I'm quite surprised I'm even making this thread as corporations don't generally need defending, however there is a lot to unpack here so if you're not planning on reading past this point your comment probably won't be relevant to the points I actually want to make
Firstly, and whatever your views on capitalism are, companies want to make money. That is the entire point. It's not helpful to say a company is being greedy for wanting to make money from selling MXTs or exp boosters, but it's somehow not greedy for the same company to want to make money from selling video games in the first place
Companies want to make money, and there are several ways for companies who sell video games to make money, and none of these avenues are inherently greedy
The reason I'm highlighting this is because it's normally those who are critical of the methods some publishers use to monitise their games that use the "greedy publisher" rhetoric (It's also prevalent among certain popular YouTubers)
The reason this isn't helpful is because every for profit company will want to make as much money as possible. There is not a threshold where a company makes enough money and anything on top of that is them being greedy. Money from direct game sales isn't noble, and money from MXTs isn't unjust, it's all just money
Calling publishers greedy is missing the point and derailing any legitimate concerns over how games are monitised. 12 years ago it was horse armour, today it's exp boosters, lootboxes, cosmetics and gems, and the chances are in another 12 years time even more aspects of video games will be being monitised. The extent to which a game is designed to allow post launch monitisation will be even greater than it is today as even greater profits are chased
I think the best thing we can do as consumers and fans, is to keep these conversations going when publishers do step over the line and do something shitty. No publisher or developer sets out to make a bad game or to ruin or undermine their game by adding in harmful monitisation models. That said, it's a balancing act and sometimes they do get it wrong
I think the next decade is going to be fascinating as we see people who have never known games not to monitise grow up, and the biggest publishers push the boat out even further with how extensively they can monitise their games. One day Battlefront 2 will probably look as tame as horse armor does now
If you call publishers greedy when this happens you're working to undermine your own argument by making your comments easy to dismiss
Edit:
Firstly, and whatever your views on capitalism are, companies want to make money. That is the entire point. It's not helpful to say a company is being greedy for wanting to make money from selling MXTs or exp boosters, but it's somehow not greedy for the same company to want to make money from selling video games in the first place
Companies want to make money, and there are several ways for companies who sell video games to make money, and none of these avenues are inherently greedy
The reason I'm highlighting this is because it's normally those who are critical of the methods some publishers use to monitise their games that use the "greedy publisher" rhetoric (It's also prevalent among certain popular YouTubers)
The reason this isn't helpful is because every for profit company will want to make as much money as possible. There is not a threshold where a company makes enough money and anything on top of that is them being greedy. Money from direct game sales isn't noble, and money from MXTs isn't unjust, it's all just money
Calling publishers greedy is missing the point and derailing any legitimate concerns over how games are monitised. 12 years ago it was horse armour, today it's exp boosters, lootboxes, cosmetics and gems, and the chances are in another 12 years time even more aspects of video games will be being monitised. The extent to which a game is designed to allow post launch monitisation will be even greater than it is today as even greater profits are chased
I think the best thing we can do as consumers and fans, is to keep these conversations going when publishers do step over the line and do something shitty. No publisher or developer sets out to make a bad game or to ruin or undermine their game by adding in harmful monitisation models. That said, it's a balancing act and sometimes they do get it wrong
I think the next decade is going to be fascinating as we see people who have never known games not to monitise grow up, and the biggest publishers push the boat out even further with how extensively they can monitise their games. One day Battlefront 2 will probably look as tame as horse armor does now
If you call publishers greedy when this happens you're working to undermine your own argument by making your comments easy to dismiss
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