A decade ago, AAA game companies such as Bethesda, R*, and EA worked on multi-million dollar hyper ambitious projects such as Oblivion, GTA IV, and Crysis that wouldn't be viable at all for smaller companies. Nowadays, they seem to be just slacking off, releasing half-assed games and milking their microtransactions. Now, the only difference between AAA games and those from middling companies is AAA has a lot more cutscenes.
And the weirdest thing is, it seems to be a global phenomenon that happened at around the same time. Why did they all implement the same business practice?
Carson Fisher
Because those things work, dumbass. Extremely well at that.
Zachary Walker
Money.
Jacob Flores
why do all the journos write the same articles? they are all run by a cabal of inconspicuous kikes who just care about more shekels. they do the minimum amount they can after they brainwash their captive audience and then suck the life out of the industry and its fans.
Oliver Peterson
It was the Call of Duty effect.
And I'd go to say that there are still massive projects underway, they're just not nearly as publicized as before
Thomas Walker
This is the important part. Journalists have created an environment where they shame responsible, informed and educated consumers, calling them "entitled" while molding and growing their "ideal" audience
Sebastian Richardson
Reminder that there are people out there right now that believe that any game which gets a 85%+ score on metacritic and costs $50~$60 at launch is a AAA game. They want to redefine AA games as low-effort "garbage" and shovelware so that the only two delineators are "AAA" and "Indie".
Basically, if it's not publisher funded - they want to conflate it with pretentious hipster trash to elevate the profile of those titles - and if it is publisher funded, they want to lump everything in to the deep end of the pit with bloated marketing budgets and hollywood voice actors that "require microtransactions to stay solvent" - even though that's a lie.
Leo Hill
The suits got greedy and started making cuts to the games in order to increase marketing control and spread. Money wasn't spent on physics, ai or anything else that might enrich the gameplay, it was purely funneled into cinematics that would make for good trailers. Most of the good game developers quit. The vast majority of the game industry are completely green and treated like shit so they never learn anything and don't give a fuck about the products they release. The suits don't know how to market properly and the developers don't know how to develop anymore, so it's the blind leading the blind.
Alexander Reed
AAA games were also half-assed trash in 2007. he only difference is they shifted their budget from creating large, sterile, empty worlds to creating cutscenes because cutscenes are easier to deal with and you can attach degenerate Hollyjew stars to them.
Dominic Jones
So, E3 is the cancer?
There were a number of half assed games, the largest projects really pushed the technology.
Joshua Anderson
...
Brody Rodriguez
Originally they were ambitious and it was successful therefore why change what is successful? Which then becomes the status quo and sequelitis.
Eli Ward
Always remember the difference between gaming and the game INDUSTRY. The industry wants steady money, so they're moving to games as a service model. Online only titles with coop or multiplayer is the current goal. Always online, paying to keep up, and you own absolutely none of it when the servers are pulled. Look at how much a used copy of something like destiny or the battlefront reboot in the bargain bin is worth. That is the future of the industry, except they want to remove even the disk so its 100% digital. You own nothing and play entirely on their terms or else. Step outside of line over menial shit like Overwatch and kiss everything goodbye.
Zachary Powell
Yeah pretty much. The model now is pay to have access to something that will have no value in a decade.
Jordan Reed
To be fair, Rockstar do seem to still put effort into their games. I'm no huge fan of the life simulator direction GTA has taken since IV, but I'll give them some credit for packing those games with content, and not just farting them out every year.
Kevin Perry
...
Bentley Wilson
Greed Suits and fact that the people who actually know and understand how to really make games have all pretty much retired, no longer interested or have no cash.
are we retroactively trying to pretend oblvion and gta 4 were good? lets not do that, please.
Zachary Edwards
Since they could have just copy and pasted everything, I'm going to put that down to a difference in priorities. They were trying to recapture some of the video gamey feel that was lost when IV went full city simulator. Personally, I still think they failed. V is still bogged down with shit, and lacks the sense of fun that the PS2 games had.
Gavin Wood
Not that they were good, or indeed better than the games they succeeded, but that things are even worse now.
Kevin White
Jews
William Martinez
I personally love those games. If you don't like them, that's fine, but they certainly were very ambitious.
I don't get people who say that GTA IV was too much of a life simulator. GTA IV is basically GTA 3 with better physics and side contents added. The life sim aspect of GTA IV was nothing more than side content that you can choose to play, unlike the tedious grindy shits and boring experimental missions they forced down your throat in San Andreas.
Grayson Hughes
The new games just don't feel fun. I don't know what it is exactly. Maybe the fact that just moving around and fighting has become so much more sluggish. Maybe it's the fact that there aren't big glowing health pickups on street corners.
Nathan Clark
Are you kidding? These are games with grossly over-inflated budgets for what they are. Spending more money than you need to does not "work" - it cuts into your profit margins and is simply an inefficient way of conducting business, especially when it's tens or hundreds of millions than need to be spent for a project that are getting piled on to it.
Michael Thompson
ambitious in what sense? Oblivion was a joke game full of potato people that was universally agreed to be systemically worse than morrowind (which wasn't good either tbh, but that's neither here nor there) and gta 4? The best it had going for it was some neat physics for bodies.
problem with the western industry being built on a bad foundation, when the industry leaders in the west don't understand basic game design concepts from 30 years ago, you've got an issue
Chase Carter
First normalfags then SJWs. Normalfags made it so making mediocre rehashed crap was more profitable and SJWs made sure any fun that could be had with the mediocre rehashes got taken out so not to offend the perpetually offended.
Jaxon Watson
*tens or hundreds of millions more than need to be spent
Blake Perry
a mindless, casual audience
William Bennett
they found out they can make 10 times the money for 1/5th the effort
Xavier Murphy
They spend less on a project but profit more. This is the world you chose. Basically what said.
Ethan Peterson
I get the feeling there's more here. Like they had to gimp AI and effects to increase some shitty expnesive aspect nobody notices.
Mason Powell
Well they took out almost all vehicle deformation for their shitty horse blinder tier first person vomit camera mode.
Cooper Butler
AAA doesn't exist. We now have whale eating shovelware companies. AAA is dead and stupid people both internally and externally killed it.
Gavin Stewart
Several hundred million dollar budgets for videogames are a case of more being spent on a project, not less - they are a development of modern "AAA" game development, presumably arising out of the explosion in popularity for videogaming that's come from "nerdy" having been "in" in the last decade and out of the incompetence and excess that's come with that, not an old, less costly alternative to the billion dollar budget games of a hypothetical previous era of extravagance. Then, obviously, with all else being equal, increased costs mean decreased profits, not the other way around.
Christopher Gomez
I dunno Bethesda is not so bad all the updates for doom is basically the dlc but who knows what kind of Jewry they will be thinking of later with new nudoom 2. And The Evil Within 2 is a good game but it's better to wait for it on a winter sale(I was a horror fag and needed some vidya so bought it 2 weeks after it came) The problem is that PC's online and early f2p model came into console gaming, the always online made them even more lazy since they knew they could just patch the game day one. And the mirror effect which was just a nice thing to see in games is completely gone and It's not a hard thing to do.
Also now one has to remember that EA don't want to take any chances on games, they've been like that since the old CEO that basically greenlighted mirrors edge 08 and Dead Space stepped down. Ironically he was one of those that would take chances that's what brought him down. And a new and more Jewy CEO came along and said gamers and consumers are basically retards, and they got a short memory spam. Just wait SW battlefront2 will become the same sinister Jewish scheme that it was always intended to be.
When it came to Rockstar games, their online stuff usually died like gta4 online but that was max 10 people(if I remember correctly) but it was hell's fun experience to be had. RDR was like gta4 but was kinda more cool and you could have clans n shit but still not a huge focus. Max Payne 3 is where stuff changed they became more Jewish and saw the DLC to be packs for MP and thought that the shooting mechanic of the game was good enough for that(which it ain't). GTA5 is where the story almost ends, gta online is a successes both on consoles and PC most of my normalfag friends still plays this, and I'm sometimes draged inn to play but generally it's like gta 4 but you guessed it with regular updates for the fucking online with stupid shit.
Activision is still really Jewish but COD is still popular and I don't know why. But at-least the new game got a rocky launch where netcode is not where is should be.
But the video you showed OP is kinda unfair since warhorse who basically made mafia2 is really autistic when it comes to simulation of gameworld/sandbox. And if you don't know of how autistic they are, just watch some of the updates from Kingdom Come and you will see something interesting. since day one or later they hired AI simulation artists that basically makes simulations for what NPCs would do in day to day stuff, like going to work, go to the pub and so on. So they are not someone that is standing there all the time.
So I think Kingdom Come might change allot when it comes to a sandbox rpg. But when it comes to AAA studios they are lazy now, Bethesda gives some good games out, the same is with Sega. But they are not the big and super inspired games like before when you just put in the disc you wondered how the game might play or how it might end up.
Alexander Hill
I'm sure we are going to break exciting new ground in the #12423532465 iteration of this thread.
Grayson Rodriguez
...
Aiden Harris
You can't get quality by hiring pajeets for less than minimum wage.
Charles White
Given the current state of affairs it's hard to avoid slamming head-first into this issue over, and over again. It's as if your house is on fire and your wife keeps bitching about how you can't stop wondering why it happened and how soon it'll collapse.
Michael Allen
Most games these days, even AA and indies are just soulless, they lack that feeling of care put into them and also atleast on AA/indies i fear it's the SJW-clique influencing them way too much so the devs try to make their games into "art" so to speak, have these "meaningful" stories or "unique take on graphics" or whatever but it falls flat because it's all superficial bullshit just like Hollyjew movies that try to be more unique/artistic by going for different camera-angles and such.
Caleb Robinson
Easy answer for the gas station: They don't serve niggers
Dominic Campbell
They're trying to change the business model of game development essentially. Making yearly installments that fail 9 out of 10 times from their target isn't what the shareholders consider a viable business. So far the suits seems to be trying to explore hunting whales given the increasing popularity of lootboxes.
Angel Young
...
Xavier Roberts
Because they all decided to open the Pandora's Pandering Box and now modern gaming is a popularity competition where if your game isn't
Anthony King
if I see one more fucking crowbcat thumbnail
Jonathan Powell
>(((Stock exchange))) >Wankers that make video games industry into (((Hollywood)))
Joseph Long
Mainstream media noticed video games. Then (((Jews))) comes after the shekels.
Levi Flores
As an attempt to make every one of the 1000 NPC's in the game to have unique facial features, it was amazing. Sure first attempt isn't always perfect, but it did the job.
One of the biggest complaints for Morrowind was the lifeless and static NPC's. Oblivion's answer was to imitate Gothic's A-Life, use a lot less scripted functions with goal oriented programming, and implement it in a bigger open world with 1000's NPC's. It was an ambitious and impressive feat.
Parker Sullivan
We are in an era where people say FF8 and Chrono Cross are retroactively good. I've seen nostalgia threads HERE about Gaylo. We're already dead, this is hell.
Tyler Ward
Well nobody is quick to share their caps now are they? This dude obviously doesn't know about Bethesda being a subsidiary and that their parent company uses another subsidiary to give loans as a means to entrap the smaller company for a hostile takeover.
Wyatt Sanchez
How was Oblivion ambitious? How was caving in to every retarded complaint about Morrowind and dumbing down every aspect of the game for the sake of idiots ambitious?
Levi Harris
I know about it but it does not mean the games will be shit. But again I liked nudoom(even tough there was no ending just a cliffhanger) and I liked the evil within but liked nr 2 of the game as-well. Just because they use a really shitty move to get a studio or an IP does not mean the game is automatically shit.
Oliver Ramirez
ahahahahahahahahahahaha
Lucas Wilson
They tried harder because people who played vidya back during the beginning of the reboot of vidya in the west were a lot more selective due to the amount of shovelware that was forced during the 70s and then again in the early 90s. Then something happened around the 360 launch. Suddenly having standards was considered a bad thing and we need to kiss the ground the devs/company walked on. Soon after those companies saw that they could shit out a mediocre product and the few that didn't buy it would be outshadowed by the hordes that would buy it. Leave that problem to fester and here we are.
Hudson Baker
the majority of those budgets aren't going to the making of the game, they're going to the marketing of the game to sell it. that's all they care about. As long as the game sells, that's all that matters
Daniel Williams
It's all the jews fucking fault. No question.
Camden Mitchell
The average consumer, the casual, has no fucking standards. They don't see the downgrades and low quality of the AAA games they just see the big commercials and go buy a copy. They'll enjoy the game even if its not that great, and in the event they don't like the game that much they just forget about it because buyers remorse doesn't exist in the casuals mind. Any jewish tactic employed be publishers over recent years is because casual consumers enabled it
Owen Anderson
Go away you furry fool
Mason Gutierrez
Oblivion had a single thing above Morrowind (and Skyrim) and that was its stupid AI system they implemented. That AI system would later get toppled by Stalker but while it lasted, that shit was beyond anything else in the market. Everything else about Oblivion is shit compared to Morrowind though.
Justin Butler
Gee I wonder why.
With EA and Bethesda being kicked to the curb over DLC and MTX, maybe we can finally have something interesting pop up to make me want to spend money on a game.
Christopher Myers
Way too many devs these days have no sense of ambition anymore. The old games generally tried something new and in grand style too. New games? AAA never tries anything, AA is just trying to keep above water with rehashes of what once worked well, and Indies try some new stuff (if they aren't busy being SJWs) but with a retardedly narrow view.
And there's no more proper game designers around. Nobody gives a shit about gameplay anymore. It's as if authors spent a year finding the perfect cover art and a week writing their damned novel.
Evan Long
Because you have to do more with less so the profits can grow and keep the shareholders happy (which is impossible, you can do less with less so they must axe things and pray people dont notice missing features).
Jacob Bell
Fuck off, retard.
Joseph Perry
R* got bitten on the ass with Max Payne 3 due to the fact that in the years while it was being developed, they built-up expectations among normalfags and younger gamers - particularly with RDR. They tried to build a "serious" competitive shooter on their wonky RAGE engine and it ended-up with a game that, while not nearly as bad as people made it out to be, failed to impress the gamers it was supposed to impress and simultaneously confused and disappointed normalfags who otherwise would have been stoked to play "red dead or GTA, but set in Brazil".
The result was that the game's sales could not justify the DLC that was planned and they ended-up canceling one or two after having sold season passes, thus pissing-off the relatively few people who had invested in the game (fuck-you cherry on top of their shit sundae). It's not surprising that Rockstar wanted a different system for future games.
Nathan Watson
fucking kill yourself
Samuel Wright
Play superior european 'AAA indies' instead
Michael Richardson
...
Austin Jones
It was hyper ambitious and they fucked it up immensely as a result.
Oliver Bailey
Square enix might be composed of absolute spergs Do you have the table wiping webm with multiple objects on it?
Daniel Gray
It was never ambitious.
Zachary Williams
shame on you
Oliver Sanchez
fucking kill yourself you absolute retard
Carter Howard
...
Jace Robinson
I'm probably the only one who likes episodic release model and don't mind denuvo, always online.
Caleb Rodriguez
...
Nicholas Brooks
Morrowind already existed, that ambition was never there.
Isaac Allen
Gamergate. /thread
Benjamin Gutierrez
Nevermind that every single GTA game has the exact same plot (protagonist getting screwed by cardboard cutout "villain"), the exact same sort of hipsterish low-hanging fruit "satire" (LOLMERICA SUCKS GUIZ!!!111), and all the microtransactions, etc you didn't want.
Owen Howard
Shuffling in and out shareholders Attempting to recreate what Valve has with their game economies. Which, incidentally, does works decently with "real" games. But realistically, no other company has the level of integration that they can make microtransactions reasonably valuable to players like Valve can. So they burn out progression in the game for microtransactions. Really, it's obvious when you take an earnest look at it, most companies want to take advantage of the fiscal benefit that Valve has access to being a digital distributor while also having their own game to create virtual markets. Now, that being said you can look at how Valve has been handling the microtransaction scene of thing and can see what other companies are doing wrong. You might not have noticed this with the grindaway of sequels and shit but, like. DOTA2 is 4 Years old CS:GO is 5 Years old TF2 is TEN YEARS OLD Virtual commodities in those games have lasting value, it isn't something that's disposable like how games now handle microtransactions where when they burn out the whales the bump out a sequel to burn more money out of.
Adrian Anderson
pic related is worth 16500 dollars for example, and can be exchanged for that amount with very little hassle.
Blake Nguyen
jews
Nathaniel Phillips
It all comes down to economics, knowledge of which is sadly still lacking in the world, including the answers given in this thread.
I'm sorry, I didn't realize Bethesda, Rockstar, EA and Activision were supposed to be charities, nor did I know they were altruists who were supposed to sacrifice themselves for the good of the gamer, regardless or their salaries or revenue. It's not like they're businesses whose entire purpose is to generate profit, and are only taking advantage of the regulatory environment given to them to achieve such goals.
When publishers started out and first released their games, the first installments of many of the franchises we've come to hate over the years, they did so with the intention of making money, not to put smiles on gamers' faces. However, to make money, they would need to give gamers a reason to buy from them. They couldn't just release a bare bones game and expect instant sales, anyone can do that, but no one would buy those. And so, they put quality into their games for gamers to buy from them. But overtime, when their franchises became popular, they lost all incentive to invest in quality, and just rode off of brand recognition, which is proven to still be popular. The intentions didn't change, the circumstances did. The goal has always been to generate profit.
Jews could take over Hollywood because it was a centralized control point for most of the film industry, kept in place by lobbying, subsidies, corporatism. They can never dream of usurping the entire gaming industry, with its extremely low barriers to entry for anyone, and hundreds of developers, a lot of whom go indie, all around the world with access to a global market.
David Bennett
First post kike post every fucking time
Ryder Clark
(((Someone))) discovered that gaems while being a timesink that prevents improving people on other areas are ideal for indoctrination as they absorb you in a world crafted by developers. Additionally, they can be profitable. Single player games are basically one big movie with minimal interference from the player which saps individuality and quick decision making. Both are undesirable traits. Multiplayer games became money generating hamster wheels that bring you nowhere.
Just fucking look what Paradox did to the HoI series and scream in horror. A fucking tablet friendly risk ripoff with some Paint mixed in.
James Young
Is this a contest who can have more replies?
Robert Smith
If I manage to get you to buy something that does not exist and only has value because you believe it has value. Even if that thing only costed you 5$ or 1$ as some shitty ass cosmetic shit, then I practically made a ridiculous profit.
Landon Morgan
You don`t see this level of TECHNOLOGY these days, too bad the devs were too shy when they made this fucking game, half the gadgets are useless and the other half has a very niche usefulness, the game still doesn`t have fucking briefcases to all big guns are literally useless on a practical scenario and are only used for memes. the PROFESSIONAL mode is ok but of all 6 maps only like 2 rewards are kinda ok. It`s a good game at half price.
Sebastian Brooks
This is something I don't think a lot of people take into the equation when discussing videogames. With how shit publishers treat developers, especially the seasoned developers that have made cult classics and beloved series, there must have been a serious brain drain over time in the industry. On top of that, the new blood is pozzed to hell with SJW rhetoric. What we're seeing now is the equivalent of greedy, unethical publishers chickens coming home to roost.
Logan Martinez
Not that I'm in favour of it, but how exactly would abolishing copyright bring about better games? It's not like you need to use an existing IP just to make a game.
This makes no sense. There is no need for a small studio to make a new, decent AssCreed game when they could create their own proper series with actual stealth in mind.
Kevin Hughes
Weren't the devs themselves defending always-online?
Benjamin Smith
Goddamn flag.
Julian Carter
Not him but it might work. IP's sell games as much as quality. If you destroy the value of IP's you're forcing to sell on qualiy alone.
Lincoln Adams
...
Caleb Nguyen
No, Modern artists aka idea guys and middle men who have no clue how to do other things outside art are the problem. Someone who makes a degenerate piece that they procede to explain is about whites beating niggers when its clearly a painting of a brown spot is not the same as the sculptor of david who lets the audience figure out the piece. And programmers need to learn how to negotiate their talents going by this pic, and that cliffy b, romero and even randy bitchford are programmers who got really liberal and decided to be shit. Are there shitty artists who take the lead of a project when they really should not? Sure. But just the same there are programmers, writters and producers who should not take the leads, yet do. And inversely there are those who could do good games as the leads in each skillset. And kojima was an art guy, always was, the user in the caps got caught on his hyperbole and doubled down like a moron.
Sebastian Gutierrez
It was shit back then, user. It's been shit for a while.
Benjamin Reed
13:25
Camden Perez
The Jews won.
Jeremiah Nguyen
Nah I'm fine with episodic release.
I'll just buy the GOTY version 2 years later. Or never in the case of Half-life Episode 3.
Thomas Jones
Except they don't. AAA games have been all flopping.
Aiden Hall
...
Isaiah Torres
we already got enough shovelware mimicking already existing games as his coming from china and on the Google play store. We dont need more.
Adrian Hernandez
Already better than 90% of AAA garbage out there Fuck triple Ayy
Why make games when you can just make money?
Daniel Adams
Denuvo wasn't justifiable, but can be blamed on SE suits being retarded, proven by being removed when IO got rights to Hitman. Always Online isn't as bad anymore since now unlock transfer to offline, and the servers shit themselves once in may where people were getting inventory unlocks including unfinished or leftover weapons which crashed the game, chewing gum which did nothing (was supposed to poison) or random props like clock radio or a brick. Contracts are fun when you compete with friends who'll get the best time on a contract and fighting to shave off 2 more seconds than he did from the contract.
Season 2 is in the works for 2018 though.
Xavier Clark
user please I would have bought this in a heartbeat if IO had removed that fucking cancer after removing Denuvo.
Levi Wright
...
Connor Anderson
This. With Jews you lose, GG goes way beyond journalism.
Noah Rivera
because dumb people keep buying those games. The only way the industry will understand is via a punch right in the wallets
Daniel Adams
Gta 4 was ambitious, yes, but not as much as GTA III. 4 was ambitious because it was a step forward (more compared to 5 with was just a small step, and in many cases one backwards)
GTA 3 was more ambitious because it was way more risky. They changed how the game plays.
Oliver Gomez
Will Monster Hunter World have microtransactions and Denuvo?
Josiah Thomas
hope not would be the funniest shit around
Grayson Ross
no, devs said they feel element of random reward is already present in the game itself during carving/getting quest rewards
Michael Thompson
okay, good.
Aaron Anderson
There is already pre-order armor confirmed so that can easily open the gateway to worse shit It will 100% have Denuvo, if they still used it for MvCI even after Resident Evil VII got cracked nearly instantly then they'll keep using it.
Gavin Jenkins
Honestly this might be the benefit of making the game episodic.
Camden Wright
(checked) Yeah, fuck IO.
Matthew Smith
Honestly I was completely skeptical about episodic content in HITMAN. But the game is fucking fantastic. So many ways to kill your target, not just through the challenges the game gives you to do either. It's really a sandbox assassination game, exactly how Hitman has always felt. I also love the tech and the engine. The animations, graphics, and controls are just so damn good. The world is always incredibly interactive, nothing feels static. That's rare to find in a game nowadays. Great on IO for knocking it out of the park with this one.
Mason Miller
They replaced the passionate hyper autists with Marxist graduates who only see video games as another media to push propaganda in.
Jace Sanchez
I wonder if it is something like Hollywood accounting, they claim to have spent so much money making the game but actually spent much less and someone has pocketed the money.
Joseph Brown
It's just capitalism. You know the thing Holla Forums loves so much. This would never happen if we listened to Bernie.
Brandon Baker
Lel no.
Easton Murphy
No thanks.
Leo Bennett
Hey Chrono Cross is quite decent. The characters and plot especially are dumb, but it's still a rather decent romp in its own right. Mostly the soundtrack is dope (it's one of those games you might purchase just for the soundtrack), but it's also surprisingly nonlinear for a JRPG. You can actually make decisions that matter. If you were expecting Chrono Trigger 2 though, then yes, it's a colossal fucking letdown. If it just had decent writing it would've been so much better. In the end it felt rather rushed and even half-assed with a lot of the crap they just randomly fucking threw in and called a day.
I know we prefer to retcon it out of existence, but it's worth noting that New Thief was also directed by a pretentious wannabe artist. Game was of course panned for being a horrible sack of pretentious shit that wasn't Thief in either storytelling or gameplay.
David Ortiz
The real problem Chrono Cross had is being tied to Chronotrigger.
Easton Wilson
Not just specific to gaming but allowing no-knowing upper management & accountants to unduly influence the game. eg. bland design to appeal to casuals and micro-transactions
Bentley Howard
modern capitalism happened.
When companies are no longer run and controlled by the technical people, and instead are run my MBAs, this is what happens. Technical innovation and valuing technical excellence? No. Fuck that. Those people are interchangeable cogs. Hire some street shitters or newgrads. Just as good. Better.
Business innovations and valuing marketing departments is where it's at now! Fuck those tech monkeys what do they even do all day lol! Keep coding you dumb monkeys. We need to pay our elite marketing teams some big bonuses this year.
Erect enough barriers to entry to strangle new, innovative companies before they can make a start. Continue to lower the quality mean. Fuck shipping a working product. Enjoy day 1 patches. Maybe do some regulatory capture if you can. Abuse copyright and trademark law as much as humanly possible. Get some DMCA action on small competitors' videos. Maybe threaten an baseless lawsuit or two. Pit consumers against each other and against their own best interest. Pollute and buy off as many starving journalists as possible. Pit them against the consumers too (ex: anti-consumer/gamer fags like Alex Navaro)
It's just the natural progression of an industry. It's going to suck pretty much forever now.