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Comment by pavlov | Hacker News Reader

I posted this earlier [1] but it’s an interesting little twist to this story…

While EA was busy destroying the SimCity brand with unadulterated capitalist greed, Cities: Skylines was created with public funding from the Finnish government.

No VCs wanted to invest in such a niche company. They were only able to get off the ground thanks to money from Finland’s public startup funding and arts grants.

Capitalism on its own isn’t always enough to ensure that successful products get built. Sometimes it takes public funding to salvage a good idea that capitalism managed to burn down.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35047255

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A single example of government funding an indie developer of a niche title proves that the entire industry up until this point has been going about it wrong?

Government bureaucracy and inefficient spending never burned down good ideas? Never wasted untold billions on failed projects? When it comes to innovative ideas and forward thinking, people turn to short sighted bureaucracy and public funding.

The post you are responding to isn't claiming that

> the entire industry up until this point has been going about it wrong?

but it sometimes goes about it wrong.

> Capitalism on its own isn’t __always enough__ to ensure that successful products get built.

You are building up a strawman and attacking it with very hostile language. I would also disagree with your assumption that governments are inefficient, as there are good examples of efficient governments. Governments can get it right too, and the parent comment certainly isn't suggesting that governments are always right.

Every criticism you have levied: "burn[ing] down good ideas", "wasted untold billions on failed projects", "short sighted"-ness also have examples in the private sector and even with public companies.

Yes it does say exactly that.

EA is not an isolated company afflicted with capitalism. When you say a companies failures are due to capitalist greed, that means something. You are blaming the fundamental economic principles that the majority of publishers (and western businesses) operate on. Words like greed imply there is an inherent evil or 'sin' in capitalism that corrupts, and EA has somehow become its victim. In steps our hero the government with its keen eye for missed opportunities to save the day.

There is absolutely no assumption's about the inefficiency of bureaucracy and government.

That’s a completely incorrect interpretation of what I wrote.

EA destroyed a valuable brand by managerial greed. That’s a fact. Another company got funded by public means when capitalist institutions didn’t want to give them the time of day, and is now a successful business. That’s another fact.

I didn’t say anything about an inherent evil or sin. If you believe capitalism always executes perfectly and is beyond criticism, that’s your ideological position. You may be projecting this expectation of ideology onto others.

You have no proof the brand was destroyed by managerial greed. You also never said managerial greed, you said capitalist greed.. big difference.

You mention capitalisms failures and destruction of ideas while public funding saved the day. Pointing out that a single government grant does not make a game industry or save ideas destroyed by capitalism is not projecting ideology.

Did you read the story of SimCity 2013 linked here?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35041202

It seems pretty clear that this game was destroyed by EA management's poor decisions. They forced the game to require an active online connection primarily as an anti-piracy move, but then underfunded the development of the server-side functionality, so the servers were down for most buyers. For strategic reasons, they wanted to tie SimCity into EA's Origin game distribution platform, but this was just a hindrance to players.

Why did management make these decisions? To maximize shareholder value and increase their quarterly profits. EA as a company is a good example of the kind of short-term thinking that capitalism can encourage.

It's good to have a counterbalance. It can come in many forms. Tax-funded public instruments are one, but another important source of funding that's not distributed by capitalist principles are the various private foundations. And most of those were of course founded on wealth created by capitalism. So I'm not at all opposed to private wealth and market-driven resource allocation — I just don't think it should be the only way, or some kind of received truth that's above criticism.

A company attempting to prevent the theft of their product on a platform rampant with piracy is capitalist greed? Improving their share value by stopping the theft of their product is capitalist greed? How about they incompetently implemented anti-piracy measures and paid for it with consumer backlash?

PC gamers want to run games on a platform open to piracy, and call it greed when companies try to stop the theft of their own work.

...And where is the government in all this by the way? Anti-piracy laws seem to be grossly ineffective as it is so widespread. Companies have to protect their own work as government sits by idle.

This is somewhat out of context. Colosal Order developed two niche games before C:S; a transport simulator series called Cities in Motion. They received government funding before the first game was released. Many European countries have grants, tax cuts or loans for new businesses, so it's not anything unusual.

CiM 2 is a really good game, and very beautiful (which I guess is how they got the idea to build C:S). The focus is on transportation, and it does a much better job of simulating it than C:S (no despawning for starts). It has a few bugs and performance issues which I guess will never be fixed now, but worth playing if you like games that are a bit more constrained.

https://youtu.be/Bkwbajm7nG8

> “…it's not anything unusual.”

I would argue it’s actually unusual on HN to hear such an origin story for a successful business. Everybody has heard a hundred versions of the VC-funded twenty-something boy genius and also the bootstrapped hustler… But the story where your seed funding comes from government grants in a small European country doesn’t align with that kind of hero founder narratives.

Personally I got started in the software business with a Finnish government loan too, and I’m grateful for it. So I wanted to highlight that this actually happens and leads to products that people want.

I liked Cities in Motion. But like many other games like it, the joy dies when the UI can't keep up with the growing complexity as I build. Things that were easy in the beginning become a chore later on. That's when I give up and move on.

Finn here and i know the game and company and by no means Im not downplaying what you said but; In general - there are quite a few possibilities to apply for grants and similar monetary benefits from the goverment, municipalities and few ngo's here. And as a finn - I would find it actually miraculous that company such as Colossal Order would have never ever benefited from public funding.

Interesting! I suppose they recouped their investment via taxes.

How are we defining capitalism here? Because, you know, people are still getting paid for the work they are doing.

Getting paid for work is not the core underlying proposition of capitalism.

voluntary exchange and wage labor are... I am not seeing a contradiction here

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