Blog Post
You are very naive. ALL industries work the same. You either make money and continue a product or service, or you don't make money and you close it down. How old are you by the way? I'm thinking you're pretty young and don't have any business experience whatsoever.
Im 38, got my first business degree at age 19, and am telling you that your thinking has bankrupted several videogame console companies. You are wrong and history agrees with me. And folks who treat every industry the same bankrupt companies. Especially in THIS industry.
You dont know the industry, or your history, and arent even informed enough about the subject matter to atempt to engage with my examples because you arent informed enough to even know about them. Clearly. If you knew your history you wouldnt completely ignore every historical example I give, youd try to rationalize them away with facts or give counter examples. You arent intelectually capable of doing that because your grasp of industry history is vapid and useless.
Industry history makes one thing very clear. Videogame console maunfacturers can never survive losing the good will of their install base for more than one hardware launch at a time. Two cycles is enough to kill a company cold. Sometimes one cycle kills a company. This even includes many of the industry leaders. Failure to support a product line until the next line is well under way is considered the greatest sin in the industry, and Meta knows this lesson so well that they still support the Quest 2 line of products. THEY understand what YOU dont. Which is why they responded to user backlash by walking back their statements. You really dont understand any of that, do you? You dont understand that to be profitable their business has to grow its instal base over several console generations, and that gains and losses over a few years arent very important to that long term strategy, do you? Its about how much they make in 20 years. Not how much they make in 5. They are investing in futures, not now. You have a silly short sighted very now focused concept of profits. Ive always thought that business men who think in terms of short term gains instead of long term success were the hight of incompetence. I really dont care how lucky you got by knowing one business model. That isnt transeferable knowledge and youd know that if you had any high level experience working in multiple businessess across different fields. Even markerting departments in different companies in the same field often have to apply radically different tactics to win. If you think you can cut and paste what works for your business to every other business in the world, youre a greater fool than I thought.
Learn you your videogame industry history for a couple decades and then you can come talk to me like we are equals. As it is, I say words, you dont recognize them, so you ignore them. The points still are true, you just dont know how to crack open a book and look up how, when, and why these events kept repeating themsevels. The advice you give? Bankrupted dozens of videogame companies. That makes you sound really foolish and uneducated. This isnt the industry for you pal. Console manufacturers make money not by selling you products but by being the most appealing platform. Meta isnt making money from SELLING horizon worlds. Its making money from the increased install base brought by HAVING horizon worlds. Its a draw to the platform that Steams new vr headset cant compete with. They need more draws that arent competing directly with Steam. More exclusives games, more exclusive apps, more exclusive features. Otherwise Steam will win if they try to fight Steam on Steams terms. How do I know this? I know that history repeats itself. I know how to forcaste based on past performance. You know, good business skills. But, I guess you dont know how that works, since you dont seem to see the conective tissue between past and future performance trends.
Every console that has ever flopped was due to low install base due to low market good will. Period. Full stop. Never any other reason. If you make a good console, good software, and have good will, the profits come. If you dont, you die. Period. Are you really telling me you arent educated enough to understand that? You dont know what loss leaders are or how console companies frequently sell products at a loss ON PURPOSE? To increase user install base, brand engagement, and parasocial relationships? Do you even know what a parasocial relationship is in this context? Because I feel like this is all way above your head...
You agree with you. You know theory but you haven't run a business.. Many companies with business degree owners follow the theory and go out of business. There is no set rule. If there was, nobody would go out of business. You have the theory of running a business, I have 20 years practical experience which did include some failures but ultimately led to success. Who would you trust, the business degree with the theory or the business person with the success? OK, obviously you are very unhappy that a billion dollar business closed down your access to the outside world. I can understand that, but life goes on and you will find an alternative that might not be exactly the same but hopefully something you can be happy with over time.
Ive run multiple businessess. What do you think I did with my degree? Are you not conpetent enough to practice critical thinking skills? Ill spell it out for you. I USED my degree after graduating from college at age 19 becuase I have an IQ of 173 and already finished most of my college by the time I was 18. Im working on a doctorate right now in another field because I got bored. You arent smarter than me. Or more experienced than me. And I practically goaded you into proving you know anything. You failed the test. The test is simple. Prove you know anything about videogame console business history trends. You fail. You fail and I talk circles around you pointing to actual historical data points. When people dont know the subject matter they ignore it and make broad sweeping generalized points. Engage with the subject matter. Point out ANY example of videogame console manufacturers who were not punished by the markets for attempting to copy their competition while closing exclusive studios and every form of software that made them stand out from their competition. This time Im waiting on you bringing historical exmples. Its YOUR turn to bring reciepts. Words are worthless. Opinions are less than worthless. I want cited examples of times videogame console companies did this and didnt face massive loss in their next console generation as a result. If you cant cite examples I will assume you couldnt find any and write you off as too much of a coward to admit it. Your move. Citations, or failure. Choose one.
If you ran a business, it would have been the first thing you said a few comments ago.. Stop the bs. 😉 Why do you think successful people like Mark Zuckerberg aren't following your ideas? Because they wouldn't be successful.. You can make any argument you like for keeping Worlds, but the fact is, most people are glad it's gone. Less than 200k users in 2022 (probably less than 50k now as in 2022 it lost over 100k users in only 9 months. Even if it's still 200k users that's 1% of around 20 million headset owners. There is your answer as to why Worlds is being shut down over time. I think they're being too nice. They should have just dumped it immediately. Citations are for college students. Reality is for business people. So, I'd be looking for a refund of your college fees if I were you,. 😉