True enough, but games are actually cheaper than ever with all the sales, so if anything 20$ today sounds like a bit much.

Myth.

There are plenty of parties in whose interest the directors must act, not just shareholders; this includes the corporation itself, its creditors, etcetra, along with the shareholders. And working in shareholder's interest isn't necessarily synonymous with maximizing profit or shareholder value. For example, people may decide to invest in "green" or "socially responsible" companies. If the company suddenly decided to turn dirty and start acting unethically, that would work against shareholder interests.

The directors have plenty of leeway -- to the point that there's this well known business judgement rule protecting them (not that I think it should be necessary in a civilized country where you're innocent until proven guilty).

Some reading for those who are interested:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_judgment_rule

https://legislate.ai/blog/does-the-law-require-public-companies-to-maximise-shareholder-value

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-corporations-obligations-to-shareholders/corporations-dont-have-to-maximize-profits

If we swapped the average price ranges of AAA and indie titles, would I still stick to indie games?
To be perfectly honest, yes.
Sure, I'd be pickier with my purchases, but the alternative would be playing yet another dull AAA open world action adventure which seems to be the sad norm these days.
There's exceptions of course, but those are rare (to me at least).
The most recent (regarding the release date) AAA game I purchased that I had actual fun playing was Yakuza 7 from 2020, the others (like Horizon Forbidden West) were (mostly) utter snore-fests.

Shareholders, the corporation (whatever that means), its creditors, all people who want money out of the corporation, either right now (short term profits) or later (long term profits, usually via growth).

Investing "green" for a business is just part of the profit equation.

It's about how much customer goodwill they thing it will generate (now, its getting more and more trendy) and also how much they think they will save in the long term (if they foresee regulations tightening the noose or an economic shift toward more environmentally friendly practices).

The directors have plenty of leeway... when justifying short-term vs long-term profit decisions. Anything that is clearly counter-current to profits (short-term AND long-term) even if the company remains more than viable, they are getting sued or ousted.

Bruce Scheiner once wrote about software security and lack of corporate liability for security problems in software that what is significantly better for end-users is not the best for profit (not unsustainable, just not the best) and if he was on the board of a company, he'd vote to fire someone advocating for better, but costlier, security (this is coming from a security professional who is sensible to the way corporations work) at the expense of leaving end users exposed. Here, he was making a point about making companies more responsible for security flaws in their software and combine it with an insurance model, because they wouldn't do it on their own due to the profit incentive.

Anyways, I think automatons have their uses. I'm a software developers and work with them all the time. I just know better though than to turn my life over to them, because they are kind of dumb in a way (useful, but dumb).

Just makes me cringe though when someone points a finger at a corporate automaton and says "They did this immoral thing for profits". My reply would be "Did it actually improve their profit margins? Yes? Than it seems to me like they made a sound corporate decision".

In terms of tax evasion, its definitely horrible for society, but it doesn't seem to me like it is stopping a whole lot of people from buying their games and so, they keep evading away.

I don't mind simpler games. I even appreciate a smaller world or shorter playtime from time to time, as long as there are good ideas and effort. But the pricing should match the content and production values. A lot of what today is sold as indie would have been a free Flash game back in the 2000s.

can you provide an example?
also usually takes money in those cases - as does quality pixel art etc.
lots of funding for these things out there though - and some good publishers willing to front on things for a speculative eventual return.

An example of "pixel art"? Countless examples

Also employees, customers, and more. Umm no. While you can be "green" for profit reasons, there are plenty of initiatives for socially responsible investing and it's not just about profit. There are people (and investors) who do in fact care about doing the right thing and not destroying the planet. Acting in the best interest of said investors is not just about maximizing profit.

Anyway, I mentioned the business judgement rule for a reason: a director would not have to show in court that whatever they are doing is motivated by profit (long or short term). Instead, the plaintiff would have to show that the directors are not acting in good faith (fraud / illegal activity / working to deliberately harm the corporation for self interest or otherwise, etc.).

If directors thought that being green or socially responsible or doing security right were good (for profit or just for the heck of it), they can do that, and if shareholders wanted to sue, they would have to show that the directors are doing something illegal or against the interest of the corporation. There's absolutely no need to demonstrate a theory of how doing those things would lead to customer goodwill or long term profit. It's complicated, because it's hard to demonstrate bad business judgement. What you could demonstrate is fraud, self interest and such. Also keep in mind that there's profit for the company, and then there's profit for the shareholders, which are different things. Furthermore, shareholder profit is not well defined (each shareholder makes a different profit depending on how they invest).

Still, I hold that there is no legal obligation to generate profit, so none of this even matters. Cool story but hardly relevant.

I've looked many times over, and I always arrive at the same conclusion: there is no law requiring publicly traded companies to maximize investor revenue. F*iedman d*ctrine and s*areh*lder p*imacy are just theories that ec*nomists came up with (and which are in turn parroted by invest*rs, f*nancial i*stitutions, ...). In reality a corporation can be established for any lawful purpose.

Unfortunately I cannot prove a negative. But if you happen to have legal precedent for your claim, I'm more than happy to be proven wrong! You could also fix this paragraph while at it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_value#Legal_criticisms

EDIT: jfc was it hard to get this message posted because of GOG's word filters :P I still don't know which of the censored words triggered it..

I would have -- and actually have -- paid for many games that started as Flash games, or were released as stand-alone (via Adobe Air) games, and many of them were good. The tools made to use the product do not dictate its quality or value.

I mean, it's called aesthetic. They're going after a certain look that a lot of gamers still find appealing. But crisp modern text clashes aesthetically with the art style of the game. Sure, a bit of it is nostalgia. Some of the best games ever made came out in the early 90's. But it's also a budget consideration. You know why those 90's game could be good? Because you didn't need the GDP of a small country to produce top tier games then. The top budget games still had teams of 20-30 people working on them (with outliers). Pixelated art is cheap to manufacture, but looks great compared to poor 3D, and your own imagination kind of fills in the blanks. Sometimes, higher resolution modern graphics just don't look as good as the image your mind draws over a pixel art asset.

Nope, I love pixel art. Especially lowres and low color depth pixel art appropriate for display on classic hardware.

I like 3D art too, both modern and retro. Vector art not so much though. It still reminds me of ad supported flash games. A good artist can overcome that however.

"Pixel art" is an oxymoron.

If the game is deliberately pixelated, then that means it is blurry and unclear and visually looks like crap. That's not art, that's trash.

Lots of indie devs seem to have an incorrect view of what pixel art is and go out of their way to show the pixels. The real pixel art developers from the 80s and 90s were trying to hide the pixels as best as they could and used the blurring effect of the typical CRT monitors to good effect.

Most modern efforts do indeed look shit.

Something like Dead Cells isn't bad and uses blurring effects on its pixels.

I disagree.

Pixel art can often be clearer than "non-pixel" art, and unless there's a filter that makes it blurry, can actually be quite crisp and clear. (For example, a pixel art game using OpenGL should use GL_NEAREST, not GL_LINEAR, to get a crisper look.)

Also, if you look at 2D platformers, they can largely be categorized into 2 categories based on the interaction of graphics and gameplay:
* Some 2D platformers use the sane tiles to represent graphics and collision. In these games, it is very clear what is and isn't solid, even if the graphics can be sometimes repetitive. (Example: 2D mario games, at least through Super Mario World. Also, Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap with classic graphics.)
* Some 2D platformers, on the other hand, separate the graphics and collision data. You might, for example, have hand-drawn graphics, but the collision data is stored separately as tiles. If this isn't done well, it may be hard to tell what's solid and what isn't, and where precisely platforms end. (Example: 2D Sonic, I believe, and also Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap (remake) with modern graphics; note that the latter example uses the same collision data that the classic graphics uses.)

Some games really stretch the notion of what is an Indie game and what isn't. The lines are often very blurred these days.

So while price is definitely important to me, I try to weigh up all the factors when making a decision to buy or not. Reviews and Screenshots and Video(s) all play apart, as does the blurb, and the genre and the vibe I get. Whether any DLCs are included or Soundtrack, can sometimes push me to decide yes. Longevity of support is a factor too, and sometimes you get better support for an Indie game, certainly here at GOG, than for many AA or AAA games.

Hell if a game is cheap enough, and I like the graphics, I might just buy it for that reason ... much like people buy a painting etc. Can be a somewhat similar thing for soundtrack, if I've heard enough to make such a judgment.

And as always, if a game on the face of it is appealing enough, any reviews aside, due to the blurb and perceived effort in making the game, I will often give it a chance on that basis alone ... if the price matches my lower expectation.

While price is always a very important factor for me, it is also about value for money ... or perceived value for money. And not in isolation, as I never forget my huge game collection, and that often counters sudden urges for yet another game, especially in regard to price.