CLE MD Blog

Bruce Sterling is a serious writing talent– for better or worse is even credited with helping to establish the cyberpunk genre. Recently he spoke at Austin GDC, however, and said a number of things on the games industry I’d like to comment on. The quotes are from Gamesindustry.biz’s coverage: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/sterling-bankers-will-get-rich-from-games-not-designers

“Who are the moguls, the zillionaires [in the future]? I can tell you that - it’s the bankers, the financiers. Entertainers can make a lot of money, but they don’t keep that money. They’re not money management people. Money management people make and keep a lot of money.”

Bashing finance people is certainly all the rage these days, but it’s a little silly to complain about how much money they make (extremes asside- I’m looking at you Fannie & Feddie peeps!) Of course they make a ton of money, because their jobs are hard, boring, complex, and money well– just about everything involves money. Do you know any I-bankers? I do and some love their jobs– though I can’t imagine it’s anything other than hell. Imho, 80 hours a week for 8 years is just blowing the best chunk of your life away so you can see your kids drive german cars to boarding school. Games are an amazing business opportunity with unbelievable growth potential, of all the industries in the world we should be the last to complain about our economics. Want to be wealthy? Start a business. Don’t want to start a business? Don’t count on being wealthy.

[G]old farmers — “rip off artists… the excluded, the black market, the pirates” - griefers - who “have a game, have entertainment, but it’s not yours, it’s their game. Hate, sorrow, treachery, conflict, grief” - and convergence culture people - who will “play your game, but they’ll play it while they’re using six or seven kinds of media at the same time. Use networks as meta medium. They don’t play the roles in your games.”

Nothing like an artist to tell you how, when, and where you should enjoy their creations. That sillyness aside– there has been a lot of angry words directed at ‘gold farmers’ recently and everyone really needs to calm the heck down. I’m sorry have you ever been to Russian or Chinese village? Did you grow up in a place with no indoor plumbing? Have you travelled more than the few square kilometers around the place you were born?

I’d like to see YOU just slog it out in that kind of place. How easy is it for people in the West to get on their high horse!

1) This country was BUILT by rip off artists (e.g., John Hancock- smugger & Kennedy’s– bootlegging and stock market manipulation, to name a few).

2) Just shut up, because if anyone of us grew up in one of these crap sandwich situations on the other side of the world we would and should jump at any opportunity to get the hell out of there that doesn’t involve drugs or violent crime.

Don’t be a dick and make it personal– these are just people trying to survive. Pirates are cheap bastards, but gold farmers are just trying to make it from the bottom of this crazy mixed up world. Game Co’s have every right and interest to do what they can to prevent gold farming, but to make it personal is just ridiculous.

Dylan Out

Dylan A. Tredrea
Executive Producer/Managing Director
Creo Ludus Entertainment, LLC