[Super Bunnyhop] How American Game Companies Avoid Paying Income Tax - General

[video]https://youtu.be/SFKnv1YzI3k[/video]

I have a morbid fascination with the dirty (and totally legal) business dealings that go behind and influence games and film and oh boy did that not disappoint.

Revenue: $674 Million US Dollars Tax: "the fuck is tax" That's just a really creepy piece of paperwork to look at.

Makes me wonder if anyone could, like, hijack one of the fake companies and steal all the AAA game industry's IPs. Like, totally shut down their revenue by claiming all their projects are the fake companies after breaking off from them.

You won't have to, I think the industry will get better over time. I was thinking about this the other day. It's kinda weird how it takes a billion dollars to make a pretty trash game, when there's brilliant writers in every college and high school in America. Like why can't you just make an okay looking game and write some good ass story to it? And then I was like, damn where are the George R.R. Martin's and Stephen Speilberg's of gaming? We all know this an incredibly immersive medium and there's [I]a lot[/I] to say as an artist as of late so umm... Why are games trash? I'm tired of all of this Ghost Recon 7: Now with even more cutscenes and animations and even less gameplay and story! As games get easier to make, and easier to make look good, we're going to get better games. I know the steam store makes that look opposite, but when people with good ideas can just make their games... Think about it this way. If your friend recommended a book and said the person that wrote it was sleeping on a couch and had to sell something to pay for publishing, would you assume it's a shitty book because it has no money behind it? What about an acoustic guitar album? What about an action movie? The more expensive the medium, the more only rich assholes can afford to make the thing. Right now games that look like movies take a rich asshole. When you and I can make a game our bedroom that passes for AAA, that's when see gold. How many modern albums we consider classics were literally made on a laptop in a 20yo's bedroom?

[video=youtube;mBN8xJby2b8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBN8xJby2b8[/video]

[QUOTE=MedicWine;52561461]You won't have to, I think the industry will get better over time. I was thinking about this the other day. It's kinda weird how it takes a billion dollars to make a pretty trash game, when there's brilliant writers in every college and high school in America. Like why can't you just make an okay looking game and write some good ass story to it? And then I was like, damn where are the George R.R. Martin's and Stephen Speilberg's of gaming? We all know this an incredibly immersive medium and there's [I]a lot[/I] to say as an artist as of late so umm... Why are games trash? I'm tired of all of this Ghost Recon 7: Now with even more cutscenes and animations and even less gameplay and story! As games get easier to make, and easier to make look good, we're going to get better games. I know the steam store makes that look opposite, but when people with good ideas can just make their games... Think about it this way. If your friend recommended a book and said the person that wrote it was sleeping on a couch and had to sell something to pay for publishing, would you assume it's a shitty book because it has no money behind it? What about an acoustic guitar album? What about an action movie? The more expensive the medium, the more only rich assholes can afford to make the thing. Right now games that look like movies take a rich asshole. When you and I can make a game our bedroom that passes for AAA, that's when see gold. How many modern albums we consider classics were literally made on a laptop in a 20yo's bedroom?[/QUOTE] it takes a lot more of das kapital to make a game then it does to write a book even if you disregard graphics, stuff like playtesting and iterating on design is a huge moneysink and timesink as well

[QUOTE=Kaelnukem;52561509][video=youtube;mBN8xJby2b8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBN8xJby2b8[/video][/QUOTE] I cannot believe those dinguses made this BS happen at the time

Corporations aren't our friends.

It's depressing to know microtransactions whoring works.

It's insulting how little massive companies and super rich people put towards taxes just for the peasants to shoulder all the weight. I swear, no matter how a society forms it still resembles a feudal system the longer it goes on.

[QUOTE=MedicWine;52561461]You won't have to, I think the industry will get better over time. I was thinking about this the other day. It's kinda weird how it takes a billion dollars to make a pretty trash game, when there's brilliant writers in every college and high school in America. Like why can't you just make an okay looking game and write some good ass story to it? And then I was like, damn where are the George R.R. Martin's and Stephen Speilberg's of gaming? We all know this an incredibly immersive medium and there's [I]a lot[/I] to say as an artist as of late so umm... Why are games trash? I'm tired of all of this Ghost Recon 7: Now with even more cutscenes and animations and even less gameplay and story! As games get easier to make, and easier to make look good, we're going to get better games. I know the steam store makes that look opposite, but when people with good ideas can just make their games... Think about it this way. If your friend recommended a book and said the person that wrote it was sleeping on a couch and had to sell something to pay for publishing, would you assume it's a shitty book because it has no money behind it? What about an acoustic guitar album? What about an action movie? The more expensive the medium, the more only rich assholes can afford to make the thing. Right now games that look like movies take a rich asshole. When you and I can make a game our bedroom that passes for AAA, that's when see gold. How many modern albums we consider classics were literally made on a laptop in a 20yo's bedroom?[/QUOTE] I agree with you that there will be a point at which games will become a commodity. However, I do not think they will become as easy as composing a song any time soon. The musical/story/artistic element is not the only thing that makes a great game. You also have to consider the software component, and that part will not be as easy for a very long time. There is really only one solution to the software component: free and open source software. If you look at Linux, the reason why it's successful is because it has strong leadership (Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman) and a huge army of passionate hobby programmers at their disposal. Take Garry's Mod for example. Garry's Mod wasn't open source, more like psuedo open-source through the use of its Lua scripting functionality. The leadership came from Valve (pushing Counter-Strike, Half-Life 2, etc.) and Garry (actually making gmod in the first place). As a result, the community around it flourished. You'd start to see these amazing devs on this forum come out of the woodwork creating insane mods, like mahalis' portal gun and the like. Nowadays, Valve turned evil, and Garry stopped giving a shit about GMod. Since the game was not open source, nobody could pick up the torch. And thus, GMod died. What I'm getting at here is, in order for this "game utopia" to exist, there needs to be a popular free and open source game heading that movement. It is not going to come from games suddenly "becoming easier" to make. If that was the case then Unity and Unreal Engine would have changed everything, but as we can clearly see, they didn't. You can't just give someone a bunch of tools and say "get at it". You need to give them something to work off of. When it comes to creating art, starting with nothing to build off of doesn't work. What will change everything is an altruistic game developer truly realizing the potential of their fanbase and leveraging it effectively.

[QUOTE=Not64;52565391]I agree with you that there will be a point at which games will become a commodity. However, I do not think they will become as easy as composing a song any time soon. The musical/story/artistic element is not the only thing that makes a great game. You also have to consider the software component, and that part will not be as easy for a very long time. There is really only one solution to the software component: free and open source software. If you look at Linux, the reason why it's successful is because it has strong leadership (Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman) and a huge army of passionate hobby programmers at their disposal. Take Garry's Mod for example. Garry's Mod wasn't open source, more like psuedo open-source through the use of its Lua scripting functionality. The leadership came from Valve (pushing Counter-Strike, Half-Life 2, etc.) and Garry (actually making gmod in the first place). As a result, the community around it flourished. You'd start to see these amazing devs on this forum come out of the woodwork creating insane mods, like mahalis' portal gun and the like. Nowadays, Valve turned evil, and Garry stopped giving a shit about GMod. Since the game was not open source, nobody could pick up the torch. And thus, GMod died. What I'm getting at here is, in order for this "game utopia" to exist, there needs to be a popular free and open source game heading that movement. It is not going to come from games suddenly "becoming easier" to make. If that was the case then Unity and Unreal Engine would have changed everything, but as we can clearly see, they didn't. You can't just give someone a bunch of tools and say "get at it". You need to give them something to work off of. When it comes to creating art, starting with nothing to build off of doesn't work. What will change everything is an altruistic game developer truly realizing the potential of their fanbase and leveraging it effectively.[/QUOTE] Requiring an altruistic angel to change things is a bad gambit.

The fact that the companies which do this are also some of the most likely to bitch about piracy is fucking morbidly hilarious.

[QUOTE=froztshock;52569149]The fact that the companies which do this are also some of the most likely to bitch about piracy is fucking morbidly hilarious.[/QUOTE] Not to mention they try their hardest to promote micro-transactions and DLC's as a whole.

[QUOTE=froztshock;52569149]The fact that the companies which do this are also some of the most likely to bitch about piracy is fucking morbidly hilarious.[/QUOTE] It's pretty common knowledge, I think, that the reason they cry so loudly about Piracy isn't because the piracy actually hurts them, but because it gives them convenient excuses. A game sells ridiculously badly? Tell the shareholders that pirates compromised too much of it's market. Risk making too much profit and having to pay taxes? Oh, look at all these loss write-offs from piracy. Need an excuse for your own bizarre proprietary distribution service, even when they're already beyond over-saturated? Yo ho ho!

This is so blatant I'm impressed the majority of the people have only recently revealed themselves upon seeing this. There's no other explanation for integrating as much monetary payments and exploitation in video games as of the last few years, other than they're the easiest way to direct as much money as possible to the publisher with the least amount of investment, coupled with conveniently integrated tax dodging. Imagine if countries of the world taxed in-game transactions and purchases. Activision would be bled dry. And they deserve nothing less.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52569110]Requiring an altruistic angel to change things is a bad gambit.[/QUOTE] That's how it's always been done though. Richard Stallaman, Jay Freeman, the list goes on. They didn't start those movements because of self-interest. They did it because they were morally compelled to do so.