Sustainable Development

Most AAA games extract your time and your money, offering you addiction and distraction and toxicity in return. Your voice is unheard and they'll take whatever you can give them, sometimes more. They talk about you as whales and sheep. They're not interested in your story. Take this white male avatar, this gun, and fucking press F to pay respects, sheep.

You will toil, you will work long hours to create someone else's vision. Your voice will be vanillafied and spread out amongst a hundred other voices. You signed a piece of paper agreeing to be sued if you so much as say the name of the game you're working on. You signed another that makes your every waking thought the property of the company paying the minimum amount required to keep you clothed, fed, and your teeth from falling out (teeth are extra, of course).

When the game makes a billion dollars you'll get a pizza party, then maybe they'll lay you off. When the live service fails to attract 10 million players on day one after years of work (and ignoring your warnings it's not fun), they'll just bail and shutter the studio and blame you.

If you talk about your salary you'll be warned. If you start talking about unionizing they'll fire you or shut down the entire studio in retaliation. What are laws anyway? Great job releasing that hit game from home during "these trying times", but "macroeconomic conditions" mean they can't give you a raise — and by the way, get back to the office because this is expensive space they're paying for and the Taco Bell next door is tanking.

These are all unsustainable practices. They're designed to use up and replace the people making them like they are worn cogs in a machine. They're designed to squeeze every dollar from you they can. Paid $70 for your game? How about $10 more for a season pass? How about a sequel that's the same game in 2 years for the same price? The sickness in the industry is them running out of the ability to extract from players and developers.

Abandon them. They don't care about you. Support games made by you. Support games that will benefit you. Sustainable game development is about creating community. It's about loving playing and making games like we used to.