50 dollars were console games. On PC you’d often find the same game at 30 dollars (disk) or 20 dollars (steam) on release. The difference was due to console makers taking a standard fee cut from every sale.

The first AAA games back then to be released at 40 and 50 dollars on PC were COD MW1 and BF3, which set the trend for all other games since then. This was pure profit for the publishers, since there was no cut for console makers on PC. And before you say it, no, the Steam cut back then wasn’t even comparable (much less since it was a % cut and not a standard fee). In fact Steam hiked their cut because of the price hike triggered by EA and Activision, which is what then made EA pull their games off Steam and create Origin.

The budget is also a marketing ploy. The average person hears about a game costing hundreds of millions to make and they think “well then, it MUST be good”. It’s more or a pissing contest among publishers. Most of that budget does indeed go to marketing and executive wages/bonuses.

And from the publisher’s perspectives, that’s really a good investment of the budget, because it doesn’t just drive up sales. It also cultivates customer loyalty and fanboyism (e.g. “we are spending all that money because we believe in the game, and we want to give our loyal fans the best experience possible” is a very common line in pre-release interviews).

For example, there’s a false equivalency among gamers, propagated by this kind of propaganda: “I have to pay the high prices and engage in microtransactions/DLC, because that supports the game developers and their high budgets”. In reality, the people who actually make the game see very little of that money. Their wages, in most instances, are shit and do not reflect the hours they put in. However, gamers rarely want to understand that, and instead extend the publisher pissing contest among themselves (“the game I’m playing now spent more money than the game you are playing, therefore it’s the superior product”).

Spencer’s analysis is just an overview of the current symptom.

This is the real disease:

because it sees a new platform it can scale to feed the financial growth demanded by investors.

Investors/shareholders demand infinite growth, but there’s finite space to grow (millions of games, few customers). This is why, in the past 2 decades we’ve been seeing the scummiest of practices being employed again and again, as well as a 300% hike in base prices. Capitalism has eaten gaming.

But we’ve been observing this trend in AAA and AA publishers/developers mostly. Indie gaming is alive and well and evolving towards being better and better. Why? Because indie developers are not usually beholden to investors.

Once you hear a gaming company you used to like has gone public, say your condolences and then run away.

I follow the SYRIZA elections, and I have to say that if Kasselakis is elected, then SYRIZA will completely abandon its left-wing character, aside from certain social issues like gender equality, gay rights, etc. For example, yesterday the Greek Parliament voted in favor of an anti-strike measure that also allows employers to expand the 8-hour day to 13-14 hours, as well as removing a lot of worker rights and protections. SYRIZA abstained from the vote, when it was prepared to vote against. Kasselakis had come out earlier making remarks in favor of this new law package, and his influence probably made SYRIZA to abstain instead of voting against.

I don’t think you’ve been paying attention to your hero.

You see, Ukraine are good Nazis, but North Korea are bad communists.

US trying hard to not repeat the Killdozer

Oh all right. Sorry, too many liberal idiots running amuck in the comments. Got carried away.

A) it is when you ignore every single point except the one you can twist

B) and you were wrong

C) yet you’ve been minimizing the Ukrainian coup orchestrated by the US, and denying the right of self-determination to people in the Donbass

D) you didn’t use it as a negative at all. Nowhere in your comment do you condemn the Iraq war. In fact you are whitewashing it by implying that somehow the US should be praised for not doing ethnic cleansing (which they did, lest we forget the 1.5 million dead Iraqi)

Oh they haven’t? India-Pakistan conflict did not happen then. The Cuban missile crisis didn’t happen either. I guess the US hasn’t been trying to kill Iran’s nuclear program with drone bombings and assassinations either.

I’d say open a book, but I don’t think you have the capacity to benefit from it.

Are you pretending that Ukraine did not apply for NATO membership, or that NATO stated they were planning to place nukes there (which we only learned because Ukraine was cheering it on Twitter)?

It’s Boris and Natasha from the Rocky Bullwinkle show. That’s all it is to these idiots.

Yet you are willing to support the actual fascists who were bombing their own people, in the most corrupt country in Europe. I wouldn’t expect an Andrews Air Base resident to understand.

Thank you for proving to be a jingoist wilful varlet.

If you are against bombing Ukrainian children, then you should probably be cheering on what Russia is doing, since it stopped exactly that.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/07/24/ukraine-unguided-rockets-killing-civilians

Ofcourse. They dont want to start a nuclear war because their systems are shit… Yeah, I’m sure it’s nice inside the bubble you are living in.

Lol, chinamongering now.

Name 1000 military bases? How about viewing the major ones: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyafNUuWIAA_Iz9.jpg

Of course you’ll now say there’s something wrong with the picture and lalala your way out.

A couple things wrong with your comment:

a) you are deflecting because you can’t answer

b) you are seriously comparing an outright unprovoked invasion from US into Iraq, with one where Russia is defending Russian-speaking people against a Nazi-un government that has been bombing them for 8 years.

c) even before the invasion, these people wanted to join up with Russia. They went all the way to Moscow multiple times to beg for Russia to intervene.

d) it is obvious you know next to nothing about Ukraine and its situation. You only know what the US state department has told you and you repeat the exact same talking points.

Huzzah for US dominance in the world! Huzzah for nuclear escalation! Huzzah for NATO and global imperialism! Huzzah for Zelenski and all Ukrainian Nazis!

There now, you don’t have to feel so alone and surrounded by scary tankies.

What?