In case you’re out of the loop, the old Steam Deck had Philips screws that screwed into self-tapping plastic holes. This lead to occasional stripped threads and often stripped screwheads....
In the Lego-like world of Roblox, about a hundred blocky avatars march through a lamplit street, wielding Palestine flags that are larger than their own animated bodies. Characters dressed like cartoonish dinosaurs, steampunk zombies and pastel pink pop stars chant together via instant messages in both Malay and English as they...
I just started playing COD Black Ops Cold War because I got it through my PlayStation Plus subscription and wanted to try it out. I’ve previously played some others like Modern Warfare (1 and 2) and WWII. While it always felt a bit over the top and propaganda-ish, I really liked it for the blockbuster feeling and just turning...
You can’t act like media doesn’t help inform your biases. Sure, your opinion on nonexistent crime fighting turtles may not have changed, since that is complete fantasy. But your view on crime itself?
I saw Batman as a kid, and, though Batman obviously isn’t real, crime certainly is, and so are urban decay and bad neighbourhoods in cities. Seeing Batman take out goons and thugs made be believe those goons and thugs existed, and that I’d be in danger if I went out at night. More scared, in fact, because I knew Batman wouldn’t save me, since he isn’t real. The Batman films made Batman feel necessary, and his absence made the world scarier.
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.
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.
…yes, they do. Soooo many fucking games have that. There’s a whole genre of games built around it. They’re called survival games. A relevant example would be No Man’s Sky.
Yes, they do, just not for real. Why would you expect it to kill you for real? What an absurd standard. You’re supposed to be scared for your character’s life, not your own. They’re the one in space, not you…
In RL most of the “excitement” in space comes from not wanting to fuck up and die. Games don’t have that, Todd.
So many games are all about the struggle to not fuck up and die, and they are plenty tense even though they don’t affect your real body. Ever played Subnautica? I’m not actually underwater but I’m scared of drowning.
I don’t know why the fact that a game can’t actually kill you doesn’t mean it can’t try to introduce tension.
Yeah, planets being barren is shit and realism is a shit excuse for it, but it’s kinda irrelevant to your “games don’t have dying” point, which would apply even if planets were designed better
Of course it makes sense. That’s just how games work. You’re pretending you’re in space, and even though you aren’t actually running our of oxygen, your character is. You feel tension for your character.
Y’know playing COD doesn’t mean you’re actually at war, right?
I think you missed the point, lol. Obviously COD isn’t a remotely realistic portrayal of war. You haven’t understood a thing if you seriously thought I was saying that.
But we weren’t discussing realism of mechanics, rather, realism of environment. And the environments are pretty true to life.
It’s the mechanics that make a game fun. Not necessarily the environments. Though they of course help. Fun mechanics are what a game is about.
While Baldur's Gate 3 is being widely celebrated by fans and developers alike, some are panicking that this could set new expectations from fans. Good.
I think you’re missing the point. They’re just saying the incentive structure of capitalism doesn’t necessarily encourage the best types of games. We see this with borked EA launches, predatory MTX, loot boxes, battle passes, etc
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Ubisoft blames ‘technical error’ for showing pop-up ads in Assassin’s Creed (www.theverge.com)
Rant: Valve's new Steam Deck screws speak volumes about their ethos.
In case you’re out of the loop, the old Steam Deck had Philips screws that screwed into self-tapping plastic holes. This lead to occasional stripped threads and often stripped screwheads....
Kids on Roblox are hosting protests for Palestine (techcrunch.com)
In the Lego-like world of Roblox, about a hundred blocky avatars march through a lamplit street, wielding Palestine flags that are larger than their own animated bodies. Characters dressed like cartoonish dinosaurs, steampunk zombies and pastel pink pop stars chant together via instant messages in both Malay and English as they...
This Sims 2 ad from 2002 (lemmings.world)
‘Call of Duty’ Doesn’t Just Depict Bad History—It’s Pro-War Propaganda (progressive.org)
I just started playing COD Black Ops Cold War because I got it through my PlayStation Plus subscription and wanted to try it out. I’ve previously played some others like Modern Warfare (1 and 2) and WWII. While it always felt a bit over the top and propaganda-ish, I really liked it for the blockbuster feeling and just turning...
RPG Maker on the Unity debacle (lemmy.world)
Lies of P quietly adds Denuvo DRM to PC version (nichegamer.com)
Bethesda says most of Starfield's 1000+ planets are dull on purpose because 'when the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there' but 'they certainly weren't bored' (www.pcgamer.com)
Sure Todd, lol
The Main Lesson From ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Should Be ‘People Hate Microtransactions’ (www.forbes.com) angielski
If reception to Baldur’s Gate says anything, it’s that people hate microtransactions in their AAA games.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is Causing Some Developers to Panic (youtube.com) angielski
While Baldur's Gate 3 is being widely celebrated by fans and developers alike, some are panicking that this could set new expectations from fans. Good.