Every time a game studio is outed for bad behavior when it comes to its workers – or good behavior, for that matter – we always get a couple of folks who insist we oughtn’t cover it and should “stick to games.” These complaints bounce off easily as we have always covered our genre holistically; we’ve never existed just to provide patch news or press releases. Covering the entities that make MMOs is part of our mandate, whether the companies are involved in abusive crunch or raising money for charity.
But even setting that aside, I always wonder how folks compartmentalize all this. Like, even if all you care about is the game and not the humans behind the game, you have to understand that poorly treated and poorly compensated people make crappier games, right? That companies burning out the best devs means brain-drain from the genre and therefore worse games in the future?
Then again, I can understand why the typical game may not have the bandwidth for all this. There are days I don’t either. Do you pay attention to how MMO studios treat their devs? Does it have any effect on where you spend your gaming money?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
