I don't think publishers quite realize that they have to compete not only against each other but also against older games, which have crazy value compared to modern games.
Titanfall 2 goes on sale for €5 very frequently, and is the best single player shooter out there. The Master Chief collection is €40 when it's not on sale and that's 6 very well made games.
A €80 game will have to provide more value than that for me to consider it. To be honest I don't think it's even possible. And that's not even considering how much of a crapshoot modern games are quality-wise.
It's shocking how much my interest in modern games and gaming platforms has waned in recent years due to the increasing enshittification. These days I'm pretty much entirely focused on retro-gaming and happy to report it's still great! And with mods, fan translations, HD texture packs and emulator shaders & upscaling it keeps getting even better.
I think there is probably a lot of claim denial and bullshit rolled up into the 85% number. You make it seem like they are an efficient distributor of healthcare where which they are not. Every provider hates them because they create a ridiculous amount of Paperwork overhead and cost to the entire system. They are the healthcare equivalent of DOGE.
People have contradictory expectations of healthcare. They want it to be more efficient and avoid waste, but when the healthcare company institutes systems of accountability people complain about paperwork.
What's your silver bullet to make healthcare better? The companies are already spending almost all their revenue on healthcare, there is very little profit anyway.
> The companies are already spending almost all their revenue on healthcare, there is very little profit anyway.
It would be more accurate to say that insurance companies are paying most of their revenue to healthcare providers (many of which are owned by the same people who own insurance companies), who are known to charge obscene amounts of money for services that cost a fraction of the cost elsewhere in the world.
Looking at the financial reports of insurance companies in isolation is insufficient when they're part of a much larger corrupt system.
Honestly the Keiser Permanente insurer/provider hmo model is pretty decent. There isn’t a lot of profit in it but it does a decent job rationing out care in appropriate and ethical ways.
In the university I optimized for exam. The degree was the only thing that mattered. Like you now that I’m older and wealthier I can lean for learning sake at my pleasure and deep dive things I care about.
For me it was extracting the most value for the money, which meant getting the best possible education within the boundaries of the degree. This involved taking graduate courses and substituting them for undergrad to get more of a challenge, taking more math courses both undergrad and graduate (I was a CS major), etc. Yes ultimately I was paying for a piece of paper, but when you're paying $15k/yr I wanted to be damn sure it was money well spent, and to this day I still feel shortchanged.
I felt shortchanged my senior year at my fairly well-regarded university when I was dealing with depression and doing what I saw as the bare minimum academically. I still got straight A’s despite putting in minimal effort.
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