"Beardedgeek;c-17388152" wrote:
"OEII1001;c-17388131" wrote:
"Beardedgeek;c-17388125" wrote:
"thecatsred;c-17388120" wrote:
IMO CEOs that no longer understand the game market shouldn't have any say in what the devs in their absorbed companies do.
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. AAA publishing houses work just like any other big investment company. The art is irrelevant. Bottom line, no matter how, is what matters. Doesn't matter if you make games, car tires or cellphones.
Is that any different than how it has always been though?
The difference is marginal, but:
It is obviously easy to spot when a company reaches this point. It usually happens when the company is large enough that the people in charge does not have any experience in the trade. People like Paradox, a medium size publisher, is still owned and run by the founders. That was a loooong time ago that was true for Activision, EA, Konami or any of the other large AAA houses. Blizzard still is, but they are only a name on a department in Activision now; they really have no say, which is easy to see (it is really a misnomer to talk about "Blizzard games"; Blizzard just dances on the strings of Activision.
Anyway, the point is that as long as a growing company is owned and controlled by either the founders, or external powers from the same field, it tends to be much better, even if the company is huge. It's when your board and CEO comes from... "good successful business" (as in recruited from anywhere where they made huge profits before, no matter the market they were in) that things always fall apart.
The other contributing factor is that the Internet as it is now has made these things; micro transactions, online "competitions", loot boxes so easy to implement. If you don't have loot boxes in your game, the investors will ask "why not?" because they understand that it is much more profitable than the actual game.
So it is very hard to resist putting them in there.
Well that's just the thing, isn't it? If you want the Europa Universalis, and the Cities: Skylines, and the Pillars of Eternity you need to look to smaller or independent developers. That's where the high quality gaming is these days, in my opinion. And if The Sims isn't what you're after anymore then it will be from those sorts of studios that what you want will come. I'm not talking about the sort of hobby-project vaporware that Paralives is; rather I'm talking about something made by experienced devs who are passionate about the things that you are passionate about.
