Watch it with the captions on!
posted by mstokes650 at 10:45 AM on January 22, 2020

I enjoyed that, but I feel like the opening went on so long that the latter part of the video felt rushed and did not go as deep as I'd expected based on the other videos of his I've watched.
posted by Fish Sauce at 11:39 AM on January 22, 2020

Yeah I'm not sure what was going on in that video. It was kind of all over the place. In general the quality of video game industry analysis is very bad. I was hoping for something more like this.
posted by um at 5:36 PM on January 22, 2020

It wasn't that bad, but yeah the industry analysis wasn't top notch. Mostly though it just felt like mefi wasn't its intended audience--it's pretty obviously a "help naive gamer libertarians be a bit less naive" video.
posted by ropeladder at 7:32 PM on January 22, 2020

Oh! I did really like the "Empyre" bits. Just pitch perfect.
posted by ropeladder at 7:36 PM on January 22, 2020

Ethics in the Video Game Industry, an article by Celia Hodent.

Like, I wish Olly had started here for inspiration instead of Jim Fucking Sterling of all people.
posted by um at 10:37 PM on January 22, 2020

I guess the use of Jim Sterling goes with the "help naive gamer libertarians be a bit less naive" angle. He can use examples that a lot of the target audience readily accept are a problem and then go, "that's a capitalism."

Celia Hodent's article is more targeted at game developers rather than game consumers. At least the "what can be done?" sections directly say what can developers do. The "main public concern" sections often worry what influence it has on players, which would be a harder initial hurdle for a "gamer libertarian" audience.
posted by RobotHero at 6:22 AM on January 23, 2020

Though, the Epic exclusives feels weird as an example of unfair monopoly because most of the gamers complaining about it are basically complaining these games aren't on Steam. So Epic is just the wrong monopoly.
posted by RobotHero at 2:10 PM on January 23, 2020

The Raph Koster article I linked above explains why games are moving to service-based models of payment, and further predicts that most games will be 'free' in the next 10 years if current trends continue. Koster is upfront that the data he has collected is incomplete, but he is transparent with his methodology. The problem is that Youtubers can't generate views from reasonable arguments so you get Jim Sterling ranting about game companies being evil vampires and cashing in that sweet Youtube money. Then a billion gamers armed with a sense of angry conviction from watching the Jimquisition make it impossible to discuss game development in any open forum without the discourse being immediately smashed flat by reheated Youtube takes.
posted by um at 4:41 PM on January 23, 2020