So you use revenue as a measuremeant of success, which is very reasonable. > He's made over $300 million in revenue so far and might be the first solo game dev (or even regular software dev) to hit $1 billion in the course of the game's existence. So I'm not at all opposed to private wealth and market-driven resource allocation - I just don't think it should be the only way, or some kind of received truth that's above criticism. And most of those were of course founded on wealth created by capitalism. Tax-funded public instruments are one, but another important source of funding that's not distributed by capitalist principles are the various private foundations. EA as a company is a good example of the kind of short-term thinking that capitalism can encourage. Why did management make these decisions? To maximize shareholder value and increase their quarterly profits. For strategic reasons, they wanted to tie SimCity into EA's Origin game distribution platform, but this was just a hindrance to players. They forced the game to require an active online connection primarily as an anti-piracy move, but then underfunded the development of the server-side functionality, so the servers were down for most buyers.
It seems pretty clear that this game was destroyed by EA management's poor decisions. It just goes to show that the dominant players are not always dominant forever, and that common YC startup advice of understanding what exactly users want (hint: they don't want always-online DRM-filled games that nickle and dime you with microtransactions (well, most people anyway, there are always gacha/gambling-type whale gamers)) and serving them well is still correct.ĭid you read the story of SimCity 2013 linked here?
He's made over $300 million in revenue so far and might be the first solo game dev (or even regular software dev) to hit $1 billion in the course of the game's existence. This reminds me of the same thing that happened with Stardew Valley, the creator missed the old Harvest Moon games, didn't find a suitable substitute, and just build the entirety of the game from scratch, teaching himself art and music composition too. I find it hilarious that EA had the concept down and just blew their opportunity with Simcity 2013 (always online (which by the way was actually not true, people cracked the online requirement within the first day or so), had to contract with other users for basic services like sewage and electricity), paving the way for competitors like Cities: Skylines to take the lead instead.