I mean, I’m not sure how well this particular case will prove that point. They are a publisher and they’ve (at least so far) insisted that they will rehire and honour existing contracts. I’m not an expert in the field but I don’t see this hugely impacting any upcoming games’ quality.
ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 6 days ago
Looks like it’s actually the workers who bring value, and not the owner.
Funny how that works.
iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 6 days ago
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 6 days ago
“We had to rehire our talented employees to continue making good games” would seemingly make the point very strongly that the workers bring value, not the owner?
iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 6 days ago
They don’t make the games though.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Fair point, but it’s kicking the can down the road. Insert “…to continue publishing good games,” “…to continue doing good work,” “…to continue functioning” instead and the argument still works. But you’re right, they’re a publisher, not a developer, that’s my mistake.
Rooskie91@discuss.online 6 days ago
If the workers don’t make the games, who do you think does?
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 6 days ago
Really not a great example for that.
This is the equivalent of a salesperson leaving the company because their branch was getting made redundant. And the parent company said that all former customers will know who to send emails to imminently (basically the other branch). So basically Michael Scott made a big deal about leaving and everyone was immediately told to just email Jim and Dwight instead.
Time will tell what happens to The 25 People Formerly Known As API. But considering that publishing inherently requires a large source of cash…
xmunk@sh.itjust.works 6 days ago
If this team reformed under a new brand they would have the proven track record and clout in the industry to score a lot of publisher money - assuming they didn’t just want to self-fund on loan (and a bank would likely be pretty receptive to that).
All the value (outside of the IP held by the company) is in the people that resigned. This is an excellent move and I hope more employees feel empowered to make moves like this to ensure an equitable share in decision making and revenue distribution.
NutWrench@lemmy.ml 5 days ago
This. It’s the creativity, inspiration, imagination and hard work of the employees that give the company its value, NOT the owners. Proof: all the franchises that have failed spectacularly once all the smart, creative people have left the company and the only ones left are untalented hacks.
Also, it is LONG past time we got over our child-like worship of billionaires.
Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz 5 days ago
It’s the publishing company, not the game devs or writers. They are not the creative ones, just some MBA stooges.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 5 days ago
You do know these aren’t game developers that quit, right? They’re a publisher.
Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz 5 days ago
That is what everyone is missing these are the publisher MBA people. They bring no value, it’s not like they are game devs and story writers.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 6 days ago
No they wouldn’t. Their money came from the overall Annapurna empire.
That… I don’t know enough about how hard banks are dicking people over these days but I can’t imagine anyone with knowledge of video games wanting to go into significant debt these days.
The reality is that they would need to find financial backers. Which… are often really bad for a lot of reasons.
I wish them the best of luck. but the AP empire has already been in the process of moving games away from API and the remnants of API have a lot of challenges ahead of them. I do not doubt for a second they have something planned if they all resigned en masse but… publishers are very much more The Man than Labor.