The reason capitalism is so cynical

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As a capitalism lover myself, I have always criticized socialism for many reasons, such as its instability, the fact that it encourages laziness and that it often turns into a dictatorship like North Korea. All of which are inspired by the words and opinions of conservatives (I.E. Prager University, Thomas Dilorenzo, ect.). However I can't deny that there are several things wrong with capitalism. One such thing is the titular question; why is capitalism so cynical?

I believe I have the answer to that; it's the people. The people and their ignorance.

We always had the power to take down big corporations by denying them our big fat wallets and purses of cash, yet people seem to forget that and complain about capitalism anyway.

For example, many gamers hate big video game companies like EA games and Ubisoft for their shady and unethical practices, yet they never complain about the idiots who keep buying the next Assassin's Creed or Battlefield. And even if they do, they almost never try to, oh I don't know, put all their efforts to create a good boycott? Could it be that the real threat to the gaming industry is gamer's own hypocrisy?

This may apply beyond the world of video games as the same story can easily repeat itself with any kind of industry.

It's time to spend our money smart and encourage others to do so as well!

Last edited by EvaDoomGal on 29 Aug 2017, 12:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That would be a pretty tall order for a generation who is absolutely obsessed with video games.

Still, I think they need to stop being so gullible IF they want a better gaming industry.

Of course, raising awareness is good....

To me, that is the beauty of capitalism. Nothing is being forced on anybody. Many franchise titles become appalling, as you yourself state. However, they must be providing some value because people are buying them.

Under socialism, the state would make us buy Assassin's Creed so the designers could get paid, but from your post I think you and I agree about that anyway!

The problem is the goal of large companies is always to appeal to the largest audience in order to make the most money. They aren't going to waste resources on qualities that only a niche audience will appreciate. The masses rule and the masses are typically dumb. It's the same problem with any art.

Also, modern games with high-quality 3D graphics are very labor-intensive in terms of the amount of artistic detail required. They have to hire a large number of people who expect to be paid well for their talent. This makes modern games so expensive they need to sell to a large audience.

If you don't care as much how good a game looks and are interested more in novel game play, the field is a lot more open. The problem there is finding something that's decent quality as there's a lot of junk.

You might want to rethink that one, 3-d modelling and sculpting has actually gotten easier and cheaper as computers and software have matured. The amount of detail is done by your GPU, not the artist, they're using the same tools they've always used and the increase is done at compilation when the base models have their polygons divided to increase detail and minimize jagged edges.

Now, a lot of artists like working in the 'resolution' they're going to render to, but it's not required and actually more efficient dealing with models at a low poly count compared to a high one. All that said, there's no real need for larger production teams-- look at the credits at the end of a modern game, they're still the same length as those at the end of plain old original Nintendo game, meaning just as many people are getting paid at the same relative rate as they were three decades ago. The only thing that's increased in cost for game developers is advertising, mostly because that's half their business model now.

That's a silly strawman. Most modern socialists thinkers do not believe the state should be in charge of developing art and entertainment. Most only belief the state should be involved with the provisions of basic things like food, housing, healthcare, transportation, basic utilities, etc... Not all socialists are dogmatic Marxists who think anyone making a profit off anything is evil. Marxist Communism taken as a quasi-religion belongs in the scrap-heap of failed 20th century ideologies. I realize it still has followers today, but there are pragmatic socialist thinkers as well.

I don't buy call of duty anymore cause it's the same game year after year after year.

Battlefield takes 2-3 years between games. Games like gta,fallout,elder scrolls take 6-10 years. Those they make good games. I don't much care for battlefield 1. But I'm not going protest ea. I don't agree with micro transactions and thus mostly don't buy them. However it cost more to make a AAA game then the $40-60 a copy brings in thus they either had to raise the price like they've wanted to since 2013 or do micro transactions to make a profit. People include me are super against raising prices even though we pay less for a game then people did for a nes game, and the games are far more expensive to make.
Companies do what they do to make money. Besides some rich person making an indie game for artistic value, games like movies are an entertainment industry. The goal is to make as much money as they can not to give us fun.thats just a side effect of them making money.

Think most aaa games cost well over 100-200 million just to code then there's physical copies, advertising and marketing. If it flops they studio who made it will go under. So they have to make every game make a profit. Two ways of insuring this. Cod plays it safe making slight changes to the game every year but it enough to drive sales down, others take longer to make a fantastic game that one gets 500+ hours of play from, but this is risky if it flops like fallout 4 almost did(lots of people see it as bad direction) then they lose hard. Luckily that studio has a habit of making great games with great stories.

Even harder for single play story games. They're shorter some only 8hr long. Priced the same at $60 as a game that gives you 500+ hours. How do you get people to buy it?
I dont know I buy them cheap for $20-40 after they've been out for year or so. Mean last of us was a great game but short, it's a movie basically. Not worth $60 to me but it cost a lot to make.

Anyways in capitalism you speak by not buying or paying the price that you disagree with. If enough people do this it hurts their bottom line and they look to change or their company goes under.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/10/31/why-have-video-game-budgets-skyrocketed-in-recent-years/#793069023ea5

With modern games it isn't the polygon count that's time intensive. Making wire-frames isn't that hard, even with very high polygon resolution. Textures on the other hand are tricky, if you want to make them look really good. There is a lot of information encoded not only in the color, but also in the way light sources interact with the texture. It's not as simple as just painting the object/character as you have to somehow encode the information for how the object/character will appear in any given light setting. Then there's programming all the different types of movement so it looks natural and smooth.

Not a strawman, then

Believing that the government should just pay for some stuff for the benefit of the vulnerable isn't socialism, it is social democracy.

Norway, Sweden, Denmark (I assume these are the examples you had in mind?) - social democracy

If you don't want it labelled a strawman, don't use a term with such broad interpretation and turn it into a little box that means one thing. There are forms of socialism that go beyond social democracy, but don't involve rigid interpretations of 20th century Marxist dogma. I notice that Americans only care about arguing in absolute binaries though, acting as though there are only 2 options.

Yes, it's called bump mapping, and well 'lighting'. I wouldn't talk about it if I weren't familiar with it and I can't argue that costs of development have gone up as the article mentioned. I do, however, have an issue with the claim of the article. And yes, I'm calling it a claim and not evidence, because if you'll notice the author didn't cite some industry source via a quote, show actual labor force numbers, or any evidence really, just what boils down to: 'look at this crap from the 90's, it's not near as complex as now so therefore it has to cost more to make games now.' What the author failed to mention is that all that work is already done before the game development team even touches the project, by 3rd party game engines such as Unreal, Unity, and Hero.

In depth physics is new and a new cost, I'll agree there, but lighting and texturing not so much, it's merely upping the light count or rendering a higher quality texture, the computer does all the labor in both cases. Outside of 3dmax, Cinema4d, Maya and the lesser 3-d modelling programs the only difference between 1997 to 2007 is the need for the developer to work with a pixel shader, that's what communicates with the graphics card and actually applies said lighting on said textures. You can play with a pixel shader yourself with any number of DX11 games by using a either reshade or sweetFX to overlay the game's pixel shaders with your own (very fun actually, and you can really increase some detail if you've got a gfx card capable of handling it), and you'll see it's not that complex or difficult to master (as well as learning how to juice of the visual appeal of your games, and show off to friends ).

So what I'm claiming is that yes game development is slightly more expensive than it was 2 decades ago, but PRODUCT development is what's raising costs. I mean find somebody's old recorded TV show from 2 decades ago and you'll notice there a blirp here or there about a video game, but compared to today it was a no man's land for game advertising outside of game specific magazines. Their increased costs is merely them telling you that you have to have it.

Addendum: Another added cost and probably the most significant on the development side of the equation of the $200 million + games you're talking about is that most of them are no longer 1-off titles. You don't just go buy Call of Duty (I'm not a FPS fan, only shooter I play is Overwatch, {{laugh here}}), you buy COD and expect updates and perhaps additional purchased content down the road. That means the development is no longer a 1-3 year affair, but also however much time the company decides to provide additional content. The development cost between those two eras of gaming will never be comparable because we're talking about two completely different sizes of games, and completely different business models to support them. Back in 1997 the bugs which were released in FF7 are still there on the old PS disc, there was no team working on providing an 'update', and 'additional content' meant making a sequel (or 14 in Final Fantasy's case).

There are minnows and whales.

Cynicism is right, if you're a minnow.

This player spent $2 million in a mobile game. Then he led a boycott.
https://venturebeat.com/2016/10/14/the- ... a-boycott/

After $2 mill spent, they begrudgingly listed to him.

Part of the reason is that people confuse free markets and capitalism (or at least that's how someone explained it on Quora.com.)

The worst facet of capitalism is that it is unforgiving: in order to stay viable, the company has to meet or exceed financial goals every quarter. The investors are the kings. Miss a milestone, and the investors are after your head.

Now, that may be well and good for the investors, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's good for the customer. Marshall Field, founder of Field's department store in Chicago, had it right when he told a recalcitrant clerk that was dealing with a dissatisfied customer: "Give the lady what she wants." It also reminds me of how a former newspaper customer, who was a plumber, told me about how to run a business: keep at the job until you're satisfied with your work. 9 times out of 10, if you're satisfied with the completed work, the customer will be satisfied.

In short, while capitalism and free markets need each other, there's always an uneasy tension between the two.

Can you give me some examples?

Not American, by the way.