A recent release by Mike Ybarra, former head of Blizzard with an important past even within Microsoft, he is doing quite a bit discuss: In a post on X, Ybarra reported that there should be a way to donate some extra money to the developers some games that we particularly liked.
Needless to say, considering the high already price reached by the titles in this generation of consoles in particular, the issue has caused quite a bit of discussion, although many still agree with Ybarra’s idea in principle, especially regarding donating directly to the developers. Furthermore, the executive’s idea concerns triple-A games, therefore those most characterized by a large organizational superstructure.
The problem, in fact, seems to be precisely this: the current mechanism of the videogame industry does not allow for pay developers directly actual as a possible reward for the work done, and very often the latter are the first to suffer the industry crisis as seen with the numerous layoffs that have occurred recently.
The proposal is controversial
“When I finish a game, in some cases some of them leave me with a sense of wonder. At the end of these, I often thought that I would like to give these kids another 10 or 20 dollars, because they deserved it in addition to the 70 dollars of the initial price and for not trying to cheat me out of more money every second,” Ybarra wrote in a post on X.
This has started a considerable discussion online: in general, many agree that developers should be more recognised, or at least not end up as cannon fodder with layoffs whenever sales do not meet management expectations.
The problem is that the money provided by players would still be stolen by publishers and other intermediaries, so it would be difficult to establish a direct support system, unless you are dealing with very small indie teams.
On the other hand, there are also those who point out that buying a game a 80 euros it’s already a huge expense, especially if you think about the special editions which can cost up to 100 euros and the DLC to be purchased later, so making this additional support fall on the players’ pockets is not something that is easily sustainable.
