Since we have a trashfire of a thread here seriously I thought the end of summer would mean better threads, not worse I thought this would be an opportune time to bring up another topic on the economics and business of vidya. Namely, a new standard that could ACTUALLY change the industry.
I don't know if any of you fags have heard of Motion-Twin or Dead Cells, given that I don't see any discussion of the game. Maybe a webm or two in the usual threads, given that the latter is Early Access. Maybe >>>/agdg/ would be familiar with FOSS Haxe and OpenFL, since one of the Motion-Twin people, Nicolas Canasse, is basically responsible for them.
Anyways, doing the math for sales at an extreme lowball and based on Steam numbers, disregarding regional pricing, they've made at least 3.6 million dollars. So what's notable about the revenue they've made?
They're a worker's cooperative, and they split it evenly amongst ten employees. Dead Cell's been out for three and a half months now.
Assuming that europoor taxes and operating/living costs aren't an issue, as well as costs spent on developing the game, Motion-Twin's made a killing and the average employee makes more than three times what you'd expect a senior software engineer to make in a quarter of the year. Certainly not bad for a developer that actually *moved* from F2P web games to B2P PC to AVOID mobile development. And that money got me wondering: Why don't we see more worker's coop structures in video game development?
If I were truly Holla Forums I'll be bawling about promoting a business model that still prioritizes profit and private ownership.
The most obvious reason would be the lack of awareness that such a model exists in the first place, but why do we need to pay the psychopaths in suits that don't give a shit about making the game in the first place? Shouldn't the people who love the craft and actually invest their time in improving their skill at it be compensated by performance instead of being exploited and shunned endlessly?
It seems video games and entertainment in general are perfectly suited for workers coops. Making a game might as well be a business venture at that point, as both have high probabilities of failure when starting out. Video games don't require a lot of capital in themselves to begin, only that the creators be able to sustain themselves. And a lot of creatives already work as freelancers in the first place, which can transfer nicely into worker's coops, not to mention they won't be beholden to outside forces (aka shitty moneygrubbing producers). Equal equity means that every employee has a vested interest in being as successful as possible. This advantage would be diluted by the number of employees, hence encouraging a highly efficient workforce. A caveat is that members would have to handle sales, management, and advertising, all expertises that they aren't renown for. Still, with indie games proliferating all over the place, I see no reason why worker's coops could hurt the industry thus yet.
Thoughts? Castlevania?