The “paid more to work less” part is not tenable. The games that fit that bill that you’re thinking of represent less than 1% of their peers. They are outliers, not a sustainable industry; the exception, not the rule. For every Silksong there are maybe 100 that make just enough to make ends meet, and 1000 duds that will never pay for themselves that you’ve never heard of.
What you’re saying is you want fewer steady incomes and more lottery winners. Sure, that’d be nice, but it’s not a sustainable strategy.
Ex. Wildgate launched recently. They deliberately opted to sell the game for a flat $30 rather than going F2P/P2W. As a result, they regularly get reviewed negatively by people saying “dead game, greedy devs won’t lower the price to compete with F2P games” and “the cosmetics you unlock by playing look better than the ones you can buy” (yes, there are people unironically posting those as negative reviews).
So at least understand why the most common strategy is often exploitative, and why it’s actually not a simple solution that a bunch of armchair experts have figured out in a comments section.
I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less and I’m not kidding.
Generally games where people had fun making them feel better to play.
But most importantly, more fun!
Have you heard of stardew valley? Made by one guy, 16 bit sprite pixelart, although he does still work his ass off.
Two outta three ain’t bad, right?
TBF, the dude has made millions off the game, and he doesn’t make the updates paid dlc. He just keeps adding to SDV because he loves it
Hey come play Bannerlord sometime!
bonk
I want a game that upon release is 70% finished
But I also even more want what you just said
The “paid more to work less” part is not tenable. The games that fit that bill that you’re thinking of represent less than 1% of their peers. They are outliers, not a sustainable industry; the exception, not the rule. For every Silksong there are maybe 100 that make just enough to make ends meet, and 1000 duds that will never pay for themselves that you’ve never heard of.
What you’re saying is you want fewer steady incomes and more lottery winners. Sure, that’d be nice, but it’s not a sustainable strategy.
Ex. Wildgate launched recently. They deliberately opted to sell the game for a flat $30 rather than going F2P/P2W. As a result, they regularly get reviewed negatively by people saying “dead game, greedy devs won’t lower the price to compete with F2P games” and “the cosmetics you unlock by playing look better than the ones you can buy” (yes, there are people unironically posting those as negative reviews).
So at least understand why the most common strategy is often exploitative, and why it’s actually not a simple solution that a bunch of armchair experts have figured out in a comments section.
We could have the major publishers and devs paying better salaries. They can afford it.