Slashdot Mirror
Wal-Mart Controls Modern Game Design?
An anonymous reader writes "That Wal-Mart smiley face is looking pretty evil now that Allen Varney has explained how much influence they have on virtually every modern game: 'Publisher sales reps inform Wal-Mart buyers of games in development; the games' subjects, titles, artwork and packaging are vetted and sometimes vetoed by Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart tells a top-end publisher it won't carry a certain game, the publisher kills that game. In short, every triple-A game sold at retail in North America is managed start to finish, top to bottom, with the publisher's gaze fixed squarely on Wal-Mart, and no other.'"
That's called the free market.
No its not. In a free market, you have a large number of consumers (buyers) and a large number of producers. In the current market, you have a large number of producers, and 2 buyers: Walmart and EB/Gamestop. How anyone can call this a free market is beyond me. It doesn't matter that there are a large number of end users (e.g. gamers). These 2 companies control the distribution network, and as far as a game publisher is concerned, WalMart and EB are the buyers, not gamers.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
That's horse shit, before walmart moved into my town there was k-mart, and a ton of other things that could fill the needs of a walmart type store. They are building a superwalmart ten minutes from where I live when there's already a regular walmart 15 minutes up, and 20 minutes in the other direction. It's not a matter of need, nobody needs this many fucking walmarts.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
The ugly truth is that the "left" doesn't like Wal-Mart because Wal-Mart is for the common man. It's low brow. It's redneck. It's a store for the poor and middle classes. It isn't trendy. It's elitism, pure and simple.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned