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The fishy death of Red Lobster

businessinsider.com

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Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#191

Post by georgeecollins »

tensor wrote: post #177
jncfhnb wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a lot of games are cute and fun to play that do not succeed

I'm not convinced that is actually true. Can you think of an example? A game that has near universally good reviews but is not successful?

I understand why you think that, because when I started out making video games I thought the same thing. The reason why is that if I had heard of a video game in a review or recommendation it sold really well, but if I tried a game at random it was usually terrible. That is because there are thousands of games and most that aren't that good.

The other thing that happens is you point out a really good game and then someone will say, yeah but that's not a good game because of the art style or it's too similar to something else etc. Everyone can always come up with a quality reason why a game didn't sell. Someone has a reason not to like every game ever made. The problem with that is you can come up with the same complaints for well reviewed games. Often the review will say something like : this has been done before, or that style is a little annoying, but.. it's a great game.

Final nail in the coffin of this theory for me is having talked to many game review editors and having worked with a few, they will often tell you that they don't always expect to shape opinion as much as parrot it back. As one person used to tell me, most people read our reviews to validate their purchase or get our take on what they are playing.

And then to your challenge. Good games that didn't succeed. How about Midnight Suns, Lock's Quest, Space Marine, Company of Heroes II, Maquette.. that's just off the top of my head. If I thought about it I could make a really long list of game you've never hear of. This is probably the same for everything: music, novels, etc.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#192

Post by underlipton »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #111

Even without private equity's meddling, Red Lobster would have been in a rough spot. Family dining as a segment (lower end restaurants, but with table service) is being squeezed aggressively. Compared to Gen X and before, Millennials on average are valuing food quality over service experience, ballooning the fast casual (order at the counter, but nicer than fast food) segment. This is squeezing family dining from bel…

Millennials don't have families and can barely afford the transportation to get to these places, let alone the cost of a decent meal there. The ones that can aren't satisfied with a cookie-cutter franchise experience.

But, that's assuming that the more well-off generations aren't going. I dunno if that's the case; things other than revenue can be squeezing RL.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#193

Post by laweijfmvo »

tonymet wrote: post #118

Can someone help explain restaurant industry economics? when the business starts out, it's high risk and low margin. Tons of capital investment. Labor intensive and hard to staff. If you are lucky you are pulling 15% margins Besides some exceptions, if you are lucky you may get some growth for 5-10 years. Then your brand falls out of favor (trends) and you spiral into bankruptcy. Who invests in this stuff?

Maybe not fast food / fast casual, but at least in a trendy area (NYC, SF, LA, etc.) if a restaurant catches on, they're making way more than 15% margins because they can charge whatever they want and people will go because it's cool...

this would include coffee shops and other relatively low cost establishments

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#194

Post by banannaise »

asdfman123 wrote: post #158
bachmeier wrote: post #127

To me this is not even slightly surprising. Red Lobster used to be at the top of our list of restaurants. Then in recent years the quality of both the food and service deteriorated. One visit the food was so bad I couldn't even eat it. That was compounded by not having a server to talk to. Took our order and never returned - even had someone else bring out the order. The thing about a restaurant is that you'll always…

Increasingly I think the financialization of everything makes us less capable of understanding the world. "Red Lobster failed because of X corporate restructuring," "Red Lobster succeeded due to Y ad campaign." People go to restaurants for reasons completely unrelated to things like that. Those things are important, but just constitute the small slice of reality that can easily be measured. I saw a Twitter thread arg…

The problem is that executives will ask "what makes Stardew Valley successful?" and never make it to this answer:

A developer who genuinely cares about the quality of the game, interacts positively with the community around it, and makes decisions that demonstrate his caring for the game and the community. Specifically, decisions that often leave revenue on the table, particularly in the short term but arguably in the long term as well.

That sort of caring is largely impossible for private equity, and it's really hard to successfully fake.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#195

Post by banannaise »

jncfhnb wrote: post #169
asdfman123 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasingly I think the financialization of everything makes us less capable of understanding the world. "Red Lobster failed because of X corporate restructuring," "Red Lobster succeeded due to Y ad campaign." People go to restaurants for reasons completely unrelated to things like that. Those things are important, but just constitute the small slice of reality that can easily be measured. I saw a Twitter thread arg…

But a lot of games are cute and fun to play that do not succeed

Which doesn't mean they aren't necessary conditions. It just means they aren't sufficient conditions. A game needs other things too, one of which may be luck, and others of which may be incompatible with the private equity model.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#196

Post by pigeons »

gadders wrote: post #10

I need to resurrect my idea of a list of companies (especially ones that manufacture goods) that are owned by Private Equity so people can avoid them. In most cases, the brand name stays the same but the quality falls off a cliff.

For products it would be good to include a date so people can obtain the quality items second-hand.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#197

Post by OkayPhysicist »

underlipton wrote: post #192
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #111

Even without private equity's meddling, Red Lobster would have been in a rough spot. Family dining as a segment (lower end restaurants, but with table service) is being squeezed aggressively. Compared to Gen X and before, Millennials on average are valuing food quality over service experience, ballooning the fast casual (order at the counter, but nicer than fast food) segment. This is squeezing family dining from bel…

Millennials don't have families and can barely afford the transportation to get to these places, let alone the cost of a decent meal there. The ones that can aren't satisfied with a cookie-cutter franchise experience. But, that's assuming that the more well-off generations aren't going. I dunno if that's the case; things other than revenue can be squeezing RL.

Damn near everybody who has a family right now is a Millennial. Millennials are 30-45 years old

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#198

Post by banannaise »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #167
munificent wrote: post #151

I look at private equity as sort of like a bacterial infection. The infection may be the thing that kills its host by sucking of all of its energy, but the reason the host was infected in the first place was because of some other problem that led to a weakened immune system. Private equity firms prey on companies that are already struggling. Yes, they take a struggling company and hasten its demise. But healthy compa…

> look at private equity as sort of like a bacterial infection This is honestly fair given bacteria’s ecological role as digesters/recyclers. There are probably better things to do with Red Lobster’s locations and people than serving terrible seafood.

And what's more likely, that they do that or that they leave a bunch more dead real estate for at least several years while they hold out for more money?

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#199

Post by RunSet »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #176
throwway120385 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what people mean when they use the term soulless capitalism . The increasing financialization of everyone leads us to optimize for the things we can measure assuming those are the things that matter, and in the end the optimizations erase everything good.

It's not the optimization per se, it's taking it too far, over-playing it to the point of removing the magic, the special sauce, etc.

> The founder of Costco told a CEO who wanted to raise the prices on Costco's hot dogs: "If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out."

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/costco-founder-kill-hotdog...

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