Comment by kevingadd
3 years ago
In markets like game development it's not uncommon to have one big release that generates a lot of revenue in one year, and then not release anything for a couple years and have minimal revenue as a result while you keep paying salaries. Carryforward won't help you in that case. Without this stupid amortization you could at least write off a full year's salaries against your launch income.
In a reasonable world where you can depreciate your assets over their expected lifespans rather than a fixed 5 or 15 years, video game dev would probably actually be fine with capitalization. A SaaS startup that fails fast still gets really screwed in that more reasonable world.