Soooooo some things have happened lately...

I don't know if you are familiar with a small mom and pop company called Microsoft. They've been around for a little while, really humble folks. So the lovely folks there from the Xbox branch have decided that, well, effing off some of the greatest studios out there wasn't enough to pay the coverage of the hole in the wall they made in the first place, so might as well get rid of some more.

I'm not going to candy coat it: this things blows harder than a plane's engine. This is the equivalent of breaking grandpa's vase and then blaming the cat for it only for your parents to euthanize it. Money is the main cause of all this shitshow after Xbox decided that sure, let's buy a crapton of studios and then get Activision for 69 billion dollars, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG ONCE YOU NEED TO SHOW THE INVESTORS YOU CAN GET THE MONEY BACK?!

We need to stop doing this thing. And I don't mean "we need to stop giving money to greedy corporations that only see walking dollar signs instead of human beings". Well, that too, but Jimbo not buying the next CoD won't change the big issue about all this. No, I'm talking about keep thinking multinational companies are good for creativity and innovation in any shape of form. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING can keep moving forward if the only thing driving the people with the money is "we need more money". If you only seek profits, taking risks is the WORST thing you can do. You make people believe you are taking risks by adding one or two crappy features that can be easily forgotten that didn't change the landscape, erase previous features to reintroduce them after people forget about them so they think it's new, and all that crap.

Profit is the death of creativity. And the proof. Is. Every. Fucking. Where. But lucky for everyone, creativity is not dead thanks to places that keep fighting for it.

Newgrounds is still a safe haven for creative people, and I really, really, REALLY hope it stays like that for more years to come. Indie developers, indie musicians, indie artists, they all have a chance to showcase what they love doing here. And we need more places like Newgrounds if we want to actually showcase what people truly want to work on, rather than on the things they do just because someone wanted to see a revenue line graph go up.

Look, I get it, things are tough and hard. World issues are complicated and it's not as simple as saying "let's be nicer from now on" and then everyone became BFFs. But just because something's hard doesn't mean that you can only stay still and see the train getting closer.

If you feel the spark of creativity burn within your soul, make something! Don't act just because it will give you money, do it because you feel like doing it. You'll make shitty things, you'll make good things, you'll make amazing things, but it will be things you are proud of doing. You don't have that spark within you? Support people that have it! Give them a donation, a shoutout, follow their progress, give them a thank you, anything you offer it's cherished more than you can believe!

Creativity gives wings and allows people to improve and to learn, and people that only want to seek money in life will end up their days staring at a bank account in an empty house surrounded by people that only wanted to be around them to prey on their carcass. Just because you need income to survive doesn't mean you need to focus your entire life to make more and more of it, and if you want to do that at least have the decency to not screw people in the process.

I'm going to keep making games. I'll make shitty games, I'll make good games, I'll make amazing games, but I'll keep making them. And I'll keep supporting people that believe in the games they are making, because that's what truly moves things forwards.

Make things and be awesome,

-Ray