You know who will give you money? Customers if you stop treating them like piñatas.
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Valve is an excellent example of a company that is privately owned, so they don't have to satisfy shareholders with constant growth for growth's sake. And yet they're still growing and making a profit, because they make a good product.
Phil and Xbox don't have that luxury because their masters sold out decades ago.
Valve is also a good example of platform monopoly. People need to stop treating valve like they aren't also a big problem with the modern games industry. They are PC gaming's landlord taking a 30% cut of every sale. You have to be smoking crack if you think that doesn't hurt game developers.
They are a monopoly because they've had the best product on the market consistently for 15 years. There used to be huge resistance to them and their drm from gamers, but they have shown over many years that they are trustworthy, unlike others that have tried this.
This is not an Apple or Google store situation where proper competition could not exist. They were always up against giants like Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft or more recently Epic.
Nothing stops you from busting your games on other platforms when available. I always choose GOG over steam personally. What cut they take from publishers isn't consumers' concern.
Yeah but they give you so little money compared to investors and shareholders. 😅
I think the real problem is businesses have to grow. If most big companies weren't publicly traded then just being profitable would be enough.
Imagine making enough money to pay you and everyone else in your company a great wage one year, but it being bad because it wasn't more profit than last year.
I've seen companies phrase 8% growth as a negative because they missed their 10% growth target that they just pulled out of their own ass.
Infinite growth in an obviously finite world is such a moronic concept, yet the driving force of capitalism
I actually can’t believe this is coming from a high level employee at a corporation.
Like we all know this is true, but isn’t it big to hear one of them talking about the insanity of the system.
I like it. I prefer the honesty.
Nobody forced this guy to be a soulless capitalist. He chose his career path. Oh woe is you, Phil. Must be so hard for you. /s
He's speaking for the rest of the industry that also makes product that tangentally pays his bills. Not all assholes have to be brazen 24/7.
I can see why that would be a bummer. In my mind, the perfect video game-ceo position would be for a company that makes enough profit to pay its employees well and self sustains the business to keep making more games. Having to constantly report a higher user base and profitability growth year after year on a global scale would be a total drag.
Steam is a prime example of this. Not privately run it would have been bloated to extinction years ago.
Shareholders are leechers to quality. Dividends are not enough, the underlying asset must grow no matter what.
When Gabe croaks it Steam is fucked. It will go public.
I thought companies made money by selling a product to customers? Hmm, seems like there is some kind of contradiction here, perhaps Phil should look into that.
Investors don’t care about that anymore. Line must go up more and right now. If not, they will replace you with someone who promises to do that.
The best ways to raise stock prices include downsizing, jacking up prices, and cutting product quality to save cost. None of these are even remotely beneficial to the customers.
You can grow without being hostile and negative. Start your own studios, make innovative games, compete with quality not acquisitions.
Yes, but can you roll a platform of the distribution, breadth, depth and persistence over good and bad cycles of the scale of Xbox or PlayStation while being a private company? A few have tried.
No, but do you have to? You can still be a profitable company without aiming for world domination.
Phil Spencer, you have the luxury to quit if you don’t like the things you’re being forced to do for money.
Or, you could use your influence to try and push things in a different direction.
But Phil Spencer, you will do neither. You’ll shut up and keep dribbling.
I dunno, maybe stop going public and just sell a decent game?
you get a lot of publicly traded companies that are in the industry that have to show their investors growth—because why else does somebody own a share of someone’s stock if it’s not going to grow?
I thought the way it was supposed to work was, a company starts out investing in its growth and during this period shareholders get gains from the price of the stock going up, and then when it has maxed out just switch to shoveling the profits into dividends instead? If the industry has stopped growing, I don't see why there isn't a path to acknowledging that to investors, what am I missing?
Growth is more valuable than dividends, and there's always more room for growth in the eyes of investors.
I get the feeling the part of capitalism Phil Spencer hates is the part where consumers can take their business elsewhere if they don't like the product.
I'm glad he can see the issue but then part way through the interview he loses it, and jumps to feeding the capitalist system
Sounds like skill issue.
phil spencer explains market discipline
Comrade?
Cry more rich boy, your tears are delicious.