Laura Fryer gives a fairly scathing review of HR’s encroachment and obvious power grab to be less “day to day” and more to (verbatim) be “at the same level or above the CEO”.
Video goes into how HR makes toxic work environments that demonize ever speaking out or questioning anything, and the toxic positivity that holds games back.
From HR -> “People and Culture” -> “Chief Disruptors”
Can someone explain to me how games are “dying”? I see this sentiment a lot and I can only assume that the people who say this are the same people who think that their personal inability to scroll past the Netflix show with a gay character and choose one of the hundreds of shows that don’t, is a conspiracy theory to erase white cisgender christians.
Because there’s any endless wealth of good games around, especially in the indie scene. But if you’re an own face hammering, piss drinking conservative that hates anything and everything, I can see how you would be having a hard time.
I mean, I see it as more like AAA games are dying. I’m honestly not sure if that’s the case, but I know my personal hype for any AAA game announcement has dropped considerably in recent years. And it’s not hard to see how that’s a culture problem at these huge studios run by MBAs not people who play games. A culture of “Your boss is right, don’t rock the boat” can be seen as directly responsible for enshittification when that chain of command ends at the CEO or CFO. Sterilization, over-monetization, and the general fight for survival studios face is at an all-time high from my memory. Was a time when I was psyched for a Ubisoft or even EA title. Now all they get from me is an eye-roll.
My guess is all this talk comes from numbers interpereted by marketing people and the visible death of a lot of staples gamers took for granted. Big studios making crappy games and wondering why no one is buying them anymore. No one is lining up to buy Madden NFL or Call of Duty. Frequent releases and the proliferation of GaaS means missing a title doesn’t exactly break your flow, just get the next one. Releases have no build-up, no spectacle, no real hype. Indies are popping off like you said, though. Idk, as much as the general player count has to have increased dramatically over the last decade or so, I also feel like the culture surrounding it has dwindled a bit.
I agree games are not dying, but there’s also a part of me that understands how you can look at the overall industry and see a noticeable decline. Not sure by what metric, but it’s there. Games with soul, and love put into them, works of passion that have a something to say, those are the gems i think we’re seeing fewer of, if only by volume.
I think it’s just part of the grievance politics playbook. I delete my YouTube algorithm every few months which reveals the kind if low-effort chudbait bullshit they feed to people they don’t have a profile for. A very popular video type is “CAR DEALERS ARE FINALLY PAYING THE PRICE” videos. I have no idea what this about, as far as I know car dealerships mirror the rest of the economy. But people fucking hate car dealers so this type of thing is comforting: bad thing happens to people I don’t like.