“I’ve heard executives at lots of companies I’ve worked at extol the virtues of passion and putting in extra time. “That’s how we’ll succeed!” Nah dude, that’s how the stock price will go up and you’ll get another boat.”

My experience in the game industry has been that how much crunch there is and how bad it gets depends a lot on what part of development you do. Seems like brute force content creation teams tend to have it worse than design focused disciplines.

Damn, I’m so sorry, can’t even imagine, and I’m choking up here trying to.

Sorry but I have to ask, is this hyperbolic use of “literally”, or did you actually see several interns die at their desks?

Yes, and I’m saying look at the average profitability of those games. There are some that were critically acclaimed that I’m guessing you think were commercial successes that weren’t. They’re more of a gamble than you think, and they still cost more than you think. The problem is partially scale, but mostly quality…

“Erm, you aren’t reading the article correctly; net income shows them making a profit every year.”

The problem with this approach is that you end up creating an echo chamber for yourself.

“Citation for...all of that? Because companies like Ubisoft, EA, Activision, etc. are making money hand over fist.”

“Mirror’s Edge, Remember Me, Dead Space, Enslaved etc.”

“Let’s assume that AC: Odyssey was half the size but with a more focused story and no microtransactions, would that many people really complain about it? Would it really hurt sales?”

“They give you a fair “amount” but do they give you a fair quality? Can you honestly say that every bit of content is really worth spending your time on? Because based on my experiences with the last game, I’d emphatically say “no”.”

The hypocrisy is palpable.

“The idea that AAA video games cost so much to develop that they need microtransactions is a myth.”

“there’s a very simple reason that $60 games have microtransactions - greed.”

“If we’re reducing this to simple economics shouldn’t we, as consumers, want as much as possible for as little as possible and begrudge them every penny?”

“Look, honest question: Do you think that 4chan and 8ch trolls prefer that you ignore their memes, or write 1000-word think pieces on them?”

Ugh, I’m exactly the opposite.

“Most people are adult enough to recognize that Democrats are both feckless cowards and also 100% better for the country than Republicans. “

“I mean...try and watch this for more than a single minute without desperately wanting to slap the smug off his face.”

Totally agree with this. Would love it if quests didn’t try to find ways to push you into combat at the end.