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Comment by jhatemyjob | Hacker News Reader

This, and also, if you just take a step back and think of the bigger picture, the work isn't valuable. There's a lot more value in pushing ads, a CRM, an email app, etc than keeping a 14 year old kid entertained.

I don't really buy the supply/demand argument everyone else is saying here. The end product just doesn't provide value to people's lives. The amount of effort you'd need to put in to provide value to someone's life through a video game is way higher than the effort you'd need to put into a productivity tool.

In fact, more often than not, video games provide negative value to people's lives. They're usually a waste of time at best. And at worst, addictive and carpal tunnel inducing.

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This is a crazy worldview to hold when looking at the annual revenue of just a single IP like Pokemon? Video games surpassed Hollywood years ago! If we want to measure value differently, I already treat certain games with the same reverence as literary classics, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.

Funny you mention Pokemon. Have you been to a Pokemon regional championships recently? Take a good look at the average Pokemon player. You really think that hobby is adding value to their life?

I've met people whose lives were almost destroyed due to games. This is true. I've also met those whose lives were transformed positively by it (no, not Pokemon.) They run the whole gamut.

I'll concede an email app doesn't produce that kind of wide-ranging effect on humans.

That is precisely my point, thank you. Yeah there's a few good ones like Undertale or (early 2010s era) Minecraft or Roblox or Garry's Mod but those are rare. Most of the games out there are the types like Pokemon which are more like a drug addiction.

So bringing this back to the "why don't game devs make boatloads of money like FAANG" it's because the vast majority of roles are being a scripter at Game Freak or Rockstar or whatever. I'm sure the engineers at Valve or Roblox or Epic Games are being treated very well because those companies actually provide value to people's lives.

Roblox to a lesser extent, but you get my point. I'd rather have my kid play Roblox where he might learn Lua scripting, than Pokemon which is just a complete dead end. Just look at what happened to Byuu and Hax. Or hell, even endrift with that weird unnecessary drama with Analogue. Many such cases. Not sure if you get those references. But the stories surrounding those people are why I stay far away from Nintendo stuff. And gaming in general.

> The end product just doesn't provide value to people's lives.

You're waaay too tuned in to the corporate ideology to be saying something like this. I suggest you zoom out. The top heavy games do make a ton of money, so evidently there's value in entertaining people and giving them some good playtime compared to the drudge that is corporate life (PS. in case you didn't know not all people love to work for some other guy's mission/vision).

Entertainment isn't inherently valuable.

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