• Sanctus@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Is it just going to stay common knowledge that all the productions of man are put on for the invisible wallets of shareholders and nothing is sacred anymore in the chase of profit? Like companies are straight up selling shit and shovelware and nobody is piking anybody?

      • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        That may be true now but it wasn’t always. If they hadn’t made the classics they wouldn’t be the giants they are. The incentives changed, and it was a short fall into the pits.

        • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          It’s not impossible, but it makes it a hell of a lot harder. The pockets of the shareholders are almost always directly opposed to the wants of the players. The public company needs to fight the shareholders not to rake the players over the coals or through other means gain 20% per year. Every time the big ships gobble up the small fries, the odds readjust toward late stage capitalism

        • MurrayL@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I’d say it still holds some truth - Activision started out as a private company and didn’t go public until 14 years later.

          Once a company goes public, it suddenly has to answer to shareholders instead of just its owners, and that’s how any creative vision gets diluted and, eventually, lost completely.

          • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            True, on the other hand Nintendo was public when they made it big in the 1980’s. They were public before they stopped making trading cards and well before they thought of Mario, Kirby, and really any of the ninetendo characters we love. The same is true for Sega. What happened was C Suites starting putting their fudiciary oath to the shareholders above all else, even company name and reputation. Which, in today’s age, might explain some of FromSoftware’s uniqueness, as they are a private company.

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        I always thought that Gamestop should have pivoted incredibly hard and used all that extra money to buy a game developer company. If enough shares are in household hands you can still do cool stuff.

        • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          That would have been pretty cool. I kinda expected they’d just take some cash and go into publishing. Maybe do a gamefly online launcher for used titles by staking real physical copies.

            • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Don’t worry, NFT is sliding, it’ll eventually die off. A lot of game designers are bored and looking for a new hammer. The same guys that have been looking for nails with blockchain on 'em for a decade. You know, I get it, it’s a whole economy and payments system with no fees in what looks like a clean bundle. Problem is it’s not as shiny as it looks when you start digging in to it and they’re all finding that out.

              • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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                11 months ago

                I haven’t looked at their Financials lately, but I was just worried they blew their resurrection gift from retail on a bunch of NFT drifters. It’s been a while and I haven’t seen anything come to fruition.

    • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Yes, but it’s not really common knowledge. People may recognize that if you’re talking about egg prices last year for instance, but then don’t bat at $400 concert tickets, or TV shows that spin plotlines to increase ad time, or the state of higher education as sports franchises first and foremost to sell merchandise