Eh? No, it isn't relative, which is what you are in essence saying, I think. Taking something that doesn't belong to you without the explicit consent or permission of the owner is stealing, and I personally, believe stealing to be immoral.

Regardless, semantics aside, I have never broken any laws regarding any sort of piracy. So, no, strictly speaking, I am NOT, nor have I EVER been, a pirate of copyrighted material (or anything else, for that matter). So, stop trying to lump me in with everyone else, just in an attempt to appeal to the popular (i.e. "argumentum ad populum", in debating terminology). Not only is it a logical fallacy, but it is also inaccurate when directed towards me.

Im not lumping anything but under your nickname its clearly written - Dread Pirate :D no offence pal.

Explained earlier in the thread... pal.

EDIT:
I actually closed the window, but then I thought maybe you were just making a joke. It did rub me the wrong way, but I'll just chalk it up to the internet not conveying intent, as often occurs. So, apologies for my flippant reply, if that was the case.

Jeez, you make a comment before going to bed, and wake up to a whole discussion about it.
You did read the final sentence of my post, didn't you? The whole point about saying that I can't have that, was that I know it's not feasible. I thought that was pretty clear.
No, you misunderstand. I'm not talking about the budget at all. I'm talking about a manager going to the dev team and telling them "the marketing department tells me that games with cute puppies sell well, so you have to include a cute puppy in your game". Basically, noone but the game designers should have any say in how the game is designed.
I'm pretty sure that finding investors who'd go for such a model would be difficult enough to stop me.
Apparently I didn't phrase my post too well since several people seem to have misunderstood this bit. I don't mind in the least having a marketing department promoting the game. What I mind is them influencing the development of the game.

My ideal situation? Let's say a big publisher has a yearly profit of 100-300 million dollars. Now imagine them saying the following:

"We not only want to make money, we also want to make something extraordinary and creative. We know that producing something creative with no thought to market forces is a risky business, but we also know that it has the potential to bring great rewards. To that end, we are devoting an annual 20 million dollars to running a development team which will be given a free hand to make whatever sort of game or games they would like. We know this is a risky investment, so if one of their games fail, we will not sack them all and close the studio, we'll just hope the next one will do better. Meanwhile, our financial security is taken care of by our other studios."

Like I said, it'll probably never happen, but it is a beautiful thought I think.

Yes. Allowing a friend to play a game you purchased in your house on your computer is 100% legal. The same situation applies to music (I'd use a free, advert supported service for that anyway).

I lost you again right here. It might help if you took the time to explain the point you're trying to get across in a bit more detail.


Have you tried? ;)
Your desire to strive away from the common means of getting a budget is something I can understand and support. You're not the first, nor only person who wants more developers to venture down that road. There are community supported (as in raising money in advance) projects, but you could get creative and try to get a university to fund your research project, or you could even contact some of the bigger publishers out there (sell the idea as big PR, featured in many a magazine ;)). You could even send note to CDPR/GOG! :p
Or try to set up a 'humble bundle'-esque pack, ... there's plenty of ideas you could try to follow.
Yes, I'm aware this would be a tough, frustrating venture with no warranty of success, but you'll never know if you don't try ;)

this kind of thinking and acting is illegal under the law for corporations.

they have to have very good reason on spending money on something which might not bring profit and have very high chance of failure. They also have to take action against non-profitable sectors of the company.

They have responsibility towards shareholders to maximize the profit any legal way possible.

Valve can do that. They are privately owned. Activision, EA, Ubi can not*


*If they were really committed towards your idea they might be able to convince the board members and shareholders to it but it would be extremely hard I would say.

Depends on who the shareholders are.. In Blizzard's case, even though they are owned by Vivendi, they are left alone to work on their games... and the result of that we can all see.

Make up your mind. First you say it is illegal, and then you say they could do it if they could convince the board members and shareholders. It must be either one or the other, as those two statements are mutually exclusive.

Regardless, all I'm saying is that it's a beautiful thought, even while saying that it would never happen. I don't know why you insist on telling me why it can't be, when I've already stated quite clearly that I know it can't be.

They're not exclusive at all. One's a conditional, they can be combined. Such that it's illegal unless they convince...

He said "this kind of thinking and acting is illegal under the law for corporations". Nothing conditional about it.

He also said "If they were really committed towards your idea they might be able to convince..." Which is conditional. Such that you have "it is illegal, unless you convince the board of it first, which is hard to do."

It is the ignoring of shareholders that is a legal problem.

If that's the case, then sure. That just isn't how it was phrased. Regardless, I assume no corporation would publically state something like that without clearing it with the shareholders first. Not that it matters one way or the other, as it will almost certainly never happen.

Now can I enjoy my beautiful thought? ;-p

Actually I said people who STILL CURRENTLY do those things like download music/books/etc while bemoaning game piracy.

Not necessarily.

I mean, if the pitch truly is "hey, let's throw away some money on stuff that might be awesome", rammed down the shareholder's throats despite their objections then yes, that CEO wouldn't last long and could probably be prosecuted if it was a publicly-traded company.

But movie studios (both now and at various points in the past) have used a similar model. The big money-makers pay the bills, while smaller divisions get smaller budgets to make art-house and prestige projects. The key is that those projects create a different kind of value - it's in the term. They generate prestige for the studio, and enhance revenue-creating opportunities indirectly (by winning the broader studio Oscars, festival prizes, critical acclaim, attracting big industry names, etc. etc.)

Businesses aren't pants-on-head retarded. They don't just blindly grope towards cash like giant amoebas. At least, not all of them do.

The problem is that there's *no such thing* as prestige in the gaming world. Most of gaming's "big names" aren't people with vision, they're just the rainmakers that keep the hits coming. It's whatever sells the most units, period. This is what comes from having dickbag CEOs from the exciting worlds of supermarket retail and sporting goods running the show at most of the big names for the past decade or two. They have no vision beyond the bottom line, but that's a failure of the industry rather than the nature of industry in general.