thecatamites
@thecatamites

the thing abt endless tough love gamedev editorials abt how artists must Learn Business Or Die is that they're always presented as a serious, unromantic, critical perspective on the industry, while at the same time holding to a far rosier vision of capitalism than most of its proponents: i'm pretty sure actual WSJ types have long accepted that the role of markets is to multiply inequality and that doing so means fostering an endless condition of crisis, boom n bust irreality etc. the idea of stable, sustainable, sensible markets has been as much of an empty crank hobbyhorse for the last two decades as calendar reform or restoring the bourbons, a utopia for management that nobody either above or below them can afford to believe. so it's funny that what passes for cold, realistic wisdom in the space is sort of on the level of a new substack post every two weeks called Time For Dreamers To Face Facts: The Only Way To Succeed On Steam Is By Reclaiming The Eleven Days Stolen From Us By The Pope.


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in reply to @thecatamites's post:

"i'm pretty sure actual WSJ types have long accepted that the role of markets is to multiply inequality and that doing so means fostering an endless condition of crisis, boom n bust irreality etc"
well they'd never print that regardless of what they actually think, so i don't see the contradiction with gamedev editorials
somewhat related is that there is definitely a notion in indie dev circles that appeal to the masses is utterly irrelevant to success, it's solely luck and marketing
so i'm not sure the editorials etc. you mention are coming out of any sort of "invisible hand" ideology rather than something far more cynical

i think you're overestimating what these guys would find too shameful to print, but don't feel like digging for examples - so suffice to say that so much of modern finance is based around arbitrage, high frequency trading, deliberately volatile 2007-style assets etc that the idea of "small business made good" in that context is very quaint; most of the biggest financial success stories of modern times, like openai, ftx (for a while!) and tesla are investor-level privatization and speculation stories rather than ones built on the idea of actually selling a product to consumers, increasingly a minority concern but one indie games remain stuck paying lip service to. and similarly since selling indie game advice is a whole microindustry unto itself, i think the referrals to luck that you see people make tend to function more like the obligatory legal disclaimer you'd see in medicine commercials than an actual statement of fact. but you can read what i was subposting and decide for yourself: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/patch-notes-2-how-does-the-game-industry-survive-beyond-2025-