this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2024
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The CEOs of these investor funded companies have forgotten that investors are not their customers, gamers are. This will hurt them in the long run because they are pissing off their customer base, people who really given them money to appease their shareholders. It never ends well for the companies.
The investors are the ones forgetting that. CEOs work for the investors not for the customers.
Now, a good CEO will be able to manage upwards and throw around things like reputational damage and consumer trust to convince to keep the investors focused on the long term in order to protect the company (and the investors uhh... investment). The problem in the gaming industry is that time and time again gamers show that there's no such thing as reputational damage with games since there are enough people building their personality around a gaming franchise that even studios with a reputation for consistently putting out mediocre unoriginal crap can count on a mountain of pre-orders.
Exactly. The last year of news full of mistreating game developers caused my to retune my news feeds and Steam wishlist to completely exclude all triple A titles.
There's years and years worth of great gameplay I haven't experienced yet in the Indie game market.
I suspect I'm not alone in that.
I had written a way too long wall of text to simply say this: the CEO works for the board, which represents the monetary interests of the shareholders. Customers will buy from different places where it's cheaper/more suited to their preferences; employees will leave for different jobs at different companies; the CEO is tied to where the money comes from, they'll always be responsible to keep that money flowing.
And I'll spend a bit more time arguing why this is a good thing: let's say I buy some stock in a company. I need that company to make me money, that's the expectation of why I bought the stock. This means they need to pay dividends or grow in value or both. If they spend their money frivolously and don't grow, I'm going to sell my stock and buy some stock that grows - I'm trying to save up for retirement, this is why I'm on the stock market. I don't care how your company does. If you're not helping me make money I'm not giving any to you.
If you want, we can simplify this to a loan: if I sell everything I have and scrounge up $5 million as a loan for you to start a small business and I see you pay 4 million to take your employees on a cruise, am I gonna be happy about what you're doing with the money I gave you? If I see you're spending 2.5 million to increase quality levels but keep the price the same, am I gonna love being a customer? No, motherfucker - you're forgetting where that money came from. It's not yours, it's mine, and I want it back. I don't trust you to make the money back, I don't trust you to spend what I give you responsibly. You're out.