Well, as it is, I sort of got tied up with a few major things. I sort of wanted to do im@s stuff, but... well...
None of them pleasant, mind you. Maybe I just need to vent my spleen (or what's left of it, anyway) while I try to get my thoughts in order.
a) As part of the inquiries I get, sometimes I get asked to evaluate projects, among other things, Kickstarter projects.
I don't mean in terms of 'Is the kickstarter a good idea?', I mean 'So how much money does a project actually need to ask for anyway?'
So to throw some random facts out there, if you want to run a project with nine staff, all being paid at minimum wage, paid at 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, as well as a support staff of one to handle the non game development (stuff like PR, HR, accounts and management), and stick them in a cheap office with the equipment they'll need to make a game, in Australia, it'll require a kickstarter of a million dollars.
I'll let that sink in.
The fun part? The biggest cost is the fact that the Australian Tax Office treats Kickstarter funds like income (Because it is, because it's not equity) and consequently, the money is taxed at the company tax rate of 30%. Or in short, the ATO claims 300k before you even get to touch any of that lovely million dollars.
Most of the rest of it is personnel (yes, at minimum wage which is 16 AU/hour, and that's before the employee gets taxed), licenses to operate (Adobe/3ds Max/ Virtual Studio/Unity /Music and sound licenses etc), and equipment, then the costs of the physical place, in that order.
In short? Anyone who says that game companies are greedy hasn't actually sat down to actually FIGURE out where the money goes. I just had the fun of figuring out what a million dollars gets you, and it's not much.
Now, this isn't even considering the caliber of the people working, this is just the straight math.
In other countries, the tax rate varies, although it's not all that low (You don't see anything sub 15% in a lot of places, short of Ireland, anyway).
b) Australian politics.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/citizenship-could-be-stripped-for-wide-range-of-offences-under-terror-laws-20150624-ghwv2y.htmlAll I have to say is this - Why don't we just SHOOT people we don't like? Clearly if they're too dangerous to be Australian, they're too dangerous to live, right?
If nothing else, we wouldn't have to deal with the farce that we have right now. On a side note, I'm looking for a new country to live in, if someone with enough money is willing to sponsor me. I frankly don't want to be anywhere near here when the obvious happens.
Problem is I can't take the United States, due to an outstanding matter regarding a previous US action where I was told in no uncertain terms what would happen if I did my job with the Associated Press. It involved addressed airmail to the hotel I would be posted at.
Before you ask, the only reason I didn't end up going was because the hotel ceased to operate the day before my flight. I guess I was lucky that I spent the extra 2 days exchanging bitter words with the US high command officer about that notice.
c) Censorship, or more accurately understanding how freedom of speech works.
One thing I get to deal with a lot is about how surprised people are when I tell them most people aren't actually in favour of freedom of speech, and actually like censorship over actual freedom of speech.
This topic comes up a significant number of times, usually because people find out I've done work with the Australian Classifications Board, and the conversation always turns towards how the board censors things unfairly.
Most people get rightfully insulted when I point out that most people actually like censorship, and would actually support censorship over any actual freedom of speech if given the chance.
It's a road I've been down a lot, but it always amounts to this - You don't really know if you support actual freedom of speech until you run across speech you don't like. You won't try to restrict speech you actually like.
I've been down that road more often than I'd like (due to my contract work), and then you really find out if you actually believe in it or not.
The answer for most people is a big irrevocable no. Most people don't like hearing things they don't like (It's circular, but quite true) and will call for the censorship of said item, because if they don't like the contents, clearly it must be bad.
Now, that doesn't mean you have to be tolerant of said speech (namely, you're free to apply the CONSEQUENCES of said speech to someone, and I strongly encourage people into doing so) but if someone wants to be a moron and open their mouths and reveal that fact, we don't actually have any right into stopping them, barring any actual contracts or other bits of law that prevent you from doing so.
I lose a lot of friends this way.
d) Education in Australia (at least NSW) cost wise jumped by about a factor of 20 to most people.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/tafe-teachers-and-students-furious-over-ghost-town-campus-20150624-ghw2qrConsidering that as a nation, we've been pushing people to 'get smarter', it's quite ironic that the next thing we do is jack up the cost of getting said people smarter by a factor of 10 or so.
Then you have to couple in the fact that these young people then have to chase a shrinking job market (statistically, we're something like 50 people per actual job vacancy at the moment, and that number is rising), an inflating housing market (so on top of the massive loans for education, we're going to have our lucky young people chase loans of between 700k-1m) and a deflating wage market (Median wages have actually gone backward. In short, getting a pay rise is not a thing, and any rises usually are compensated by a significant increase in the amount of actual work (hours/effort) done.)
Essentially, I get the feeling all the young people in this country (and worldwide) just got royally screwed, and I have no idea what's going to happen next.
It might just be me, but maybe the only correct option is to consider taking up alcoholism.
