Why even make video games anymore? No, really. Why? We’ve hit another week and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:another massive layoff, this time from a company that makes one of the biggest games on Earth, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Destiny 2. Oh, and this follows that very same company laying off one hundred people in 2023. As we’ve seen over the last couple years, even working for a wel🉐l-regarded, legendary developer is not enough to save yourself.

And while we’re finally getting the sequels to series like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dragon Age, let’s not forget BioWare also 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:fired one of its most experienced wജriters - a wri🌺ter, it is worth noting, who literally created some of the most important lore of the series. So, again, why even make video games anymo🧜re?

The Love Of The Game Is No Longer A Good Reason

Oh, I know, I know, people make games because they love them, not because there’s money in it! First of all, you should tell that to the corporate executives who make these decisions because, buster, they are not on board with your theory. Those suits would never accept less pay or worse working conditions because it’s an industry they love. That’s only something the workers have to hear again and again and again. You think the corporate executives who ki🐼lled Tango Gameworks did it because they just care about good video games so much? You think the massive ꧙conglomerates shuttering ꧂studio after studio are doing it so we can only get 10/10 masterpieces? Come on, folks.

Perhaps you believe that these unending layoffs are an economic necessity. “Interest rates h♋ave changed, companies over spent during the pandemic.” Su🀅re. Fine. Let’s roll with that excuse. Follow-up question: who made those financial decisions during the pandemic? Because people talk about corporate financial decisions like they’re natural disasters and not something controlled by real humans.

So, again, who made the decisions that led to these problems? Was it the writers getting laid off? The musicians? Developers? Producers? Support staff? None of them made a poor financial decision? The business executives did? Wow. Okay. Wild. Now, who makes the games that actually bring in the money? Is it those same business executives? Here’s a clue: no. But somehow the workers who make the games are the ones who get thrown off the side of the ship a👍nd that’s just the cost of🐽 doing business. “Those artists should’ve known better before taking a job at a company run by a person who will never suffer consequences!”

Now, I’m not saying nobody should make games. I love games! A lot of my friends are in the industry. A lot of my friends have also lost jobs while creating fin🌠ancially successful products. Not just games that underperformed - games that hit their milestones but folks still ended up losing their jobs because they had little-to-no labor protections.

Side note, that’s 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:one of the nice things about unions. While unions don’t make it impossible to fire people, at the very least they can make it a lot more difficult and expensive for companies to just dump staff to look good on a quarterly report. Because, let’s be honest, these corporate executives love firing people as much as their social media managers hate having to deal with all the ratio-ing online.

The Indie Scene Has Its Own Problems

You might say the solution is to just go indie. Sure, that’s worked great for a lot of people. It’s also worked terribly for a lot of people. Going indie is not easy. We have confirmation bias from games like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Undertale and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Stardew Valley. ‘Just maintain a day job while you slowly make the game you want’ isn’t a sustainable business plan for everybody. Nor is ‘have 🦄a rich parent’. And, not for nothing, if you don’t own the indie company or only own a minority stake, there’s always the chance that they too become swallowed by a triple-A corporation and get stri🌼pped for parts. But at least you got a free Embracer Group shirt on the way out the door!

Why should people want to make games? What reason do talented people have to spend their liv🐭es perfecting their craft if they’re going to be kicked out the door anyway? Software engineers could probably make more money programming bank equipment. Artists could probably make more money doing design work for pha🌄rmaceutical ads. Sure, they might not be as exciting, but at least these jobs aren’t punishing hardworking people for doing what they love. Would you rather be bored and paid well and appreciated or excited and constantly terrified you’ll never work again? It’s a tough choice once you start having to put food in people’s mouths and think about your future.

To be fair, I’m painting with a pretty broad brush. And there are people who will stick around in terrible conditions because they love video games that much. And, yes, there are also companies that reward loyalty while rarely laying off employees. Most of them are bound by strict Japanese labor laws, but still. They do exist, including in the West. But I’ve worked in television most of my adult life and the vibe can often be the same as many game companies: “You don’t like this bad thing happening? Well, someone else waiting in line behind you would be fine with the bad thing happening.” It creates a revolving door of talent where the inexperienced people either get no support to do their job and so they get fired - ooooorrrr 🌸- their contributions to the company raise the employee’s value and so they get fireཧd.

And I’m not even touching on the fun, fun, fun times that video game workers have when weirdos online get mad about some fictional character’s chin or a�ꦉ� robot’s ass. Because video game workers are far closer to the ground than the business executives, they’re the ones who get the most harassment for whatever grift takes center stage that week. I’m sure being a character designer is a blast every time some podcaster in his 50s sends people to attack them for not giving some digital broad perfect gazongas. Imagine this going on and mergers and acquis꧂itions making the future of your career a giant, Riddler-sized question mark.

Seriously, why should talented people want to make games if this is how they’re going to be treated? Why s𝔍hould workers spend their lives learning a trade if half of the job involves having a panic attack when there’s an all hands meeting? Lots of people want to become doctors but most don’t want to work at a hospital that’s somehow in a perpetual state of burning down. At this point, the only people who are safe in the video game industry are CEOs who wear ill-fitting biker jackets and developers who seem to only take pho🌄tos with Geoff Keighley.

We should be on our knees thanking our lucky stars that anybody with an ounce of sanity is willing to make a game anymore. In the last year alone this industry has chewed up and spit out so much incredible talent that it’s wild to think a reasonable person - let alone teams of incredible workers - wou🙈ld still be willing to develop interactive entertainment. Those folks shouldn’t consider themselves the ‘lucky ones’ who still have jobs and they shouldn’t be willing to take crap because someone is ‘in line’ behind them. They deserve protections and working conditions that reflect the quality of what they produce a♛nd the massive paydays they bring their corporate overlords. Making a video game should be the coolest thing someone gets to do with their life, not an eternal nightmare of crunch and unemployment.