So, the Humanist report made a video about how capitalism is killing the gaming industry. Looking at it again it seemed to be intended to blame systemic problems with capitalism over "wokeness", but honestly, it just seemed like a rant against capitalism, given how Mike Figuredo comes off as one of those DSA type guys. So I wanna give my two cents here.
We wouldn't have a gaming industry without capitalism. Communists dont innovate. They have inefficient state run economies that provide economic security but basically force people to take unfilling state guaranteed jobs. The government dictates what is made and how much is made, and bureaucracy stifles innovation. The only notable contributions to the gaming industry I can think of are tetris, which admittedly was a banger back in the 80s, and tencent, which is a chinese company that licenses a lot of mobile ports and low quality knock off games. Even then, tencent is at least quasi capitalist, since even china realized that they need markets to grow.
And yes, capitalism today is kinda killing the gaming industry, with its never ending quest of MORE profits, and never being satisfied with enough, I admit it. It's why quality is declining and costs are rising. The industry tries to extract as much money as possible, not simply being satisfied to post profits like it did every year since the 80s and 90s, but always trying to get MORE. That doesn't mean that we should socialize the whole industry though.
Quite frankly, my answer has always been to respond to corporate greed through consumer action. For every abusive and exploitative practice that a company comes out with, consumers should push back. If consumer pressure isnt enough, we should regulate the industry as we're able. Socialism is only a last resort, and something I'd only be willing to consider in the case of a basic need. Here, the most I advocate for is just regulating blatant anti consumer behavior. Breaking up monopolies. Loosening IP laws. Ironically, that tencent company, while unable to innovate much themselves, is able to force a lot of companies' hands by offering consumers cheaper alternatives, even if those alternatives are inferior and derivitive. And that's what drives capitalism being a good system. Competition. Consumer choice. If anything, a huge problem with the industry is these companies are often shielded by very corporate friendly IP laws that dont allow competition to arise. Gamers are locked into oligopolistic ecosystems. Industries lobby for the legal terminology around buying games to focus on buying "licenses" and people never truly owning products. IP laws attempt to strike down alternative options to the big names that threaten their money. In the hardware industry, RAM is run by a cartel of only a few industries and it costs billions and billions to enter the market and compete. Only 3 companies make GPUs, and one of them has 90% market share. The problems of the gaming industry ultimately come from corporate consolidation, and limiting consumer choice.
On the topic of wokeness. Ive discussed this before, but eh....I'll admit that there's SOMEWHAT of a problem culturally. These companies lean into DEI, try to expand markets by being more "inclusive", and then alienating core audiences because their "art" is preachy and kinda sucks. Rather than giving consumers what they want, they try to appeal to social justice narratives, and yeah, it kinda sucks. I dont like the social policing we see in the industry either, and some of the artistic directions of some games are kinda cringe. The zeitgeist of my childhood through young adulthood is gone and admittedly it is part of the reason games dont hit the same way.
At the same time, this is greatly exaggerated. Some anti woke types get pissy whenever they see a woman in a game, or someone of a different color or sexuality, even when it's woven into the game in tasteful ways. And honestly, in the grand scheme of things, if I had to put a percentage of how much "wokeness" contributes to the decline of the industry, I'd put the number around 5% off hand. Like, it's not a NONfactor, but it's also not significant either.
Basically, the core problem is this. It's peak gaming. We have this idea that industries can keep growing forever. They can't. Hardware is plateauing, other issues with capitalism are making it less affordable, the industry doesnt seem to care and wants to go full steam ahead with things. Game studios are bloated, middle management ruins efficiency. We're throwing tons of money at the problem. Consumers are struggling to keep up, and in a plethora of options, not just from the new stuff, but also f2p games existing, low spec games existing, old games existing, they're just not buying any more. So gaming in its traditional form tries to shift to become more premium, thus reducing its consumer base further, while driving mainstream gamers toward esports. WHich is how we got this story of people buying like 1 game a year. People arent buying the AAA blockbusters as much, they're playing roblox and fortnite and decade old games like counter strike, overwatch, etc. They might buy the yearly COD, or even battlefield 6. And even when BF6 is the best selling game of 2025 (and currently my "main game"), they're still laying off the staff that made it because the industry demands too much, while the CEOs get bonuses.
Well, here's the good thing about capitalism. As I've been saying for years, all of this is unsustainable, and at some point, it WILL collapse. They cant just keep raising prices, while offering inferior products, while laying off staff and extracting all that wealth up to themselves. Eventually, we're gonna have a gaming market crash, and that's when the culling of the industry begins. Capitalism works because its invisible hand is basically natural selection. The most adaptable survive, and the weak will perish. Horrible principle applied to humans themselves, but in terms of industries? Let the process cook. At this point, I welcome a gaming crash, since it will serve as an important market correction that will make the industry serve consumers more again. We dont need socialism, we just need capitalism to actually do its thing. The industry is F-ing around, it just needs to "find out". Hopefully that will happen in the next 5 years or so. And it wont lead to some dystopian mess like us all streaming games from chromebooks with locked down operating systems or some crap. Im talking a real crash. Like 1983 style. Like "oh crap, no one is buying our $1000 console with $80 games" type crash.
No comments:
Post a Comment