THANK YOU. As a dev (non video games but dev in general), I get to make like, 2% of business decisions. The days of devs being in charge of that stuff ended decades ago.

Suits come in, tell devs what to make. Devs say "That's going to be shit" or "That's impossible on modern hardware". Suits say "Just do it!", go to a steak dinner with the marketing team, and devs are left to actually do the goddamn work.

I 100% Guaran-fuckin-tee that always online singleplayer was a business decision forced on the devs. As for updates and optimization, I'm guessing every dev knows it runs like shit but has been denied delaying it by suits telling them to quit slacking, or something equally stupid like them contracting out 50% of the work to a team who has no idea what they're doing.

They want us using "Game Dev" because it keeps the heat on the programmers. Make this about "Game Companies" or "Game publishers" and it fits perfectly.