Isn't that the whole point of the art vs business discussion? What is good for business often ends up putting creation into metaphorical vaults. Many times those things get lost or abandoned because they have no "value." But then art comes along and says it does have value but it no longer matters because business removed art from reality and culture, because it was financially prudent in the short game.

You mean a model where the developer was so happy with the publisher, they decided to split the rights in half, so to make another game they would always have to work together, but then the developer losing his part due to bankruptcy? Noone "bought" the missing rights, the developer couldn't support the business, thus he lost his rights.
And the splitting was a decision made by the developer as far as I recall.
Does this mean that if EA had bought over Looking Glass, then System Shock would be available for sale?

I couldn't help but be reminded of this very amusing (yet very apt) VGCats comic on ME3: http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=312

oooh, don't think i'm so simple to think that it is always the "evil" publisher's fault. Developers may also think in wrong terms about their own work. Sometimes they got what they deserved, but it is the user, and culture as such, who gets screwed in the end. These were just examples tossed, I don't know the particular solution to particular problem. What i'm interested in, is how the system works and what kind of behaviour is promoted. (If you want to know my beliefs, they are quite radical, I don't think that the creator or the rights owner should be the sole subject responsible for the work. He's also responsible for how it functions then in the social field.) So EA didn't buy over Looking Glass. Nobody cared at that time. Now we pay the price.

Why do you say so? Maybe they choose to be in a creative business becouse they want to? Or becouse they do not want to take part in exploitation? BUt they have all the wits and strengths to be in business business if they wanted to.

I feel I should point out that "games" aren't a single, monolithic entity. It's like film or literature or music. There's some that's art, and quite excellent art at that, and there's also the stuff that's exists only for entertainment. Both fill very different niches and indeed, I don't see why the entertainment side of gaming can't be adequately serviced by for-profit business while the artists and their fans do their own thing. It works for every other medium, why should gaming be any different?

Actually it's already no different - indie/freeware gaming was the answer. The thing is, already existing old games (i have constantly old games in my mind) which were mainstream becama a kind of "indie" (niché) right now. The difficulty is in separating the "entertainment" from "art". In time things move from mainstream to niché and the other way round.

The answer to that question is an undeniable yes. It's yes today, it was yes when gaming started, no matter what nostalgia might make you think.

EA, Activision, Capcom... not only do they want to make money but they NEED to in order to please their shareholders. Independent developers like Splash Damage NEED to make money to make more games and stay in business. Indie garage developers are hoping to make a splash and get rich, or at least fund their next chance. Even people making free games are likely doing so to get attention for a future project or a dev job.

Gaming is a business, just like film and music and almost every art form. Being art does not preclude something from being made to make money or support the artist. This dynamic has existed since the first book and painting were sold and someone quit their day job because of it.

From now on I pay for my games with bottlecaps.

I think their next game might be greeted with couple thousands of those endangered birds though...

Did you miss the whole Kickstarter thing? That is patronage in its purest form. I've long maintained that art would still be created should copyright be abolished simply because patronage is alive and well, it's wired into our nature. Many of us just have most of our cravings satisfied enough by the sugary snacks that industry produces (many of which, to be fair, are quite good).

People have to eat, art does not have to be a business. I think you might enjoy reading Jane McGonigal's Reality is Broken. The newer paper back edition has an extra afterward she wrote sometime after.

Ah, some help from the greenskins :D Thanks for the read recommendation. I think we both agree that humans are not this pathetic min-maxing selfish creatures who live only for profit. I still believe in ethics that does not amount to refraining from killing and child pornography.

That being said, of course the discussion's weak point is in agreeing how to define business itself. We should refrain from making business into pure evil, as well as a rule of all reality.

There's been a cultural shift in the US in the last couple of decades in that people expect that "maximizing profit" is a corporation's only reason for existing and they are somehow violating their charter should they fail to do so for their stakeholders (which is actually generally very untrue). This has been used as the justification for very sick and fucked up practices. The odd thing is, this misunderstanding is relatively new, no one believed that back in the 80s, for example, despite it being a decade of crazy commercialism. At any rate, you may have a very hard time discussing "business" with most Americans these days, the attitudes are very odd, and that's putting a nice face on it.
Well, let me give you an example. Where I come from everyone smokes pot. Really, from the "losers" of society that folks generally associate with drugs right up to the professionals and small business owners (many earning 6-7 figures per year). No one really "cares" and drug tests are only administered by big businesses that must comply with regulations. Now everyone does care about some drugs, Meth has been a pretty big problem around here and is generally pretty destructive. I actually don't smoke pot because I'm one of those rare (most would say unlucky) folks for who it doesn't do anything. Out my workplace, I'm in the vast minority.

Now, you go to someplace like Oslo (and this is second hand information, so forgive me if I'm painting this picture poorly). They have very progressive and tolerant attitudes about tons of things, even better than where I live (which is considered in the top 5, maybe even the top, most tolerant cities of the US). But holy crap! They actually have a backwards weird thing about pot (at least there they just force you into treatment, not throw you into prison like most of the US - excluding the few states that have decriminalized possession and use of smaller quantities).

So while I generally like the ethics far better in some other parts of the world, every region, to me at least, seems to have at least a weird hangup or two.

I guess it coincides with the great rise of the financial sector.


Maybe you have the green stuff in your blood :P

I don't think smoking pot or not is much of an ethical question. By banning it people just made it ethical. Probably to obscure real problems.

BTW i've never been to States, but it must be interesting to live in a country with a global identity but with regions sooo different from each other.

1. I'm not the guy to think that games in the old days were made in hippie communities.

2. I find this psychological generalizations unfounded. Even if those are the reasons, there may not be the only ones and that's important.

3. The thing is not whether you make money or not, that is obvious, the key is in how you do it, what are you doing it for and what are your end goals. Getting rich? Ok, but surely not for everyone.

Yeah, that aspect can be pretty frustrating. When I travel for business I am continually shocked how odd I find other parts of the country. You'd have to shove a pound of metal in your face and have full body tattoos around here to get a second look, a single tattoo in another part of the US can keep you out of a job or make people assume you're a stripper. People will actually cross the street to avoid you, you'll be scary to them.