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imagine happy game developers and what the potential might be

Yeah. Apparently in the '90s, bioware was a very excellent company to work for, and two of my uni peers went there. They produced some great titles.

Isn’t Double Fine a good example of this, having recently split from Xbox Game Studios?

From what I can tell Tim Schafer seems like a genuinely good guy to work for/with.

I mean, the question then becomes do they then become that which threatened to destroy them?

We need Steelco and BioWare as new crown corporations, c'mon Carney Liberals be centrist instead of conservatives.

If they retained some of the talent (specifically the writers) they could make another Mass Effect adjacent game and call it something else. The articles start writing themselves, "The main people behind Mass Effect are working a new game."

I don't think it has to be a "triple A" game to be a commercial success.

Companies reinventing themselves has been done before many times (Black Isle Studios -> Obsidian; Squaresoft -> Square -> Square Enix; Konami -> Kojima Productions) and the Canadian government has thrown money at fiscally riskier projects.

Very different outcomes than corporate bailouts. It would literally move means of production into workers' hands. Reduces the size of the private capital controlled part of the economy. Easier to see if you picture it done routinely for failing companies with otherwise profitable enough businesses for their employees. You'd end up with a large socialist sector comprised of democratically owned and run firms that owe debt to the state.

Initially these firms may not be able to produce the yearly return to external shareholders to be considered profitable investments by private capital, but they might be able to make enough profit to pay worker salaries and upkeep. That alone is a big win for their local economies. Some would grow. Others would fail. The quality of life and/or pay would improve in the survivers.