• MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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    1 month ago

    People don’t hate these companies because they “don’t cater to them”. They love or loved the games, but these companies then turn around and try to screw their own fans out of every cent, nugget of personal data, and free time, that they have. There is no anger like the anger of a true fan.

    To get that pissed, you had to have cared quite a lot to begin with.

    The rest, are simply indifferent.

    That, is why people are upset enough to experience schadenfreude when their stocks and releases fail. Because that is an event that SHOULD be proving to these companies that if they keep pushing the bullshit, they soon won’t be catering to anyone anymore. Hence it’s something that gives fans hope that they will pull their shit together and get back to doing right by their own franchises and talent.

    And we are not all in the same boat. Some of us just want good games.

    Even when companies like Ubi make good games, they come with a shitload of strings like “but the monetisation is unethical” or “the devs were forced to crunch” or “the company leadership did nothing about a festering company culture of criminal mysogyny”.

    Simply by operating as ruthlessly as they do, these companies are slowly convincing the world they are “non-decent” institutions. Such institutions need massive restructuring, when the don’t deserve complete disassembly.

    And angering your fans is a process that only goes one way. Every fan you piss off enough to make them swear to never again give you a chance, is one you probably wont ever have as a customer again.

    Yeah, some will be malicious enough to cheer at the individuals getting screwed over when megacorps eat shit. But every sane person is cheering because there is now a large pool of talent looking to do something good with their skill, out from under the thumb of managers demanding every mechanic be optimized for monetization, rather than gameplay.

    This person isn’t wrong to be disgusted with people who cheer at jobs being lost, but he is also MASSIVELY out of touch with how his own company is operating, and how it is coming to be viewed by the world as a result.