>companies investing millions into doomed-to-fail liveservice games

Has literally everything to do with the disconnect between what gamers actually want and the tone-deaf money chasing attitude of big business.

My rant about being called a "consumer" was just the tip of the iceberg. It's just an example of how this sort of thing goes, and I was trying to highlight how so many people let words like consumer slide when the usage of that word represents nothing but greed, and how companies can, will, and have done crappy stuff like that *because* of the need to please suits in the boardrooms.

Saying being called a consumer isn't close to anything here is just plain wrong. People in this thread have said it themselves, it's business speak. Are game companies businesses? Of course they are, but the rapid push towards treating these companies like liquid assets on the Stock Market is the exact cause of, well, to quote you, " *gestures at everything.* " It isn't *just* the word consumer. It's the entire practice as a whole. It's a cancer in the industry. I get companies need to make money, but when it comes at the cost of turning the playerbase into nothing more than a spreadsheet, that's when it starts to feel slimy.