Corporate Greed is Self-Destructive
The pursuit of "shareholder value" in video games has destroyed the most fundamental ingredient to success: the people who make them.
Nathan Grayson, for Aftermath: Big Video Game Publishers Like Microsoft Are Paving Their Own Path To Irrelevance - Aftermath
“So in a few years when there’s a massive gap in the industry from all the games that were never made by the people who got laid off at the studios that were shuttered, who’s going to make your games?” wrote JC Lau, game developer at ProbablyMonsters. “Where’s ‘shareholder value’ going to come from when you’ve cut to the bone?”
Big companies in all industries (but especially video games right now), constantly chasing the almighty Bigger Numbers, fail to see (or to care about) the consequences of their actions beyond the next payday. This is how capitalism has always worked, but it feels particularly pronounced in this moment. Things like this are usually cyclical, so I'm sure someone more well-versed could point to a part of history we are repeating, but it also feels like it shouldn't have to be this way.
It wouldn't take but a little bit of foresight to see the folly in the recent run of layoffs and studio closures. And if Microsoft, Embracer, EA, and many others, cared even for a moment about making good video games, they would behave in a fundamentally different manner.
These companies will surely be husks of their former selves in just a few years, but the C-suite will just as surely float down under their golden parachutes, shouting "That's the next guy's problem!"