{"id":2489,"date":"2025-05-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/?p=2489"},"modified":"2025-05-12T02:55:18","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T02:55:18","slug":"video-game-companies-are-lying-to-us-about-everything-readers-feature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/11\/video-game-companies-are-lying-to-us-about-everything-readers-feature\/","title":{"rendered":"Video game companies are lying to us about everything \u2013 Reader\u2019s Feature"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\"Nintendo\t<\/div>
You are not their customer (ESRB)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A reader is sceptical about the current leadership in the video games industry and worries that the needs of gamers are not the priority for publishers.<\/p>\n

The games industry is in such a strange place at the moment. On the one hand we have amazing games being released, with things like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33<\/a>, Blue Prince<\/a>, and Monster Hunter Wilds<\/a>. And on the other we have publishers acting like monsters, cutting hundreds of jobs at a time, while making billions in profits. Not only that but making business decisions so stupid that its left ordinary gamers like me absolutely baffled.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just the obsession with live service games (which Sony<\/a> proved this week they still can\u2019t shake<\/a>) but the total refusal to deal with the rising cost of making games, with anything other than price rises. When even Nintendo<\/a> sees that as the only answer you know they\u2019re not even trying to address the problems, and that\u2019s what got me to thinking.<\/p>\n

It seems to me that nobody high up in the games industry is in the slightest bit interested in being a custododian, as you might say, of gaming. Nobody is looking out for its long term health, nobody cares whether people lose their jobs or developers go under, and definitely nobody cares about art.<\/p>\n

You might call me na\u00efve for even thinking any of these things were possible but whenever something bad happens in gaming I think back to that awful photo of Phil Spencer (the head of Xbox) and the head of Blizzard at the time, standing in front of hundreds of Blizzard employees<\/a>, a huge number of which got laid off only a few days later.<\/p>\n

Both men must\u2019ve known that at the time but they\u2019re both grinning away as if they\u2019re at a pop concert, soaking up the adulation from their \u2018fans\u2019.<\/p>\n

Nobody in charge of a game publisher is in the role for anything other than themselves. They don\u2019t even care about the company, just their own money, bonuses, and eventual golden parachute. Remember when the head of Microsoft had Game Pass targets<\/a> removed from the list of things he had to do to get a bonus? These people don\u2019t care about anything but their own bank balance.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re only human, I suppose you could say. I\u2019m not sure I would be any different if I was earning $10 million a year. But then recently I was watching a video by Alanah Pearce, who used to work at Sony Santa Monica, about everything that\u2019s going on. It\u2019s very interesting, and only 20 minutes long, so I advise everyone to watch.<\/p>\n

A lot of it was familiar to me from things GC has said in the past, about publishers not being interested in what gamers want but instead what will please investors. They make money from selling games, obviously, but that takes time to filter through. Most of the actual cash flow, as I understand, comes from investors and venture capitalists.<\/p>\n

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