I wish gamers did as much about dev working conditions & minorities as they do with lootboxes

Lime · Nov 22, 2017

I'm all for criticizing lootboxes and predatory publisher practices, but the last few weeks have also made me wonder if the concerns of most gamers are basically just bourgeois politics, that organized movements and outcries are only activated and engaged when it concerns the games as products that are under siege, and not the other deplorable parts of the system, such as horrible working conditions of developers and hardware manufacturers, or the rampant misogyny, transphobia, and racism in gaming culture. This is not to say that people shouldn't be outraged by tax-evading multibillion companies putting lootboxes into their games to create more profits (I'm the first to say they should!), but that I wish the same level of outrage were present in other abhorrent aspects of the games industry and culture.

For example, you don't see the same level of outcry and action when the EA spouse letter appeared. You don't see review-bombing and social media campaigns when Rockstar was throwing their San Diego studio into the grinder when developing Red Dead Redemption. You don't see the social media campaigns when Team Bondi's management were crunching the workers for LA Noire. You don't see mass support of outspoken women who are harassed and terrorized in game culture. You don't see a mass backing of minority developers who are targeted by gamer reactionaries because they dare to have a person of color in their game. There is simply not a mass outcry and bottom-up 'controversy' when it comes to these mentioned issues, at least not to the same extent as we see with lootboxes.

The conclusion that I personally gather from the above is that a significant amount of gamers suddenly care about lootboxes because lootboxes affect the products gamers invest in. I understand that we take up such reactionary politics because we invest our wages into these things, but the whole 'consumer advocacy' seems to mostly be a relation to property and not necessarily a criticism of the reasons why lootboxes exist. I.e. being a "consumer advocate" is just another word for "property owner,", i.e. it's a politics for a bourgeoisie and we don't seem to grapple with the problems of the system if we simply only are vocal and supportive when it is affecting the products we buy and invest in.

(This also goes for media, such as journalists and Youtubers, who seem to be vocal and critical and taking a hard position in this topic, but not necessarily in the ones I listed.)

PRrambo_ · Nov 22, 2017

Unless it affects them directly, they won't care. Need to change that.

Laughing Banana · Nov 22, 2017

Lootboxes: directly impacting gamers' enjoyment of a game.

While the sad story of a developer slaving around days upon days and weeks upon weeks generally isn't something impacting how much they enjoy Witcher 3 or any other games.

That apathy is not something that is actually "solvable" imo, unfortunately.

It's already at the same level as people not caring about people slaving in China to make their latest iPhones.

DarkDetective · Nov 22, 2017

The big problem is consumers aren't personally affected by bad working conditions, and because of secrecy, it's hard to know how many overhours people worked for this game and how management is handling certain situations.

Blackquill · Nov 22, 2017

As you say, they only are vocal because gamers are directly involved in this mess.

If I was white, why should I care about racism ?

KonradLaw · Nov 22, 2017

Lootboxes affect gamers directly, other issues don't. So of course it will cause more outrage than fate of somebody they never knew or really cared about.

RockmanBN · Nov 22, 2017

Many don't care. Most products you get are from workers in bad working conditions. Many defended Loot Boxes as they preferred others gambling their money away to get free updates.

Deleted member 2254 · Nov 22, 2017

THANK

YOU

Yes, I'm one of many who engages the lootbox fight, but it seems like a giant overreaction compared to some of the more serious issues like the fact that the developers are almost literally slaves for their companies doing mandatory 12-16 hour shifts for months or years without an option to say "no". It's horrible, and everytime I bring it up it's a plethora of "but everyone else does it!", whereas with lootboxes most people here (or at the old place) could gladly claim they're evil and that's it. But then again, we live in an era of outrage, sometimes we focus on less important things that blow up to insane proportions while other really important matters remain relatively in the shadows. As a politics example, more people are aware of Trump tweeting "covfefe" a while ago than Mueller's investigation. I know this isn't related to gaming, but it makes a point nicely: we value our time and money by saying no to lootboxes, making petitions, writing to politicians about it, but the fact the developers are practically enslaved seems to be fine as long as they bring godlike games. See the downplaying of the sexual harassments at Naughty Dog as well: "but they make awesome games, they deserve the benefit of the doubt", when we didn't reserve the same treatment to the owner of the old forum. The gaming industry is rotten, and lootboxes are far from the worst, but players value their money far more than other people's rights. Then again we already knew this by looking at today's political landscape, didn't we?

Deleted member 5491 · Nov 22, 2017

PR_rambo said:
Unless it affects them directly, they won't care. Need to change that.

This.
Another big problem are labor rights in certain countries that can protect these developers from too much workload, getting fired easily and so on a so forth

Interficium · Nov 22, 2017

Magical Wasteland said:
Consider how successful and widespread "gamer" is as an identity despite the fact that it hardly means anything at all. The reason the gamer identity has become so laden with bad connotations– misogyny, Doritos– is because the identity itself doesn't really matter except for one crucial aspect: the buying of games. As long as "gamer" means someone who spends money, preferably a lot of money, on products that are produced by the game industry, the rest of that identity is left undefined. There's no incentive for the largest groups that do things around games to attempt to define gaming as, say, something that makes you interesting, or as a noble pursuit. Anything anyone knows about "gamers" is just that they purchase games.

As long as gamers only care about the consumption of games, why would they care about how the sausage is made?

The only time working conditions are considered is when they are perceived to have contributed to a product they have consumed or want to consume being not as good of a product as it could have been.

CheeseWraith · Nov 22, 2017

Once upon a time workers unionized in such situations.
It's not something consumers can solve, imho.

First post pretty much nails it.

hotcyder · Nov 22, 2017

I prefer games have lootboxes if it means better working conditions. I don't need Videogame Sweatshops.

Phoenix RISING · Nov 22, 2017

I mean, I don't agree with the business practices of Wal-Mart, either, but if I have 5 months to feed and they sell the the best food for the lowest prices, I'm shopping there.

Video games are hardly comparable. You can wait for RDR or LA Noire to become cheap if you want to play...IRL, there are much more....pressing matters where this argument is more compelling. Food for example is a recurring expense. Video games are not.

Midas · Nov 22, 2017

As someone wrote on reddit (paraphrase); "If people put the same amount of work into FCC and their stance net neutrality, as they did with BF2, they would be stopped". Most people are extremely shortsighted, which is extremely bad in every way possible.

I don't give a fuck about loot boxes, because I would never buy them. As someone wrote in this thread; if loot boxes would give people a decent working conditions, how would that be bad? It seems that it doesn't at the moment though.

FrakEarth · Nov 22, 2017

As long as there are governments which will empower careless employers and give them carte blanche with regard to hiring and firing this kind of thing will continue. It's worth noting that employee rights differ from country to country, and that not all development companies are shitty. Unfortunately, its often the biggest publishers and their developers that are the most cut throat and competitive. I can see why a lot of industry alumni end up forming their own small studios and going the indie route.

Mitth'raw'nuruodo · Nov 22, 2017

Midas said:
I don't give a fuck about loot boxes, because I would never buy them.

Except they ruin the core gameplay in most cases.

Deleted member 2254 · Nov 22, 2017

Phoenix RISING said:
I mean, I don't agree with the business practices of Wal-Mart, either, but if I have 5 months to feed and they sell the the best food for the lowest prices, I'm shopping there.

Video games are hardly comparable. You can wait for RDR or LA Noire to become cheap if you want to play...IRL, there are much more....pressing matters where this argument is more compelling. Food for example is a recurring expense. Video games are not.

I'm sorry but this is such an odd post, almost unrelated to the OP imho. It's not about prices, it's about knowing for a fact the workers involved endure terrible working conditions and not say anything about it. I mean, you can buy the game if you like it, but it's odd how we're up in arms for lootboxes, WB's charity mess with Shadow of War or other questionable business decisions, but then nobody gives a flying fuck about the fact that a lot of people's private lives and families are destroyed just to meet the demands of some shareholders who absolutely need the game to be shipped in the specified fiscal year, even if it means the employees will have to work 16 hours a day and sleep in the office. The fact that people obviously need food on the table is not very relevant to this discussion, because this is a gaming community. There are other places and scenarios to discuss those matters.

Deleted member 888 · Nov 22, 2017

hotcyder said:
I prefer games have lootboxes if it means better working conditions. I don't need Videogame Sweatshops.

What? Loot boxes have nothing to do with working conditions.

I'll ask the OP and everyone else in this topic, do you own and use an iPhone? Made by the company exploiting cheap labor that has manufacturers put up suicide nets. What about the supermarkets you shop in that treat employees like shit or have their clothing made in foreign countries for next to no money? Practically slave labor.

Getting on a pedestal and browbeating people around complex issues rarely garners you much support. Unless you live in the woods, make your own clothes, hunt and refuse to own technology you're probably complicit by proxy of giving money to some company that builds its empire off exploitation.

Such is life. We can try and influence some changes, but many are totally outwith the consumers direct control. Paid RNG is something that was a bit easier to focus on and have a direct consumer impact on. Therefore don't be surprised why people reacted to it.

On the topic of tax avoidance, everyday citizens have been railing on something like that for generations. Little changes.

hydrophilic attack · Nov 22, 2017

support *clap* your *clap* unions *clap*

KonradLaw · Nov 22, 2017

FairyEmpire said:
THANK

YOU

Yes, I'm one of many who engages the lootbox fight, but it seems like a giant overreaction compared to some of the more serious issues like the fact that the developers are almost literally slaves for their companies doing mandatory 12-16 hour shifts for months or years without an option to say "no". It's horrible, and everytime I bring it up it's a plethora of "but everyone else does it!", whereas with lootboxes most people here (or at the old place) could gladly claim they're evil and that's it. But then again, we live in an era of outrage, sometimes we focus on less important things that blow up to insane proportions while other really important matters remain relatively in the shadows. As a politics example, more people are aware of Trump tweeting "covfefe" a while ago than Mueller's investigation. I know this isn't related to gaming, but it makes a point nicely: we value our time and money by saying no to lootboxes, making petitions, writing to politicians about it, but the fact the developers are practically enslaved seems to be fine as long as they bring godlike games. See the downplaying of the sexual harassments at Naughty Dog as well: "but they make awesome games, they deserve the benefit of the doubt", when we didn't reserve the same treatment to the owner of the old forum. The gaming industry is rotten, and lootboxes are far from the worst, but players value their money far more than other people's rights. Then again we already knew this by looking at today's political landscape, didn't we?

Isn't it always like this? I mean .sexism, crunch etc..those might be big problems compared to lootboxes, but they're pretty small ones compared to actual genocide or people dying from hunger. So why should we care about any problems that make working conditions in wealthy industry worse when there are peoeple murdered and dying out of starvation?
Realistically most people have shitload of problems to worry about in matters than directly influence them or people they care about. And it's impossible to care about every injustice happening in the world. One would go insane this way.

People care about devs' working conditions only when they care about specific individual people working in those studios. And that's hard to pull off with AAA games, where hundreds of people are working on a single title and PR departament puts a wall between them and gamers. People cared about Konami/Team Kojima situation because they cared about Kojima. If there's nobody they like this in a team under crunch they just won't care.

Principate · Nov 22, 2017

Midas said:
As someone wrote on reddit (paraphrase); "If people put the same amount of work into FCC and their stance net neutrality, as they did with BF2, they would be stopped". Most people are extremely shortsighted, which is extremely bad in every way possible.

I don't give a fuck about loot boxes, because I would never buy them. As someone wrote in this thread; if loot boxes would give people a decent working conditions, how would that be bad? It seems that it doesn't at the moment though.

What kind of naivety is this? Gaming is already the most profitable entertainment industry and was long before loot boxes arrived as a major thing. If they're not getting decent working condiions now loot boxes are not going to change a single iota of that.

Tickling · Nov 22, 2017

Out of sight out of mind. Im not excusing it but when there is a date to hit there is normally a crunch no matter what industry you work in.

Stuart · Nov 22, 2017

Most gamers don't voraciously follow gaming news, so they're probably unaware of working conditions or discrimination issues. But they notice when their favourite franchise is ruined by lootboxes. I think most people are unaware, rather than not caring.

Klyka · Nov 22, 2017

Why would they help "lazy devs" who "deserve to be fired"?

Alexander DeLarge · Nov 22, 2017

It's a lot to ask of people to understand the hardships that come along with game development and crunch time culture in particular. A lot of people have their own shitty lives and the last thing they want is to come home to a game they paid $60 for and be pestered to spend more.

Also despite these developers being on Twitter and companies becoming more accessible than ever, the working conditions and the studio culture remains incredibly secretive for the vast majority of companies and it's even more difficult when referring to Japanese Studios in particular.

Chaos2Frozen · Nov 22, 2017

hotcyder said:
I prefer games have lootboxes if it means better working conditions. I don't need Videogame Sweatshops.

You think lootboxes will make for better working conditions? How?

m_dorian · Nov 22, 2017

These are real problems too but what can the average consumer do to help?
Are there any ideas or suggestions?

Durante · Nov 22, 2017

Consumers need to advocate for consumer rights.

Developers need to advocate for developer rights.

Sadly, in any technology-related field, I far too often encounter the attitude that e.g. unions are somehow "bad" and a crutch for people who underperform.
If developers as a group do not want to improve their conditions, it seems unfair to expect consumers to do it for them.

MrBoBo · Nov 22, 2017

KonradLaw said:
Lootboxes affect gamers directly, other issues don't. So of course it will cause more outrage than fate of somebody they never knew or really cared about.

^^^ Pretty much answered it.

Average Joe on the street just wants to buy a game to have fun without looking too deeply into it. They are looking to enjoy themselves, not become activists.

Deleted member 24550 · Nov 22, 2017

It's impossible to get clear insights into the companies.

Some institution should provide certification.

Like I can get my ethically treated animal meat and slave free chocolate, game boxes should have a sticker certifying the dev was able to see his children more than sixteen hours per week.

Deleted member 9237 · Nov 22, 2017

I mean, you could say this about an problem in the world.

medyej · Nov 22, 2017

Theres always been a part of the microtransactions and lootboxes outrage that taps into that same 'this isn't like my good old days of video gaming' thought process that you see used against minorities and women speaking out in gaming about representation issues. I just watched a video review on Battlefront 2 where in addition to the justified monetization complaints the guy just had to throw in a line about it being pandering because the lead is a woman of color.

Interficium · Nov 22, 2017

Klyka said:
Why would they help "lazy devs" who "deserve to be fired"?

Yup. It's not surprising to see a lack of empathy coming from those who routinely dehumanize developers and publishers every day on this forum. Here's a couple just from today:

Stilton Disco said:
EA isn't unique in the industry for being evil, greedy bastards, that's every AAA publisher.

What sets EA apart is the incompetence and lack of passion they show in trying to screw everyone over.

They're an indefensibly evil entity, that's capitalism for you,

Hawky said:
They're not children, Wesley. They're adults.

If they can't grant their fans the Destiny game they deserve, then they don't deserve to exist. Or rather, have their IP taken away from them

The Destiny community are sick of Bungie's bullshit and you know it

EvilRedEye · Nov 22, 2017

I say there's a difference in that the lootboxes thing is a straightforward case of gamers not wanting to hand over money for a product (such as Star Wars Battlefront II) whereas it gets more complicated with poor working conditions, since boycotting a game in that case could just end up hurting the devs anyway.

I remember there being a big uproar when it turned out Primark clothes were made using poor, exploitative labour practices, but the organisations working against this kind of thing made it clear that boycotting the clothes wasn't the answer since it would just hurt the workers. The solutions to poor dev conditions aren't as black and white as those for lootboxes.

Gemeanie · Nov 22, 2017

What can we do anyway? Boycott and then be blamed for not supporting them when layoffs happen later?

If the company never intended to treat its employees well no amount of loot boxes are going to change it.

SliceSabre · Nov 22, 2017

Lootboxes more directly affect the consumer in negative ways and so of course consumers are going to get upset.

Whereas those developer issues less directly affect them. This can honestly be applied to literally any field of work though, not just video games. Devs don't have a unique monopoly on unsatisfactory working conditions, hell many of the consumers have shittier working conditions and there aren't easy solutions to to those issues.

Deleted member 2254 · Nov 22, 2017

KonradLaw said:
Isn't it always like this? I mean .sexism, crunch etc..those might be big problems compared to lootboxes, but they're pretty small ones compared to actual genocide or people dying from hunger. So why should we care about any problems that make working conditions in wealthy industry worse when there are peoeple murdered and dying out of starvation?
Realistically most people have shitload of problems to worry about in matters than directly influence them or people they care about. And it's impossible to care about every injustice happening in the world. One would go insane this way.

People care about devs' working conditions only when they care about specific individual people working in those studios. And that's hard to pull off with AAA games, where hundreds of people are working on a single title and PR departament puts a wall between them and gamers. People cared about Konami/Team Kojima situation because they cared about Kojima. If there's nobody they like this in a team under crunch they just won't care.

That's what I was implying with the end of my post basically. As politics proved in these past few years, people are absolutely fine with homophobic, sexist, racist, xenophobic, etc. leaders as long as they promise their specific group of people some neat advantages, feasible or not as they may be. It's no surprise that most people haven't good stakes big enough or deep enough interest in the medium to fight for rights inside this industry: if you work 12 hours a day and you only care about 2 matches of FIFA before going to sleep, you're obviously not going to protest the working conditions or the lootboxes. But we're talking about people like us who have a very deep interest in gaming. We've made massive noise with Battlefront 2's lootboxes, we demanded better with Need For Speed's system, there's even a protest lining up at FIFA. We've made Warner Bros. change the rules on their charity DLC, we've made Microsoft do an 180 on their DRM. We can do whatever we want when we're in numbers, because if we make noise, we can cause millions worth of damage to companies whose principles are not in the right place. Yet such a well-known and extremely serious issue is ignored daily. See, nobody would give Battlefront 2 the game of the year award after this lootbox bullshit, not even if the campaign is the best thing ever made and regardless of how fun is the multiplayer without the cards and heroes. But companies that make crunch culture, employer abuse and sexism practically their work agenda get a free pass as long as the end product is fun. We could make a change if enough people cared, but people are more afraid to have to spend 5 dollars on some lootboxes than realizing that these working conditions could make the industry implode eventually, as most of the talent is running away from this rotten industry. It's gonna be fun when basically no talent will be left working on the triple-A games because they all left gaming or went indie.

Open Wound · Nov 22, 2017

Consumers, or videogame consumers in this particular case, are not crusaders for good, they're consumers, they just want to consume.

Look at how long it has taken for the outcry of lootboxes to take off, and that's something that affects consumers directly in an incredibly overt way. The thing is, no one can help the development issues but developers themselves. We, as consumers, can do something about it when or if the situation blows up and we choose to support the developers' stance by amplifying their voice. But this is a workplace change, and as such, the push needs to come from the developers themselves, because nobody can expect that a big change like this with so many people involved and money on the line can come from any place but from the people that are actually involved in it.

ethomaz · Nov 22, 2017

In this case workers needs to fight for better conditions... not consumers.

Every non-affected group fighting for something that affect another group is pretty much impractical and impossible.

Each group has already a lot of things to fight... each group needs to do it work to get better condition in what it's affect that specific group.

Phoenix RISING · Nov 22, 2017

FairyEmpire said:
I'm sorry but this is such an odd post, almost unrelated to the OP imho. It's not about prices, it's about knowing for a fact the workers involved endure terrible working conditions and not say anything about it. I mean, you can buy the game if you like it, but it's odd how we're up in arms for lootboxes, WB's charity mess with Shadow of War or other questionable business decisions, but then nobody gives a flying **** about the fact that a lot of people's private lives and families are destroyed just to meet the demands of some shareholders who absolutely need the game to be shipped in the specified fiscal year, even if it means the employees will have to work 16 hours a day and sleep in the office. The fact that people obviously need food on the table is not very relevant to this discussion, because this is a gaming community. There are other places and scenarios to discuss those matters.

It's not odd. I'm saying that there are more pressing matters than the business practices of a game industry whose products are non-essential to living.

Let me be more clear: Video games are luxuries. You are under 0 obligation to buy video games....unlike food and toiletries.

I could have used Amazon's warehousing practices instead of Wal-Mart.

Pingk · Nov 22, 2017

Employees risk their jobs in speaking out, it's only in cases like Team Bondi (LA Noire) when we get a peek behind the curtain.

It's hard for us to organise a boycott or something in advance of a game coming out.
Even if a dev gives anonymous information, they can't say which game they're working on and we have to take their word on it without published proof.

That said, if someone has a good idea how to improve the situation, I'm definitely onboard, let me know.

Drencrom · Nov 22, 2017

What about climate change? Why are gamers rallying about microtransactions when the planet is going to shit because of fossil fuels and our society's wasteful consumerist lifestyle?

Why do anyone care about anything that isn't as essential as children's rights? Why aren't more people talking about improving education for children and how it's being neglected by our politicians? Etc

This isn't really a problem specific to gaming and its enthusiasts.

Aurc · Nov 22, 2017

Generally speaking, I don't believe people are as virtuous as they claim to be. They're very single-minded in their pursuit of "spreading awareness" and being activists, only if it benefits them and their "in" group. I've seen minority groups that only fight for the minority they're a part of (and would directly benefit from), not neighboring minority groups. Just a real-world example here, but rampant homelessness (a problem as old as time itself) can be mitigated on a small scale, through community volunteer work. Instead, you've got folks re-tweeting about how - blank - video game character is problematic, due to not hailing from the same walk of life that they do. Helping the homeless is not as trendy or hot right now as certain other topics, so people won't fixate on it, because they stand to gain very little in the way of social media cred and influence. It takes hard work and effort to be able to claim the title of "good person". Deep down, most just want what's best of them and their ilk. They also want the good feelings of having the moral high ground via retweets and Facebook posts. There would be no problem with that, if they didn't lie about it and say they were trying to help everyone with their half-hearted slacktivism.

tommy7154 · Nov 22, 2017

I care. I think it's fucking despicable. I don't know what to do about it other than say that though.

It's not hard to take 5 seconds and imagine missing out on life, family and so on because a game has to be made now and not a little later. I feel for that.

Elephant · Nov 22, 2017

KonradLaw said:
Isn't it always like this? I mean .sexism, crunch etc..those might be big problems compared to lootboxes, but they're pretty small ones compared to actual genocide or people dying from hunger. So why should we care about any problems that make working conditions in wealthy industry worse when there are peoeple murdered and dying out of starvation?
Realistically most people have shitload of problems to worry about in matters than directly influence them or people they care about. And it's impossible to care about every injustice happening in the world. One would go insane this way.

People care about devs' working conditions only when they care about specific individual people working in those studios. And that's hard to pull off with AAA games, where hundreds of people are working on a single title and PR departament puts a wall between them and gamers. People cared about Konami/Team Kojima situation because they cared about Kojima. If there's nobody they like this in a team under crunch they just won't care.

Very well put, I was trying to say something similar but far less eloquently. If we were tackling the OP's suggestion of working conditions there'll be someone proclaiming "Why are we focused on this when we should be focused on curing cancer!?"

That's not to suggest that these things don't matter, they do, but some issues are much easier and quicker to tackle than others. The things the OP talks about, people ARE fighting that good fight with. Hell, the guy who runs Pixar has just taken a leave of absence because he was giving people unwanted hugs and got called out on it. People ARE speaking up. People ARE making their voices heard. People ARE making changes. There has been a huge mental shift towards these issues over the past few years. To suggest that these things are being ignored for lootboxes is both ignorant and insulting.

Edit: The past site, that shall not be named, is a bloody good example of gamers not putting up with someones bullshit, don't you think?

Lemstar · Nov 22, 2017

Audioboxer said:
What? Loot boxes have nothing to do with working conditions.

Chaos2Frozen said:
You think lootboxes will make for better working conditions? How?

http://askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/167200111597/a-youtuber-named-tarmack-recently-made-a-video

Tarmack's conclusion is "Publishers can still be profitable if they go back to making lots of games". Sure, they can… but that system sucked for us developers and it sucked for publishers. Starting up studios is expensive - finding a location, setting up facilities, utilities, taxes, and all that costs a lot. Hiring people is expensive - paying people to relocate, signing bonuses, developer ramp-up time, taxes, benefits, etc. Getting rid of employees en masse is expensive - they almost all get severance packages where you have to pay them at least one or two months of salary just for firing them. Even going back to 2007, if the game wasn't a big hit, the game was probably a huge failure and we'd face massive layoffs. There were tons of games being made, but we devs were beholden to the boom and bust nature of the industry. At least now we can actually supplement today's games with new content and support them for longer. Back then, if we didn't hit the home run sales numbers, that was it - we'd all fear for our jobs. Now, we don't need to hit such high numbers as long as enough of the players we get keep playing our games, and that's a factor of us continuing to produce quality content for them.

...

Could we make games without microtransactions? Probably. We could adjust budgets and other stuff to bring costs down. We could raise base prices on games. That would probably have some weird side effects few people predicted, but that could work. But there's not enough of a value proposition for us to do so. It wouldn't earn us more money. It wouldn't grant us better working conditions. It wouldn't let us continue development on projects we like. It wouldn't even stop players from complaining - there have been complaints about games since time immemorial. All it likely would do is have the critics who despise them turn and criticize us for something else.

klauskpm · Nov 22, 2017

m_dorian said:
These are real problems too but what can the average consumer do to help?
Are there any ideas or suggestions?

The same that is done with microtransactions? Several threads created about the outrage of the same topic, flood their social media, drop pre-orders, been verbal about the issue, and other things. Mostly to make it public and attract big news companies, that will spread more the word and that is the point they pay attention.

I mean, that's what is needed to be done. I myself am pretty vocal and put my money where my mouth is, but, for the above to happen, people should care about it to this level, and not only a forum... Which is a shame.

To me, it should be a question of "How can we make people have more empathy for others in the age of apathy?".

To make it clear, I'm not saying you are apathetic. My response to you were just the first part.

SageShinigami · Nov 22, 2017

FairyEmpire said:
That's what I was implying with the end of my post basically. As politics proved in these past few years, people are absolutely fine with homophobic, sexist, racist, xenophobic, etc. leaders as long as they promise their specific group of people some neat advantages, feasible or not as they may be. It's no surprise that most people haven't good stakes big enough or deep enough interest in the medium to fight for rights inside this industry: if you work 12 hours a day and you only care about 2 matches of FIFA before going to sleep, you're obviously not going to protest the working conditions or the lootboxes. But we're talking about people like us who have a very deep interest in gaming. We've made massive noise with Battlefront 2's lootboxes, we demanded better with Need For Speed's system, there's even a protest lining up at FIFA. We've made Warner Bros. change the rules on their charity DLC, we've made Microsoft do an 180 on their DRM. We can do whatever we want when we're in numbers, because if we make noise, we can cause millions worth of damage to companies whose principles are not in the right place. Yet such a well-known and extremely serious issue is ignored daily. See, nobody would give Battlefront 2 the game of the year award after this lootbox bullshit, not even if the campaign is the best thing ever made and regardless of how fun is the multiplayer without the cards and heroes. But companies that make crunch culture, employer abuse and sexism practically their work agenda get a free pass as long as the end product is fun. We could make a change if enough people cared, but people are more afraid to have to spend 5 dollars on some lootboxes than realizing that these working conditions could make the industry implode eventually, as most of the talent is running away from this rotten industry. It's gonna be fun when basically no talent will be left working on the triple-A games because they all left gaming or went indie.

If you work 12 hours a day then it sounds like you should be fighting for your own rights as well. Workers rights issues are a nationwide problem, not just a problem exclusive to gaming. We should be organizing several industries as a whole to stop that.

its_Ditz · Nov 22, 2017

Deleted member 2254 · Nov 22, 2017

Phoenix RISING said:
It's not odd. I'm saying that there are more pressing matters than the business practices of a game industry whose products are non-essential to living.

Let me be more clear: Video games are luxuries. You are under 0 obligation to buy video games....unlike food and toiletries.

I could have used Amazon's warehousing practices instead of Wal-Mart.

Okay, I get it better now, sorry if I came off as rude. However people did make a lot of noise about lootboxes in Battlefront 2, and it worked - for now, anyway. You can say sure, that directly affects their game experience, but then there's the Warner Bros. charity. That one DID NOT affect anyone, not only because the game wasn't out yet but because their game experience would have been literally the same regardless of where the money was going. Yet people made noise and forced WB's hand into a change. People could make a change in this issue as well, but until the only people most gamers listen to nowadays (influencers on YouTube) don't give a shit because they actively profit with the way this industry works, nothing will change.

I'm not saying people should boycott everything. I also buy from Amazon because I value my money, albeit I'm aware that their working conditions are bad. But I try my best to raise awareness, in the hopes that something will change. The same could happen in the videogame industry if enough people cared, but they don't.

I wish gamers did as much about dev working conditions & minorities as they do with lootboxes

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