CAAApitalism: The Successful Failure Of Videogames (The Jimquisition)

Yeah, it's time to give communism a go again. Some of you will be designated as game labourers. You will spend the day working on games for you and others to play during designated leisure time. You will be fed from the food pool. Downside: Jim Fucking Sterling Son will be out of a job. I guess he could do more wrestling. (Disclaimer: I am up late reading about the economy eating itself. I am probably delirious.)

Twit In A Hat

Just found this excellent Twitter, erhm, multi-part post? (I don't really understand Twitter) from Mr. Foldable Human on this topic: <a href="https://twitter.com/FoldableHuman/status/1092846201374892032" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/FoldableHuman/status/1092846201374892032</a> <blockquote>“So Patreon has made around $55m in revenue since 2013. If their startup money had been a loan they'd have probably paid it back by now and would be operating a pretty sustainable service. But it's not a loan. It's ~InveStMeNt CaPitAL~”</blockquote>

Twit In A Hat

You sure that wasn't Thanos? JK. Very good quote.

One of my favorite Jimquisitions. Really well done.

Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical, on a physically finite planet, is either mad or an economist. Kenneth Boulding

Pedro Garcia-Huidobro

Fantastic episode, you're a perfect fit in the breadtube space. It's time to take gaming back from the alt-right. Also go on chapo.

Killercotton Shisno

If investment firms want to buy into a business with limitless growth, I have an opportunity for them. I'm looking to start a company that makes perpetual motion machines... Also, I wonder if this means that in the near future Patreon and Tumblr are going to be looking to sell pornography back to us...?

Kraken

Go on chapo.

I think the rich may be eating each other now. I mean, where do you go when the poor people have no money left to bleed out?

Twit In A Hat

Thanks Jim. You're right. Could I add a thought? If you look at the company model in terms of an investor too, these game companies don't pay a dividend. That means their investors are actually speculators. This is an important distinction, because now only the share price is important. And the share price is an indicator of *future* growth prospect. Speculating worked for them until circa end of 2017/beginning of 2018 during the high growth phase. As far as I can guess, there's no way these large gaming companies will propose a dividend policy because they will rather spend that money on acquisition of developers. They'll become serial acquirers who will strip those studios after milking them for *their* ideas and be left with depreciating assets. Imagine buying brand new cars in the hope of selling them used for profit... yeah that's the best example I could give :P They will try to do this ad nauseum until it doesn't work. Thanks if you read this far :)

That is the 7 billion dollar question? I thought this as well.

Jamie C.

Jim go on Chapo.

Yinzer

In my naive mind, I would think that with more money, you can do more things like diversify the games you are developing/publishing, pay your workers and give them more benefits, take risky ventures that previously would have bankrupt you, or anything that requires spending money for a better benefits. Theory does not always translates to practice.<br><br>Seriously, what does money mean to these companies if you are not going to spend most of it, especially if it is a consistent income stream?

noxamillion

Spot on.

Autumn Rose

I will say that perhaps Jim didn't clarify enough in that segment to show that revenue =/= profit but what is included under "expenses"? That's right, executive pay. What has historically for the last few decades increased perpetually despite market conditions (99.5% of the time)? Executive pay. Revenue increases should correlate to profit increases in established industries where optimisations should already exist. However, what is being highlighted here is that there no longer is a correlation between revenue increases and profit increases thanks largely in part to ever increasing executive salaries/bonuses/perks/etc. Sure, some expenses like healthcare continue to increase every year (fed by many of the same problems as the rest of a capitalistic system) but executives still get their unfair share of revenue increases. Anecdotally, I watched as the company I was a grunt for laid off a few thousand people and saw in the annual report that the executives (VP's and up) all got million dollar+ bonuses for the same year. They were all making multi-million dollar salaries already and got bonuses totalling around $30 million. You know what happened to the rest of us who still had jobs? We were worked more and paid less overtime. That's what companies do with increased revenue. I'm sorry, that got a little heated and I apologize. I am not mad at you. I am mad at the system in place and I'm always brought back to my experience when I read and hear about companies who are bringing in tons of money but still laying off chunks of their employees. Anyway, yes, I think Jim could have been a bit clearer about the why revenue increases shouldn't lead to layoffs.

Perpetual Noob

Eat the rich...and then distribute their wealth. That's the only solution I see to the current state of the system. Anyway, enough radical socialism. I, too, would love to see this system return to make a game, sell a game. Maybe include the quality of life changes of the last decade where we can get patches for broken stuff but a return to "make a game, sell a game" would be nice. Thank god for a lot of the Indie market.

Perpetual Noob

I'm a big fan so please don't take this as negative criticism but I think you may need to take a second look at the first four minutes of the video where you talk about BuzzFeed. I believe you are conflating "revenue" with "profit". An easy to make mistake that a lot of journalists make. Revenue = money coming in from sales. Profit = Revenue - Expenses. You can have growing revenue and still operate without a profit. The evidence that Buzzfeed may be doing this is that they continue to need "Investment" to meet their expenses. The rest I think is spot on.

Haha, wow. I can tell Jim's getting sick of all this bullshit just like the rest of us. Because it goes WAY beyond just videogames.

PhoenixIgnis

This is starting to sound like the Atari collapse. And yeah, I work in the service industry... they try everything to rip you off if you're on the working floor, while the store manager (BARELY off the ground floor, mind) loot your fucking tips and can't even be arsed to give you a free snack from the 'expired' food.

Trevor Bond