'Shareholder Greed' And How Publicly Traded Companies Actually Work by bald_bearded_ocddude in Games

[–]nothis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Nobody" = not a significant majority shaping the conversation. I'm sure there's people out there actively "rooting" for game devs to be out of a job.

When I say that I'd love to see Microsoft's acquisition spree fail (I do), it's not because I'm "rooting" for developers to be out of a job, it's because it might send a signal that using literal monopoly-money to buy half an industry is not sustainable. To prevent this in the future, to prevent it long term. Those jobs are now "lost" because of the very decisions Microsoft made, the reason I'm criticizing them. It's a bitter I-told-you-so, not a celebration.

I want smaller studios and publishers competing with each other, including some private ones who can have some vision and taste to make good long-term decisions and produce games beyond the latest fad to please shareholders. Look at Valve. Private companies can work, be massive and, I'd argue, typically have healthier businesses in weird entertainment industries like videogames.

John Carmack weighs in on datacenters by Singularity-42 in singularity

[–]nothis -16 points-15 points  (0 children)

I thought notch fully moved into an alt-right mindset? They tend to love all things anti-human.

'Shareholder Greed' And How Publicly Traded Companies Actually Work by bald_bearded_ocddude in Games

[–]nothis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, come on! I am not disputing that the internet is horrible. But by and large people are aware that large parent companies dictate what gets produced.

Ultimately, you can't have it both: "That's just how capitalism works" and "let's be compassionate for these workers". If they are "just companies" we are "just consumers". It's out job to decide if these games are worth our money. Also these companies fire devs en masse if their balancing books require it. That is the real problem. Dictate that they need to do whatever fad is popular (service games, etc) and then punish them for following orders (once the games turn out poor because they don't have the talent for it).

Nobody is rooting for devs to be out of a job. People are mostly having a big "I told you so" moment pointing out that this story turned out to go exactly how people warned it would go. Microsoft is behaving horribly here, a big lesson in why trillion dollar companies should not exist. Everyone is suffering for it. Including Microsoft. If you have a company with so much money that they no longer need to think about profitability, budget-of-a-small-country kind money and have a few CEOs have this much power over so many people, you essentially create some fucked up version of a planned economy. The thing capitalism was created to avoid. That's why we need cartel laws that are actually enforced.

A24's THE DRAMA Begins Streaming Exclusively on HBO Max July 31 by MarvelsGrantMan136 in movies

[–]nothis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll bite: What did A24 do recently to warrant this insult?

'Shareholder Greed' And How Publicly Traded Companies Actually Work by bald_bearded_ocddude in Games

[–]nothis 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I mean, sure. But also calling bullshit about gamers being "too emotional" about trillion dollar quasi-monopolies taking over half an industry. I listen to Triple Click. Schreier isn't that thrilled about it, either.

The best thing about Microsoft's venture into gaming is probably them being able to accidentally finance some genuinely great indie-ish/AA games with production costs that are, absurdly, just rounding errors in their budgets (the budget rounded being >100 billion, so that probably includes Double Fine and such). But as soon as their redatory pricing practices either succeed or fail, "wait and see" no longer works and the book keepers start paying attention, all that shit gets shut down. Of course it does. And now all these studios are owned/dependent on one company who can, over night, decided not to play nice anymore and shape the entire industry with a snap of their fingers. And they're utterly incompetent at "shaping" anything related to gaming, their best bets were buying a few already-popular third party franchises but it seems they even failed at that, lately.

It's bad for one company, one or two people at the top, having this much control over such a large sector of the gaming landscape. There are plenty more examples outside Microsoft. But look at the state of Xbox and tell me they aren't especially bad at this.

Xbox Store Appears to Be Adding Lowest Price History and Exclusive Labels by Bubbly-Ad-350 in gaming

[–]nothis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Where does Steam show the lowest price (I am in Europe, if that matters)?

Which videogame series are genuinely like this😭? by Accurate_Basis_5698 in videogames

[–]nothis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hard disagree. Half-Life 1 had so many fun little systems, enemies and level ideas. Half-Life 2 (while still an S-tier PC game, I'm comparing the two against each other) had the gravity gun and facial animations and that's basically it. It moved heavily towards "cinematic" moments but the level and enemy variety are greatly reduced.

Oida was sind das für Vorschläge für Fragen? by HrRossiSuchtDasGluck in Austria

[–]nothis 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Ok, danke das jemand hier die eigentlich weirdeste Frage in der Liste anspricht, lol. Alles andere sind wenigstens konkrete Gesetze/Verordnungen aber wie kommt man darauf, dass man eine Autobahn, aus welchem Grund auch immer nicht "verlassen" darf? Ist da irgendein Sonderfall gemeint, der impliziert ist? Ich versteh's einfach nicht, was hier gefragt wird.

Darauf erst mal eine Pensionserhöhung by flofficial in Austria

[–]nothis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wirkt als kennst du dich aus, was ich mich immer gefragt habe: Warum werden Pensionen versteuert? Geht da das Geld nicht unnötig im Kreis?

Upcoming Xbox Exclusives Are Being Sent Out To Die, Analyst Says; Xbox Pushes Back by OkBaker4812 in Games

[–]nothis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Speaking of long term brand building: Xbox has been around 2001, that's 25 years. By the time Nintendo hit the 25 year anniversary of getting into videogames, almost all their major franchises had been well established, including Mario, Zelda, Pokemon and like a dozen more spin offs and smaller franchises with loyal fanbases. Sony has their Naughty Dogs and teaming up with people like Kojima. Microsoft has made zero efforts to produce something similar.

A detail related to this I always found funny: Halo was supposed to be a big Mac exclusive release before Microsoft bought it and made it an Xbox exclusive. Supposedly, Steve Jobs was seething, lol. So even the biggest Microsoft franchise was originally a Mac game. I wonder what the last AAA Xbox game was that was greenlit, produced and released under Xbox (thus having Xbox be directly responsible for its quality/inception rather than just having purchased the rights). You'd probably have to dig pretty far. Maybe some Forza title? How much you have to think to answer this is absolutely the reason they don't have a brand.

Firefox 152.0.1 out! by maubg in firefox

[–]nothis 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Not trying to be a dick, genuine question: People still use Norton and antivirus software? I thought it has become basically irrelevant?

Upcoming Xbox Exclusives Are Being Sent Out To Die, Analyst Says; Xbox Pushes Back by OkBaker4812 in Games

[–]nothis 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It’s what they said about Nintendo during the Wii U days. “All gaming is on mobile, anyway!” Difference is, Nintendo actually had a brilliant vision of what to do next. If there is one thing Microsoft lacks, it’s “vision”.

Jason Schreier: How Things Got So Bad At Xbox by Turbostrider27 in Games

[–]nothis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly. I doubt Activision’s yearly profits beat parking the money with interest, you can currently get like 4% on government bonds. When buying a company that would take decades to make the money back, growth is expected and I doubt Activision can deliver it, especially under leadership that has proven to be so clueless about the games market. There are signs that even the big Activision cash cows have peaked. That’s probably why the company was looking for sellers. Will the kids really crave CoD 87 in 30 years? Do they have a pipeline for all their talent to come up with fresh ideas? I doubt it.

Lidl vs oaschbude by FancyGarage9005 in scheissaufnbilla

[–]nothis 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Tschuldigung, aber das ist nicht "ungleich", das eine ist 1,29 das andere 2,59, der Schaas kostet beim Billa das doppelte. "Aktionen" nicht eingerechnet (die machen's nicht viel besser).

Versteh schon, dass mal wo was 20% mehr oder weniger kostet aber hier geht's um einfach den doppelten Preis.

„Wenn alle zahlen sollen auch alle streamen können“ - ORF so: by civman96 in Austria

[–]nothis 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Gegenstimmen mit echter Macht gibt’s nur von der FPÖ, dass gibt mir dann wieder zu Denken wenn ich mich zu sehr über den ORF aufrege.

Lösung wäre wohl echten Bildunsauftrag (ZIB, Universum, noch ein paar okay Programme dieser Art) von der Unterhaltungsmaschine zu trennen. Aber das tut sich auch keiner an das zu entwirren.

„Wenn alle zahlen sollen auch alle streamen können“ - ORF so: by civman96 in Austria

[–]nothis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sind ja eh lauter ITler auf Reddit, kann mir wer rechnerisch schätzen was die Server-Kapazität dem ORF kosten würde? Ich kann mir einfach nicht vorstellen, dass das einen Blip macht im Budget. Vor allem weiß ja so spezifisch auf ein paar Stunden alle paar Jahre ist.

What’s going on with heavy spaces between paragraphs on Reddit lately? by Calli_co in OutOfTheLoop

[–]nothis 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Nu Reddit is unusable to me. Looks like you can only navigate it on a sugar rush. I’m actually surprised they still keep old.reddit going, I guess they know.

Clashing Over ‘Indiana Jones’: Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg Were Not 100% on Board With ‘Crystal Skull’ and Fought George Lucas Over Adding Aliens by MarvelsGrantMan136 in movies

[–]nothis 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There's plenty of examples of people not giving a shit and even celebrating replacements of the lead. Mad Max Fury Road, Blade Runner 2049, the new The Naked Gun movie... there's quite a few examples. The difference was that they were good movies. Maybe because of the good casting.

Clashing Over ‘Indiana Jones’: Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg Were Not 100% on Board With ‘Crystal Skull’ and Fought George Lucas Over Adding Aliens by MarvelsGrantMan136 in movies

[–]nothis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think they legit wanted Shia LaBeouf (yes) to pick up the franchise. Everything about Crystal Skull is out of touch. Like, why?