Comment on The Video-Game Industry Has a Problem: There Are Too Many Games
commander@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Going to need a global wave of union organization to at least get royalties on sales determined for contribution levels. That’s unlikely to be incredible money but anything is better than nothing as you age towards their elder years
Besides that, no real solution. It’s happened to every art industry. It turns out there’s probably been an incredible amount of artistic talent every year throughout the millenniums but it’s just the last couple decades where it didn’t require super levels of luck and financial backing to make it
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I believe Gearbox has always done this royalty situation union-less. But that doesn’t spread out sales to other games that need customers. There are still going to be plenty of games that just don’t move a lot of copies because other games suck the oxygen out of the room.
Goodeye8@piefed.social 1 day ago
Let’s not toot Gearbox’s horn. While Borderlands 3 was their biggest success when it launched the people working on it got less royalties (per person) than they got for Borderlands 2. Meanwhile Pitchford bargained himself a 12 million bonus before the game was even released. Oh and when people complained about getting less royalties Pitchford said, like the asshole he is, they’re free to quit. Gearbox does royalty situation union-less (as I know 40% of the royalties are split between the employees), but that comes at the cost of having to put to with one the biggest assholes in the industry who will tell you to eat shit if you don’t like something.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It also comes at the cost of being paid less than the industry average, which isn’t high. But it wasn’t so much tooting Gearbox’s horn as it was pointing out that it doesn’t solve the problem stated in the article. It wasn’t about how well the employees at a successful studio are paid but rather how many studios are unsuccessful because of how much competition there is. The industry might generate absurd amounts of money, but a large percentage of that is still just going to a handful of games that gather all the attention rather than being spread around more uniformly, and I don’t think there’s really a way to spread it around.
Goodeye8@piefed.social 1 day ago
Absolutely. I agree that royalties aren’t the solution here and I agree with what the problem is. Your previous comment just kinda came across (at least to me) like giving some praise to Gearbox for giving out royalties when IMO it doesn’t really deserve praise when those royalties don’t meet the expectations of the people actually doing the work. Especially when the owners get to set their own special deals with guaranteed payouts.