Phil Spencer blames capitalism for games industry woes: 'I don't get [the] luxury of not having to run a profitable growing business'
Phil Spencer blames capitalism for games industry woes: 'I don't get [the] luxury of not having to run a profitable growing business'
Spencer said publicly traded companies have to show constant growth or else nobody will give them money.
![Phil Spencer blames capitalism for games industry woes: 'I don't get [the] luxury of not having to run a profitable growing business'](https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/ad52be4c-4529-48df-ae10-9135c073f0f7.jpeg?format=webp&thumbnail=256)
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I can see why that would be a bummer. In my mind, the perfect video game-ceo position would be for a company that makes enough profit to pay its employees well and self sustains the business to keep making more games. Having to constantly report a higher user base and profitability growth year after year on a global scale would be a total drag.
Steam is a prime example of this. Not privately run it would have been bloated to extinction years ago.
Shareholders are leechers to quality. Dividends are not enough, the underlying asset must grow no matter what.
When Gabe croaks it Steam is fucked. It will go public.
You dont think Gabe has surrounded himself with like-minded people?
He will pass it off to someone else and Valve will carry on as it has.
Yeah, Gabe's son is entirely focused on his own business, not related to gaming at all. Once Gabe is gone, his son will probably just sell it for an acceptable price and Steam will go public fairly soon after.
Do you have any idea at all how sus your username is?
Mine?
Yes, yours, bullshitter with two Nazi dogwhistles in your name and a new account.
Juice is a nickname I go by and I was born in 1988. Also yes, this is a new account, I started looking for a Reddit alternative when they started public trading last week. Where are the nazi symbols? I’m Mexican and Native American.
88 = Heil Hitler
Juice->Jews
Even if it was innocent, putting 88 in your username at best makes you unoriginal and old.
You're half dead and you still can't figure out a unique name that doesn't give Nazis cover?
Pathetic.
Well then I’m old and unoriginal Mr Dragon type. My screen name is what it is. I gave you an explanation that I didn’t owe you in the first place and this is all the effort that I’m willing to put in. Have fun being weirdly paranoid over usernames I guess.
Your words mean nothing even in your best case scenario.
Dude, you really need to go touch some grass
🤡
That cool man. Look, I don’t do internet drama anymore (I’m old like you said). So I’m just going to block you now.
what in the hell, lol. i think you've been on the Internet too much
my girl's favorite number is 14, guess I gotta break the news to her that that means she's a Nazi 😂
If her screen name is "Jews14" yeah, probably.
G*mers, lmao
juice is such a common nickname. but ig if you said so, they all nazis now. glad we have you policing forums n keeping us safe 🫡 ppreciate you
Guess I have to stop drinking juice!
step off the gas. nicknames and numbers can have entirely different cultural contexts.
for me, i've never seen "juice" used to refer to jews, nor "88" being used to refer to nazis, and i've been on the internet a long time.
when i see "juice", the first thing i think of is the song by lizzo. "88" is used as a replacement for "bye bye" in cantonese lingo.
plenty of usernames are just random word + year of birth. stop overanalyzing it and chill.
🤡
88 = Heil Hitler
That's one I've never heard before. Is it some sort of neonazi slang or am I just really dumb?
Well, looked it up before posting this comment. That's absolutely crazy that it's an actual thing.
It's literally one of their most common dogwhistles and has been for as long as the Internet has existed, lol
If you see a 14 or a 88 anywhere in a username you need to start asking questions about intent.
I'm internet poisoned as hell but I'm surprised that that's not common knowledge. Its also often 1488 with the 14 referring to the 14 words of the following neo-nazi slogans:
"We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children"
"because the beauty of the White Aryan woman must not perish from the Earth."
So Valve if Valve still made games?
That's the thing, Valve is in this position because they have the Steam cash cow. Other video games company can't do the same.
I just want a real Half-Life squeal. Not a vr tech demo.
Alyx was incredible though! Way more than a tech demo (though I get the argument that it was a test to see if folks would pick up a VR Half-life 3). I played it on a cheap, used WMR headset and an old PC that could barely keep up, and it still stays in my top five videogaming experiences.
It's a great example to bring up though, because I'd bet it wouldn't have been made if the studio was only chasing money instead of trying to innovate.
It was absolutely a tech demo. All Valve games were tech demos of one sort or another. The problem with that model is, if Valve doesn't have some new tech to show off, there's no Half-Life sequel. I actually predicted the we would only get another Half-Life game when Valve finally decided to get into VR about two years before they did. What I didn't predict was that it would be VR Only or that it would be a prequel that reconned the timeline.
Valve has a fuck around with money that they could just let the devs make games on their own schedule, but instead Marc Laidlaw left the company and the fans have had to pick up the story lines and world. Honestly, Entropy Zero is a better game then Half-Life 2. Really take a moment to think about the weapons and combat in HL2. The maps weren't designed with the enemy AI in mind, so many encounters just have you and them shooting at each other in empty rooms and hallways. So much focus was on the Gravity Gun, so all the other weapons save the Crossbow and Rocket Launcher were boring. Hell, why did they get rid of the mode switch on the Rocket Launcher? You have to take fire to your face if you want to hit anything with it.
Considering that Entropy Zero came out about 13 years after Half Life 2, I would hope it was better. It doesn't really seem fair to compare the two. They were developed in different times, with different tech, and different games to draw inspiration from. That's not to mention that Entropy Zero is a mod built on top of Half Life 2, and requires HL2s code to even run in the first place.
Entropy Zero uses the same engine as HL2, which is why I used it as an example. I think HL1 is a better game then HL2 for the same reasons EZ is better then HL2. Better weapons and better enemy engagements. Whenever I do a franchise replay, the HL2 stuff is always a drag and I end up skipping the HL2 stuff eventually. Seriously, episode 2 has terrible driving in it. Other games had that figured out by then.
I see, I forgot it was a mod. Those are fair points for sure. I kind of like the pacing better in Half Life 1, myself.
MS still turned over $40 billion in profit last year. They just need to turn over more apparently this year. Fucking capitalism.