Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room

Blog Essay: The Indie (Game) Bubble Is Popping

<< < (3/3)

wraith808:
Maybe 'good enough' doesn't automatically drive out just plain good. But it definitely marginalizes it to the point of where it may as well have.
-40hz (May 26, 2014, 12:53 PM)
--- End quote ---

Having dealt with it several times myself (a game store, contracting, my wife's photog business from the other end, hosting) I can definitely say that while it is a provable phenomenon, it is also a mindset.

I was used to getting an obscene amount of money per hour contracting.  Then, about the same time the bubble burst, the jobs dried up too.  The choice, as a friend and I were told by our mentor, was between adapting to the reaping that was occurring in the market, or taking the riskier prospect of trying to ride the wave.

I chose to adapt.  And while I've recovered to a good living, it's nothing like the insanity of before, and I can admit that the amount of money that I was making for what I was doing on the speculation that was going on... it was insane.  My friend rode the wave.  And it was hard.  And he had to search out clients and a niche and take some serious risks.  But he's in arguably a better position than he was.  In both cases, serious changes in attitude and expectations were required.  But even with people lowballing contracts because of an influx of cheap labor from all over Asia, he was able to navigate that.  Now, there's less opportunity to navigate too- so if both of us had tried in the same area, it's likely one of us would have had to fail.  But no reward without risk, right?

40hz:
I was used to getting an obscene amount of money per hour contracting.
-wraith808 (May 26, 2014, 03:24 PM)
--- End quote ---

Awesome! I made a comfortable living. But nothing like a killing or obscene amount of money. So in my case I don't think a sense of entitlement ever got a chance to take root. ;D

Also glad to see you negotiated the pitfalls and ended up still standing. Good work! :Thmbsup:

wraith808:
I was used to getting an obscene amount of money per hour contracting.
-wraith808 (May 26, 2014, 03:24 PM)
--- End quote ---

Awesome! I made a comfortable living. But nothing like a killing or obscene amount of money. So in my case I don't think a sense of entitlement ever got a chance to take root. ;D

Also glad to see you negotiated the pitfalls and ended up still standing. Good work! :Thmbsup:
-40hz (May 26, 2014, 05:59 PM)
--- End quote ---

Yeah... I definitely don't think that there's one size fits all for any of this.  But I do think that mindset, i.e. this is how much I'm making, so I should always make this much or more for doing this, does play a part.  And it's an understandable part... just not realistic in many cases.  It's played out over and over and over again.  Manufacturing jobs used to allow people to make a fairly decent wage- it was the backbone of middle america.  Now... not so much.  And some people negotiated that change well.  Others... not so much.

What's the difference between those that negotiate the change well and those that don't?

TaoPhoenix:
Do you know of a nice term/phrase to describe this sort of process?  I've been looking for such a thing -- hoping for something as nice as the phrase ...).
-ewemoa (May 25, 2014, 08:50 PM)
--- End quote ---

Ya know, I felt obliged to remove a certain proper noun inspired term here because the topics are fantastically different, so much so as to poke a stick at that sleeping dog called logical fallacies! (Heh and no I won't get dragged into trying to nail down which one! Let's say if it's not a Red Herring, maybe it's a nice Red Striped Bass with a lemon butter sauce!)  8)

This is right down the alley of various economic and/or psychological and or philosophical fields. So I'm darn sure there's several related themes that could be honorably applied here with the seriousness the original post implicitly requests.

I'll file your request as a "sleeper" topic on my desk with a printout because it might take me a while before my intuitive but eclectic slow research style comes up with clues. So it might take me a while. But when I do I think I'll have at least 1 cent to contribute on the theory side.
-TaoPhoenix (May 26, 2014, 12:51 AM)
--- End quote ---

Ewemoa and gang,
I got around to looking at this today, though it started to wear me out and I only got close.

Per my quick hunch earlier, I went looking at some of the economic wiki pages. Try looking at some of these to find the phrases you like best. Supply and Demand curves, elasticity, and shifts in curves and related themes.

Those of you with sharper minds than I might be able to find the best phrases.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page