On a movie set, the director has a huge amount of authority. It’s been baked into the culture for about a hundred years that the director is one step below God. A studio treats films as investments, but they also hire a director and (mostly) get out of the way. Sure, producers do meddle, but it’s nowhere close to the same amount as with games – and all the meddling is still pointed at the director, not the crew. I think this limits the damage that can be done.
Also, the film industry has strong unions. Most of the abuses in game dev simply aren’t allowed. I suspect that the horrible culture of game dev can cause developers to stop caring, which bleeds through to the final product, and that won’t happen to the same extent for movies.
Capitalism has always been that way. Might be more accurate to say it gets worse when hobby becomes mainstream enough for more money to start flowing into it. Best balance seems to be when something is profitable but niche so corporations consider it not big enough for them to go all in on with their wealth.
Gaming was better when it was some loser hobby in the eyes of society than accepted like it is now causing it to grow to bring in more revenue than movies and music combined. That drew the attention of the vultures.
It is less of an effort and time commitment to passively consume tv shows or movies. You can zombie out while watching it before going to sleep or fall asleep to it.
Games are an active medium in comparison with progression gated behind level of skill, so that makes it less accessible than something like movies or tv shows that is the equivalent of an auto clicker game.
Movies have a bigger audience, require less time commitment, are heavily marketed, and cost less to see. Easier to convince people to see a so-so movie as long as it has a couple of good scenes. Harder to do with games, and gamers are usually at least somewhat more aware of games before they buy them.
Might be because you’re not just spending 2-3 hours with games, but >30h, often hundreds or even thousands of hours. Making that a compelling experience that people don’t quickly get tired of is much harder.
So copy what Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Baldur’s Gate did and make good replayable games.
Also stop listening to the C suite and start listening to the gamers.
I’m curious though, viewing movies as investments has made a some studios filthy rich. Why does that seem to be different for games?
On a movie set, the director has a huge amount of authority. It’s been baked into the culture for about a hundred years that the director is one step below God. A studio treats films as investments, but they also hire a director and (mostly) get out of the way. Sure, producers do meddle, but it’s nowhere close to the same amount as with games – and all the meddling is still pointed at the director, not the crew. I think this limits the damage that can be done.
Also, the film industry has strong unions. Most of the abuses in game dev simply aren’t allowed. I suspect that the horrible culture of game dev can cause developers to stop caring, which bleeds through to the final product, and that won’t happen to the same extent for movies.
Why do they need to get filthy rich? Why not settle for rich and having a good game?
This is the problem with capitalism now. No one is happy making a good profit. They have to extract maximum profit by cutting everything else.
Capitalism has always been that way. Might be more accurate to say it gets worse when hobby becomes mainstream enough for more money to start flowing into it. Best balance seems to be when something is profitable but niche so corporations consider it not big enough for them to go all in on with their wealth.
Gaming was better when it was some loser hobby in the eyes of society than accepted like it is now causing it to grow to bring in more revenue than movies and music combined. That drew the attention of the vultures.
They absolutely don’t. I’m just wondering why it works out financially for Marvel and Mission Impossible movies but not for games
It is less of an effort and time commitment to passively consume tv shows or movies. You can zombie out while watching it before going to sleep or fall asleep to it.
Games are an active medium in comparison with progression gated behind level of skill, so that makes it less accessible than something like movies or tv shows that is the equivalent of an auto clicker game.
Nevermind, I just remembered Call of Duty exists
Movies have a bigger audience, require less time commitment, are heavily marketed, and cost less to see. Easier to convince people to see a so-so movie as long as it has a couple of good scenes. Harder to do with games, and gamers are usually at least somewhat more aware of games before they buy them.
It’s not. Plenty of game franchises are similarly profitable.
Might be because you’re not just spending 2-3 hours with games, but >30h, often hundreds or even thousands of hours. Making that a compelling experience that people don’t quickly get tired of is much harder.