Not trying to put anyone down here, it's just I can't see a lot of economic benefit in a team of 10 engineers modeling the hair of the next Assassin's Creed character... and where do you think this money comes from?
Not trying to put anyone down here, it's just I can't see a lot of economic benefit in a team of 10 engineers modeling the hair of the next Assassin's Creed character... and where do you think this money comes from?
Errr - doesn't it come from the people buying the Assassin's Creed games? That particularly series earns hundreds of millions of dollars each game, and at least some of that value is created by the engineers modeling the character's hair.
The world would be culturally poorer without music, art, etc., but it would still function. That's not true if you got rid of those other industries.
If I get a haircut, that's not valuable to at least 7 billion people worldwide, but it is valuable to me, so it is some positive value created.
In a similar manner, if a million gamers like some game (or a satanic black metal song) and the whole of bible belt does not, well, that's a lot of positive value created anyway; assuming no actual negative externalities where someone else gets harmed by it. Individual value is subjective, but it can be aggregated - if you consider that playing a particular videogame has negative value and don't play it, then the impact is zero; if I consider that playing the same game has positive value to me and do it, then it adds a positive contribution to the global value created; I got something I liked, and that's valuable by itself, asssuming noone else got hurt by this.
That's why the idea is being disagreed with
Do you also believe the Rolling Stones didn't create any real value?
Just because people pay money for something doesn't mean it adds value or creates wealth. Rolling Stones is a tough case, some entertainment is necessary, but at what level and cost is up for debate, it's not like I have all the answers.
If people prefer hearing a song over getting an (extra) loaf of bread, then hearing that song is by definition more valuable (more valued by that person) as that loaf of bread. There's not much debate needed about Rolling Stones - millions of people have expressed their values, and their choices illustrate that the music of Rolling Stones is literally more valuable than a billion loaves of bread; people have intentionally allocated a billion bread-loaves worth resources towards Rolling Stones because they valued Rolling Stones more than other alternatives.
People paying money for something doesn't necessarily mean it adds value or creates wealth, there are all kinds of edge cases like fraud, exploitation, addiction, etc, but in general, in the vast majority of cases it does mean exactly that - if people genuinely freely wanted to pay money for something and did so, then that's very informative about what they actually value; this is far more informative and truthful than, for example, what they claim they value.
Take my Assassin's Creed example. Consider all the electricity used to run their computers, the food and shelter needed for engineers and marketers, the raw materials needed for game parts and distribution. These resources are essentially burned or are outflows of the system, while providing very little inflow (that is directly or indirectly contributing to the creation of real wealth). The result is a net outflow of real wealth of the system.
As more and more people shift to such jobs, productivity gains in "net inflow" work will be partially distributed to those working in "net outflow" jobs.
I'm also not arguing that all software jobs are net outflow. Something like Google for example, could be argued as a net inflow, because fast information retrieval and distribution can greatly improve the overall efficiencies of the economic system.
Actual wealth creation is creating things that other people want to buy. This applies to games as much as it does to food.
If we assume that wealth can be measured with a non-negative real number, then we will set the zero point of the scale at total human extinction. If we set such a zero point, then we will assume that moving away from zero, that is moving away from extinction, is moving in a positive direction. Therefore, anything which contributes to the robustness and stability of the system could be argued as "wealth" or "valuable".
What about quality of life? I could make everyone survive better by locking them up in a room, safe from all outside hazards. Is that valuable?
why draw the line at the special effects? why not just assert that movies and entertainment are a "net negative"?
Agriculture and manufacturing are the drivers of economic growth. Without them there's no point in having all those other industries.
I agree that making “things” that people “need” is a lot different though, and that’s reflected in their markets.