The Value Of People

It was with a growing sense of dismay that I watched many of the events in the games industry over the weeks leading up to this writing. From price hikes on hardware and software to issues around game ownership, to studio closures, generative AI content generation, developer layoffs, and more – the business around games of late seems like an endless cascade of bad or disappointing news.

I’m fortunate to have a platform where I can speak up about those issues, and those very topics have been the focus of this letter in previous months. Seeing so many longtime colleagues and industry contacts out of work and the potential for devastating damage to this hobby that I love, I struggled with what I might say here that hasn’t already been said. I keep coming back to a particular point of blindness that seems central to what’s happening – the idea that individuals shouldn’t factor into the business of games, and that trying to account for them is fundamentally bad business. I’m not convinced.