few improvements, and also pay for a lot of content packs. There are things that should have been added 15 years ago and still aren’t here. They can’t even allow us to customize menus, and countless other issues. Honestly the dev team seems like they’re not very good at programming or art in the first place, and they’re just raking in money from incremental improvements over many decades. People try to excuse the engines’ lack of basic features with “but you can program it in Ruby/Javascript yourself!” Which is a really bad thing to rely on for a game-creation engine of this type.
I’m sure other people are annoyed by things I’m not even thinking of right now.
Nothing stops a game dev company from operating as a cooperative, and paying the employees their share of the full value of revenue, minus costs involved in production and distribution and presumably some amount of seed funding they all agree to set aside for the next project.
But then, splitting the revenue means splitting the risk. So if the game doesn’t sell enough to recoup costs then the workers get nothing.
The whole tradeoff of wage labor is that you agree to do a thing for an amount of pay, regardless of what the employer gains from that labor. You typically don’t get the full value of your labor, but are also insulated from business risks. If this usually didn’t pay off for the employer, then basically every business would be a co-op (because no one would be willing to pay someone to do a job if they weren’t willing to take a share of the risk), but successful co-ops of any scale are pretty rare which suggests a general unwillingness for workers to take on a share of the risks of the business.
Nothing stops a game dev company from operating as a cooperative
Apart from existing in a sea of capitalist companies than can ruthlessly outcompete them. Co-operatives don’t stand a chance.
paying the employees their share of the full value of revenue, minus costs involved in production and distribution and presumably some amount of seed funding they all agree to set aside for the next project.
That would only be feasible in a very small company, with sufficient profits to spread among the workforce.
But then, splitting the revenue means splitting the risk. So if the game doesn’t sell enough to recoup costs then the workers get nothing.
Yep, like I just said.
The whole tradeoff of wage labor is that you agree to do a thing for an amount of pay, regardless of what the employer gains from that labor.
I’d frame it as: you need money to live. Therefore, you suck it up and let someone exploit you so they can profit from your work, and give you scraps out of that profit.
You typically don’t get the full value of your labor, but are also insulated from business risks.
Those “business risks” only exist as a result of the same system that necessitates wage labour: capitalism. The risks generally have to do failing to increase growth and therefore going under due to lack of owner capital. A democratic economy has no owners, only a collective workforce who will together use their resources to fund the company and pay their own wages - this means there is no need for growth. That huge risk no longer exists.
If this usually didn’t pay off for the employer, then basically every business would be a co-op
That’s not even worth thinking about. We live in capitalism. Of course working with a capitalist model would work best - it’s the only way to ensure profits for the owners.
(because no one would be willing to pay someone to do a job if they weren’t willing to take a share of the risk)
You’re still assuming an owner. A democratic workplace wouldn’t have an owner - they’d all share responsibility for the business. And pay would be agreed democratically.
but successful co-ops of any scale are pretty rare which suggests a general unwillingness for workers to take on a share of the risks of the business.
No, it suggests that co-ops are ill-equipped to compete. It’s a moral decision, not a business one, and an incredibly risky one. Any company that isn’t willing to exploit its workers will be beaten out by one that is willing to do that, because the competitive, capitalist one will inevitably have more resources to throw behind it.
Think about this: for a company to be a co-op, it either has to be founded that way, or changed some time afterward. A company that runs in a traditionally capitalist way can only have fundamental changes happen at the behest of its owner; workers have no say how their business is run. This means that the small amount of co-ops has nothing to do with workers’ willingness to take risks. It has to do with owners not wanting to relinquish power and profit - an owner can only lose when transitioning to a co-op.
I’m not saying that Re-Logic should be a co-op. I’m saying our entire economic system demands that they exploit their workers.
My comment wasn’t aimed at Re-Logic precisely, and I admit I was only making assumptions. My assumption was that their company fit into the mold of how capitalist companies operate. If they are a co-op, and practise profit sharing, then I admit I was wrong in my assumption, but I hope you agree it’s an assumption closely related to the reality of capitalist economics.
EDIT: Re-Logic has an owner. Sorry, my original comment stands.
<span style="color:#323232;">Nothing stops a game dev company from operating as a cooperative
</span>
Apart from existing in a sea of capitalist companies than can ruthlessly outcompete them. Co-operatives don’t stand a chance.
Why not? Why do workers and owners being exactly the same set of people make it impossible to successfully develop games? This is an extra-important question to answer because a lot of these indie dev companies are a dozen or so people in total.
Could it be that the upfront costs, and the delayed nature of turning any profit at all (along with no profit being assured) means that getting paid a fixed amount to do game dev labor regardless of success is a safer option for most developers, rather than actually being a stakeholder?
<span style="color:#323232;">paying the employees their share of the full value of revenue, minus costs involved in production and distribution and presumably some amount of seed funding they all agree to set aside for the next project.
</span>
That would only be feasible in a very small company, with sufficient profits to spread among the workforce.
Most indie game devs ARE very small companies.
<span style="color:#323232;">But then, splitting the revenue means splitting the risk. So if the game doesn’t sell enough to recoup costs then the workers get nothing.
</span>
Yep, like I just said.
That’s the nature of dealing with a market economy - you make a thing or provide a service, there are costs involved in doing so, and if you earn more in revenue than your costs then you profit. If not, you don’t. Either way in a typical company it’s the owners that benefit or lose as a consequence, as paying employees to do a thing is one of those costs. In a co-op, those employees are the owners, and win or lose accordingly.
<span style="color:#323232;">The whole tradeoff of wage labor is that you agree to do a thing for an amount of pay, regardless of what the employer gains from that labor.
</span>
I’d frame it as: you need money to live. Therefore, you suck it up and let someone exploit you so they can profit from your work, and give you scraps out of that profit.
You don’t have to - you could go into business for yourself. Make a thing and sell that thing, and reap the full profits of your labor. This is an especially possible thing to do in the game development world where some of the largest games ever literally started as someone’s pet project or as soe other project that got trashed and repurposed. The Warcraft franchise (as in WoW) for example, started as an attempt at making a Warhammer RTS that Games Workshop wasn’t interested in. Sierra Online started as a couple making PC games at home. Notch sold Minecraft to Microsoft for 4 billion dollars, and it literally started as a one man project being sold on a cheesy looking website for a few bucks.
<span style="color:#323232;">You typically don’t get the full value of your labor, but are also insulated from business risks.
</span>
Those “business risks” only exist as a result of the same system that necessitates wage labour: capitalism. The risks generally have to do failing to increase growth and therefore going under due to lack of owner capital. A democratic economy has no owners, only a collective workforce who will together use their resources to fund the company and pay their own wages - this means there is no need for growth. That huge risk no longer exists.
Yes, yes, once there’s a communist revolution that actually results in “real” communism and thus utopia get back to me. But, umm, we’ve had several attempts at communist revolutions and they never seem to actually turn out that way, largely because of a combination of people being greedy (good luck fixing that) and communist revolutions tending to create the sort of power vacuums that lead to authoritarian takeovers in relatively short order. Although, under that system good luck creating games that don’t glorify the Party, because that is of course the purpose of all art.
Failing to increase growth is not necessarily a problem. Failing to generate revenue in excess of costs is a problem. The need for endless growth is specifically an issue for publicly traded companies, because the charter almost necessarily says the function of the company is to increase shareholder value, and shareholders are going to do whatever they have to do to increase both their dividends and hypothetical sale value of their shares as much as possible, because that is what most benefits them. The incentive model is a bit different for a co-op.
<span style="color:#323232;">If this usually didn’t pay off for the employer, then basically every business would be a co-op
</span>
That’s not even worth thinking about. We live in capitalism. Of course working with a capitalist model would work best - it’s the only way to ensure profits for the owners.
Of course it is worth thinking about.
You’ve got basically two scenarios - one in which a business owner assumes the risks of operating the business and pays workers an agreed upon wage regardless of the revenue that results. In this case the worker gets the same benefit for their labor no matter what, and the owner is attempting to get more value from the worker’s product than he paid for it in wages, supplies, and materials. If he does, he reaps the benefit and if he doesn’t he eats the loss.
In the other scenario, the workers and the owners are the exact same people. Meaning the workers assume the costs of operating the business and the risks that it won’t result in revenue in excess of those costs but also reaps the benefit if it does. Sometimes this occurs as a co-op, but more often as an entrepreneur in which someone starts a small business in the hopes that they can generate revenue in excess of their costs and thus profit.
<span style="color:#323232;">(because no one would be willing to pay someone to do a job if they weren’t willing to take a share of the risk)
</span>
You’re still assuming an owner. A democratic workplace wouldn’t have an owner - they’d all share responsibility for the business. And pay would be agreed democratically.
I’m assuming a free market instead of a centrally controlled economy. I’m specifically talking about the reason why we trend towards wage labor over entrepreneurs or co-ops, even in fields where the barriers to entry are as low as can be. Most of the workforce is unwilling to accept the financial risk of failing to generate revenue in excess of costs, and so sell their labor at some agreed upon fixed rate that they will receive regardless of month-to-month revenue for better or worse.
Why not? Why do workers and owners being exactly the same set of people make it impossible to successfully develop games? This is an extra-important question to answer because a lot of these indie dev companies are a dozen or so people in total.
Lot money divided by many people = little money
Lot money in one person not divided. Still lot
Thanks for coming to my ted talk
Also - didn’t say it made it impossible to develop a game. Nice go making weird assumptions, though.
You do realize indie devs consisting of one or two people are also businesses, right?
seems to me that there’s some sort of critical mass they need to achieve first before the fuckery sets in, small teams aren’t “evil” (yet) simply because they can’t be (yet)
EDIT I mean “evil” as in “we want profit above all else, let’s milk this cow dry until she dies”
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