Can someone tell me how alienating your core fanbase, adding stuff your fanbase hate and insulting them on social media, and chasing a fanbase that is not real, be a sound bussiness decision for videogames?
Developer:
>is only paid to make the product
Publisher:
>pays the developer
>is the one who cares about the profit
When the publisher no longer cares about the profit, but cares about the message... the customers who voted with their wallets before will be alienated now that the ecosystem is no longer theirs.
You also have the issue that modern developers have swallowed current culture that diverged from what you found palatable (but was still on the path to today's culture) around 2010. They believe the old fanbase is wrong, insignificant and that they don't want their money anyway. And that the new fanbase is real, bigger, the truth, and will prevail over the old smelly incel shrinking failing audience. And no matter how many times the developer itself fails to find this new audience, it was clearly just someone sabotaging them, possibly a fascist, a misogynist or a terf.
Remember that it's very hard to recognise that the audience doesn't exist... because the charts say women buy more than anyone, and we all know a man who knows that women are superior to men, especially those other men in our dev team. We're just not being progressive enough. It must be the truth, otherwise my degree in women's studies and black history would be for nothing!
>is only paid to make the product
Publisher:
>pays the developer
>is the one who cares about the profit
When the publisher no longer cares about the profit, but cares about the message... the customers who voted with their wallets before will be alienated now that the ecosystem is no longer theirs.
You also have the issue that modern developers have swallowed current culture that diverged from what you found palatable (but was still on the path to today's culture) around 2010. They believe the old fanbase is wrong, insignificant and that they don't want their money anyway. And that the new fanbase is real, bigger, the truth, and will prevail over the old smelly incel shrinking failing audience. And no matter how many times the developer itself fails to find this new audience, it was clearly just someone sabotaging them, possibly a fascist, a misogynist or a terf.
Remember that it's very hard to recognise that the audience doesn't exist... because the charts say women buy more than anyone, and we all know a man who knows that women are superior to men, especially those other men in our dev team. We're just not being progressive enough. It must be the truth, otherwise my degree in women's studies and black history would be for nothing!