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#art that requires large teams and physical resources (video games and movies et cetera) will not be
sukimas · 1 year
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in a broad sense, video games, unless they are intended to be quite literally a resource hole with no expectation of return, will always be moderated by the same market forces all things are under capitalism. social democracies or centralized economies fundamentally have to gamble on which luxuries should be supported (and they do- non-essential industries get subsidies all the time in plenty of places.)
due to the way that programming works nowadays with dependencies and such, making a game at minimum requires a good 5-6 people working on it at one time to complete. use of previously existing libraries does in fact mean the people who build and maintain those libraries count for dev numbers, even if they don't show up in the credits. most, of course, require many, many more.
therefore even under an idealized economic system, you require 3-4 NEETs on UBI working around the clock for years on end to publish a single good game. many indie teams fall apart or if their early games don't get good reviews they no longer want to keep making them. but in a more common scenario (because, let's face it, people are more likely to play big AAA-style games, even if they aren't quite AS big as the AAA games of today- marketing is necessary even if your product is totally free) the game that people are likely to play simply won't get made without outside funding. not everyone who works at a big game studio would rather work there than anywhere else excepting the paycheck; many people would in fact not make games if they had to collaborate with large teams for enough income to survive and have a little left over. in addition, hardware and software packages are needed, and not everyone who works on making THOSE only wants to do it for UBI, either. you need increased incentives for things you want to exist beyond the minimum necessary for existence, because while people do work together, they only work together well up to Dunbar's number and then it all goes to shit.
so, what's the most likely scenario under a non-capitalist economic system for the creation of video games? remember, luxuries ARE created under non-capitalist economic systems, because they make life worth living. it is plausible that some people would find video games a reason life is worth living, therefore you would want to fund it.
i expect they would be created under a system of government grants. you apply to the government with your game scenario, concept art, perhaps a short demo, and they give you grant funding. however, there's a small problem- presumably, the government cannot afford to fund every game that people want to make. perhaps some of those which aren't funded go on to become indie games made by NEETs, but the majority probably crash and burn because their concept was too ambitious.
so, you have to convince the government that your game will be well liked, in order to get the grant money, to make your game. they want to fund things that will increase the satisfaction and well-being of their constituents as much as possible, you see. do you see the issue with this?
yep, it's exactly the same issue with pleasing investors in the modern day. creative endeavors that require large teams and need to aim for an actual specific goal rather than ars gratia artis = people creating proposals that aim for specific keywords and things that are currently in vogue, not for the wildest and most interesting. this creates games that are just like modern AAA games- attempting to appeal to the market as much as possible.
now, how do I know this incentive structure will be created? well, you might have heard of heard of a small organization called the "National Science Foundation"...
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