I really wish gamers could unite in a way that they buy out sufficient ownership stakes in these terrible publishers that they force them to treat development studios better, and not push out half-finished slop filled to the brim with predatory monetisation.

EA, Konami, Ubisoft would all be ripe for a renaissance if that were to pass.

EA and Ubisoft I can see happening in theory.

Konami is an entirely different beast. The Japanese industry is so ingrained in a different ethos altogether, I just don't see any public-backed push for change working the way it would with a Western publisher.

Just look at the direction Nintendo is heading. Do we have any actual chance of stopping that train?

Its capitalism. Individuals will not change this. Systemic problems need systemic solutions. First step is outlawing centralization of capital and putting back legislation against large corporations. But good luck doing that in the US.

Fuck black panther make another game like battlefield 4 or nfs most wanted

Oh yeah, let's make another shitty battlefield game cause there aren't a million of those in the bloated and fetted catalog of shooters.

Battlefield 4 isn’t shitty lil boi

I've been hearing it for years, the same as outright boycotts. It's not that people don't care, it's that not enough people care for it to make a difference. For every person pissed about getting burned on a $60+ purchase for a dogshit game, there are 99 more who'll eat it and move on without caring all that much. You've got to improve the content at home, where it counts without worrying about the drek getting turned out by large companies/studios. Invest in indie, or shop around is the best bet IMO.

Damn, was this the Christopher Judge project?

Realistically yes, you are correct.

I’m sure we all (at least those old enough) to remember that Boycott Modern Warfare II Steam group screenshot.

Idealistically, imagine that for every release - instead of giving EA that $80 dollars, 10% of gamers put that money towards a share instead.

So that would work out to be ~$200m in lost upfront sales, and up to $540m in lost recurring spend (microtransactions, battle passes etc.).

That would only be enough for gamers to own 0.5% of the company after the first year, but keeping this up for multiple years could have a downward pressure on EA’s stock price long-term as they miss their financial forecasts - increasing gamer’s buying power on shares.

Within a few years, these “Gamers United” would begin to have sufficient stake to influence board decisions (for the better).

The best part being that, the entire time, EA would continue to pay dividends to them (currently at a rate of ~$3.10 per share, per year), while they still technically own that money - almost like a corporate savings account.

*Edit: out of the three companies I randomly picked, Ubisoft would actually
be the softest target - as their market cap is only $1.38b, so gamers would only need to acquire ~$700m of shares to wrestle control of the company!

I don't want to own EA. I want EA to fail.

Why would you want to stay stuck playing the same game forever? No matter how good

I don’t want the current iteration of EA to succeed; but I do want them to return to form and help* nurture quality releases of Command and Conquer, Mass Effect, Dead Space, Burn Out, Need for Speed, Road Rash, Theme X, Sim City and about a dozen other dormant (or mismanaged) franchises.

Could I get similar experiences from other publishers and developers? Absolutely — but I’d much rather we as gamers have a broader choice in the future of our hobby, rather than continually whittling down our options as quality developers get swallowed up and spat out by the current industrial machine.