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Are you willfully misunderstanding at this point? Those wages come from averages and projections based on past results of how much money previous games make. If they continually don’t make money, their jobs disappear, because the work they’re doing no longer justifies how much it costs to pay them to do it.

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UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

Those wages come from averages and projections based on past results

Again, I’m going to point you to the AI industry, which has never posted a profit but which still pays some of the highest salaries in the industry.

You’re also fully neglecting the concept of the Loss Leader which exists to onboard people to a system despite losing money on its face.

Not even discussing the hobbyist developers (originating whole genres of gameplay purely out of personal passions), the notion that games will go away or that studios must be profitable isn’t reflective of how games are developed in reality.

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- ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  None of those things can happen indefinitely. Loss leaders make up their profits on the back end; the classic example in this industry is selling a console at a loss while selling software at higher margins.
  
  AI is still in the investment phase. By anyone’s account, this is a bubble about to burst, investing in something that doesn’t generate enough money to justify the investment. It won’t do that forever. I’d be surprised if it continues without a major correction in a few years. No one can predict how or when it will happen, but we’ve seen so many bubbles throughout history. They all need sustainable profit eventually, or they become a disaster. Gaming already had its own bubble in the wake of the pandemic, and that’s where these layoffs are coming from.
  
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