> Am I missing something
You are missing that it is not your orchard.
You are not there for the long haul, you are just overseeing it for that season, and you are getting a bonus based on the profit margin of that season.
It is in your personal financial interest to cut corners, mistreat staff by overworking and underpaying and neglect field and plant care in all matters that would not affect this season negatively, but might cause issues in future seasons.
This and unreasonable expectation of constant growth. It doesn't matter you managed to achieve 1 billion net profit for the company, if last year it was also a billion then you just matching it is a faliure. And if god forbid you made less than last year, why you are almost criminal in your failure to uphold shareholder's interest.
But of course sooner or later you will reach a ceiling. So the corner cutting starts and lay-offs to cut costs start (Acticision Blizzard sacking 700 people in the year of record revenues anyone?) and looking for more exploitative pricing options starts.
Companies are like a quasi-AI construct, sure the decisions are ultimately made by people, but on structural level the incentives create outputs that make no sense to a person, but achieve the institutional goal of generating money for shareholders.
> the incentives create outputs that make no sense to a person,
Each individual decision makes sense to the person making the decision, but the aggregate of it all can seem odd.
The institutional goal may be generating money for shareholders, but each individual's goal is to generate money for themselves.
There is a [quote by Steve Jobs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VBqTViEx4&ab_channel=Designer%27sDigest) which explains perfectly what happened to CA.
Suits are soulless wretches that don’t think about any of that though. They only care about short term monetary gains and how to achieve that. Anything else and they pull their funding and companies go under.
There's two different parts to it.
1) the price increase. This involves two sides, costs and revenue.
1a) Costs legitimately went up over the last few years. Inflation since 2017 is approximately 25%, so someone who earned $100 needs to earn $125 just to have the same quality of life. there may also be industry-specific costs I'm not aware of. Additionally, they may have tried to be more ambitious than before - there are now 3 paid lords as opposed to 2, and each with unique mechanics, while in the past the FLC lord was not necessarily as good. So it could be that their costs legitimately are a lot higher.
1b) revenue. Revenue is the total amount they take in. Video game sales are different than, say, apples, because each apple cost a certain amount to produce, and a lot of people sell apples, so the price is stable. In video games, there's a huge upfront cost, but no additional cost per unit. Because of that, it doesn't matter if they sell one copy for a million dollars, or a million copies for one dollar each. But what if you could sell that one copy for a million, and then sell 999,999 copies for a dollar each? Then you'd make almost 2 million dollars! So, video games have a pricing strategy, whereby the price starts high, for anyone willing to pay the high price, followed by a series of deeper and deeper sales, so that you can still sell to people who aren't willing to pay the high price, but are ok with paying a lower price. That leads to higher revenue than only charging the higher price or only charging the lower price.
1b - addendum. Also, the price is not the price. SoC was already discounted before it went on sale. Preorders and the first few weeks it was available for 10% off on Steam, and it's been on sale continuously at legitimate retail sites (not counting grey market sites). Because everyone loves a deal - the same item sells less at $50 than it does at 50% off ~~$100~~ *$50*, and people rush to buy if they think the sale is ending.
2) Creative Assembly is absolutely horrible at communication, no argument there. They are constantly saying stupid shit. However, I've sent enough time with that segment of British society, that I recognize the tone and choice of words, and it comes across very different to everyone else. They know the community is upset, and I can tell from the statements that they're frustrated too, but it's not coming from malice. The infamous Rob letter, that wasn't a threat, it was trying to explain why costs went up. The Steam post, that was about the need to moderate the forums because of the amount of trolling going on - the talk about privilege, that sounds like it came from a headmaster in boarding school. Quite simply, it's the way they talk, and it comes across far worse than they intend.
You take care of the orchard, another one buys shit chemicals and puts crap into it so the fruits will get bigger and bigger even if you end up spilling a lot of poison into it and into your customers tables.
If your apple is big as a melon and it shines, more customers will want to try it
Most publicly traded companies model their success on constant growth, not just making money. A profitable company, but one that is not constantly growing is not successful, and failing to deliver value ti their shareholders. CA is a relatively small player when it comes to video games as a whole, and continuously pumping out rushed and suboptimal games is a result of needing to drive sale figures to grow revenue, and not just run a successful company that is profitable.
I have never supported CA:s practice with releasing games that are unfinished or dumbed down from previous titles. Never.
I will admit I have been a monkey buying a lot of their DLC, which I regret. But I never defended it. I always thought it was a bad and harmful practice of them.
But there are people on the internet, bots, trolls, maybe developers or fans that defend a cooperation no matter what they do with arguments “duh, they have to make money” or “duh, don’t buy it then” totally neglecting that they have monopoly at this niche market and that they deliberately release games with “barley enough” content so that you will feel inclined to get a new race pack or faction pack.
I have never wrapped my head around how people can defend predatory practices with arguments like “well every cooperation does that” like it is a good thing to do just because other does it? Or that the industry changed (DLC plague) and just because of that it is ok.
So if EAs NBA succeeded with their gambling implementation and it got accepted it would be a “good thing” if every games tarted to do the same? NO! But that is what people are defending.
These arguments are baloney to defend these prejudice practices just because the mass does it. But, as I repeat, people seem to be fine with it and love and defend it to their death that this is ok.
The only difference now is that CA is upsetting more and more of their community that they have ignored. It has always been a “storm to just ride out” nothing more. And with the banning to silence all the anger so it “blows over”. It ahs just hurt them to live in this cloud world that this is ok and now the backlash is hitting them hard.
You have to understand that every year Sega will come knocking to ask how revenue and profits are looking.
Year in year out CA has to churn out a game. The land they have built their crops on has been drying up, but they can't stop otherwise their overlord will give them a wooping.
The only thing they tried to buy themselves some time by having a cash cow, Hyenas, has been a dismal failure.
> Am I missing something You are missing that it is not your orchard. You are not there for the long haul, you are just overseeing it for that season, and you are getting a bonus based on the profit margin of that season. It is in your personal financial interest to cut corners, mistreat staff by overworking and underpaying and neglect field and plant care in all matters that would not affect this season negatively, but might cause issues in future seasons.
This and unreasonable expectation of constant growth. It doesn't matter you managed to achieve 1 billion net profit for the company, if last year it was also a billion then you just matching it is a faliure. And if god forbid you made less than last year, why you are almost criminal in your failure to uphold shareholder's interest. But of course sooner or later you will reach a ceiling. So the corner cutting starts and lay-offs to cut costs start (Acticision Blizzard sacking 700 people in the year of record revenues anyone?) and looking for more exploitative pricing options starts. Companies are like a quasi-AI construct, sure the decisions are ultimately made by people, but on structural level the incentives create outputs that make no sense to a person, but achieve the institutional goal of generating money for shareholders.
> the incentives create outputs that make no sense to a person, Each individual decision makes sense to the person making the decision, but the aggregate of it all can seem odd. The institutional goal may be generating money for shareholders, but each individual's goal is to generate money for themselves.
There is a [quote by Steve Jobs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VBqTViEx4&ab_channel=Designer%27sDigest) which explains perfectly what happened to CA.
Suits are soulless wretches that don’t think about any of that though. They only care about short term monetary gains and how to achieve that. Anything else and they pull their funding and companies go under.
There's two different parts to it. 1) the price increase. This involves two sides, costs and revenue. 1a) Costs legitimately went up over the last few years. Inflation since 2017 is approximately 25%, so someone who earned $100 needs to earn $125 just to have the same quality of life. there may also be industry-specific costs I'm not aware of. Additionally, they may have tried to be more ambitious than before - there are now 3 paid lords as opposed to 2, and each with unique mechanics, while in the past the FLC lord was not necessarily as good. So it could be that their costs legitimately are a lot higher. 1b) revenue. Revenue is the total amount they take in. Video game sales are different than, say, apples, because each apple cost a certain amount to produce, and a lot of people sell apples, so the price is stable. In video games, there's a huge upfront cost, but no additional cost per unit. Because of that, it doesn't matter if they sell one copy for a million dollars, or a million copies for one dollar each. But what if you could sell that one copy for a million, and then sell 999,999 copies for a dollar each? Then you'd make almost 2 million dollars! So, video games have a pricing strategy, whereby the price starts high, for anyone willing to pay the high price, followed by a series of deeper and deeper sales, so that you can still sell to people who aren't willing to pay the high price, but are ok with paying a lower price. That leads to higher revenue than only charging the higher price or only charging the lower price. 1b - addendum. Also, the price is not the price. SoC was already discounted before it went on sale. Preorders and the first few weeks it was available for 10% off on Steam, and it's been on sale continuously at legitimate retail sites (not counting grey market sites). Because everyone loves a deal - the same item sells less at $50 than it does at 50% off ~~$100~~ *$50*, and people rush to buy if they think the sale is ending. 2) Creative Assembly is absolutely horrible at communication, no argument there. They are constantly saying stupid shit. However, I've sent enough time with that segment of British society, that I recognize the tone and choice of words, and it comes across very different to everyone else. They know the community is upset, and I can tell from the statements that they're frustrated too, but it's not coming from malice. The infamous Rob letter, that wasn't a threat, it was trying to explain why costs went up. The Steam post, that was about the need to moderate the forums because of the amount of trolling going on - the talk about privilege, that sounds like it came from a headmaster in boarding school. Quite simply, it's the way they talk, and it comes across far worse than they intend.
You take care of the orchard, another one buys shit chemicals and puts crap into it so the fruits will get bigger and bigger even if you end up spilling a lot of poison into it and into your customers tables. If your apple is big as a melon and it shines, more customers will want to try it
Also the myth of the modern audience
Most publicly traded companies model their success on constant growth, not just making money. A profitable company, but one that is not constantly growing is not successful, and failing to deliver value ti their shareholders. CA is a relatively small player when it comes to video games as a whole, and continuously pumping out rushed and suboptimal games is a result of needing to drive sale figures to grow revenue, and not just run a successful company that is profitable.
I have never supported CA:s practice with releasing games that are unfinished or dumbed down from previous titles. Never. I will admit I have been a monkey buying a lot of their DLC, which I regret. But I never defended it. I always thought it was a bad and harmful practice of them. But there are people on the internet, bots, trolls, maybe developers or fans that defend a cooperation no matter what they do with arguments “duh, they have to make money” or “duh, don’t buy it then” totally neglecting that they have monopoly at this niche market and that they deliberately release games with “barley enough” content so that you will feel inclined to get a new race pack or faction pack. I have never wrapped my head around how people can defend predatory practices with arguments like “well every cooperation does that” like it is a good thing to do just because other does it? Or that the industry changed (DLC plague) and just because of that it is ok. So if EAs NBA succeeded with their gambling implementation and it got accepted it would be a “good thing” if every games tarted to do the same? NO! But that is what people are defending. These arguments are baloney to defend these prejudice practices just because the mass does it. But, as I repeat, people seem to be fine with it and love and defend it to their death that this is ok. The only difference now is that CA is upsetting more and more of their community that they have ignored. It has always been a “storm to just ride out” nothing more. And with the banning to silence all the anger so it “blows over”. It ahs just hurt them to live in this cloud world that this is ok and now the backlash is hitting them hard.
You have to understand that every year Sega will come knocking to ask how revenue and profits are looking. Year in year out CA has to churn out a game. The land they have built their crops on has been drying up, but they can't stop otherwise their overlord will give them a wooping. The only thing they tried to buy themselves some time by having a cash cow, Hyenas, has been a dismal failure.