I think it’s pretty clear that the money people in entertainment – be it video games, movies, TV shows, or even printed paper books – really want properties that they can own (monopolize) and build low-risk, profitable releases on. It’s sort of the logical endpoint of applying capitalism to arts and entertainment.
We expect the game studio to be like a factory, a productive arrangement which the owners are incentivized to maintain and keep operating smoothly. Just as a factory builds a product, we say, a studio builds a game or a movie or whatever.
But the owners see the franchise itself – “Fallout” or “Halo” or “Avengers” or “Star Wars” – as the factory, the thing that’s worth owning, the thing to keep churning. Just as a factory builds a product, they figure, a franchise builds a reliable, low-risk profit.
I’ve this idea before, but I feel like your point reiterates it really well.
This is partly what happens when you reward the silicon valley tech bros for being really good at one thing (coding) and letting everyone assume that it means they’re the best at everything (or that it’s even the goal for everything)
I used to work with doctors, and this is exactly how I felt about them. It’s as if they focus and study so hard in one specific category of knowledge and for whatever reason assume that all their hard work raised their knowledge of every subject ever. In my experience, it’s the complete opposite. They’ve neglected everything else to such a degree that they’re completely incompetent on everything outside if their area of expertise.
I think it’s pretty clear that the money people in entertainment – be it video games, movies, TV shows, or even printed paper books – really want properties that they can own (monopolize) and build low-risk, profitable releases on. It’s sort of the logical endpoint of applying capitalism to arts and entertainment.
We expect the game studio to be like a factory, a productive arrangement which the owners are incentivized to maintain and keep operating smoothly. Just as a factory builds a product, we say, a studio builds a game or a movie or whatever.
But the owners see the franchise itself – “Fallout” or “Halo” or “Avengers” or “Star Wars” – as the factory, the thing that’s worth owning, the thing to keep churning. Just as a factory builds a product, they figure, a franchise builds a reliable, low-risk profit.
I think you’re spot on, and the results are demonstrating how that doesn’t work at all.
Corporate so desperately wants art to be a science, and it’s falling flat on its face over and over in doing so.
I’ve this idea before, but I feel like your point reiterates it really well.
This is partly what happens when you reward the silicon valley tech bros for being really good at one thing (coding) and letting everyone assume that it means they’re the best at everything (or that it’s even the goal for everything)
I used to work with doctors, and this is exactly how I felt about them. It’s as if they focus and study so hard in one specific category of knowledge and for whatever reason assume that all their hard work raised their knowledge of every subject ever. In my experience, it’s the complete opposite. They’ve neglected everything else to such a degree that they’re completely incompetent on everything outside if their area of expertise.
Written like somebody who’s worked in PE, or at least has seen what they do.
Spot on.