weird analogy but game dev is like sex work in that the market is shifting from a state where many people basically made an ok living to a handful of people making millions and 99% of people making nothing while the real winners are the owners of platforms extracting rents at every level - ThreadSky

merrittk.com • 17 days ago

weird analogy but game dev is like sex work in that the market is shifting from a state where many people basically made an ok living to a handful of people making millions and 99% of people making nothing while the real winners are the owners of platforms extracting rents at every level

Reposted from Brendan Keogh

This didn't happen by random chance of the market or some neutral development of technology. The game industry, like many industries, figured out how to outsource all the risks and costs of production onto the aspirational while capturing their own cut as rent. Game devs are uber drivers now.

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brkeogh.bsky.social•17 days ago

It's all just enclosure of the digital commons all the way down!!

afterclimate.com.au•17 days ago

I'm old enough to remember when we used to call this winner-takes-all, casino capitalism, things like that, and pretty intuitively understood it to be a bad thing. The indoctrination it took to turn this into "the normal competitive marketplace" is booooonkers.

escmike.bsky.social•17 days ago

The rent seeking platforms always win the most.

I think you can see it almost across every industry as these oligopolies tighten their grip and suck all the value dry. The only reason things were okay was the massive increase in productivity all us workers did. Now that’s slowed.

nsar.bsky.social•17 days ago

Platform owners make way better profits from big games. Steam doesn’t benefit from a bunch of small games making no sales.

generalgoodsman.bsky.social•17 days ago

so boring

evan.exposed•17 days ago

Right, but they benefit by being the everything store. That was Amazon’s entire business plan, the more stuff they can sell, the more likely you are to go there to buy everything

joeypeters.bsky.social•16 days ago

If you've opened Steam in the last two years it's not that weird an analogy

samuelthomson.bsky.social•17 days ago

"The long tail".

samanthahoriz0n.bsky.social•17 days ago

This was definitely my experience. My designs helped make Guitar Hero the first game to break 1B. I'm on 5 patents and was paid 1$ each or they wouldn't list me as the inventor. I made 100k a year with residuals and was shown the door when ATVI crashed the music rhythm genre. I never got that 5$.

samuelthomson.bsky.social•17 days ago

What do you mean, the companies bought your patents for a dollar each?

samanthahoriz0n.bsky.social•17 days ago

Activision employee contracts were set so that they owned anything their employees created. I designed new features for the guitar, such as putting the Wiimote inside the guitar, which saved millions. They patented this to prevent Harmonix from doing it.

samuelthomson.bsky.social•17 days ago

That's annoying. What did you do on Thief BTW? The first game is one of my all time favourites, the second one was also a favorite, but too scary for me at the time!

samanthahoriz0n.bsky.social•17 days ago

Level design for Shipping and Receiving and Blackmail levels in Thief II. Wrote all the dialog and implemented all the gameplay in those. Cleaned up and optimized several other levels, including Mage Tower in Thief Gold. It almost didn't ship. I'm best known for the Benny conversation in Blackmail.

samuelthomson.bsky.social•16 days ago

Amazing, Thief was definitely a formative experience. I used to turn the gamma right up on the monitor to play so it was less frightening. It took me ages to realise that zombies could eventually be killed. The guards were entertaining. Mechanists were extremely creepy!

samanthahoriz0n.bsky.social•17 days ago

If I wanted to be listed on the patent as an inventor, I had to sign over my rights for 1$ or I would get no credit for my design. For the award of 1$ I get my name on the patent and listed in the US patent database. It was take the 1$ or nothing and they patent it anyway.

samuelthomson.bsky.social•17 days ago

This is such a common story and infuriating. I had something related where I freelanced without a contract and was told after a year of work that I had to sign a retroactive deed transferring my creative rights or they'd sue me. I signed, did everything they wanted, and they never hired me again.

samanthahoriz0n.bsky.social•17 days ago

Unfortunately too common. The comparison to Uber drivers is spot on.

timchuma.com•17 days ago

The big ones make a lot. There are comfortable niches for people who do stuff that others do not. Also the who Parasocial relationship thing hence why all the gonzo stuff

straycatalyst.bsky.social•17 days ago

Ow merritt, good analogy

jaelin-playnao.bsky.social•17 days ago

Most platform owners take 30% and from what’s left of that the publisher takes a further 20-30%, and not to forget any licensing fees you pay for development tools/software you’ve used (game engine/audio middleware). Then you pay your relevant sales taxes whatever they may be in your country/state.

wrathinuss.bsky.social•17 days ago

selling shovels in a gold rush

honk.supply•17 days ago

It's everything. Uber is the largest taxi service in human history and they don't carry any of the risk of owning/maintaining vehicles.
YouTube/OF don't need to invest a cent in their performers. You own the cameras. You pay to convert your basement to a studio. If it goes tits up you eat the loss.

honk.supply•17 days ago

On top of that 'creators' have to live with the stress of relying on platforms that are totally walled off from communication. If you're making them $50k a year and they wipe you out with an algorithm mistake that's the end of the story. You don't even get to ask them for help.

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