Genshin Impact’s first anniversary was the most horrendous one I’ve seen.
They couldn’t even bother to send out an in-game message to congratulate the players.
What they did instead is paying thousands of dollars for Twitter emojis and dishing out a few give-away events where you had to practically advertise for the game to enter. Were you guaranteed to get any reward? No.
Essentially, instead of even acknowledging the anniversary, they made players advertise their game.
They were also supposed to introduce a paid bundle with some cosmetic items alongside a free concert stream (the concert was pretty good). But that was after the anniversary. Keep the bundle in mind, however.
What did it lead to?
Thousands of outraged players flooded social media.
Their discord was spammed with “qiqi fallen” emote (one of the characters laying on her back with a blank stare).
Review bombing got to the point where even Google Classrooms became one of the casualties
I’m probably missing some other details, but this lasted for weeks.
After a long while of non-communication, the devs gave in and finally decided to give players something. This “something” turned out to be the bundle that was supposed to be paid content alongside some (read “very little”) in-game resources. There was also another another giveaway event with, this time, guaranteed rewards. The rewards were, practically, you either get a scooter or one cent. Needless to say, it left a sour taste afterward.
Honestly, it felt like a slap in the face, but it was enough for the things to start calming down.
So far, even though they’re still very stingy with any sort of rewards, they at least make sure to congratulate the players somehow and give something.
In Soviet Union, the rock genre was for a very long time existing underground due to the inability of artists to be properly published.
Only starting with the 1980s could the artists finally publish their songs officially. And even then Soviet government put a lot of measures to prohibit rock music in the country.
This resulted in the appearance of many beloved bands and artists, like
Kino (tl. Cinema),
DDT,
Aria,
Chaif,
Grazhdanskaya Oborona (tl. Civil Defense),
Mashina Vremeni (tl. Time machine),
Sektor Gaza (tl. Gas Sector)
Korol i Shut (tl. King and Jester)
And many others
The history of Russian rock is actually quite fascinating. It was inspired by bard songs and often touched darker subjects as well as being satirical and judgmental of Soviet government.
Due to that, some artists, like Yegor Letov from Grazhdanskaya Oborona and Yuri Shevchuk from DDT, had troubles with KGB (Soviet FBI).
Nowadays, rock artists are still being persecuted for their views. For example, DDT is de facto prohibited from performing in Russia.
Edit: you said “but nobody’s explaining the economics to me”, here you go, here’s the basics of corporate financial management with real numbers and a tiny bit of macroeconomics at the end.
Wait, I don’t get it. You’re saying if you pay a worker 1000$ a week and get revenue of 1100$, then you have a profit margin of 10%. But that’s NOT profit margin (at least not the one one would use for analysis). Not to mention that those numbers are unrealistic because you’d be working at a loss for a very long time, almost guarantee.
You can’t just pull numbers like that and say, “unprofitable!”. Of course it isn’t. You made it that way.
Besides, you’re ignoring the rest of the expenses that often outweigh the payroll fund.
Back to what you called “profit margin,” I’d call it “Return on Payroll Fund.” It’s weird, I don’t like it, it ignores all of the other costs that go into creating a product, don’t use it. In financial management, we use RoS, which is EBIT/Revenue. That’s probably what you were thinking of. Another name for it would be “operating profit margin,” likewise net profit margin would account for ALL of the expenses and not just operating ones.
Now, let’s look at real numbers. I’ll take Nutrien’s 2023 audited financial statement as an example. (Numbers in brackets are what’s deducted to get what’s not in brackets) Sales - 29056 Freight, transportation, distribution - (974) Cost of goods sold - (19608) EBIT - 8474 EBT - 1952 Taxes - (670) Net earning - 1282
Out of cost of goods sold (2858) is cost of labour, let’s also add (626) from general administrative expenses, and just say it’s all wages.
Effective tax rate - 670/1952*100% = 34,3% (wow, that’s a lot for where I live, also ignoring mining tax for simplicity)
Let’s see what happens to our efficiency once the changes take effect.
All of costs can be divided into Fixed and Variable ones. Labour, in this case, is Variable because we can manipulate it by employing more staff to compensate for reduction in working hours and keep the sales at the same rate. (Contract workers are usually Fixed Cost, but it’s all relative, as no Fixed Cost is ever truly fixed.)
Going from 40 => 32, we have a 20% reduction in working hours. Mind you, this doesn’t mean there will be a 20% hit in productivity. It may be more, it may be less (most likely less), for simplicity let’s say it’s 20%. So, we need 20% more workers to compensate. (2858+626)*120%=4180.8
New EBT = 1952 + 2858 + 626 - 4180.8 = 1255.2 New net profit = 1255.2*(1-34.3%) = 824.7. Mind you, the effective tax rate will probably be lower if employment affects deductibles.
So, our net profit margin went from 1282/29056 = 4.4% to 2.8%. Looks bad at first glance, but it’s also a bad year. A year prior net profit margin was at whopping 20,3%, so a decrease from 4.4% to 2.8% would be nothing in comparison.
Will it result in increased prices? Yes, but it will also lead to economic growth, because more free time = people spend more money = companies earn more = companies grow faster, but so does inflation.
Let’s assess the effects this change could cause on real numbers.
Note: This is a duplicate of a part of a comment I’ve written here above as a response, but I don’t want it to be buried. Hope that’s fine
I’ll take Nutrien’s 2023 audited financial statement as an example. (Numbers in brackets are what’s deducted to get what’s not in brackets)
Sales - 29056
Freight, transportation, distribution - (974)
Cost of goods sold - (19608)
EBIT - 8474
Interest - (w/e)
EBT - 1952
Taxes - (670)
Net earning - 1282
Out of cost of goods sold (2858) is cost of labour, let’s also add (626) from general administrative expenses, and just say it’s all wages.
Effective tax rate - 670/1952*100% = 34,3% (wow, that’s a lot for where I live, also ignoring mining tax for simplicity)
Let’s see what happens to our efficiency if the changes take effect.
All of costs can be divided into Fixed and Variable ones. Labour, in this case, is Variable because we can manipulate it by employing more staff to compensate for reduction in working hours and keep the sales at the same rate. (Contract workers are usually Fixed Cost, but it’s all relative, as no Fixed Cost is ever truly fixed.)
Going from 40 => 32, we have a 20% reduction in working hours. Mind you, this doesn’t mean there will be a 20% hit to productivity. It may be more, it may be less (most likely less), for simplicity let’s say it’s 20%. So, we need 20% more workers to compensate. (2858+626)*120%=4180.8
New EBT = 1952 + 2858 + 626 - 4180.8 = 1255.2
New net profit = 1255.2*(1-34.3%) = 824.7. Mind you, the effective tax rate will probably be lower if employment affects deductibles and/or grants tax privileges.
So, our net profit margin went from 1282/29056 = 4.4% to 2.8%. Looks bad at first glance, but it’s also a bad year. A year prior net profit margin was at whopping 20.3%, so a decrease from 4.4% to 2.8% would be nothing in comparison.
Will it result in increased prices? Yes, but it will also lead to economic growth, because more free time = people spend more money = companies earn more = companies grow faster, but so does inflation. If they can manage the inflation, I don’t see why this couldn’t be possible.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Price policy is a whole different topic. Only monopolies can afford to increase them just because they’re not meeting the expected quota.
Don’t know about “retaliatory measure”, it’s hard to imagine companies uniting like that over it. Usually, they just play by the rules, and those could be the new rules (strong emphasis on “usually”). In fact, if the management is competent, it’s likely that they have already accounted for it, just in case, after the news dropped.
A short but memorable puzzle-type game where you have to put together scenes and characters to create a story. Actions in previous scenes affect how characters behave or appear in later ones.
So over the Christmas holiday I built a PC for my daughter (12) and my wife (35). I’ve been trying to find a game that we can all play and would enjoy together....
Maybe it’s just me, but I’d play the hell out of BG3 when I was 12.
The amount of time I spent on TES 4 and 5 back then, and BG3 hits just the right spot with the variety of ways it allows you to play it.
Minecraft is also in my top favorites.
What I’m saying is, don’t count BG3 out completely. Not to mention that it’s very saturated, so a shorter attention span shouldn’t really be a problem, but you never know.
As for suggestions. Definitely Terraria, as others mentioned. There was also Lego Fortnite, which looks like it would fit the tastes. Maybe also party games?
Today, it has been 6 years since The Elder Scrolls 6 teaser (www.youtube.com)
Which game series had the worst anniversary celebration?
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Chechnya bans all music deemed too fast or too slow (edition.cnn.com)
Authorities in the Russian Republic of Chechnya have announced a ban on music that they consider too fast or slow.
Bernie Sanders unveils 32-hour workweek bill with no loss in pay for workers (thehill.com)
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