I've tinkered with the idea of writing a piece about the business side of the games industry, especially now as it's becoming more and more prevalent in not-so-great ways with companies trying to monetize in every way they can. The problem is, much of the information as to the finances of publishers and their relation to studios is unsurprisingly not put out there to be dissected. Balance sheets don't really tell you much of anything, as parsing out what resources are allocable where through layers of corporate structure would be an arduous enough task even if you had full access to the books. Then you factor in things like marketing budgets, development time/cost, sales targets (and how realistic those actually are), and actual revenue over time at varying price points, and then and only then can you even really begin to grasp what actually goes into a game.
I, too, am really interested in this stuff, but the closest we'll probably get is in the form of some book written in the future by current gaming CEOs about what's going on now, especially in regards to AAA gaming. Right now, from what I can tell, there is a mixture behind the scenes of good old-fashioned greed and a price point that is legitimately becoming increasingly untenable, and in many cases, I imagine they're related. I have observed a fairly disturbing lack of understanding of business from the gaming community (not necessarily here; most duders are pretty sharp). There are a bunch of people who don't buy games until they go on sale for next to nothing and then throw tantrums about efforts by these companies to try and recoup the lost revenue there. I personally fall in the camp of being willing to pay $80 for games to reduce the lootbox shit, but I think I'm in the minority there.
We're near a tipping point (if Battlefront II wasn't already it) that could very well result in a bit of a crash, and I'd prefer we avoid that. I'm not going to defend the loot stuff, especially when much of it is literally based on psychological manipulation that is nefarious and predatory as all hell, and when it shows up in games from companies like Activision Blizzard, EA, Microsoft, et al. that it's tough to buy "needing" that money, it gets even worse. That said, I do get that development costs are rising and that the base price of games really hasn't increased accordingly. Also, gamers have more alternatives than ever. It's a buyer's market in several respects, and as long as gamers are going to wield their dollar, companies are going to respond by trying alternative methods of generating income. Still, there are clearly some who are going above and beyond with some questionable shit and will likely do so regardless of actual need.
I'd love to read some tell-all book somewhere down the road about the current operations at EA. Boy, it sounds like a corporate nightmare over there. They fully deserve most of the backlash they're getting, but I don't think there are nearly enough gamers pointing their fingers in the mirror for their role in giving rise to that kind of monster via normalizing loot crates and demonstrating the financial treasure trove to be had from them in games like Overwatch, nor are people seemingly willing to acknowledge that the "wait-and-see" approach on games where they'll only buy something once it both reviews well and drops in price hurts the industry. While purchasing known quantities is fairly savvy, it's also part of the reason video games are in this weird transitional phase with companies going out of their way to find new ways to make money, many of which are proving to be shitty.
Until consumers either 1) quit buying loot crates (yes, even in games you like, even for "only cosmetic" shit) to where the loot crate concept stops being viewed as a massive opportunity cost if NOT employed in a game or 2) buy more full-priced games/agree to a higher base price for new games, it's tough to fully fault the business side of gaming for the moves they've made of late. Then again, the vast majority of the awfulness on the business end of this comes from some behemoth companies that sure as shit aren't struggling to keep the lights on, so they don't get let off the hook, either. IMO, efforts need to be made by both to stabilize the gaming industry. Consumers need to be a bit more willing to open their wallets, and companies need to stop trying so hard to reach into consumers' wallets.
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