Eclectic Dreck said:
MysticSlayer said:
So, let me get this straight: You desire the job loss and livelihood loss of potentially hundreds of thousands of people all because the boss of some of those people decided to follow a business model you just assume is wrong because you, personally, don't feel like paying as much money as they are asking for for all the content? That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and reeks of either complete inconsideration or just ignorance to the impact the crash will have for those in the video game industry and even those outside of it.
When a company follows a business model that is actively
hostile to my desires as a consumer, why would I root for their success? That only ensures I will continue getting undesirable offers.
I'm not saying you have to buy products you don't feel are worth the price, and if a company can't make products that consumers want at the price they are charging all while refusing to change at all, then I have no problem with that company failing. It is unfortunate that people will be out of work, but that is risk. The problem I have is that gamers are practically wishing for a crash at this point, deluding themselves in thinking that a crash will fix the mentality of business professionals in the long run (it won't), even to the point of refusing to try working with developers and publishers to make these systems work. Instead, they prefer asking questions about whether or not we are willing to force a crash without ever bothering to consider whether or not the current model can be used for good, and they also fail to consider those in and out of the gaming industry completely innocent of any "corrupt" business models, or do you honestly think that a multi-billion dollar industry's collapse won't affect the rest of the economy in some way?
I have, to this point, defended DLC fairly strongly for any of a host of reasons. But when the business of making games is so disastrously costly that selling millions of copies at sixty dollars a piece aren't enough to qualify as a "Success" requiring new revenue streams to be profitable, I'd say that the business model is broken and in an industry where this is widespread, some sort of market reset is all but inevitable.
How does that show the business model is broken? Where do you imagine these bloated development costs are coming from? It is the desire of major companies to live up to the AAA standards that we, as gamers, have set for them.
We ask for the better technology.
We ask for all the voice work and cinematics.
We ask for a plethora of content in a near bug-free game. Even if we don't directly ask for all that stuff, our standards of what is "good" and "bad" and our constant whining about this or that constantly shows that we value high production with tons of content all in a highly stable game. Maybe the people here aren't as up tight about that kind of stuff, but the average gamer is. And that's all before you consider other costs like advertising to reach that average gamer. Do you honestly think that companies can fill that order without development costs skyrocketing?
Companies don't act completely independent of how we spend our money or what we demand. Sure, that doesn't remove them from any responsibility, but at the same time removing responsibility from gamers and then blaming the business model entirely is ridiculous. If we demand that they spend more and more money at a rate that can't be made up by growth in the consumer base, then how do we have any defense when they start demanding more from us in return?
