Not really... This isn't people being empowered, this is people being chewed up and spit out

Ok, let's be real here. A charger can last a decade even if the charging speed slows...a cord will not outlast a phone. If it does, there's a serious issue

I'm not sure customers are falling for it - this is why voting with your wallet doesn't work. People rage against games that launch in an unfinished state, particularly when they're full price. Steam reviews often incorporate price point - statements like "don't buy this at full price" or "this might have been worth it at $20, but this is not a $70 game" come up a lot

Sales for AAA games are way down, we just saw the biggest failure in gaming history. Casual reading of steam reviews show people clearly have different expectations based on price, Twitter sometimes explodes with anger at specific moves (like Helldivers requiring PSN) and they back off (temporarily), but they always go back to the bullshit

The feedback mechanism of "voting with your wallet" doesn't communicate this message. Metrics show purchases, refunds, and active users... That's what fits on a spreadsheet. They see a game failing, but that doesn't mean they've understood why

AAA studios don't want to understand what makes a game succeed or fail - they just want a formula to min-max ROI. They want strong numbers at launch, but they also want to minimize production costs, and they treat costs (like developers) as line items - they learn the wrong lessons, because they aren't concerned with the creative part of game design. They want to be the next Madden or assassin's creed, they want to figure out how to get players to pay $70 + micro transactions (or better yet a subscription too), but they also want their employees to be interchangeable cogs they can push to burn out then replace

AAA gaming is dying from this, but it's an oligarchy at this point - large corporations are unable to understand nuance or truly innovate - these are things people do when they have autonomy. They don't do team building or R&D anymore - that's a gamble that sometimes pays off big, but not in a quarter or two. They aquire then kill off what made the team work in the first place - any individual can tell you that's a recipe for failure, but by nature they keep the decision making far removed from the people actually doing the work

But then someone will see a spreadsheet and calculate the "missed" revenue, and whoever made that decision either gets replaced or given strict orders next time

Even if they manage to dig their heels in, it will come up again and again. It looks like a money shaped hole, and so organizationally they'll keep coming back to it

It is a great way to make games, many indie games do this. A team can do this, but a corporation can't - subtlety doesn't fit on a spreadsheet

Morality is definitely relative, there's just some common overlaps

Sometimes the answer is just the same no matter what (coherent) moral framework you examine it through... Sometimes it's just that simple

For all we know, they're literally just passing massive checks in a circle to one another to say "yes, it says right here in our bank records that we spent a combined $100,000,000", meanwhile only 25% actually goes into the production, and they pocket the rest.

That would be illegal and easily discovered

But you could pay $10M to hire another company to do the sound mixing. They might spend $500k to do the work. You might also be the owner of that company, and the money ends up back in your pocket...And that's not embezzlement or a kickback, because that's what it's called when poor people do it

Recently, a bunch of people on tik tok found this "bug" in their banking app where you can write a bad check, then withdraw the funds before it clears... Then started crying about it when their balances updated

Dude definitely thought he discovered a cool new life hack

That's the thing - AI isn't about size, it's about categorizing the state of the world. If you can understand an action in context and possible responses, a Markov chain can learn and respond appropriately with the processing of a calculator - it really doesn't take much

But it'll probably show 3 orders of meatballs, and she saw him get 3 meatballs. He just has to keep her from looking too closely

I find it's about size. A small organization can be good or bad, depending on the members. At some point, you reach a size where the orgs focus shifts to perpetuating itself

Wait, our hat has oil? Eagle screech intensifies

I think an individual opinion can matter, even k the face of commercial success

But here's the thing - "I don't like it" doesn't cut it. If you can't tell me why you don't like the beetles, your opinion is less than worthless

Personally, I think the beetles were great, and I think rush of rain was too. It was the first rouglike platformer shooter I've ever heard of... The beetles consistently pushed boundaries, doing it once doesn't put you on their level

On the other hand, the beetles were able to to that because no one was there to tell them no. I agree with the sentiment - games are art. I'd happily overlook a dozen failures for each success