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PaperclipPerfector  19d ago (text post)   2066 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 3, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Assume that you are Bioware executive - which will worry you more - that I have Dragon Age Veilguard pirated for 72 hours or that I haven't bother actually running it after I downloaded it?

Presumably, the executive is more worried about you not giving them money than not playing a game they probably don't even care about.

Squeezing maximum revenue out of minimum productivity is the name of their game. The pursuit of "efficiency" started in an intelligent place--"if 39 drops of solder is sufficient for these cans, then 40 is a waste"--but not everyone is smart enough to grasp the difference between cutting fat, and cutting flesh. It's often a lot more complicated than "how many drops of solder," and "being a trusted brand for the foreseeable future" is what (long) shareholders want--not what MBAs are trained to deliver. The modal executive doesn't care if the company goes out of business, the modal executive cares about KPIs. If the company goes out of business, "I made the numbers go up" is how the executive gets a new job.

Boeing, Intel, etc. are in trouble because they became pay pigs for MBAs instead of contenting themselves with keeping up their status as the best actual producers of important goods in their respective industries. Video game companies are much the same.

What structural intervention would you make to reverse the MBA-ization of essential industries?

The pursuit of "efficiency" started in an intelligent place--"if 39 drops of solder is sufficient for these cans, then 40 is a waste"--but not everyone is smart enough to grasp the difference between cutting fat, and cutting flesh.

I don't know about video games, but I think this point is often misunderstood.

Rockefeller didn't start by asking for 39 drops of solder. He asked for 38. When that wasn't enough, he asked for 39.

By the same token, Elon Musk is known to cut all the fat and some of the flesh. Only by cutting live tissue can you be sure that all the fat is truly gone. If you haven't experienced at least some problems due to cutting too many people, then you haven't cut deeply enough.

We've been talking about Musk's management ability, and to prove I'm not sucking his dick I started thinking about the failure modes that will eventually break his personal control of his companies.
His cutting is vulnerable to Yellowstoning, where managers deliberately hurt performance or use cuts as an excuse to avoid responsibility. Right now Musk can personally show up at the office with an audit team to instantly fire a guy he suspects of doing that. But as the org expands and the hierarchies deepen and interlink, internal politics will hurt his ability to excise a bad actor who's spent all his time schmoozing with management.

Worse, his harsh strategies incentivize internal politicking and backchannel dealing among management to mutually reinforce their positions. It's like overusing an anti-parasite drench on a flock: you're accelerating resistance buildup.
(Even worse, the kind of internal politics most effective at subversion through parallel management cadres is the bioleninism of the party that's made him a priority target and allocated massive resources to seizing his companies. I'm expecting some manufactured hysteria along the lines of "Elon Musk Fired LGBT Rocket Scientist Whistleblower For Supporting Environmental Justice Over Rocket Noise Harming Endangered Birds: Harris Administration pledges to arrest him for hate crimes." And if that sounds crazy to anyone, they're nuts for forgetting the exact same scenario played out with Timnet Gebru and google)

I don't know about video games, but I think this point is often misunderstood.

Rockefeller didn't start by asking for 39 drops of solder. He asked for 38. When that wasn't enough, he asked for 39.

Yeah, that's explained right up front in the linked article.

Only by cutting live tissue can you be sure that all the fat is truly gone. If you haven't experienced at least some problems due to cutting too many people, then you haven't cut deeply enough.

That's certainly the MBA way. It is my growing suspicion, however, that if you've successfully cut all the fat, you have deprived your organization of something essential to its lasting and meaningful success--maybe it's a margin of error, maybe it's "play in the joints," I've seen many metaphors and probably none entirely captures the phenomenon, but it seems clear to me that corporate hyper-efficiency is objectionably likely to generate short-term numbers-go-up at long term expense to the organization, its people, and even often the general public.

Yeah, that's explained right up front in the linked article.

You can't expect someone to read an article as table stakes for engaging with your comment. Same for those who link youtube videos.

Surely expecting to read the first paragraph of an article isn’t too much…

This is the motte. Asking someone to read a 10k word article is table stakes, just don't link "video essays"

I can never find it when this discussion comes up, but years ago there was a great video by someone about the importance of corporate culture and how it destroyed Bioware after the EA acquisition. Bioware had a culture of "we want to make video games, and to do that we need to make money". EA has a culture of "we want to make money, and to do that we need to make games". Those two approaches to the video game business are very different, and are going to produce very different results. And, even if you assume the best intentions of all involved, the corporate culture of the parent can't help but influence the subsidiary over time.

And that's what happened to Bioware. Ever since the EA acquisition they have steadily lost that drive to make great games first and foremost. And it shows in their output. Opinions vary, but for me the last game they made which was good was Dragon Age Original in 2008. Ever since then it's been mediocre or bad games coming from a studio that no longer knows how to prioritize quality.

You're thinking of the Pele of complaining about videogames, Bob Case, AKA MrBTongue. Specifically his video "A Tale of Two Companies". He also did a bit of writing for Shamus Young's blog, Twenty-Sided.

Yeah, that's exactly it! Thank you for pointing me towards it again, I had completely failed at finding it myself.

Boeing, Intel, etc. are in trouble because they became pay pigs for MBAs instead of contenting themselves with keeping up their status as the best actual producers of important goods in their respective industries.

The MBAs are easy to blame. It’s far harder for big legacy American companies to blame old, entrenched corporate bureaucracies (and in the case of cars and planes, highly overpaid unionized workforces strongly resistant to automation) full of overpaid workers unable to compete with hungry Chinese companies staffed by ambitious people with nothing to lose (and state-backing, but that’s really a pointless insult because all these big companies are hugely supported by the US taxpayer).

I think there is a lot of truth to what you say, but that part of (say) Intel's or Boeing's problems seems less applicable to the question of what video game companies are doing.

Entrenched corporate bureaucratic interests are just kind of part of the American landscape.

You've succinctly explained my major issues with how the game industry handles/ruins popular IPs and blows up game studios' reputations with the hopes of making quick money at the expense of gaining loyal customers. Which also happens in other industries, but probably to a lesser degree.

Right now I think Rockstar is the only game company that has retained an impeccable reputation for the sheer quality of every product. And they've got a stranglehold on a global, multi-billion dollar market because of it. (EDIT: I forgot Valve, but they currently have a reputation for rarely releasing games, these days)

And even that came under threat from releasing a poorly-done remaster of their previous games.

It also has a reputation for crunch, burnout, and generally being a miserable company to work for, but honestly that seems necessary for achieving greatness in this competitive industry.

If you tried to distill a GTA game down to its minimal elements, a naive person would probably say "You can steal cars, drive them around a huge map, shoot bystanders, fight the cops, and enjoy a story full of 'colorful' characters and crude humor. Also you can bang hookers."

And then you try to make a game that meets that minimal description and you get the Saints Row series. Which really only gained popularity when it took off in its own direction by leaning into absurdity, parody, and optimizing for 'fun.'

And, of course, recently blew up its goodwill with a shitty attempt to reboot that series. Nobody even TALKS about it anymore.

Probably because some MBAs tried to distill Saints Row down AND take it in a stupid direction.

Surely there are other game companies with impeccable reputations, right? From Software is extremely respected, for instance; I would also put Nintendo in the running for mostly having very well made games put out for their main IPs (maybe not Pokemon, but I don't care about Pokemon). Perhaps also Remedy Entertainment, maybe a little lesser known.

It does make me realize how many IPs on this page have had at least one serious misstep, though.

How about Atlus? MegaTen/Persona?

From Software

Could count it. Demon Souls came out in 2009, and every game since then appears to have been a banger and financially successful. They get points for being prolific in that period, vs. Rockstar.

I would also put Nintendo in the running for mostly having very well made games put out for their main IPs

Also fair. I'd literally put them in a class of their own. I want to read a book that explains how they have such high levels of quality control for even the silliest of their game releases.

It does make me realize how many IPs on this page have had at least one serious misstep, though.

Now I'm trying to think of any IPs or studios that had a horrible sequel that trashed the series' reputation, only to come roaring back with a later entry.

Maybe Resident Evil? I know that it allegedly fell off after RE5 (the last one I played) but Village was well-regarded and popular.

Now I'm trying to think of any IPs or studios that had a horrible sequel that trashed the series' reputation, only to come roaring back with a later entry.

Final Fantasy XIV might count here. In that case it was the same game which came back, but it came back in a big way.

Heroes of Might and Magic, perhaps? 5 is considered much better than 4 (I think. I mostly know 3). Hm. There's got to be better examples out there.

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