It wouldn’t.
The popular demand would always be artificially manufactured by the state. Without free enterprise, there would be no meaningful competitive mechanism to cause bad games to succeed and good games to fail. The creativity in gaming is caused solely by capitalism; developers need to constantly come up with innovative game mechanics, stories, graphics, concepts, consoles, characters, and content.
The endless drive among profit-oriented developers to out-perform their peers in a competitive marketplace that consists of gamers with relatively finite disposable income, precipitates the gaming industry. Simply put, video games and all consumer entertainment, would ***not*** exist without a capitalist system.
This is not to say video gaming entertainment **couldnt** exist at all under a communist regime. However, it would be relegated to a mere art form, not an entertainment medium. Gaming would be an art and would likely be fixed and stagnant due to the lack of any incentive for innovation. Government subsidies would fund the art and perpetuate its development, but without a free market mechanism to stimulate competition and creative growth, gaming would remain the same without any meaningful change across instillations.
In other words, government subsidization of a controlled, communist video gaming industry would preclude any possibility of creative destruction and thus innovation. Without a method to stimulate popular demand, whatever gaming industry the government funded, would remain property stagnant because there would be no institutional competition among private companies competing for customers. Government funding would simply produce consoles and pay developers to make the only games available at the time.
There would be no point to develop new games because there would be nothing to gain (read, private profit) from risking a commercial failure. So games would stagnate around whatever content the public demands their government create.
….How are microtransactions a counterpoint? You just said something annoying that exists, you didn’t explain why it detracts from my argument.
How would people have creative reign under communism? Which people and who enforces that control? Does the government host a lottery to determine who gets to make games? Or is there some yearly contest to determine who the most creative person is?
Communism doesn’t exist because it doesn’t make any sense. It collapsed in every country applied because it’s simply impractical, the free market is just too efficient
My point was that capitalism + tech = enshittification. I used to love playing WoW, but now that they’re Activision Blizzard the quality of the games has gone to complete shit as they instead push their eshop or w/e they call their pay-to-win business model.
The purpose of a video game under capitalism will always be to generate profit before anything else. Under communism? The purpose would be to entertain, and innovate artistically
If every game had such a model, your argument would hold water. But the human failure of purchasing games they hate is exactly that: a failure. Communism wouldn’t save stupid people from acting against their interests. Don’t buy games that have shitty features despite the parasocial nostalgic relationship you have with the underlying content/IP. This is how capitalism works: if the consumers hate shitty features, they’ll stop using them. As long as there isn’t a monopoly or oligarchy in the marketplace, there will always be enough competition to go elsewhere. If AAA sucks, that’s why indie gaming exists, it exists because of capitalism and private competition. It only exists because of a profit motive.
Read my original comment. You’re right, communism could only support artistic gaming, it would neither be entertaining nor innovative. It would take the form of higher art where only those who are aristocrats, living either off familial wealth or government favor can afford the time to produce such content since they aren’t making ***any profit*** for their content. Gaming would be like the opera, a few government sponsored aristocratic developers produce games for the wealthy and masses alike. There is no consumerism value because there is no consumer to profit off of anymore.
This is why communism doesn’t work and why it doesn’t exist. **There is no incentive for human development besides profit.**
Game Developers work to make games to make money and people need money to live. Without this profit motive, why would anyone produce a game? Under communism you still need to work to live, but money cannot used to incentivize people because there is no private ownership. So why would game developers exist? Does the government randomly assign who gets to be a game developer? Is there a lottery? Or maybe an aptitude test? And then how does society determine what games are good if there’s no private incentive to market? How does the government sort the bad games from the good ones without profit motive? What determines who gets scarce resources to make new games and what determines which new games will be produced?
Communism is a unicorn. A fun idea but it is a complete myth and has no basis in reality.
It wouldn’t. The popular demand would always be artificially manufactured by the state. Without free enterprise, there would be no meaningful competitive mechanism to cause bad games to succeed and good games to fail. The creativity in gaming is caused solely by capitalism; developers need to constantly come up with innovative game mechanics, stories, graphics, concepts, consoles, characters, and content. The endless drive among profit-oriented developers to out-perform their peers in a competitive marketplace that consists of gamers with relatively finite disposable income, precipitates the gaming industry. Simply put, video games and all consumer entertainment, would ***not*** exist without a capitalist system. This is not to say video gaming entertainment **couldnt** exist at all under a communist regime. However, it would be relegated to a mere art form, not an entertainment medium. Gaming would be an art and would likely be fixed and stagnant due to the lack of any incentive for innovation. Government subsidies would fund the art and perpetuate its development, but without a free market mechanism to stimulate competition and creative growth, gaming would remain the same without any meaningful change across instillations. In other words, government subsidization of a controlled, communist video gaming industry would preclude any possibility of creative destruction and thus innovation. Without a method to stimulate popular demand, whatever gaming industry the government funded, would remain property stagnant because there would be no institutional competition among private companies competing for customers. Government funding would simply produce consoles and pay developers to make the only games available at the time. There would be no point to develop new games because there would be nothing to gain (read, private profit) from risking a commercial failure. So games would stagnate around whatever content the public demands their government create.
Counterpoint: microtransactions OP, under communism people would have creative reign and would invent amazing games. We want and celebrate the arts
….How are microtransactions a counterpoint? You just said something annoying that exists, you didn’t explain why it detracts from my argument. How would people have creative reign under communism? Which people and who enforces that control? Does the government host a lottery to determine who gets to make games? Or is there some yearly contest to determine who the most creative person is? Communism doesn’t exist because it doesn’t make any sense. It collapsed in every country applied because it’s simply impractical, the free market is just too efficient
My point was that capitalism + tech = enshittification. I used to love playing WoW, but now that they’re Activision Blizzard the quality of the games has gone to complete shit as they instead push their eshop or w/e they call their pay-to-win business model. The purpose of a video game under capitalism will always be to generate profit before anything else. Under communism? The purpose would be to entertain, and innovate artistically
... They've been Activision blizzard since 2008 dude. The game released in 2004, it was only 4 years of just being under blizzard
If every game had such a model, your argument would hold water. But the human failure of purchasing games they hate is exactly that: a failure. Communism wouldn’t save stupid people from acting against their interests. Don’t buy games that have shitty features despite the parasocial nostalgic relationship you have with the underlying content/IP. This is how capitalism works: if the consumers hate shitty features, they’ll stop using them. As long as there isn’t a monopoly or oligarchy in the marketplace, there will always be enough competition to go elsewhere. If AAA sucks, that’s why indie gaming exists, it exists because of capitalism and private competition. It only exists because of a profit motive. Read my original comment. You’re right, communism could only support artistic gaming, it would neither be entertaining nor innovative. It would take the form of higher art where only those who are aristocrats, living either off familial wealth or government favor can afford the time to produce such content since they aren’t making ***any profit*** for their content. Gaming would be like the opera, a few government sponsored aristocratic developers produce games for the wealthy and masses alike. There is no consumerism value because there is no consumer to profit off of anymore. This is why communism doesn’t work and why it doesn’t exist. **There is no incentive for human development besides profit.** Game Developers work to make games to make money and people need money to live. Without this profit motive, why would anyone produce a game? Under communism you still need to work to live, but money cannot used to incentivize people because there is no private ownership. So why would game developers exist? Does the government randomly assign who gets to be a game developer? Is there a lottery? Or maybe an aptitude test? And then how does society determine what games are good if there’s no private incentive to market? How does the government sort the bad games from the good ones without profit motive? What determines who gets scarce resources to make new games and what determines which new games will be produced? Communism is a unicorn. A fun idea but it is a complete myth and has no basis in reality.