I’ll explain this as quick as I can. Basically the bourgeoisie that own the major studios are so obsessed with profit that they make blatantly unsustainable decisions like overmonetization and shipping unfinished games every few years. Now look what’s happening, the studios have no choice but to lay off employees to recoup the costs they inflicted upon themselves and the worst affected are the fired employees naturally.

This is honestly infuriating and insulting as someone who’s been a massive video game fan since 2019 because the franchises I took a liking to (especially Halo) had countless labor and talent (stretching decades in some cases) have been completely gone to waste publishing cookie cutter generic dogshit games for the c suite’s next payday.

Indies are no better. They also suffer from the problem of shipping unfinished games but unlike their AAA counterparts, they suffer from genuine lack of time and resources to deliver games in a timely manner. So the whole “go indie” is basically lesser evil.

Come to think of it Capitalism actually enables and rewards such incompetence as long as profits are high.

  • multitotal@lemmygrad.ml
    2·
    1 month ago

    But the layoffs aren’t a product of capitalism - they don’t truly serve anyone’s interest or profit motive,

    What do you mean? Layoffs are the quickest way to have a larger bottom line, because they reduce labour costs in the immediate term. It is very easy to then hire more people again once the quarterly or year-end review is over. It’s all about pleasing the shareholders and making yourself look like a good executive.

    laying people off for any reason carries little if any risk

    Precisely.

    just do what the rest of the capitalist world does currently and have some kind of baseline employee protections.

    First you say it’s not capitalism’s fault but then you suggest that capitalism should be reigned in a bit as a solution.

    • gilaEnglish
      1·
      1 month ago

      The attempt at mitigating the appearance of investor risk in the company via reducing spend is neutralised by the resulting compromise to their production, at best leaving the company as attractive as it already was. More likely they will lose some resources along the way due to loss of trust, the best hires being picked up elsewhere in the meantime, etc.

      If execs game the system to receive a bigger bonus by tricking investors into thinking company finances are better than they are, this doesn’t serve the company. Its base intent is to reward the exec for adding value to the company, which in this case is imaginary, or a result of defrauding investors. The exec in this scenario is more anarchist, working to extract excess profit from their employer, than a capitalist.

      That we live under capitalism was not secured by capital owners short-sightedly arbitrating their capital in ways that aren’t really profitable.

      I think if we put it to the American people, as capitalists they would be happy to create laws against this kind of blatant worker exploitation, because that’s what is best for business. I certainly don’t mean it as a solution to anything other than OP’s issues that caused the post. But it would solve that, and is something we can achieve today to improve the lives of workers, so yeah we should try it.

      • multitotal@lemmygrad.ml
        2·
        1 month ago

        If execs game the system to receive a bigger bonus by tricking investors into thinking company finances are better than they are,

        But it’s not “gaming the system”. Companies do lay off workers so that they can show a bigger profit to their shareholders. This isn’t some conspiracy or “trick”, it’s recognised practice.

        The main reasons for recent layoffs are gloomier economic expectations (many companies and analysts expect a recession this year) and a desire to deliver some value for shareholders after a very tough 2022 for stock prices. If that value can’t come from the top line in the form of revenue, it has to come from the bottom line by cutting expenses, like payrolls.

        https://www.business.com/finance/big-tech-earnings-and-layoffs-compared/

        The main reasons for recent layoffs are gloomier economic expectations (many companies and analysts expect a recession this year) and a desire to deliver some value for shareholders after a very tough 2022 for stock prices. If that value can’t come from the top line in the form of revenue, it has to come from the bottom line by cutting expenses, like payrolls.

        But experts say for most large and publicly-traded tech firms, the layoff trend this month is aimed at satisfying investors.

        https://www.npr.org/2024/01/28/1227326215/nearly-25-000-tech-workers-laid-off-in-the-first-weeks-of-2024-whats-going-on

        • gilaEnglish
          1·
          1 month ago

          Stanford business professor Jeffrey Pfeffer has called the phenomenon of companies in one industry mimicking each others’ employee terminations “copycat layoffs.” As he explained it: “Tech industry layoffs are basically an instance of social contagion, in which companies imitate what others are doing.”

          Layoffs, in other words, are contagious. Pfeffer, who is an expert on organizational behavior, says that when one major tech company downsizes staff, the board of a competing company may start to question why their executives are not doing the same.

          If it appears as if an entire sector is experiencing a downward shift, Pfeffer argues, it takes the focus off of any single individual company — which provides cover for layoffs that are undertaken to make up for bad decisions that led to investments or strategies not paying off.

          Right, doesn’t sound like a conspiracy to game the system at all.

          • multitotal@lemmygrad.ml
            1·
            1 month ago

            It’s not “gaming the system” when it is actually how the capitalist system works. They’re just being good capitalists.

            • gilaEnglish
              1·
              1 month ago

              The capitalist organisation is the entity being exploited. In Marxist terms, it is not from each according to his ability, it is to each according to his ability. Specifically the ability to fire people without cause like they are playthings. That describes anarchy, not capitalism.