Why Does This Keep Happening to the Gaming Community? | Cold Take

The gaming community goes through a lot of the same things... over and over again.
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[@TheVet3ran]

that 'corporate perspective' monologue was the coldest thing i've heard on this whole series. Incredible work, as always.

[@danielgehring7437]

"There's a lot of Billies" could really be the rallying cry of the heartbroken consumer. Although let's face it, Sebastian's voice is so buttery smooth he could read the phone book to us and it would be the coolest thing ever.

[@ProjectXA3]

There's a reason they call him, Frost

[@greenhowie]

Yeah this is really good. Could see that segment getting animated and going viral, it really deserves to - maybe a shareholder will see it then.

[@Toogzoog]

I kinda want to hear him voice act a villain now. He could absolutely nail the cold, calculating, and ruthless type of character.

[@DarkoP9.13]

@@ProjectXA3 Better Frost than Frosk

[@LanceGreenbacks]

"We are buying this exciting new studio, buy some shares!" "We are shuttering this studio to cut costs, buy some shares!"

[@PersonalPariah]

"Here, have a dividend and don't think too hard."

[@SimuLord]

Stock is rising: "Catch the wave!" Stock is falling: "Buy the dip!"

[@AwesomeDakka]

"man, we need these award winning games to make us look good." declares brain dead corporation a day after shutting down award winning game.

[@UlshaRS]

New exec: Don't worry I'm not here for a golden parachute. Just ignore the backpack it's a coffee maker and totally not a jetpack.

[@gospodindpakoh4200]

Microsoft would NEVER shut down studios that making profits. Plz guess, why they shut down Arkane?

[@Godzeller3143]

“I’m the devil, I don’t need an advocate” 10/10, gold star, what a freaking line.

[@sisyr5615]

The line was even smoother. He said "I'm the devil, I don't need advocacy."

[@Brown95P]

"You'll turn against gamers, family, government and society before you leave the echo chamber and quit me, all to feel better even though I'm the one making you feel bad. You ask me why I do this to you? This isn't about you, it's about the money. For you see, I am a company, and you're an end user participating in retail therapy, falsely attributing human traits to me like caring and generosity; it's your passion that makes it easy for me."

[@Beutimus]

I kept getting confused if Frost was talking about Frost or companies. Dang Mondays.

[@Sniperbear13]

addiction makes things so easy.

[@diekssus7194]

We're all apes in the end

[@AB-fh9zh]

It's the GamersTM manifesto.

[@MisterZimbabwe]

But companies are made up of humans, you'd think that having so many humans together working in close proximity would cause the organization as a whole to act in a human manner with human traits.

[@joink25]

I think the "Line Goes Up" mentality is hitting a bubble burst situation. We're really close.

[@SimuLord]

Brace yourselves, 1983 is coming. If anyone needs me, I'll be in the fallout shelter that is indie and nontraditional gaming markets.

[@Kyleology]

Short the entire market if you're that sure.

[@jonsweeney4347]

Cant wait. Let game development go back to the handful of maniacs in a garage making games because they cant NOT make games, AAA hasnt deserved anyone's money for years at this point.

[@stevsux4442]

Its not even just the gaming industry. Pretty much every industry is hanging on by a thread cutting costs as sharply as they can, taking any deals, contracts and investments they can riding the coattails of one of the few companies left being profitable. In many ways the state of things is so bad for the average person we're already at the crash, companies and governments are just too selfish to admit the inevitable systemic level failure for themselves

[@LuizAlexPhoenix]

I am old enough to have seen enough booms and busts, each time the productivity increases, the costs go up and the wages stay the same. Too much money gets sucked up into the 0,0001%, they buy all the property and the government prints more, which further devalues the labour and means it takes longer to buy the same small escapist pleasures that made it bearable. As you get older, you get qualified and experience so you might not feel it immediately. Yet, soon enough, the hectic life charges its price, you need to pay for medical bills and your mental state pretty much depends on your small (some not so small) vices. Worse still, once you become a highly qualified professional with over a decade of experience, you see opportunities dry up, companies think you are too old and expensive, so they hire the young ones that will work twice the hours for half the pay. But you still need to pay for the doctor's bill, for the home you rent and the bills of your relatives that rely on you. All so that, when you finally die of the stress, no one remembers you and makes fun of your foolish pursuit of the so called american dream.

[@4dragons632]

Oh f**k he nailed the executive roleplay so hard that I got chills.

[@tretretre1111]

He's not wrong, though.

[@the_amazing_raisin]

My only issue with it was I think he's giving the execs too much credits I don't think they're setting out to destroy studios, it's more that they don't care if a game succeeds or fails. Execs are now so risk averse they won't tolerate any degree of creativity, constantly meddle in development and will milk a studio for all it's worth If the game succeeds, happy days. If it fails then just shutter the studio and cut costs, all while holding on to that precious IP so you can get another studio to bleed it for brand recognition some more

[@Jonas-Seiler]

@@the_amazing_raisin execs are under incredible pressure to live up to the capital owners expectations, they can’t help it either, but the literally unspendable amounts of money they make probably helps immensely with ignoring any moral stipulations

[@thefallofhousedenari]

I read it less as execs and more the concept of a company as a holistic entity. Execs come and go but the company is the real thing.

[@4dragons632]

@@thefallofhousedenari I somewhat disagree. Execs will throw even their big company under the bus as long as they get a golden parachute and quick employment at another big company. If amazon failed tomorrow we'd be seeing bezos as the CEO of American Express or something within the month.

[@daydreamer2257]

4:24 "Your mother must have been a playstation" The thing is, unironically there are probaply people who have gotten more emotional support from gaming consols thant from their actual parents, and that makes the statemnt kind of sad. Of course they would support what brought them through their earlier years vigerously.

[@ARantingMarch]

Honestly. As much as people talk about how the kids of today are getting parented by ipads and phones, there's def some gamers out here who were clearly parented/raised by their consoles and other electronics also lol.

[@db8658]

Excellent observation.

[@GamingNStuff777]

yup... i spent more time with consoles than with my parents. im nearly 40.

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

I wasn't patented by them, but when I was in severe depression, games were the only thing getting me out of bed

[@GardenFootCreature]

The reliance of children on things like game consoles rather than their parents can perhaps explain the mental health epidemic this country is seeing.

[@jakehr3]

It's honestly impressive how the escapist had me only ever watching Yatzhee, but when they decided to shoot themselves in the foot and had nearly their entire creative team just become their own thing under Second Wind that I'm discovering all these awesome creators that I never heard of or would ever bothered listening to.

[@matteria3239]

Is that what it was? I've only been watching cold take because I find Yahtzee talks too fast for me since English is my second language, and I found cold take on the escapist like not even a month before they had their second wind, is there a video explaining their shift? I didn't quite get it

[@Player-10]

"Sorry you got twisted up in this scene. From where you're kneeling, it must seem like an 18-karat run of bad luck. Truth is... the game was rigged from the start."

[@kentonroush]

I see Frost has decided to wake up and choose violence today. Absolutely savage. A+

[@megatennepster3833]

I feel like the hi fi rush studio in particular getting shuttered is what gets me. That's a decision with zero good explanations.

[@Gingrnut]

The explanation is that it’s a single player only AA game with little franchise potential and no ‘recurrent user spending’ model attached. It makes perfect sense from the corporation’s point of view. Why invest in another one of those, that won’t make nearly enough money to justify it.

[@KillinTime2792]

>Hey you guys, even though your success is a AA Hack and Slash RythmAction game make a AAA lootershooter now because that's what market analytics tells us you should be making for the most return on investment "No" >Shut them down. Or something to that effect probably. End of the day the suits said they're not profitable enough so they gotta go.

[@ramael3299]

I have a good explanation; it set a bad example by being a simple but infinitely fun and stylish game. You can't have consumers get used to quality products, or else they'll keep expecting quality at every turn. If you can make an aggressively average product then market it successfully, that means you don't have to try as hard the next time you are releasing something. Hi-Fi Rush was probably the best original they had in a long while, so I'm mad but not surprised they axed it. Corpos can't let us have nice things.

[@CryoJnik]

What was even dumber is that MicroSmoothBrains later said that they need to make more games like HiFi Rush...after shutting down Tango.

[@KRDiStort]

I've seen one theory that the entire reason Hi-Fi was shadowdropped was that MS was expecting it to completely crash and burn. That way, they'd have a justifiable excuse to shutter Tango, and already put the process in motion. Of course, Hi-Fi obviously didn't crash and burn, but the gears were already turning and Tango was already on the chopping block.

[@AroWolfArts]

Showing footage of one of those digital museums having a terrible nft picture in it while talking about this topic just perfectly puts into perspective what we're dealing with at this point.

[@hazukichanx408]

Imaginary commodities are weirdly common, especially among the ridiculously wealthy. The stock market, too, is really just a means for the excessively wealthy to trade pieces of companies - and what is a company but an abstract idea given form by the inclusion of a location and a list of employees? Trading the idea that we owe them labor, that we need to make them X amount of money or be fired... it's roughly as mad as paying a fortune for a link to a jpeg of a random cringey monkey.

[@FailureOfAName]

And we all still laugh at an industry that never learns anything!

[@michaelglinski3809]

Tee hee hee!

[@MazeFrame]

There is nothing to learn. When "be 2nd and shoot the 1st place on the podium" keeps working, why change a single thing? Vote with your wallet means holding when FOMO whispers in your ear that the 50% sale is on.

[@BladedEdge]

This doesn't apply. Did you watch the video? The industry execs learned what makes their personal wealth skyrocket and they are laughing all the way to the bank. Company health or product quality is not and never was relevant.

[@Euruzilys]

If anything I feel the industry is laughing at us.

[@FailureOfAName]

You all are reading too deep into a comment referencing something yahtzee used to do when the releases got stale. They haven't learned a thing. Period. If they did learn, then their outlook wouldn't be too be pursuing infinite growth to keep shareholders happy, but to keep the paying customers happy. Microsoft is doing an EA, buying up companies and doing nothing with them and letting them burn themselves. Bullfrog and origin systems come to mind in this case. The only thing that changed is that the hobby got mainstream and therefore have an audience that is ignorant by choice. I feel like that this is an American capitalist problem where investors/shareholders are king instead of the stakeholder. When there is a hit in profits or growth suddenly it's the fucking apocalypse and people start jumping off rooftops. Boo fucking hoo.

[@getnohappy]

Next to the clock in every classroom from kindergarten onward should be a sign saying "companies are not your friends"

[@IzunaSlap]

Nintendo does a good job of pretending to be your childhood friend.

[@jlev1028]

Politicians too.

[@DTFauxClassic]

@@jlev1028 I think it's less a problem of people thinking politicians are our friends, and more that folks forget politicians are supposed to be CIVIL SERVANTS. Government is supposed to work for us, but not enough folks can be bothered to exercise their right to votes long enough to see any meaningful change, while simultaneously complaining that nothing ever seems to improve. Or more frustratingly, too many have been conditioned to vote against their better interests; Be it being distracted by culture war nonsense, or being unwilling to vote for the politician(s) who advocates to reign in anti-consumer practices because they have the wrong letter by their name... And then complaining that nothing ever seems to improve.

[@igorthelight]

@@DTFauxClassic 100% agree!

[@Cortaal]

I appreciate the addition of "those getting in the way of business" near the end. It is always good seeing those fight the good fight, spreading awareness, informing audiences. Gives a man a bit of hope to latch onto and believe something good might come from all of this mess. -Zek

[@arturoaguilar6002]

But, despite all the fighting, Microsoft still closed down the studios. We need to find an effective way to fight, because fight without results is nothing but token resistance (which doesn't get in the way of business).

[@carolbaker2773]

Apparently to fight the man you have to be a 30ish year old white guy with long dark hair /s. But for real its starting to get harder to tell them apart.

[@nobodyinparticular9640]

​@@arturoaguilar6002Not buying their crap/piracy Tho good luck convincing the people not willing to listen

[@SimuLord]

@@carolbaker2773 We were young once, us crusading white dudes, some of us were even teens or college-aged during the movement's genesis in the mid-aughts and during the Great Recession. We just got older and some of us lost our hair.

[@LastHazzerd]

Realism without some optimism is just unhelpful pessimism. Standing there and showing me a mirror is only gonna show me, and what's already behind me. It's nice to show a crack in a door or even just a window too.

[@Marksman3434]

A lot of people who were cheerleading Microsoft’s purchase of ABK are looking like fools now. Market consolidation and monopolization are never a good thing. But what’s even more pathetic is Microsoft’s public handling of this utterly abysmal decision. One of the world’s most valuable companies ($3 trillion in value) couldn’t be bothered to spend even 0.001% of that in trying to make these studios produce games that would’ve potentially made that money back and then some. I swear, AI should be replacing the jobs of CEOs and executives, especially in large companies, instead of artists and laborers. After all, they’re the most expensive employees of any business. Their yearly salaries could be used instead to hire many more workers that help make products faster.

[@musicman24X]

Business degrees are, after all, the easiest majors at every college.

[@einstien2409]

Lmao, Soo true. I would love to see their face now.

[@Gingrnut]

I mean anyone who was in favour of that deal was an idiot. One giant corporation buying another giant corporation is always bad. Monopolisation is always bad. Gamers have such short-term memories.

[@JesseDylanMusic]

And plenty of other people hated redfall, made fun of Bethesda, and ignored hi-fi rush… and now they’re super upset.

[@ichijofestival2576]

When that deal was going down, it seemed like I was the only one with a bad word to say about it. Criticize Microsoft on anything gaming-related and the fanboys rush in. At this point, monopolization just seems to be baked into Microsoft's DNA, and with the state of antitrust regulation in this country, not much hope of stopping them.

[@JaredTakesTime]

"Play that Jazz yesss" should close every Cold Take from now on. (Congrats on 6 months. This is the first patreon I've ever supported and the work ya'll are doing is incredible.)

[@akeemmorrison2589]

So basically the solution is giving a CEO a 50 Million bonus.

[@lordadorable1140]

Works. Every. Time

[@DrReverendJ]

50 million? You're thinking to small.

[@yondie491]

@@DrReverendJ too*

[@tmr3volver]

Don't forget to lay off enough employees to keep from lowering the shareholders' dividends.

[@NightRogue77]

Silly, that’s the ONLY solution

[@DawnOfTheOzz]

"Cinnamon and sugary and softly, spoken lies." The modern mantra of the executives running the gaming industry.

[@vigorouslethargy]

Didn't think I was gonna see a Butthole Surfers quote today. Or this decade.

[@BillyONeal]

Some will fall in love with life and drink it from a fountain that is pourin like an avalanche, comin down the mountain

[@arturoaguilar6002]

History as old as gaming. Back in the 80's, arcade game developers used to be denied raises in their salary because "the success of a game is completely random"

[@michaellivingston6901]

I can't exactly explain why, but the ending of this video has made me genuinely emotional; I didn't realize how badly I needed hope. Thank you for making this.

[@camoking3609]

The weaponized passion of the masses that let them get away with heinous greed in the past might be the last hope of the masses to stop it, so long as it's directed properly

[@Alucard-A-La-Carte]

Just 10 years ago, the idea of unionizing in videogames was laughed out of every company. Now Activision had to cave and accept its QA teams starting. It's never enough, they always overreach and always do it too fast. Eventually, people notice.

[@farmpunk_dan]

It’s almost as if we live under a system of production organized around accumulation of capital at the expense of everything else.

[@Scarhwk]

The decision to shutter Arkane Austin made sense to me, at least - it was basically a zombie husk by the time Redfall came out, with half the talent having already left. This video does a pretty good job of explaining how we got to that point.

[@evanrutledge-sz4yo]

Personally I wished they just merged Arkan Austin With Arkan Lyon. Have the teaming talent there go into more experienced devs. Closing it down wasn’t fair because Bethesda made them make Redfall and Xbox didn’t cancel the game like they should have, most of the devs didn’t want to make the game, when it failed, they got the boot while the higher ups that actually screwed up got a bonus.

[@cyanthrope]

I hope more devs find a way to take the ball and go home, move to indie studios and start their own. I hope more casual gamers learn that AAA simply isn't worth their time and money anymore.

[@Ouvii]

The uninformed masses will continue eating their slop. Unfortunately, videos like this have a tiny audience compared to all people who pay for games. Idk if they just don't know what they are missing or actually can't spare the brain capacity to care. And most depressingly, people will see this video, get recreationally outraged, and forget all of it the next time a shiny AAA title comes around.

[@Ouvii]

@@thecaptain6520 eh, you are putting words in my mouth. I actually can't spare the brain capacity for some things but that doesn't mean I'm stupid. Please stop projecting. Though you are right I guess? Video games are for everyone and there are all kinds to go around. What a world we live in.

[@De_kaid]

@@thecaptain6520 "videogames are for everyone" so then we agree that everyone buing into modern triple a always online titles IS an idiot or doesn't care, just look at Helldivers 2 and tell me that game is for everyone lol

[@De_kaid]

@@thecaptain6520 you intentionally missing the point? this wasn't about genres and niches, but about game availability...

[@ArachneInTheWeb]

They could start unions. That'd do the trick. Probably easier than trying to fund their own studios too

[@merman1974]

You can look squarely at Warner Bros in all its forms and see exactly what is wrong with the industries (plural) - refusing to release completed movies after getting a tax break, or releasing an underwhelming service game and deciding that this is the way forward for multiple projects. Completely out of touch with what players want, focussed on the idea that subscriptions are replacing ownership, and always chasing a higher share price.

[@Askanon]

The only good news, if you can call it good news, is that the thing they want, infinite growth and ALL the money, isn't sustainable. It will take time but eventually these morons will burn it all to the ground in pursuit of something they can't have. The issue being is that the people at the top of the pyramid will get off mostly scot free while the workers all go down with the ship. Tale as old as time. Until the assholes running the trickle down pyramid scheme feel the heat themselves nothing will change. But nothing is too big to fail, time comes for us all. It's all a matter of WHEN.

[@kevinanderson4704]

jesus dude, that hit harder than mike tyson

[@IzunaSlap]

im like Jake Paul's face in the emergency room after watching that

[@hazukichanx408]

Frost was pulling zero punches this week.

[@Hjorth87]

Damn Frost. You really nailed this one. The delivery and tone was spot on. I could almost feel the contempt you were projecting

[@dashvash5440]

It sucks. Game designers, especially out of college, are so easily exploitable. They're following their dreams through education and dedication. The big companies, notably Blizzard, know they can low-ball them and whisper sweet words/lies. My sister, out of college, went into game design. After 4 years ago of us pushed her to leave. Started at 40k after 4 years she ended up at 60 hours, 90k, multiple hats (she's a brilliant programmer but can be pushed around). Shopped around. Won't do financial tech that preys on people. Got into e-commerce design. Double+ the salary, more pto, 40 hours or less (if she's ahead and doing good work), etc. She misses making games though. Big corps have garbage culture/crunch and look at all these smaller studios bring gobbled and killed. Go indie or stay away from game development. Medical tech, finance, commerce, some tech companies, some places like energy, etc will pay so so much more with security and almost no crunch or exploitation. Emergencies happen but the OT is real and it's way rarer.

[@Sorain1]

Then your sister should consider doing game's work as a hobby. Small scale stuff as a sideline to her regular job. If it ever comes together, great! If not, then she's still getting the joy of the doing out of it.

[@Shroud66]

To be fair, I would not say a bad game is what kills a studio almost ever. A ceo or executive that gets money hungry or desperate is what kills a studio. A bad game is just another cliff note to justify it. Well that and a refusal to EVER take a pay cut to their own wallet.

[@SenorZorros]

Well, that's the thing with publicly traded companies. The executive who isn't money-hungry will be desperate soon. It is their duty to do whatever the shareholders require and the shareholders require unsustainable business practices. So if a CEO does not bring in growth they will be fired and possibly sued. Now if I were to put on my red hat I'd start arguing that maybe companies should be owned by the people who work for them instead of anonymous hedge funds but we cant have that can we?

[@SuperSmashDolls]

​@@SenorZorros If you're up-front about not chasing literally every profit opportunity and wanting to build a sustainable business, the shareholders probably don't have a leg to stand on in court. Google tried that when it IPO'd with the whole "Don't be evil" thing... but then junked it about a decade later. And they've been slowly but deliberately ruining their search algorithm to hack profits. The reason why this failed is very simple: capital markets. At scale, every business runs on credit. Suppliers and workers all get paid on different timescales, and they all get paid up front, whereas the business only get paid once it has a complete product to ship. If you're a developer working on a AAA game that requires a hundred people working over two years to ship, which isn't uncommon, that means you need to burn hundreds of millions of dollars before you can sell even one copy. And even if the game sells really well, you probably don't earn enough to self-fund another game project, so you have to go back to the publishers for a second loan. In the case of Google, they learned really early on that they're actually terrible at building things. The only successful products they built in-house were Search and Gmail. All their other successes (Android, KZbin, etc) were acquisitions they scaled up, while their long and continuous stream of shut-down services (Google Video, Google+, etc) were built internally. The tech industry is unusual in that because they were able to grow so quickly and with such hype, they were able to sidestep a lot of shareholder pressure. Facebook, for example, is structured as an autocracy. Mark Zuckerberg has a bunch of special shares that he can use to outvote literally all other Facebook shareholders, so they can't fire him just because line go down. But that doesn't mean they can't sell their shares. Mark Zuckerberg might not personally care what the value of those shares are, but the banks he's borrowing money from to satisfy Facebook's ordinary capital needs definitely do want those shares to remain valuable. Otherwise, their loans have no collateral. And everyone needs those loans in order to continue operating their business. So everyone has to care about the stock price, not because of lawsuits, but because a bunch of quirks of how things are made have conspired to make shareholders into kingmakers.

[@hazukichanx408]

@@SenorZorros No cause that's SeWshElliZumM!1!

[@FubukiTheIcyKing]

I was getting ready to buy Hi-fi Rush, but I'd rather pirate it than give Microsoft money for it.

[@Shade400]

same

[@GorFrag]

yo ho yo ho!

[@krisvsthew0rld]

good fucking luck lol. it STILL has not been cracked because of denuvo.

[@ichijofestival2576]

Or hear me out: don't play it at all.

[@JeskidoYT]

Money can't go to Microsoft now

[@karlbarx1819]

That ending will always remind me of TotalBiscut. He was the person who introduced me to consumer rights and I have followed and will continue to follow what he pushed for. Never pre purchase a product. You're paying for something that you wont own for benefits designed to make line go up. Early Betas is just companies outsourcing QA and people eat it up. The consumers create the market and we have more collective power than most people know.

[@Askanon]

Indeed. The problem being is the average consumer just doesn't care enough. At the end of the day one truth still stands high above the rest. Entertainment is a luxury, something optional, it's not something we need to live. The big corporations need us to stay in business but we don't NEED them to keep on living.

[@foregone_roulette]

In your list of things that lecture, browbeat, and demoralize the average consumer, you forgot one thing: the corporate media. One of the reasons I love Second Wind is that you are indisputably on our side. Not insulting us or belittling us for noticing how out of control the industry has gotten or stirring up culture war nonsense to distract us, just standing up against a business model that has gone way too far in the pursuit of infinite profit. For that reason I'll always be a viewer, and happily remain donating to the patreon. Thanks for what you do.

[@hazukichanx408]

Meanwhile, corporate media: "Latest report: Do boring people whine too much about how bad they are at enjoying big budget triple-A video games? The answer may surprise you, even more than the blatantly leading phrasing of the question! More at 11!"

[@FirstLast-cg2nk]

There's a thought exercise regarding AI, where you give an AI the directive to make the maximum amount of paperclips possible, and how it will see everything as either means by which new paperclips can be made or material for more paperclips, ultimately turning the entire universe into paperclips. The corporate mindset is basically that, but instead it is profit and shareholder value. If something isn't generating all the money, in the corpo's eyes it is generating no money. Profit must always be maximum.

[@Landrassa1]

Not just a thought exercise...there's a game. And it's free. search for paperclip decision problem

[@danilooliveira6580]

ah yes, Universal paperclips

[@aravindpallippara1577]

That game is surprisingly dark, ends in consuming the universe to create paperclips

[@danilooliveira6580]

@@aravindpallippara1577 he is talking about the thought experiment the game is based on, but yes.

[@FirstLast-cg2nk]

@@aravindpallippara1577 And that is capitalism in a nutshell: The consumption of all energy, resources, and personnel in the pursuit of increased profit. Anything that gets in the way of profit acquisition must be removed. All must be made to maximize profit, and all that gets in the way of profit must be destroyed. If you think I'm exaggerating, look at Boeing: We've got planes falling out of the sky because the company needed more profit, but with the market saturated and no potential for growth, they had to make the planes cheaper. Of course, to keep the profits rising, the cheapening needs to keep escalating, until you reach the situation we're in now. Whistleblowers are dropping dead because being seen as a company that murders people both accidentally and intentionally is still preferable to reduced profits.

[@DuskTheViking]

More and more my group has been talking about how we now look to see who the publisher is instead of the developer. A bad developer is more prone to mistakes, a bad publishers will guarantee them.

[@Sorain1]

A bad dev makes more mistakes, and has a harder time fixing them. If paired with a good publisher, their bad habits can be curbed somewhat. A bad publisher will FORCE mistakes, and prevent the fixing of them where a Dev wishes to. If paired with a good dev, all you will see is the Publisher's will made manifest as the members of the dev team run out of patience for being forced into mistakes and leave.

[@eldibs]

I'm glad Dunkey's Big Mode came out swinging hard with Animal Well. It turns out that gamers and artists make better choices regarding game quality than executives. Who would have thought?

[@camoking3609]

The indie scene is thriving, not a better time then now to break away from tripple A tyrany

[@Toksyuryel]

I remember how much Dunkey got shit on when he first announced Big Mode, so happy to see him win like this.

[@OrangeDog20]

@@Toksyuryel Yogscast too with their publishing company

[@SimuLord]

@@Toksyuryel Those of us who have been around awhile still remember the debacle that was the Extra Credits attempt at venturing into publishing, which both nearly killed The Escapist (not the last time, as it turned out) AND demonstrated that well-meaning people can badly, horribly screw up a well-intentioned venture. That Dunkey actually pulled it off was always going to be "I'll believe it when I see it." Well, I see it...and I believe it!

[@jlev1028]

​@@thecaptain6520Weird logic you have there. It's like saying if the poor and middle class manage to succeed in life, they'll eventually become the rich elite oppressing a new class of people.

[@sniper441]

I love how frost leans into the noir aspects of his voice, and also microshaft sucks

[@MrSpartan993]

Dude, ALL the corporations suck TO THE LAST. If youre big enough to have your stocks be a primary measurement of success then they’re no longer driven by humans with good intentions.

[@blackestyang7528]

"let's all laugh at an industry that doesn't learn anything teeheehee!" ~Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw

[@Grizabeebles]

It's an industry that's never NEEDED to learn anything new. About 1 in 5 gamers are children and more than half are under the age of 36. There's always a fresh crop of rubes coming in to feed to the same old scams.

[@ethanbell6762]

"I'm the devil, I don't need advocacy." Is an unironically hard line

[@Rubberman202]

2:18 - "I want ALL the money" Stephanie Sterling has literally been saying this about corporations for year, they don't want to make some money or even a lot of money, they want to make ALL the money there is!

[@MrSpartan993]

Which is literally impossible and super evil!

[@brittanybecker170]

Thank Gawd for our blessed Cassandra of Video Games cuz she is what this industry needs!

[@mrsejanoz523]

Genuinely surprised that the Commander wasn't mentioned amongst the others at the end.

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

​@@mrsejanoz523Might be too already known possibly?

[@m1k3y48]

The line must go up. …right?

[@Redvox57]

Cold take is genuinely becoming one of my favorite videos to tune into weekly on KZbin as a whole. this new branding has really let me truly appreciate all the talent you and your crew has, and its so nice hearing a raw anti corporate takes without having to shave off the edges for some higher company.

[@yawnberg]

For a society so focused on consumption it's remarkable how bad we are at being consumers. We make life worse for ourselves in so many ways, all while believing we're getting a good deal.

[@elone3997]

That's just it - we're actually excellent 'consumers' (which in itelf is a very unflattering term) shovelling down whatever crap that gets served up. The problem is that too many people either don't either realise or are happy to just go with it all. Apathy always ensures nothing changes..not ranting at you personally btw ☺️

[@yawnberg]

@@elone3997 shovelling indiscriminately and making choices about your consumption are different things. You can feed yourself well to keep yourself in good health or you can accept whatever is put in front of you and leave your health in the hands of someone else. But if you go with the latter you can only hope the chef doesn't benefit from making you fat.

[@Blacksadify]

Hi-Fi Rush was a media darling that hardly anyone actually bought. Yes, yes, "Gamepass cannibalized their sales." It only sold 450k units on Steam and made 9 million dollars. While we don't know the exact Gamepass player metrics, we DO know from achievements that only 14% of people who played it finished the 4th out of 6 total bosses, meaning that 86% of people who played it dropped it after the halfway point. It's a 12 hour game, so 6 hours in. That's one gaming session, basically, before the vast majority didn't ever play it again. It didn't sell, nor did it have much player staying power.

[@Diphenhydra]

6 hours is a gaming session for you? Either you aren't an adult or your list of hobbies is very limited. Or you somehow manage to work little while still making enough to live, have time for hobbies, and get to play 6 hours of games on a given day. Probably a fourth thing, I don't know you. Personally, a play session for me is about 90 minutes, that's about the same for most people I know. Everyone's circumstance is different, could be anecdotal. Also, regarding the percentage, it's long been known that most people don't finish the games they start. It would be hard to come up with an actual number, and of course every game is different. I remember a few years ago some developer for a AAA studio (sorry I do not remember the person or studio) threw out the number 25%. Looking at forum posts and articles and whatever, 20%-30% seems to be a general average. Percentages are kinda weird though. Coffee Talk (PS5) only has an 87% completion for the trophy "start a new game." 13% of players loaded to the main menu and then never played it. In Borderlands 3 (PS5), nearly 20%, 1 in 5 people, never reached level 2. A trophy that you get within the first few minutes of playing because xp is abundant. To my knowledge, neither of those games have been oered as part of PlayStation's subscription service. I'd also like to see the breakdown based on money spent on the game. I'm sure a person would be more likely to see a game through if they spent money on it vs someone who got it "for free" through a subscription. Hi-Fi being 14% at the halfway point isn't shocking since (I'm assuming), the vast majority of people got it for free.

[@Blacksadify]

@@Diphenhydra I'm a 46 year old, own my house, and have a good job. Yes, gaming is my main hobby, but I have time for reading, art, and a few other hobbies as well. I just didn't squeeze out a bunch of kids, so I have a lot of disposable income and free time. :) I suppose we could look at the Steam achievements, too, but...hardly anyone bought it on there. 450k units sold out of 120 million active users.

[@maluse227]

God frost dropped a gem here, beautiful writing even beyond his average standard.

[@JasonX909]

With a Shinedown reference to boot!

[@GabrielOnuris]

This was the best Cold Take until now. It will be hard to top this one.

[@sleeplessindefatigable6385]

Okay, I simply gotta animate Frost doing that supervillain tier bit. Jesus christ that was cold.

[@DarthKotEI]

Sterling was my first exposure to actual criticism to the corp-brained nature of fans

[@TheCivildecay]

Too bad he dropped off badly... last time I checked a video by sterling he wouldn't stop talking about that he/she will get fucked that night... also the wrestling stuff was dumb af

[@andrewmartin3671]

A lunatic for sure, but speaking the truth. Anyone who portrays the Cornflakes Humunculus is certifiably unhinged, but they've covered plenty of stuff I never heard reported elsewhere (admittedly I don't follow much gaming news outside of Jimquisition or Second Wind YT channels)

[@aerrae5608]

@@taags What makes them a lunatic? Are you about to expose yourself as a transphobe mayhaps and discredit yourself among civilized and intelligent society?

[@theobell2002]

Exactly. And the anti-woke crowd is just an extension of that because they don't actually want to admit this is a problem within capitalism so they just blame minorities.

[@hazukichanx408]

@@andrewmartin3671 Oh, an enbie posts ONE video (okay, many videos) of themselves dressed up as a horror game monster based on the bland corn flakes invented by some asylum doctor to avoid overstimulating his patients and later marketed with added sugar and whatnot by his business boy brother, and suddenly you're unhinged? More or less unhinged than the people who eat those asylum patient blandflakes and like them...?

[@astarothgr]

These videos are getting soo good, I have started having urges to replay them, to go through each reference and just to make sure I didn't miss anything. This could be the beginning of something really big.

[@FireFox64000000]

Here's the thing about the whole "Just make good games" argument, It applies to cooperate too. You can only cut so many corners befor you cet a circle. And when your customer, who paid for a square, gets that too many times they'll start buying their squares elsewhere.

[@RAFMnBgaming]

Of course who's selling squares right now? certainly not them...

[@FireFox64000000]

@@RAFMnBgaming Well I know a few smaller companies that are selling handmade squares. They're a little small to fit in the copy machine but at least they get the job done. Hell, even I'm trying to make my own. Never thought a square could be so complicated. Currently all I have is a trapezoid and 1/10 of a rhombus. Right Ideas wrong angles.

[@SimuLord]

Indie games made by solo devs should be called get-rekt-angles.

[@gerardotejada2531]

Diablo Immortal was a Hit. Call of Duty and Fifa go strong. The customers are dumb. They have proved It time and timw again. If It wasnt for Steam giving their customers the right to return the product outside the original 2 hour margin Sony would have pushed their BS. Gamers are dumb and weak. In the last 15 years companies have destroyed the comunity

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

​​@@FireFox64000000You know where I could get a few dodecagons?

[@LanceThumping]

Imagine if things were restructured so that profits from stocks had to come from long term dividends instead of high frequency trading. Like what if stocks could only be sold/traded/leveraged/etc every 5 years or so. Maybe then businesses would focus on stability alongside growth. Instead of insane startup schemes gunning for the next big thing, we'd see more moderate investment in things that make real sense. The ability for giant shareholders to squeeze a company for as much short term money as they can get, then bail when the stock starts to drop is crazy.

[@BladedEdge]

System working as designed.

[@BladedEdge]

System working as designed.

[@prismaticcrow]

What you're asking for is self-regulation, and no one in the history of anything has ever self-regulated themselves. It's always about getting the most bang for your buck before the system collapses; government, business, work, life. Any attempt at self-regulation only destabilizes your own power and risks someone else coming in and taking it from you. So you're the one who has to regulate. Once you're on top of the mountain, the only thing you can do is turn around push everyone else down, lest you lose your position and your say in how it all works. I don't like any of it. Damned if I know how to fix it.

[@rhianbrown2981]

Doing a 5 year delay just means these companies would only ever be incentivized to find ways to make line go up in 5 year increments rather than

[@tbotalpha8133]

Imagine if the profits of a business were distributed equitably among the workers, instead of hoarded by freeloaders in suits who've never worked an honest day in their life. Imagine if business decisions were made collectively by the workers, who actually understand what their jobs involve, instead of by business majors who only got their job because their daddy knows people. You can dream about trying to reform the stock market all you want. It won't fix anything, because the root cause of the problem - that the people making the decisions are completely disconnected from the people doing all the work, and can use up and discard said workers with no consequences - will still be right there, rotting away the foundations.

[@asfasfasfasf124]

Compassion->Teaching->Learning->Progress. Greed->Cognitive dissonance->Regress->Bad stuff. Compassion>Greed. Only way forward for all of us here and in the future.

[@hazukichanx408]

Glad I'm not the only one who feels this way =)

[@DuizhangLu]

What's extra terrifying is that this is basically happening in EVERY sector. Hospitals, the movie industry, food. It's insanity

[@raven.4815]

Capitalism is out of control more than ever before, it's a matter of time before the bubble bursts

[@RaptorJesus]

"Like Carl Sagan with better hair" is the best description of PirateSoftwar/Thor I've ever heard.

[@countesschewi2399]

I think Frost might legitimately be one of the best writers at Second Wind right now, he manages to make his points in such an intelligent manner while also being engaging.

[@ravenshrike]

It's really quite simple, you have people in charge of Xbox like Sarah Bond. A Yale econ major with an MBA from Hahvad business school. She was the primary driver at MS behind the Acti/Blizz acquisition and one of the primaries managing Xbox Game Pass since 2017. She doesn't give a single rancid cat poop about video games. Also, expensive modern art is largely a money laundering scheme.

[@SimuLord]

I wouldn't hire an MBA to flip burgers if I was managing a Jack in the Box, they're too useless for that. I would, however, suggest that MBAs be paid minimum wage in accordance with Marx's Labour Theory of Value for the "work" they do running businesses. I'm not even a Marxist, but I think ol' Karl was on to something with his views on worker compensation.

[@UlshaRS]

Most luxury market items are just a way to hide wealth or traffic it without incurring taxes and fees.

[@jasonkoroma4323]

@@UlshaRS Taxes are bullshit to begin with anyways.

[@MotherKojiro]

I've loved your content since the very first piece I've watched (I think it was a 3-minute review or something), but this particular video is SO stylish. The message, the roleplaying, the inflections; you absolutely NAILED it.

[@somethinggamesfunny]

mr frost i barely comment things on this internet thing, but your style of mixing us english words with that soft resentiment kind of voice makes me feel i'm not alone in this often too dark intersetction of digital pleasure we share. keep up the good work

[@tw1sted1nc]

"Your superficial interest" - stone cold truth for the Gamers. Most of us like a few songs but don't give a crap about the music-makers

[@greenhowie]

Considering gamers as a single community is a bit of an issue as well. It's like saying "The music community is in uproar over the latest drama" when it's really just people who listen to hip hop and rap. I'm sad for what is happening and I feel bad for everyone affected both within the industry and the fandoms, though. Non-AAA gamers do not have souls of stone.

[@SimuLord]

1 Timothy 6:10: "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." I'm no Christian but I know good words when I see them.

[@KaneA87]

Which is why most religions covet money above all else

[@SimuLord]

@@KaneA87 I'm religious myself (non-Christian, that's all I'll say) and while I believe in the gods, I refuse to join a religious group.

[@ehhorve857]

hey, my man, THANK you for getting the full verse! seriously, a LOT people cut out 'the love of money' part, it's INSANE how many people refuse a living wage because of a few missing words! SOME not even christian, REGULAR people do it too! make me want to make a quote of my own. 'the people act, only as far as they know.'

[@jlev1028]

Jesus may've been a heretic, but he was one hell of a philosopher.

[@SimuLord]

@@ehhorve857 What most people miss is that Paul the Apostle (whose letters to Timothy are the part of the New Testament that verse comes from) used 'love of money" to refer to raw greed. 2,000 years later, we call such empty-souled sinners "successful". You don't have to be religious to see why St. Paul got it right. But taking care of oneself and one's family and one's community, money is a means to an end. So by all means get what your labors entitle you to, but then use that in service of your spiritual life however that may manifest, religious or otherwise.

[@asteriondeltoro124]

I've always thought that the best analogy for the the history of gaming is the history of cinema. You had the big, shiny Hollywood golden age of the 30's-40's, driven by spectacle more than anything. But the studio system that made it happen wasn't sustainable. Pressures from both within and without started piling up- rising costs, unions, creative stagnancy, government regulation, competition from television- and the people in charge couldn't change their business model because it was all they knew. Inevitably, it all came crashing down. Then we got by on drive-ins, imports, and cheap exploitation fare for awhile before a new generation took the reins and steered things back to quality filmmaking in the 70's. It makes perfect sense that we'd be in for a "New Hollywood" era of gaming. Problem is, I said the same thing ten years ago when flash games were still being made and Undertale was everybody's GOTY. But it didn't go to plan; indies have struggled since then, and the situation in the industry has gotten worse.

[@RAFMnBgaming]

Cinema's going through a rough time of capitalism ruining things at the moment too so it's not necesarily a problem that ever goes away.

[@acblook]

Indies are always going to struggle, it's risky by definition, but they're like a massive part of the industry now

[@wintermute5974]

Yeah, it would be nice if that was true but so far it just hasn't been. There haven't been any huge regulatory changes to make the established model's unworkable, big game publishers aren't having anywhere near the same level of difficulty selling familiar genres that the big studios were, and there's no practice of getting creatives from small indie projects to come over and work on massive titles to inject some creative juice like there is in film making.

[@ChanJENI]

"Bad games leading to studio closure is the natural order of things" Yeah, if the studio has any meaningful say in what projects they work on. When it's the publisher dictating what you're working on, and their ideas are what's leading to bad games, then it should be their jobs on the line, not the rank and file.

[@LightninPanda69]

Got chills for a minute there, the take was so cold. Great work as always, thank you for keeping up your particular brand of consumer advocacy!

[@JasperTheFriendlyGoth]

I just wanted to drop some love for Frost here. KZbin is my television, and you're certainly one of the biggest stars of my personal network, as it were. I appreciate ya!

[@TheJasonaut]

I may roll my eyes all the way around at the delivery, but the message is so sadly needed as a large portion of the the gaming community have quite literally cheer-leaded us to this point.

[@KingOfMadCows]

Ninja Theory, Obsidian, InXile, Rare, Double Fine: ha ha, we're in danger.

[@shepardvasnormandy]

If Hellblade 2 was already out for a year, that studio would've been axed.

[@zettaichan]

Feels like J Stephanie Sterling could've got a namecheck at the end there too, since their "Corporations don't just want some money, they want all the money" mantra showed up in the text.

[@TheArtOfGoingMouldy]

Goddamn, this might be your magnum opus. The corporate character was chilling and all too real.

[@xarvatas]

Its just sad... I don't know what else to say. 😐

[@sunyavadin]

"Micromanaged to death"? Jason Schreier's interviews with Arkane Austin staffers suggested otherwise. A game with barely any management, just a "get something out with a vague notion of being like these other games" from Zenimax, and MS not paying any attention to how bad development was going.

[@Capybellie]

An absolutely brutal takedown, not only of companies, but of gaming culture, too.

[@shanewalser9865]

"I'm the Devil, I don't need advocacy." 4:13 The most profound and perfectly delivered set of phrases you've ever said, Frost.

[@mysticwizard1943]

Honestly, the Dunkey analogy of him thinking about this like a 5-year-old and saying "Let's just sell good games, and pay the people making them." is both hilariously accurate, but also kind of where I'm at with capitalism as a whole. Why should I deal with several layers of middlemen for everything from buying a house to buying a game? And why does dealing with them always result in the producer of the product AND me, the end customer, always getting screwed? Being underpaid or overpaying respectively, for the benefit of people who do nothing but leech. It's really as simple as "build a good house and sell it" but we're all convinced this is the wrong way to do things.

[@MX-oz5rx]

It seems like people at that level of business have a fundamentally different mindset to the rest of us. If I wanted my salary to go up every fiscal quarter no matter the work I did, I'd be - rightfully - laughed at.

[@hagamablabla]

"Might even eat it for more than that" was so incredible I had to pause the video to finish laughing before I could keep watching.

[@MediaMunkee]

This is a hell of an impressive callout video. You get everyone in every camp, extend a bit of sympathy in the process, and then point to a few rays of hope. That's how it's done.

[@ThatOneMan830]

Friend o’ mine linked this to me and damn, this is so good. Well done!

[@OverlySarcasticProductions]

This video is helping people with a desperate need for new Leonardi Da Vinci content feel seen for the first time in 500 years. -B

[@joshuaheins4018]

Oh, hello there!

[@Excelsior1937]

Yooo OSP

[@AstralDragn]

Hearing it phrased like this... Great, now I feel even worse! No but seriously. I think a decent amount of the gaming community has known that its the people in it that perpetuate the cycle.. The problem is, it just doesn't matter enough. Then we're back to 'why should I go out of my way if no one else will?' I hope and pray all these leaders that are trying to bring change succeed. But well wishing doesn't usually do much and while I'll do the easy stuff to help, getting me willing and interested enough to commit (like most of the gaming community) is exceptionally difficult. I think most people can agree that even if they want change they feel disinfranchised so much that they don't really care to act on those desires, and its a habit that we need to find a way to break if we truly want this cycle to break.

[@mechanicalmonk2020]

I repeat: Animal Well had a bunch of high profile media coverage before Dunkey got involved. He didn't find a needle in the haystack

[@IronBabyFists]

And thank YOU, pal. All of Second Wind is part of that group of folks working to wrench the industry out of this landfill. 😎💙

[@SirAedryn]

This was ruthless and direct. Absolutely brilliant work.

[@HazzardousEco]

2:18 that must have come from one of Jim Sterling's infamous quotes: "Companies don't just want some of the money...that want ALL of the money".

[@AtrociousNightmare]

You've become one of my absolute favorites on YT so quickly! Great and important videos, thank you.

[@Jacksonmckay107]

About nine minutes ago, I wondered when we might see another cold take. Spooooooooooooky.

[@a_level_70_elite_raccoon]

I don't see it touched on much, but I think the real reason that this keeps happening is because Microsoft and Sony are electronics companies. The video games only really exist to sell the hardware and earn them passive income via royalties. If Microsoft closed *every* studio it owned, despite the fact that they earn them *billions*, the C-suite Psychopaths wouldn't blink an eye because it's just a side hustle to them. They'll still keep making hardware, the games don't matter. There's a reason why Nintendo isn't closing anything. Yeah, they make consoles every now and then, but primarily they actually make games. If they closed all their studios, there wouldn't be a Nintendo, at least not for long. There will always be a Microsoft and a Sony, even if the video game industry dies.

[@connorr-w9133]

Thanks for the hopeful(?) notes at the end. Now more than ever, we need those folks and the work they're doing.

[@steveschweitzer4181]

Almost every behemoth started as a underdog looking to change things. We should be focused on what happens that turns them into the evil empire.. don’t fight the evil empire, they will kill themselves… prevent the next one from happening.

[@constipatedwonka8061]

I think Cold Takes has officially surpassed even Yahtzee's show. The insights, the direction, the presentation, the delivery, the atmosphere it's all next level as far as KZbin content goes.

[@TheBrianJ]

The Dunkey/Animal Well thing is still amazing to me. Dunkey comes out, says "I know what a good game is, so I'll make a publishing studio." And then he did, and the first game is already a huge hit. Guy called his shot and nailed it. Respect.

[@86fifty]

I open a lotta YT vid tabs at once, and the vid always gets to play a few seconds before my old-af laptop gets thru its buffer to execute the 'pause' command... But when it's Cold Take, I'm hooked from that first saxophone note - always short enough to justify putting something down for a few minutes, and always engrossing enough to keep me sticking around til the end. Frost's writing and voice-over work is something SPECIAL, for sure.

[@nevertoooldgaming_Rave]

Because the gaming community constantly allows this. FOMO is a helluva marketing strat.

[@GINTegg]

Holding onto Elden Ring and the entire indie scene for dear life over here. The future lies with art not with products

[@user-Cata7sti7ma7]

Elden ring is the most product recycling of the souls series ever made. It's the worst Souls of all From Software game. it's even the easiest for getting the widest audience possible. Elden Ring is the MacDonald of souls. From Software is not different anymore that other big studio now since the cash flow is certain.

[@ewaldo1700]

@@user-Cata7sti7ma7 no.

[@jlev1028]

​@@thecaptain6520Someone doesn't have any taste.

[@cheshirethehatter3213]

Correction; The Helldivers situation was directly caused by, worsened by, poorly communicated by, then not even fixed by... Arrowhead themselves. Their CEO directly admitted this, and openly stated the fact that the PSN requirement was prerequisite six months prior to release, not retroactive three months later. That isn't defending Sony, they're still a garbage company that didn't even need PSN in the first place and still have the game region locked, but continuing to spread misinformation that it was somehow Sony's doing is just bad journalism.

[@88Opportunist]

The problem with supporting indie is that's a stop-gap. Eventually the indie grows big enough that somebody wants them under their umbrella and we all know everyone is for sale. And as soon as that persons figure is found the cycle starts all over, simply with different names. Take a look at Klei Entertainment, once indie darlings now owned by Tencent, the quite possibly most ironically named umbrella corporation. Eventually you want bigger games, they want to make bigger games, investors are found by making compromises and the downfall begins. And the indie space itself has ever more horror stories of even little no-name publishers being aspiring Bobby Koticks and stabbing their partners in the back for profit. Forget treating your staff poorly entire games have just been outright stolen. As the number of success stories rises so do the sharks in the water.

[@Orcrez]

So glad you made this, WE ALL NEED TO HEAR THIS! Unfortunately humans have short memory’s and would rather have the wool pulled over our eyes.

[@TheBigSimpleBean]

I could easily see these being expanded into a half hour - forty five minute podcast

[@NickW855]

Well do I have news for you, Frost DID talk about this on the Second Wind podcast just a few days ago.

[@Mene0]

3:44 "What do you people know about stocks and finances? Nothing. Most of you don't know the rest don't wanna know" btw that ending. Great work as always Frost

[@zapalniczkakaminski9990]

God daym this is one of the better Cold Takes! Spittin facts, cool narration ( from the point of view of the corpo ) and it all nicely comes together at the end with the 4 guys ( not to mention the technical side is great as usual ). Great stuff!

[@Heavenlyhounds96]

This keeps happening because the gaming public cares the LEAST about who and what is involved, and more about having the product, good or bad. Movies? Folks flock to Directors, actors, writers, screenplays. Music? Everyone's got their favorite artist or genre, even with the bad eggs. Games? Name entire teams of developers of individual games in a singular Company. Sure Arkhane (sp?) Did great with Dishonored, and Deathloop has potential...but dont deny they were dragged through the mud on both sides for Redfall. Or look at Bethesda's Fallout games? Youre gonna tell me for a fact the dev teams between 3, 4, and 76 were all the same? 76 may have had a botched launch and didnt reach its base potential for a year and a half, but it's got a dev & support team that, for all its shortcomings, does care about the game. Meanwhile Starfield can barely crawl along with updates, let alone meaningful ones. Heck, look at the various dev teams that do CoD. Sure some of us have our fav groups and their lines (Black Ops & treyarch/Sledgehammer for me). But activision could have a completely different dev team make a Call of duty, and folks will still buy it en masse...because it's called Call of Duty