The FTC Bukkakes Microsoft Over Activision Blizzard layoffs

Whoa TIL. Thanks for the info, I stand corrected.

Not saying you’re wrong. There certainly could have been mental degradation over the years. Or he could have gotten investors lined up by being a really rich kid from a rich family. Money can do a lot of heavy lifting for a piece of shit.

I think it’s a bit of both. To me the coolest thing he ever did was make Tesla tech open source. I have a hard time seeing that Musk in this dude anymore. I used to think he did it altruistically but lately I’m thinking it was probably an ego thing after all. And now that all his ventures are starting to sink he probably regrets the move.

I don’t think it’s so much that they’re out of ideas but that they’re too scared to risk new ideas. These games are so expensive to make now so they squeeze out as much as they can with MTX and season passes to stuff their pockets as much as possible. The longer they can keep you playing, the more money they can make off of you with minimal additional effort. Wrapping up that plan with a nice widely-recognized Call of Duty logo makes them a lot of guaranteed upfront cash.

Doing the same thing for a new unknown property won’t have that guaranteed audience, will require a lot more marketing effort, and possibly years of underperforming results before it starts becoming worthwhile. And even then it’ll be impossible to catch up to the behemoth of the biggest shooter franchise in gaming history. So it just makes financial sense to keep remaking and rebooting the tried and true. Their CEOs and shareholders demand it and their audience (for now) is happy enough to keep it that way with their wallet votes.

tl;dr With development costs growing exponentially, publishers looking for the easiest path to the most profit, and gamers already primed to keep buying the next installment no matter what, sticking to old ideas is what makes the most sense. Goes for movies too.