I’ve been working on a new website project that I hope to allow CG artists come together to build game projects from all across the world. The gaming industry is one of the first to see the degradation of the corporate model, and I just figure it’s about time to perpetuate that into a collaborative future. Just take a look at the research I’ve been doing on the subject of degrading corporate models, coalitions, and collaboration online.
The corporate model, born in 1600 with the East India Company, is dying out. Don’t get me wrong, they’re fighting tooth and nail to try and legislate their way into relevance… you see big business needs big government to survive, and vice versa. Unfortunately for all of them, while they had a good 400+ year run, the next big thing is coming. With the internet and lessons we’ve learned from corporations everybody has the opportunity to be their own boss. Through collaboration efforts I’d be willing to bet that in the next 10-20 years we’ll start seeing everything from cars, to movies being produced on large scale by small independent home based businesses working through collaboration efforts across the country, and across the world.
What makes me think this? Well, the world is shifting towards collaborative efforts for proof just look to Torrents, eBay, Pinterest, Google AdWords, Etsy, Prosper, heck even the large corporate retail shops allow small independent contractors to sell through their sites (Amazon, NewEgg). It’s easier now for a person to make money from home than ever… and do so with creative designs. In the corporate model efficiency of design and building was key this next wave is going to be seen as a rebirth of creativity and art in the items we use daily. While most of these efforts are still very small independent groups of 1 or 2 people making a living off of one larger corporate site… that’s about to change. Once we establish a place for people to collaborate and work on their projects together for example in vehicular manufacturing from home it will need to be a conglomeration of engineers, tradesmen, financiers, etc. But we’ve already seen this established with some open source car designs that are being build… just small scale… once it goes larger scale we’ll start seeing the big government, big business model die out.
What my friends had to say:
Nah, too many people prefer to be employees. Stability beats opportunity.
My response:
There is only stability in corporatism because it has rooted itself in our lives over the last 400 years. When EIC was first established it had its hard times, many believed that the corporate world would never survive because it would be the death of creativity. Back then people lived and died on creativity, if you weren’t creative you were a beggar in the gutter. No one understood how you could increase value without creativity, except a few men who first pitched the multi-million dollar loan to the bank of England. After less than a year of operation they went back to a large central European bank for a bailout (once again worth millions of dollars, and over 400 years ago). EIC ended up successful in their endeavor to squeeze value out of time. On average the corporate world has managed to squeeze a 4% value increase out of their work force every year, compounding, for the last 400 years. Wal-Mart was the most successful at leveraging local governments (that gave them free land just to have the opportunity for them to build there), state governments (that often gave them 0 taxes for up to 10 years for building new stores), federal governments (both US and China that helped to subsidize their manufacture and shipping costs). The success of Wal-Mart forced other corporations to keep up, then the house of cards started to crumble in the late 90′s. It’s a little known story, but the corporate world has been slipping for nearly 15 years now… it’s why over 11,000 new pages of law are added to the books every year. Corporations are trying to keep themselves relevant with the forceful arm of their conglomerate (the government). However, the government is broke… so people have to go somewhere.
It is unlikely that any of us will see in our lifetime the full potential of collaborative efforts… There is a lot that must happen before we do.
I do agree with you most people just want to be told what to do. Before the corporate world we had the feudal lord system, both center around a few people telling large groups of people what to do. These small businesses that emerge in the collaborative effort will need workers to update their sites, pick up supplies, deliver finished goods, etc. But I really think we’re headed away from the corporate world, and more into an artist driven collaborative approach.
Much of this is conjecture, but I can surely see the interactive gaming entertainment industry moving away from corporate models in favor of coalitions and collaboration efforts much sooner than the rest of the world. Especially with great free tools like Blender, and the Unity Game engine… hundreds of hobbyists could come together to make a game, with one or two serious programmers to fill in the gaps and answer questions, games that people really want to play could be created quickly with minimal out of pocket costs, and a truly fair distribution of wages. Over time some of the hobbyists could turn it into a career, and the effort would grow steadily.
written by Archmaille
