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Execs should be made to provide benefits to society. I saw we blend them into nutrient paste and use it to make food for our hungry people.
why? oh, it’s got a million and one uses!
Take this with a grain of salt because I can’t think of the proper search terms to verify what I think I remember reading:Once upon a time corporations couldn’t be created unless they proved a benefit to society. We really need to go back to that…
Edit: with more time I found something.
"In the United States, the first important industrial corporation seems to have been the Boston Manufacturing Co., which was founded in 1813.
Experimental in nature and spaced out in time, these early ventures grew mostly independent of one another (the article mentioned older companies from around the world that I left out) But they had one thing in common: even as for-profit ventures, they were explicitly required to serve the common good.
For the first companies, the privilege of incorporation, often via royal charter, was granted selectively to facilitate activities that contributed to the population’s welfare, such as the construction of roads, canals, hospitals and schools. Allowing shareholders to profit was seen as a means to that end. Companies were deeply interwoven within the country’s or town’s social fabric, and were meant to contribute to its collective prosperity"
Source (I know, it’s not a source I’d use for a college paper): https://qz.com/work/1188731/the-idea-that-companies-should-benefit-society-is-as-old-as-capitalism
I mean, the earliest corporations were colonial expeditions, so it would depend on your definition of “benefit to society” to say if that was really a good thing.
Well at leads “youur country’s” peasants benefited some how… We can’t even get that from these parasites
It was good at the time because it was an improvement from the feudal system that basically said the king owns everything and allows subordinates to manage things for him with more layers down to serfs who were bound to the land they lived on. The people benefited because initially ownership spread out and different owners would compete with each other to attract workers or renters.
At this point, the issue is that things are getting consolidated and looking more and more like the feudal system, only with corporations at the top owning most assets instead of kings (which also creates a layer of indirection obscuring the true owners behind the corporations, other than some of the more attention seeking ones like Musk, Gates, or Bezos).
The exploitation of the colonized people and stealing their resources acted as a multiplier to this. Supply increased, so prices decreased for demand to meet the new supply.
It’s the unchecked capitalism.
Better labor protection and antitrust laws would help, but the fundamental push is towards maximum exploitation of worker and customer. Power consolidates and then abuse for profit becomes easy.
It’s unchecked because customers don’t really care. When is the last time there was a boycott of a game due to how the developers are treated?
Boycott is a strong word, but I know that I and many, many others decided not to purchase Disco Elysium based on how all that drama went down. And I know I’ll never buy HiFi Rush after the way Microsoft closed that studio while simultaneously lamenting how they wish they had more games like that, because I don’t want to reward bad behaviour.
Same reason I haven’t bought anything from EA in a decade, and I’m really on the fence about supporting Ubisoft at this point too.
Capitalism doesn’t get checked by consumers, there are a billion things too much to properly pay attention to and no viable alternatives.
It gets checked by either regulations and laws or replacing it with something else.
Boycotts work when people care enough: https://www.workandmoney.com/s/boycotts-shocked-world-439e32fbe0a9487f
There are so many viable alternatives. I’ve got an increasingly long list of things I won’t tolerate in games anymore, and I’m nowhere near running out of games to play. The big problem is being able to identify which of those checkboxes are checked or not; PC Gaming Wiki is working for this purpose lately, though it shouldn’t be necessary.
Boycotts are only one tool in the box. Legislation should be addressing things like consolidation of power and anti consumer practices.
Unfortunately, the US has one far right party that has many lunatics that don’t believe in government (along with other insanities), and one center-at-best party that does that wield power effectively.
Whereas in a communist economy where people didn’t have to struggle to survive, game developers could focus on improving their craft and telling whatever the funnest story they can think of is. We can already see this on a small scale with the difference between indie passion projects like Hades, and AAAA cash grabs like suicide squad. Imagine if everyone could afford to chase their passion instead of money.
You could also probably get there with universal basic income
Don’t understand why you’re being downvoted. The only thing there I disagree with is the use of the word “economy” 😂
Probably because leftists use “communism” like it’s an immediate and obvious goal, but dismiss any criticism of past efforts to actually get there. It effectively becomes an unquestionable fantasy.
“Even when you believe you’ve found yourself the right job, it can evaporate in an instant, and then you are suddenly competing against hundreds or thousands of people for every job position,” Kai said.
What’s happening to games in this gen is just what happened to the larger tech industry before, MBAs that pretend to be human are put in charge of a product after creators already made it successful.
Thanks Todd
Capitalists ruining things for everyone else? Gasp!
Capitalists are people. People will always corrupt a system for personal gain. Which is why communism is such a silly idea. It’s always immediately corrupted. Capitalism assumes people are corrupt and has provided the greatest standard of living in history. It saved China.
“People will always corrupt a system for person gain”
No, only people who would do this sort of thing accuse everyone else of doing it
People will always corrupt a system for personal gain
Now you are just making stuff up. People are selfless all the time. But in a capitalist society you are punished for being selfless and awarded for being selfish. It’s a highly anti social ideology.
Many people can be selfless and wonderful, true, but the people who are selfish and cruel often work hard to be in positions of power and authority regardless of the system.
Yes, and we have systems in place that makes I more likely that selfish and cruel people, get to have power. We award power hungry people with power.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/PpyIZ4DGIK8?si=yJQqoCcYDvP6NERJ
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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I wonder… does anyone know how many shares in a company you have to own before you can call-in during shareholder meetings to ask questions? I’m wondering if we could push back against this by “”“asking questions”“” that make majority shareholders aware of the damage companies are doing to their own brands. I know modern capitalism is all about “money today, fuck tomorrow”, but I wonder how many shareholders would be happy knowing that companies would probably make more money if they’d stop cannibalizing studios and franchises.
You know, play into their greed and make convincing arguments about how their decisions are ultimately robbing them of money.
Exxon just sued its shareholders for crying about climate change.
That sounds too absurd to be true. Source?
https://kbin.earth/m/nottheonion@lemmy.ml/t/97603/Exxon-Mobil-is-suing-its-shareholders-to-silence-them-about
Original: https://lemmy.ml/post/15690226
World version: https://lemmy.world/post/15452272
Damn. Thanks for sharing, friend.
There was a guy a few years ago who spent $40k on Nintendo stock in order to ask about a new F-Zero in a shareholder meeting. They said no at the time but we did get F-Zero 99 last year so maybe he did make an impact.
They have a term for that type of shareholder… that I can’t think of right now, sorry. A lot of big companies have things in place so ‘disruptive’ shareholders don’t ruin their plans.
Edit. Exxon calls them “activist shareholders”
You’re assuming that they don’t know that, lol. They do. It does not matter because people keep shoving money up their ass and number goes up.
Ultimately, do they care? Most shareholders are in it for the stock price, this kind of thing might affect it slightly but I doubt it’d shift the needle much
Meanwhile, a potential game of the year, Animal Well, was made by one dude and put out by a publishing company started by a goofy YouTuber.
It’s dominating the well-like genre like no game has before.
I’m 4hrs in and it’s been a very rewarding experience so far! More heart than the last Assassin’s Creed I played, which I don’t even remember which one it was
Execs and the late stage capitalism game they play is ruining everything.
Seriously. They’re actually betting against their own long term survival and it’s baffling.
if capitalism was designed in a way that long term was relevant, we would have this conversation…
They don’t care about their own long term survival. Their goal is to boost the next quarter and collect their bonuses, and when things go south, they jump ship with their golden parachutes and head to their next executive job.
Believe it or not, video games are art, and art is no longer for art’s sake. It’s for shareholders. That’s when these decisions happen.
You say that, but not all art is made solely for money. Just take a look at the indie scene (games, music, film, TV, etc) as an example.
AI making art while humans turn the gears, sounds like the future we all wanted.
Right! Can you imagine if Rembrandt had an executive committee behind him dictating what to paint a picture of, then micromanaging brush strokes? That’s the games-for-shareholders model, and it’s fucked. Games are best when made by people who are passionate about the project, not solely about the profit. My big hope now is the publishers learn from the Sony debacle and simply publish the game, be happy with their profit cut, and shut the fuck up.
Can you imagine if Rembrandt had an executive committee behind him dictating what to paint a picture of
I get what you’re saying, but you realise all the great renaissance painters worked on commission, right? So yes that’s exactly what happened.
When someone comissions a painting, they choose the subject and that’s about it. Sure if they didn’t like it they might not pay, but that’s probably already more hands off than any publisher in the games industry.
Return to Obra Dinn is some quality piece of art. There are still people making art instead of marketing.
Well that aint news
Execs are ruining
Remove video games. Execs and more importantly shareholders, are ruining the fucking world.
Parasites do be like that
Capitalism ruins everything, news at 11.
I’m trying my hardest to not buy any “AAA” game. The major corporations have lost me as a customer, I’ll only be buying indie games.
… except monster hunter… It’s been part of my life too long and it’s one of like 3 game series I always play with an old friend lol
Yeah capcom is one of those weird ones. Really aggressive monetization but god damnit the games are good.
I excuse only two produces of capitalism: chocolate, and Monster Hunter!
Water is wet, the sky is blue, capitalism ruins everything.
Ruining franchises. Games are the best they’ve ever been.
True, play animal well.
