Ahead of his Golden Joystick win for Best Lead Performer, Ben Starr was asked about whether or not 2023 was the best year for games. Considering how many five-star games spawned from this year, in both the blockbuster and indie space, it’s no surprise to see Starr agree that this was an “astonishing year for the video games that have been made, but not necessarily for the industry that it reflects.”
“Honestly, are we going to get serious?” the actor asks in the interview clip below. “It’s not a great year for video games in so far as all of the layoffs - it’s not great for that, and that needs to be spoken about at an event like this. Maybe there is something missing because a lot of people who made those games are no longer working at those companies and I think that also has to be respected.”
Is 2023 the best - or worst - year for games? “Honestly, are we going to get serious?”
As long as laws don’t constrain this rampant drive for short-term profit maximisation, and as long as laws permit the only truly valuable customer to be the shareholders and the C-suite’s own bonus programs, this won’t ever change.
Which in turn also already implies what needs to happen: Companies need to be prevented from caring more about the above two groups than the actual workers.
But this is difficult to pull off. The CEO (etc) should ultimately have the responsibility for the overall direction, but directly tieing them to the stability fo the workforce is tricky. It would be a way of doing it, of course. As in, loss of income of individual workers is directly judged against whatever payment/share program the C-suite managers enjoy, making them directly reponsible for not fostering an environment in which regular mass-layoffs are desirable.
Likewise, if shares automatically lost value whenever personel cost is cut (instead of gaining), firing workers would be heavily discouraged as it would decrease short-term profits and (correctly) flag a destabilizing event in the company.All really tricky though, especially on an international level. But something ought to happen to keep this shit in check.
I’m sure you already understand this, but this is an unprecedented political project that would require the vast majority of people to stop simply sitting by reacting to political events.
