#economic rant

[danseru-kun]

More God of War thoughts vs FFVII. This is more of a rambling of the current gaming industry.

Anyway, even with mixed results and questionable quality, FFVII spoiled its fans in the late 2000s and 2010s era. Imagine, Vincent and Zack, optional and NPC, got their own spin offs lol. Then we have lots of fanservice.

Then God of War Norse games - Atreus, they 2nd protagonist, deserves his own spin off but I don't know if he ever will. Around 15 years ago, this is a lot easier to pull off with a lower budget. But nowadays, dev cycles are a lot longer, costlier, expectations higher, and the devs might not be able to afford to divert their resources to someone who isn't Kratos.

Back in the early 2000s era you can make a good RPG story game in 2 years time. Now, where are the new IPs?

That being said, we have come to this point in gaming that we have reached peak visuals but with diminishing returns in content and profits. Publishers don't want to take risks because the break even point is much higher.

This is how the FFVII Remake is SE's cash cow and main IP atm. FF16 sales are uhhh sad.

[raincheckow]

Capitalism is pretty, but still whack.

Line should go up for a little bit, then plateau. The idea of infinite growth is absurd, but the dream is that everyone is wealthy and better than everyone else.

You should instead reach your target audience, and keep pace with inflation. It’s not great for The Economy, but it requires fewer sacrifices in the name of “line must go up”.

If you have a game/site/service that’s *good* in our current system, it gets worse over time. Overcomplicated updates to appease design metrics and over-monetization of every behavior, all engineered to keep investors happy. (Others have talked the idea of enshittification to death already) The very same investors that don’t care about your product, just getting a return for their capital. Optimizing the soul out of your product leaves you with a profit-generating husk.

A company becoming publicly traded is genuinely an excellent way of getting a cash infusion, empowering it to achieve its founding goals. The bill still comes due, and the line must go up, no matter the cost.

[jepaliko-blog]

Minimum wage should be raised. If society does not create an economic environment where people's basic needs are met then there is little point in society at all. A system that produces cycles of poverty cannot be allowed to continue at it's current trajectory. An increase in minimum wage means not only that there is more money to be spent by minimum wage workers thus improving their quality of life but also means that more money is being spent overall at establishments that pay minimum wage allowing them to partially make up for losses from paying a little extra to minimum wage workers. Is a very slight decrease in the total wealth of people in middle and upper classes really worth more than basic living conditions for the lower classes?

[robbiekerr-blog-blog]

Economic Rant...

Blog refresh comes with a new chapter in life! No longer a student (in the literal sense) it’s out in the big bad world! That big bad world of doom, gloom and all things depressing… Or so we’re led to believe.

Aye so the economy is up the Swanny! But has our standard of living really changed THAT much? Do we now have to drink from disease-ravaged water, eat mouldy bread and hunt cantaloupe with bows and arrows? I think not! Space Raiders have shot up to an astronomical twenty pence a pack and you’ll struggle to get a pint for less than three quid. As we ‘struggle’ to cope with our rapidly decreasing living standards lets just stop for a minute and think… Is it really that bad?

The way the media rattle on about it doesn’t help at all, why can’t the medium be used to encourage people? Instead they only make the matters worse by constantly reminding everyone that we’re seemingly up shit creek. So what does this achieve? It de-motivates people, it gives them an excuse to sit on their arse and do nothing. The result? The economy gets another punch in the rib cage. The work is out there, it’s up to us to focus, work hard an earn it. No ones going to give it to us on a silver platter, especially now with Lord Sauron apparently rising from the depths of Mount Doom to cover our lands in a media fuelled smog of negativity.