Game Design

reconzero​ 

Your analysis regarding the examples of Xbox and EA is fascinating. The definition of cost likely differs depending on one's position.

To take a successful example, Nintendo's Pokémon-style Minecraft can be considered a success. Lending out its proprietary IP to another company was likely an investment (cost) aimed at success.

Conversely, Microsoft seems eager to expand its organization through acquisitions, but hearing about this makes me feel they are following a path similar to Sony, which stumbled with *Concord* and the second installment of *Ghost of Tsushima*. I suspect management defines the costs of organizational expansion as upfront investments, whereas they judged expanding the frontline (staff saturation) as mere cost. (I believe both were costs.)

In other words, their definitions of investment and cost differ from ours. That is only natural given our different positions and experiences. However, this does not prove that they are right. On the contrary, we frequently hear of cases where attachment to one's position and past successful experiences lead to future failures.

In the game Apex, I see maintaining the status quo (dysfunctional content and extreme, unstable balance adjustments) as letting water (budget) run down the drain. First, we should stop the water and restore the flooded current state back to normal. Plants wither from either a lack of water or an excess of water.

• Dysfunctional non-ranked content should be improved to cater to needs that do not prioritize Champion as the primary goal (such as wanting to enjoy the killgame or Casual BR).
• Extreme and unstable balance adjustments should be refrained from, so that players can safely spend money on their favorite characters. Take up sleeping IP.

"To be sure, maximization of profit is inevitable since even leisure-oriented businesses like games are still businesses."

This is very much a "yes... and no" situation. Obviously companies need to make a profit or cease to exist. What is happening in the gaming industry currently goes far beyond this. For example: Xbox would be far more profitable right now if it hadn't spent $60 billion to buy Activision. But they did and two years later they're dismembering almost every single studio they acquired in the deal. "Cutting losses, rationalizing the business, right-sizing," call if whatever you want. It was a bad business decision which is now being compounded by even worse decisions. To look at it as the process is currently unfolding, one would almost assume that Microsoft saw an overproduction problem in the industry and decided to solve that problem by spending $60 billion (plus years' worth of legal costs) in order to stop a good portion of that production. Just throw it out the window. Gone. The money AND the production.

And that's just one example. As soon as ownership of a company becomes public ownership then decisions are no longer being made to make the company profitable. They're being made to make the company as profitable as is humanly possible in the shortest possible amount of time with little if any regard for long term sustainability. EA is the poster child for this mindset. The fact that the company is no longer publicly owned (as of a few weeks ago) might at first glance seem like a step in the right direction, but mark my words: the Saudi Arabian Sovereign Wealth Fund, or whoever it was, didn't buy EA with good stewardship in mind. They bought it with the same attitude that any shareholder did when EA was still being publicly traded: MAKE MY PORTFOLIO FATTER RIGHT NOW.

And sorry if this sounds "anti-capitalist" but that mindset is not healthy for almost any business. It's already ruined the modern automobile industry, the construction sector, virtually everything internet-based, and is now hard at work destroying the gaming industry. It's all just various forms of en**bleep**tification where quality, user experience, and labor practices are at first subordinate to profit, and later on viewed as completely inimical to profit. They are actually getting in profit's way. A quality product that doesn't somehow screw over its customer on the back end... hardly even exists anymore, and certainly not from a NYSE/NASDAQ traded company.

Sorry for the rant.

reconzero​ 

I appreciate this reply. Just knowing that I am not alone provides some psychological relief.

To be sure, maximization of profit is inevitable since even leisure-oriented businesses like games are still businesses.

EA previously carried out massive layoffs. While labor costs are expenses, I wonder if they fail to recognize data storage that keeps bloating with new elements, unused or non-functioning content (such as not runked BR or duo modes), and the withholding of purchases on microtransactions (like character skins and voice) caused by extreme and unstable balance adjustments as costs.

A game with scarce new users diminishes its asset value. I cannot understand why new shareholders continue to maintain the status quo.

You are not alone in this, my friend.

Sadly concepts such as "balance" or "less is more" or "the middle way" are very, very hard sells to a profit-is-all corporate overlord. EA never asks Respawn if they're properly balancing their game. They ask them... they TELL them to do whatever it is they have to do to increase net bookings. And, obviously, to do it with the barest minimum of outlay. Which means more slop for the store and gameplay design that is intended to give you any short-term pop you can get, no matter if it comes at the expense of long-term viability or replayability.

I'm sure developers would like to be making decisions in the interest of long-term viability. But shareholders don't look beyond the next quarterly or investor's call, and that makes it hard for publisher management to think long-term. Developers (who have sold out) are caught in the crush. And, since there is almost no such thing as a privately owned developer anymore, that's how the gaming industry dies.