What non-game reasons do you support or not support a publisher/developer?

[Spuuky]

How is a price increase or exclusivity making a product worse? And how is that harmful?

Is McDonald's getting rid of their double cheeseburger for $1 and replacing it w/ a McDouble for $1.40 anti-consumer? It's a 40% price increase for less product. Is Mt Dew selling specific drinks only at Taco Bell anti-consumer? These aren't rhetorical questions, btw.

It depends. Is the price going up because the cost of producing it going up? If so, that is fair. Is the price going up because McDonald's wants the CEO to get a bigger bonus this year even though it costs less to make? That unfairly favors the interests of "the business" over the consumer. Obviously, any price increase harms anyone who is buying the product, because they end up with less money. Sometimes, it is for a fair and justified reason. Other times, it is not.

I never once, anywhere in my posts, said that exclusivity of a product is anti-consumer, so I don't know why you keep bringing that up. The specific examples are always debatable anyway - there only needs to be SOME decisions that a business makes that qualify as anti-consumer to prove my point. But to humor you, I do not think it is anti-consumer to sell a game on Epic but not Steam, for instance, but I do think that it is anti-consumer to force me to buy a specific $300 console to buy a game with no technical reason not to exist on other similar platforms. Again, it doesn't have to be a huge deal to be anti-consumer. I buy tons of products from companies that make anti-consumer decisions all the time! It is just a demerit to consider in the evaluation, some big, some small.

[Loony BoB]

I guess the real question is what developers/publishers do you support or not support.

Personally, I support Square Enix because they make good games and as far as I am aware have no major bad press.

I don't actively boycott any developer I can think of. I tend to judge them by their games more than by their senior management, but I do pay attention to things like buying out exciting indie companies to leave them doing work on their AAA titles (eg. Valve acquiring Campo Santo and putting them to work on Half-Life), Blizzard/Activision's many issues at present, and tendencies by certain companies to oversell their games through various methods (for me this applies to Pokémon, Sims, etc).

[Slothy]

This isn't enough, for you, to say they are acting against the common good of The People?

Nope.

Well now I'm actually curious how many people need to be sexually abused, bullied into suicide, how many rapes need to be covered up, and how many customers need to have gambling addictions taken advantage of before you think they're acting against the common good and organized boycotts make sense?

[cheesesteak]

Personally, I support Square Enix because they make good games and as far as I am aware have no major bad press.

I chuckled a little bit since I was just reading threads/articles and watching videos about the "bad" FF7R PC port (which, from what I've seen actually doesn't look THAT bad. Some missing graphics options, yeah, and near-irrelevant frame stuttering is what I've witnessed. I think the ppl saying it's one of the worst PC ports ever are being melodramatic and hyperbolic. Being on lackluster EGS doesn't help, of course, nor does the higher price cost).

I don't actively boycott any developer I can think of. I tend to judge them by their games more than by their senior management, but I do pay attention to things like buying out exciting indie companies to leave them doing work on their AAA titles (eg. Valve acquiring Campo Santo and putting them to work on Half-Life), Blizzard/Activision's many issues at present, and tendencies by certain companies to oversell their games through various methods (for me this applies to Pokémon, Sims, etc).

Yeah, I always get a bit wary when big AAA publishers acquire indie studios. But luckily some are fairly hands-off (MS, Embracer, Sega, etc).

And I had to look more into what you mentioned re: Camp Santo. Is In the Valley of Gods now RIP? Looks like it was put on hold, but now it's not on Camp Santos's web page or socials.

[Jessweeee♪]

If their profits contribute to the unwanted behavior then I feel a bit icky about giving them money. Like if a company donates some of their profits to an organization that uses that money to lobby for laws that hurt people, then I feel like my purchasing of their products is contributing to that harm.

If interacting with their products is an unpleasant experience because of how the company conducts itself, then I will stop doing that. For example if in order to use the product I am required to interact with a toxic userbase that they have cultivated.

Or of course, if they have been consistently putting out products of poor quality.

[Loony BoB]

And I had to look more into what you mentioned re: Camp Santo. Is In the Valley of Gods now RIP? Looks like it was put on hold, but now it's not on Camp Santos's web page or socials.

"on hold" - basically it looks like it's vapourware until Valve feel it's profitable enough (heh) or the Campo Santo guys get free reign on their work again. I wouldn't expect anything soon. Steam page still exists, but that's it, really. Sucks.