Is there something going around the 'greedy exec' watering hole?
Big surprise: The industry is back on their insanity again as the rough walls of this industry of ours appear to peeling off from around us- all the while we smile and try to pretend that the Summer Games Fest is the only thing of importance happening around us. (I just want to make it to the Bethesda/Microsoft showcase without another stupid industry scandal, can we manage that?) But with all this turmoil bubbling up around us, it's important that we don't become lost in the fervour of it all and lose sight of the simple things. Human fragility. The ability to forgive. And the fact that people make honest mistakes sometimes. Of course, it's that very human and understanding nature of man which companies so often exploit in their mastery of 'popularity mind games' which appears to have become all the rage in the modern day entertainment industry. Observe: two masters who recently got to work.
First we have Twitch, the number one video game streaming site on the Internet and the home of an executive board that seems to regularly flip out and stick a loaded gun to the platform's head forcing the user base to bum rush them in order to save themselves. And what was the bullet this time? Sponsorship deals. Very long and specific story short, Twitch are trying to make their platform profitable and that is becoming harder and harder the more people come to host on their services- their latest attempt was to try and throttle users ability to make off-site sponsorship deals without Twitch as an intermediary. Through a plethora of pointed community guideline updates, Twitch neatly outlawed a variety of methods that sponsorship seekers set up advertising communities with Twitch Streamers, all in a vain hope of forcing said streamers to seek sponsorship deals out through Twitch, thus allowing them to take a big cut of the earnt revenue. Delightfully devilish, Twitch-more!
Now, of course- this is really the kind of comically evil play you'd only usually attempt to pull in an industry over which you have a monopoly, and Twitch have been slowly losing that monopoly in recent years. Youtube, Kick, Rumble- everyone seems to be coming to take the market share away from Twitch and almost all of them offer better deals- Twitch only seems to be topdog these days because of a more solid infrastructure and legacy appeal. By making it impossible for enfranchised Streamers to make a decent living on their platform, Twitch basically just made a move to drive them away whilst simultaneously signalling to any company who offers sponsorships that theirs is a platform that is too restrictive to do business with. This was... just a really stupid business move all around. Or was it?
Because whilst Twitch can slap down the 'walk back' Tweet and talk about what a crazy unhinged mistake they made, eagle eyed observers saw very clearly how Twitch removed only the craziest elements of their changes and left the more innocuous and vague language untouched within their guidelines. Classic misdirection tactic here- make a massive over reach which riles up the industry with two steps towards your goal, pretend to be sorry and take one step back letting everyone think they have the victory, wait some time and do it again. Now Twitch have slightly more control over the rights of Sponsors and flaunt the right to bring down the ban hammer on anyone they feel threatened by or, most cynically, anyone who appears to be making a chunk of change that Twitch wishes they could get a cheeky swipe of. Textbook and elegant manipulation; we'll see how that works out for them.
But whereas Twitch is at the beginning of their scheme, let's shift gears to a man at the very end of his successful grift in which he managed to weasel out of an absolute gauntlet of mayhem. Bobby 'Working class hater' Kotick. The man from Activision has survived an absolute whirlwind of chaos after his years of facilitating the worst practises within the company came out in explosive fashion. The way that workers were treated, women were harassed, and the way that Bobby himself allegedly threatened someone's life. Honestly a guy like that should probably not be on the board of any company as he himself agrees- although in the same breath he denied any validity in the accusations in a recent interview he conducted as something of a victory lap about the job he still inexplicably has.
And let me be absolutely clear; despite his grandstanding that "No CEO who had actually done the thing I'm claimed to have done would still be in my position"; (that's paraphrased) there have been real consequences of Bobby's image degradation. Not least of all a total breakdown of relations with their partners in China which led to the shutting down of Blizzard's WOW China severs and a vehement rejection of the Activision brand- all because of Bobby. The man was another pressure point in the Microsoft deal, but somehow managed to worm his way into keeping his job without sacrificing the buyout. Like all the worst people in history the man is an absolute cockroach, scurrying across the bombed-out ruins of everything around him.
Yet today I find myself at further odds with him then I've ever been before, you wanna know why? This comment: "-we did not have a systemic issue with harassment — ever,” he said in the interview. “But what we did have was a very aggressive labor movement working hard to try and destabilize the company.”. Yes, he's using the investigation that they paid off to be a puff piece as vindication to villainize and attack the company unions. And then he goes on to gab about how 'pro union' he is, because his mother was a teacher and that simple fact alone means he would never stamp on the necks of his company workers whilst using them as scapegoats. All he wants is for the union to "play by the rules". Or more appropriately, to kneel before the headsman's axe when he needs an easy out.
You see, that is the temperature of modern business, lies and deception pump through the veins of all these sadistic CEO's and their psychopath-aspirant sycophant executives- which is what makes their kind an absolute plague on the world of art. And this style of business deviancy is only going to expand. Like a disease, a pathogen carried on the almighty dollar bill and swept on the rolling wind of growing commerce. That's the same reason why Konami killed off it's quality game arm to specialise in gambling and mobile money sinks, why Bethesda's Fallout 76 charges $100 a year for a decent inventory system, and why Sports games shudder at the very concept of 'new assets'. Best start believing in megacorp dystopias- you're living in one!
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