Where is the “solidarity” with the devs?

People will constantly point to grey market sites like g2a and even gmg (g2a is really more of a black market site but…) and smugly mock anyone who DARES to buy a game new. Everyone cheers for (one of the daddies of gamergate) Total Biscuit’s mantra of never preorder and will insist that publishers and devs are trying to nickle and dime/steal from them for daring to release DLC for a three year old game.

And then we wonder why studios shut down.

So no, you aren’t looking for “solidarity”. You are so self obsessed with not getting what you want that you are recontextualizing it as everyone else is taking things away from you to get what they want.

Because: I would love it if there weren’t giant conglomerations of studios. But then I remember how some of the best studios out there, such as Digital Extremes and Larian, have stories of “Yeah, it was make or break and we really lucked out with getting in on the ground floor of some new concept or marketing gimmick”. Like, we would not have Baldurs Gate 3 if Larian had waited even a year or so longer before starting the D:OS kickstarter. Because rather than people saying “oh shit, we can get a new classic CRPG” it would have been “Fuck kickstarter. It is all vaporware. You are a fucking mark if you give them money”.

And if the choice is between having a different publisher on a game and hoping that enough folk from Obsidian end up in the same place to make another Pentiment or Tyranny? Fuck it, I’ll gladly let whoever keep the lights on.