Consultant and experienced developer Rami Ismail has shared his thoughts on the state of the games industry, while expressing some fears and concerns. He tried to outline the issues of the existing system where funding decides what gets made.
Typed out a whole thing because I didn’t really agree with you that it’s not just the people up top, but also this perpetual growth, zero sum game most C-suite level people seem to think the world operates on.
Most of my points ended up agreeing with you, but I do want to add that profit seeking isn’t a bad thing, but that the constant desire for more profit, ‘growth’ is where the real evil lies.
You seem to think that they are different problems but infinite growth and profit above all, are both faces of the same problem. A company that tries to make profit through creative endeavors is fine. After all, people do need to eat and have a roof over their heads. They should make money in exchange for the intense and hard effort that art demands. Specially video games as one of the most expensive and complex forms of art ever devised by humans. But the top AAA companies are not in it for the art, some developers who work for them still believe in the art, and executives exploit that passion because they know it makes workers willing to crunch and work too many hours for too low payment. When profit is the only reason and the art gets lost, then there’s only one way to move forward, you have to grow indefinitely. For growth quarter after quarters means that profit gets bigger and bigger every time, for maximization of profit is above all. In the end it is the same mindset.
Typed out a whole thing because I didn’t really agree with you that it’s not just the people up top, but also this perpetual growth, zero sum game most C-suite level people seem to think the world operates on.
Most of my points ended up agreeing with you, but I do want to add that profit seeking isn’t a bad thing, but that the constant desire for more profit, ‘growth’ is where the real evil lies.
You seem to think that they are different problems but infinite growth and profit above all, are both faces of the same problem. A company that tries to make profit through creative endeavors is fine. After all, people do need to eat and have a roof over their heads. They should make money in exchange for the intense and hard effort that art demands. Specially video games as one of the most expensive and complex forms of art ever devised by humans. But the top AAA companies are not in it for the art, some developers who work for them still believe in the art, and executives exploit that passion because they know it makes workers willing to crunch and work too many hours for too low payment. When profit is the only reason and the art gets lost, then there’s only one way to move forward, you have to grow indefinitely. For growth quarter after quarters means that profit gets bigger and bigger every time, for maximization of profit is above all. In the end it is the same mindset.