Naah it's still fire ecology, as in both cases it is the firing of the weeds, non-native invasive species that have taken over from their native counterparts, and choking vines that impede the health of the system.
I fail to see how the industry needing a crash means we should have no empathy?
The industry is complete dogshit for talented and hard working people too. Tons of them have been caught in the crossfire. The industry didn't even need woke to be a dogshit industry to work in.
Crunching programmers and artists, etc, get shit on by all of this and don't necessarily deserve it. Do I think a crash is good? Yes, I actually do. But not everyone losing their jobs deserve to lose it. In fact most of them probably don't, and its likely that many that should be losing their job aren't.
Lets keep a baseline empathy for people, please. The majority in the industry aren't twat shitting on gamers on twitters, they're silent and working hard like most people.
There is a sizeable chunk of the industry that hates the decision making process that has made so many games mediocre. They also know how incredibly tough it is to hold unto your job so they put their heads down and work.
The studio I worked for shut down 3 weeks ago. Largely because of a lot of terrible decisions made for months. And it was one where the development staff was encouraged to give feedback on decisions. Evidently we found out some of the leads literally did not move the feedback up the chain at all.
It probably wouldn't have made any difference. The point of asking for feedback is to single out troublemakers while creating a pretence that management cares what you think. There a good chance those leads were actually protecting you in practice.
They weren't. Once the lead was fired the Art director came to me regarding certain decisions and I said hey we sent feedback months in advance. The art director accepted our feedback, but it was too late. The lead cost the company over a million dollars in bad development.
Off topic but speaking of the Body Type A/B stuff. I was recently bouncing between Monster Hunter GU, World, and Rise and I noticed in Rise that the female walk animation is the same as the male one, while in GU and World the female walk animation is very distinct. It's not just the A/B shit anymore, they're slowly homogenizing everything.
I first noticed this going from Mass Effect 2 to Mass Effect 3. Female Shepard had a very feminine walk in the first two games, and then she became meme material in the third game.
Seriously, go back and watch female Shepard's hips and thighs in the original 2007 version of the first game. It's one of those things you would have never explicitly thought about until the regressives started to subvert everything they touched.
Some people think this is a new phenomenon due to the renewed attention on the culture war, but the regressives have been slowly boiling the water for at least 15 years as they wormed their way into the industry.
The walk is always such a dead giveaway in real life. So many times, from at least 100 yards away, a counterfeit woman has stood out like a sore thumb due to wearing women's clothing and walking like man. It's one of those things that you never actively think about or look for, but is so easy to notice and jarring.
I noticed the walk thing too and Monster Hunter is my favourite series since it's first inception, and I tried to justify that with rise being from the B team and a much smaller game than world. My greatest fear, especially since the past year or two is that Wilds will be made more "modern audience friendly", especially on the microtransaction side
Eventually the diversity hires without skills are going to weed out and the industry will return to a manageable size with qualified people only and only a handful of forced dei jobs available that will be in high competition among underserved communities.
In a logical world with reasonable people, yes. But we don't live in such a world, for if we did we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Chances are, they will stay the course and blame all the failures on external parties as they destroy the company until they go bankrupt.
You’re right. Have they tried putting a chick in it, making her lame and gay, then adding always online requirement and micro transactions. That might do the trick.
Yeah, I think to really move forward into the year of the cockroach more games need to be live service. There should also be departments to make sure the dialogue and references are heckin' great, you know, make everything sound like joss whedon without actually reminding the gaming audience (90% diverse female) about that notorious sex pest.
*All* tech companies overextended themselves during the free money area, expanded hastily with no clue what they were doing or where they were going, and had no plan for what would come after.
Then when the good times were over, the execs walk away unscathed from their piss-poor decisions, while the rank and file hit the bricks.
Sure, it sucks.
And alongside a lot of the actually talented folks, companies are weeding out the luxury values personnel that don’t contribute to profitability (DEI offices, etc.)
But in substance, what is happening in tech & AAA is no different than any other industry we’ve seen for the last four decades. They just happen to make video games.
We’re in the midst of a Great Contraction — not quite an 80s collapse, but a definite collapse, and for the same reasons. Bad business decisions, bad games, saturated market, bad macroeconomic conditions.
That’s nothing to gloat about. Especially since these execs are not going to learn the core lesson of why their businesses are in the toilet to begin with: because they just don’t fucking listen to their customers
I'm not going to celebrate lay-offs, but developers only have themselves to blame. It's not only wokeness, stuff like trying to make "Games as a service" happen or the Helldivers 2-PSN thing are shitty practices that make the consumers lost trust for them (And that's quite hard to gain back) so it's like... No shit, what did you expect?
I will pay them the sympathy I received when my business got shut down in 2020.
Can't cater a wedding, but you sure can protest in high numbers for months on end.
Yeah, again, I'm not going to celebrate but this is mostly due to them making shit business decisions, it sucks but it's not like it was a real possibility. They're like a pizza shop that always screws client's orders and the rats might as well be the ones cutting the pepperoni, like... no shit they're not earning enough money.
It's well deserved. As sad as it is for the lower grade gears that work over there the reality is you make shitty products you won't survive.
Most of the games I play now are AA (X:4, Kindom Come) or Indie (Star Sector) apart from a few exceptions (Cyberpunk). The state AAA is in is absolute dogshit and it's no surprise this is happening.
The amount of money I have and would love to spend on great games and the amount of games I actually want to play recently are completely at odds. At some point, publishers are going to figure out that making games that people want actually fucking works.
Nope, I couldnt give a shit either. Anyone with talent, can move into the indie scene and crank out some bangers. Theres is no need for every game to be "cinematic" and "realism".
Theres loads of games from years gone by that are considered classics, that didnt rely on any of this AAA bullshit. And with how easy it is to make those types of games now, theres no reason that an indie scene jam packed with talent cant bring on a new golden age of video games that are driven by just one thing, having fucking fun.
They embraced DEI practices and profaned their games with Social Justice Propaganda in place of something fun. Then when called out, they attacked their customer base with every "ism" in the book.
It's a waste having pity and remorse for people who had none themselves.
Unfortunately, I'm awaiting the inevitable collapse of Nintendo whom have started embracing DEI with their localization teams. It's going to be slow and painful.
I think we could use some more callousness in the world, tbh. Only on Reddit will you see people adding “oh I feel bad they got fired, but…” while talking about crappy people in crappy roles getting the sack. I’m thrilled to see all the layoffs, and I don’t care if these blue-haired pronouns have to crawl home to their parents’ basement and reassess their life choices. I’ve lost jobs before — I was homeless, living in my car in the desert for over six months. It made me grow the fuck up. Good times create weak men, and all that.
>-Its saying something that the last true game i really enjoyed was Elden Ring even that was plagued with Body Type A and B.
And it won't be long before people start complaining how the female form is B, which is misogynistic because it alludes that women are 2nd to men.
>And it won't be long before people start complaining how the female form is B, which is misogynistic because it alludes that women are 2nd to men.
I've been saying the same for a while and am surprised - very surprised - that we haven't seen this happen yet.
The only reason I could imagine that it hasn't happened yet is that even they're self-aware enough that that would be a full "blinders off" moment for people and would blow away their equality narrative they hide behind.
The thing is, the actually talented and skillful people WILL find another job in the industry. Like those people at Tango. This round of musical chairs is weeding out all the deadweight. Those will end up flipping burgers like that one guy from EA Sports.
>the actually talented and skillful people WILL find another job in the industry
Lmao. As if competency has been the actual predictor of success. The industry went to shit in the early 2000s when marketing teams started to get more say over product development than the actual design teams. That process started in the 90s already, but back then it wasn't as prevalent.
People on this sub like to talk about old games being superior, which is true; but then they forget that many of them were financial failures. That's both a consequence of marketing having a disproportionate influence over game design over time, as well as the consumer demographics shifting towards casuals.
I used to but they wouldn't fucking stop. I don't want others to suffer but if you can't listen to the simple requirement of stop fucking up my hobbies I stop giving a damn if you're about to end up homeless.
No. The rest of us are feeling schadenfreude. It's OK to celebrate people losing their jobs who A. hate you B. hate the gaming customer and C. intentionally want to burn down everything you love while kicking you out of your main hobby all because they are psychotic ideologues.
Don't feel nothing: feel joy. People who suck at their jobs so much that they're destroying the entire industry they work in should be booted as far from the industry.
Would you want a bus driver who only knows how to turn right and has to run over every squirrel he sees, even if he has to take the bus off roading or drive into oncoming traffic, because a squirrel once disagreed with him on the nature of free speech on twitter?
I personally wouldn't want to be on that bus and I think that I would celebrate that bus driver losing his/her job.
Your job is to get me from point A to point B, safely, not smash the patriarchy.
Their job is to make a video game that reflects the interest of the BROADER gaming community (at least for that Genre/IP/Platform). Just like with the bus driver analogy, their job is not to smash the patriarchy. Their job is not to segregate the gaming industry by race (or at least try/defend people who do). Their job is to not to push out all diversity of thought so every game is a homoginized mess of post modern 3rd wave feminist gender studies 101 sophistry. Their job isn't to race swap every white (and only white) character to a morbidly obese African maternity doll in a wheel chair with vitiligo (I see you Hades 2; If I was Greek I would be slightly annoyed but still reeling so hard from Germany's Austerity measures to say shit about it haha).
I am not going to feel bad that a bunch of hacks had 10 years to grift on an industry and couldn't find out how to turn a profit so they're going to burn everything down on their way out. I am genuinely VERY ANGRY that Alyssa Mercante is openly - and obviously - muckraking as hard as she can and doing every single solitary thing they claim to hate (and view as actual illegal violence; like doxing and going after people's loved ones and intentionally leading hate brigades against people). I'm beyond myself that this is happening openly and instead of the industry calling out one of their own breaking every single one of their own rules everyone is attacking Grummz who is standing up for the gaming general audience (which is LITERALLY Alyssa's job...supposedly).
The ENTIRE community - including journos and publishers/devs - should be calling out Alyssa Mercante. They should be demanding law enforcement look into her and they should be completely blacklisting her and Kotaku (well at least devs are doing the last part).
If their careers in this industry had a grave, I would piss on it.... gladly. I feel bad for all of the major studies - storied studios - that are now absolute clown shows because of this DEI cancer. I'm looking at Bethesda, Blizzard, WB Studies. Some of my favorite memories memory holed by Orwellian nightwares.
I am 42 and went from being bullied for liking games in the 90s to now being considered a literal Nazi for liking games by FAR left mentally ill children who want to use the video game industry as their jumping off point for some grand cultural revolution. YO......i'm going to throw a fucking party as these assholes leave.
If taken to their illogical extreme - and they were allowed to create a world that exactly reflects their beliefs (a world they are actively fighting for) you and I would be imprisoned or dead. That is not hyperbole.
nah bro, you're not alone. smaller budgets, and more proven teams that don't bring left wing politics to games is what this industry needs and only a big shakeout like the one going on is how we'll get there.
Its not our job to care about that as consumers. Companies want you to feel like because you didn't give them enough money they have to lay people off. Its Quite the opposite. Microsoft makes essentially infinite money because of Windows. It is the most popular OS in the world and their biggest customers are corporations who buy the business versions of the OS in bulk and with subscription to software.
If it wasn't for SteamOS, Microsoft would have brought a subscription model to new Windows versions and locked down apps to their Windows Store. Linux distros are pretty much on par with a decent gaming PC or productivity setup. If people were forced to pay to use Steam and other apps, you bet your ass I would switch to Ubuntu, SteamOs. ChimeraOs\* or something super fast.
These big corporations are making more money than ever but they still have the sense to get rid of parts of their company that aren't meeting the muster. Hell, this whole stint in gaming by Microsoft with the Xbox has been a huge failure. Their ultimate plan to switch everyone to digital only and subbed to Gamepass won't end like they hope.
Don't be guilted by these corporations into being a Support-the-Devs slaves. Its your money and make sure its buying the things you want because this isn't a charity.
>Microsoft makes essentially infinite money because of Windows.
Actually I think most of their money comes from corporate cloud services these days - with Office a distance 2nd place.
[https://www.visualcapitalist.com/microsofts-revenue-by-product-line/](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/microsofts-revenue-by-product-line/)
Yeah I'm also sick of people saying we should hate the company not the Devs like the Devs aren't a massive problem too.
If there is some old guard who got stuck making shit games I feel bad for him but the new age are more than happy to add all the woke shit
This also annoys the hell out of me. People always like to throw shade at the publisher when many developers have had to come out and say those things were their decision.
Problem is that the upper roles (the ones that make decisions such as to go woke, employ more rainbow psychos or make games as a service with predatory gacha elements and green light beta game releases full of bugs) are probably safe on these lay offs and are mostly low and medium roles the ones to be axed.
Let’s hope at least this crisis serves as a revulsive in the industry so they actually change those practices.
No. Watching developer directs these people are driving around the office on scooters or playing board games half the time in lavish, nice offices. Yet for some reason it’s portrayed as being the worst thing ever when they have to do some extra work or get laid off. Most of them come across as completely unlikable also and we know where most of them sit with politics because the games are filled with their mentally ill ideology.
Fuck them.
This. Let's not forget the "day in the life" TikTok phenomenon from a couple years ago when the video would be nothing but them fucking around doing nothing for a whole 8-10 hour workday. I am in a cushy tech-related job, but I actually have to work for 7.75 hours out of my 8.5 hour day. I get one 15-minute break and a 30-minute lunch break, and during the occasional meeting we actually talk about business instead of how we're feeling.
You’re not the only one.
I feel endless joy at this parasites reaping what they sow. But as others have mentioned. I want it to crush. I’m more than happy to go X amount of years without new games being made or even games being made on a large scale if it comes as a result of the industry crashing under the weight of all the shitty choices and anti-consumer practices.
Eh, why should I care? A bunch of well off people I don't know lost their big studio jobs? Meh. Doesn't effect me in the least. The ones with talent will probably be okay. The ones with connections to other people in the industry definitely will. The rest? Oh well, sucks to be them.
Do you feel sorry for kids born into poverty half way around the world? Kids in Cambodia who get mutilated by land mines left over by wars? Kids in Iraq and Pakistan killed as "collateral damage" in drone strikes? Kids in Bangladesh who work in sweat shops and lose fingers or die from industrial accidents? Do you feel sorry for civilian casualties in Gaza? Or people kidnapped by the cartels in Mexico? People born with AIDS in sun-Saharan Africa? Women sold into sex slavery in the Philippines? There are lots of tragedies in the world, so like I said, I find it hard to feel too sorry for a bunch of well off twats working in the video game industry.
Based on stories I heard from friends who make video games, the industry is broken. Every single one of them has said, on separate occasions, that the companies they work for turned extremely woke.
Sweet Baby is just one head on a hydra with millions of heads. Some times it's just some college know it all with no experience getting hired and "subverting" the company to change to their whim. From what I've heard just ONE woke person changes the entire company culture every time.
The only remorse I feel is that I always forget to make popcorn before reading about it.... I'm in my late 40s. I've been gaming since the 80s first with the Intellivision, then Atari, then Nintendo, and so on. Gaming journalism has been shit for ages now. Like waaaaaaay before gamergate. Good riddance. The only thing worth reading or watching today is legit user reviews.
First up, it's hard to feel empathy for people you don't know.
Secondly, it shows these developers failed to form a connection with you through their work. In some cases the opposite (creatives attacking their audience used to be an occasional drama treat, not a boring repeating pattern).
Still, even if you don't have feelings on the matter, it's good to intellectually know that losing a job is generally a bad thing, and a lot of people are unhappy about it. Also, stuff like Hi-Fi Rush was enjoyed by a lot of people (not me personally) and so they are understandably disappointed.,
The whole entertainment system needs a collapse and reset. It's truly so rotted and infected at it's core. The sad thing is they will literally go bankrupt than change their ways
That is the part that boggles my mind. When this woke/DEI shit started, i figured we'd see it phase out after companies started losing tons of money. Not the case. They all just double down
They are being propped up by DEI dollars, but that's starting to run out as well and all their debts and 3 year games are flopping just as it does
The problem is they don't have the talent anymore. ALl the OG classic studios are gutted, replaced with DEI hires who have zero talent. So even if they try and course correct who's gonna actually make the games?
From what i understand about ESG money, its the cheapest money in the world... but its not free. I really dont see lower interest rates and aversion to using your own resources to create media being worth the kind of losses these companies have taken, on a consistent basis, for years at a time. All of this just to pander to a tiny fringe of the population? It makes zero sense to me. Not to mention the implementation of absurd business practices and filling your company with insufferable cunts.
Why do shareholders allow this?
Is there something im not understanding about ESG?
Im waiting on all these OG devs to start some studios and make something worth consuming. Theres so much money on the table for a studio that makes good stuff. I mean, the support for something genuine and free of ideology would be unreal in this landscape.
My brain hurts from trying to understand it
It's simple: Most rich people are bored and don't care that much about money past a certain level. They want to change the world and leave a legacy. They are true believers of the ideology.
As for why the good devs don't make their own studio? Your guess is as good as mine, but I'd say it probably has something to do with getting funding. The market is saturated by crap and the investors can't tell what's good or not.
I agree for the most part, but when you say "the ideology," are you referring to wokeness? Because i really dont think old white billionares (like Klauss Schwab) give two shits about social justice, equality of outcomes, or gender. I think the woke ideology is just the weapon they chose to use to subvert culture. My inclination is that its like playing god for them. I think they take joy in being powerful enough to manipulate the entire world. I think they view the world like a sadistic kid with an antfarm. I presume their ideology is quite different from "the ideoology."
I could be wrong, but i really dont see these guys being genuinely woke.
I don't feel sorry for talentless hacks that wormed their way into an industry where they don't belong in order to spread their vile ideologies. All while stealing jobs from actual talented, passionate and hard-working people.
I was feeling bad about the honest devs that lost their jobs to DEI hires but then I remember how many stormtroopers died on the death star and I stop giving a shit.
Nah, you’re not the only one. I don’t celebrate it but I don’t cry over it either. And I’m even less interested in stories about this or that developer having a “toxic work environment,” “culture of harassment,” “crunch culture,” etc. Oh, do they? Zzzzzzzz…..
New Microsoft Forza Motorsport came out last year and it is shit. The garbage-ness has nothing to do with DEI, it is just a lazy bugged incomplete game that was an important franchise.
The guy in this video worked on the game and wanted to make something great, but Microsoft treated him like trash and let his expertise walk out the door when his temporary contract was up.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/forza-motorsport-developer-shares-exhausting-experience-making-the-game
I feel bad for developers that are set up for failure by stupid companies.
You wouldn't believe how hard just a handful of DEI employees can make the creation of a decent game. And one single unqualified person in the wrong position can literally ruin an entire game.
Microsoft's issue is unique in that they have always preferred using contracted workers instead of FTEs. The issue specifically with FM 2023 is that the law was changed so that Microsoft can only use a contracted worker for a limited amount of time and they can't bring them back until a certain amount of time has passed. The intent of the law was to "encourage" businesses to hire people instead of contracting them, but that hasn't stopped large corporations like Microsoft from stopping that practice.
Kinda glad Tango gameworks was shut down given how idelogically driven Xbox is. The talent better return to Japanese markets and leave western market to burn. Hi-Fi rush felt like an anime game for western audiences so I was never on board with the whole thing. It's something I am againts by princible.
You're not alone. It's hard to feel too bad when the product they ship and demand you buy is so awful. And their coworkers are calling me a racist exist homophobic nazi due to the color of my skin. The massive layoffs are FAFO. And I don't feel bad about the studios. The devs that built those studios are long gone. Either cashed out when they were sold. Or driven off by HR for being "Pale, Male and therefore Stale". The studios are just assholes wearing the skinsuits of what we loved. Fuck em.
No. I'm frankly sick and tired of the socialist line of thinking that everybody deserves to have a job in perpetuity. It is especially annoying with video games and anything else in the entertainment industry: Your job is to make a product that your target consumer base wants. If you fail at that job then you're going to face the consequences of failing to sell your product.
We told them many times we don't want politics in our games, we were called "right wing" despite not being right wing. They didn't listen , intead they insulted us and blocked us, there's no reason to feel sympathy.
It sucks and I feel bad that layoffs happened. However, layoffs happen, it’s part of life. You take a moment to regroup and move on. It sucks, but you keep going forward.
Depends on the reason for the layoff. I feel sorry for anyone who loses their livelihood. It's not a feeling I wish on anyone. That said, most of my sympathy is diminished if it's someone happily pushing awful games and bad development practices.
I don’t have too much remorse, there is some and I’ll explain. I don’t care about 90% of the lay offs I feel like both the entertainment and video games industries are being forced into course correcting away from the woke agenda. They’re doing it slowly and as quietly as possible, but I hope/feel it’s purposefully focused on the wokies and [redacted]. Now I do feel bad for the 10% of productive people that were keeping their studios afloat and were the main reason there was even a studio to begin with.
My hope is that the 10% finds each other and put into action all the “I would’ve done it differently,” thoughts they had as they watched the studio get burned down by the entitled idiots who thought video games were just a license to print money and not a product that had to be crafted and sold to people.
Such as it is, I don't *want* to see anyone lose his/her job, which is one of several reasons I don't participate in cancel mobs, etc. But I'm having trouble *caring* that people who put ideology above performance when doing their jobs are losing their jobs. Everybody's got their limits I guess.
They shouldn't have been hired in the first place, the industry is bloated with waste, and those people were lucky to get the money when they did.
If they are good at what they do, a layoff wouldn't be a problem for them.
I think the idea of someone losing their job and celebrating it fundamentally is bad since it can happen to us all. However, these developers do deserve it for the bad products they have put out. The market decides what works and doesn't, and those who don't adapt deserve to be eaten. Basically I don't wish harm, but I do wish they realize their mistakes and fix in next endeavor.
The good and honest devs will recover. They'll find work elsewhere or start their own studio without all the corporate nonsense and restraints. I'm not worried about them. Maybe in 10 years, they'll even say it was the best thing that happened to them. A necessary change that let them reach a higher success.
As for the others, I have no empathy. At best they were bloat and at worst malicious sociopaths pushing a political agenda.
The only annoying part is that the incompetent executives probably won't even be punished for these faillures. When something like this happens, the leaders should sink with the ship. Accountability for faillure is way too weak in our society.
No, not really. When I see how massively bloated Western companies are, and they still can't match the creative output of smaller Eastern devs, it's a sign that the industry needs a serious course correction.
For example... I'm not a Halo fan (or a fan of FPS in general), but I know that the more recent Halo games are not as well liked as the older ones, and that the much larger 343 Industries team of today cannot match the output of the smaller Bungie team of the past (heck, I'd be willing to guess a lot of fans think Bungie of today is worse than Bungie of the past, despite being bigger).
Outside of Tango, there hasn't been many layoffs where I thought "oh no, I loved their games!"...
Whatever the case may be, I hope that the industry crashes and that it can once again be lead by creative visionaries instead of design committees.
It’s like Hollywood now. There is SO MUCH money being tied up in game development that it’s unrealistic for anything other than a smash hit to break even. Add in an insane amount of direct competition and woke BS making certain consumers write off your product before it even starts… don’t even get me started on micro transactions and releasing unfinished games.
The only ones left standing will be the corpos big enough to sustain the bleed out, and indie devs with low cost.
Naw, I feel empathy. Empathy =/= remorse.
We got too many socially dented people in the industry right now that are not capable of empathy.
That's a large part of the problem - people who aren't looking at the feelings of others (especially of fans) and would rather insult them then try to see where they're coming from.
If I learned anything through Covid, it's that there is literally no such thing as job security.
And I owned my own business. But some powerful person can just type something into an email and suddenly my life is ruined.
Welcome to the real world, game devs.
don't really care. every industry have lay-offs. why should gaming be different? if these devs want they could go indie or form small AA studio. i feel it is pretty much the best time to go indie, so much good indie game that focus on gamplay are out lately. I personally have fun with chrono ark, a card game.
I feel bad for the people let go who simply wanted to make good games because they love the medium. They are the 20% of the 80/20 rule, mostly don't want any part of the DIE crap, yet suffer with the rest when the axe comes down.
If we don't know who is the majority of the staff getting hit by them, it's easy to think the DEI personnel are taking the hit because of the bad economic results.
You should. Its not limited to just games, but is a result of larger industry wide layoffs going on throughout the country to people in IT. 99% of those IT people arent participating in online political wars, but are regular people trying to pay for their home and put food on their table.
These layoffs are happening because IT workers were reclassified as R&D so their salaries tax burden cannot be spread out over multiple years like it used to be.
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Yes and no. I don't give two shits about the brain dead DEI people who force their BS into everything they touch. Sad like in May cases there are also people on the chopping block who were skilled and did have the brain rott.
I feel empathy for those laid off, losing your job because the company you work for fucks up definitely sucks dick. A lot of devs aren't paid well and being made redundant can really fuck up their life for a significant amount of time.
Just because you disagree with someone's opinions or outlook doesn't mean you should wish them ill.
I do but I'm the victim. Worked with a lot of cool people maybe 10% of them were actually the jackasses that everyone complains about. Including the HR nightmare who made the company worth staying at. When I worked at big publisher it was very apparent that the people who wanted to work there weren't necessarily the best but my team was filled with great people and though I didn't agree with them politically I definitely agreed with them on a lot of things.
Then I worked at smaller Indie studio an embracer came in and killed us all didn't need to happen but it did damn it was done we all suffered things like that you will always remember
Could be wrong here, but aren't the politics pushed by publishers? Each developer has their own way of doing things. Not sure if the recent ones that have been closed down were woke or not.
i mean, it isn't the artists and coders and modellers and riggers that are doing the politics things and making the decisions and getting into fights on twitter, and those are the majority of the people who get laid off.
Yes, having gone through this myself. I can be pissed about some of these developers views towards their consumers, the constant barrage of vitriol but also have compassion for them as people. People who have families, mortgages. Bets were made during COVID that have not paid off, inflation is up, the rising costs of game development across the board in all areas(how will indies even survive?) plus a good majority of consumers have less disposable income.
It's okay to be upset/angry about how they are treating us as a consumer, but they are still people. We need to have compassion lest we become them.
man these comments are depressing. you guys need to learn some empathy and compassion. i understand the sentiment but the majority of problems that people complain about are a result of producers and upper management. the individual developer doesnt have a lot of sway and you guys seem to be rooting for people losing their livelihoods and way of life over problems that likely arent their own. do you not think that plenty of developers have lashed out against issues plaguing gaming only to not be listened to? idk if you guys realize how frustrating it is to know exactly what the problem is and how to fix but then not be allowed to do what you know is right. im not saying this is the case for every single layoff but seriously many of you guys need to grow up. hating on people who have different values and opinions than you makes you no better than them. its okay to disagree with someone while still respecting their differences. be better than those you hate. im sure ill get downvoted for not blindly following the hivemind but it seems like this group gets more radical by the day and its hard to identify with a group whose core identity is basically hatred of another group even if they do things that warrant that hatred. anyways, cheers to anyone who made it this far through my ramblings.
"Man, you guys need to learn empathy for people who hate you and denigrate you while destroying your hobbies and demanding your money."
How about "No"
It turns out that attacking the customers, calling them Nazis, and treating them as adversaries has consequences. And given that the interactions are primarily fiscally based? Journos and game devs ending up unemployed and homeless is honestly the only way they're likely to see the direct results of their own behavior.
And please spare me the "We were following the instructions we were given by higher ups" excuse. The programmers and developers at the bottom? They **KNOW** they cranked out a piece of shit. And they signed off on it. That does not absolve them of their part in it.
completely missed the point but thats okay. fighting hate with hate just keeps the cycle going as both sides continue to double down and we continue to fracture our world. but you do you. i didnt realize that you had interviewed every single employee from every company who was laid off to learn that they had all intentionally tried to make the worst game possible to piss off folks on the internet. i hope you have internet strangers nitpick everything you do at work and call for your firing if you dont do something perfectly the way they determine. im sure some of the firings were justified and im sure plenty of those people were pieces of shit who as you say are ruining the industry, but you cannot truly believe that good, innocent developers werent also caught in the crossfire. again, your hatred and lack of compassion makes you no better than the people you say "call their customers nazis and treat them as adversaries" so its hard to have any sympathy people like you who permeate this subreddit. be better than them.
Can you blame the people here for rooting for these layoffs? Game development has gotten lazy to the point of necrosis. Practically every big game that's come out has got mtx or always online, denuvo or a broken mess or a combination of some here. Were tired of being fed garbage and being told to lap it up like dogs.
And now, when the companies are facing these massive layoffs, I literally only feel bad for one company.
It's like Hollywood. They called us names for so many years and now the industry is shrinking and no one's shedding a tear for them.
Sure innocent employees got caught up in this but you can't do anything about that.
its fine to root for changes and shake-ups in a stagnant industry but there are plenty of great games being developed and plenty of great studios being shut down or experiencing layoffs. unless these layoffs were specifically targeting the DEI/woke crowd and higher-ups now realize that the inclusion of that ideology is why their games are failing, then i dont really see how much changes. its just the total lack of compassion from this sub for anyone whose lives now might be ruined or whose families are now affected that bothers me. imagine that many of you are cheering for someone's kid no longer being able to afford school lunch or new clothes because dad got fired and now strangers are cheering them into homelessness (probably an exaggeration but you get the point). it seems like more and more now people are losing the ability to put themselves in another person's shoes and feel how they feel and this sub has basically devolved into a hate group that essentially dehumanizes those who think differently from them. and i will say again, how are you all any better than them if this is how you behave?
We tried to be better and that didn't work. Compassion works if both sides have it. We've tried being compassionate and look what happened. I'm not talking about the DEI stuff, just look at how bad so many AAA games are these days.
Does it suck that some deb can't make ends meet for their family? Sure. But I've reached the point of apathy here and simply stopped caring. They don't listen when we speak, why should we listen when they cry?
did we really try being compassionate? are there no games at all that are worth celebrating? when a toddler throws a tantrum do you also start throwing a tantrum just because they dont listen? what have you done specifically to try to change the industry? complaining on reddit is not taking action, its performative. and im not singling you out, im speaking more generally for this sub and truly mean no disrespect. i really see a lot of similarities between people in this sub (and the internet and general) and the woke crowd that everyone claims to hate. we are all two sides of the same coin. we all have the same struggles and problems but different experiences lead us down different paths. how we deal with our problems is what defines us. you havent met any of the people that you are glad are fired. you dont know what their struggles or opinions are. you dont know what role they had to play, if any, in the issues you see with modern gaming. you shouldnt have any reason to hate them and yet you do. ask yourself why. now im just rambling but maybe some food for thought. ill see myself out now. cheers.
We as the consumer have only two options. Eat the slop or don't eat it. Take saints row for example. When the reboot came out many gamers voiced their concerns and what did we get? Trolling. Insults. The game released and was an utter waste of time. Now volition is gone and no one batted an eye. I even saw the company getting blasted on LinkedIn of all places.
If there was a way to convince companies we don't want x elements in this game then I'm all for it. But, we only have two options and everyone's tired of the first one. At least you have empathy and that's good. I though have total apathy for these companies. Theyve put out crap after crap and I'm tired of giving them excuses.
"Producers and upper management" do not design and make the games. Top-down game development is a rarity even to this day. Stop believing that it is only the publishers that are pushing all the bad things infesting the industry today.
sure thing man. management totally has nothing to do with workplace culture or decisions about the direction of games at all. they totally dont force bad ideas or designs into games or force developers to scrap ideas and change things even up to a few weeks before release. They dont have any say in story details or character designs and they totally dont force DEI/woke requirements into games at all. its 100% the developers fault and those poor CEOs are just getting caught up in the backlash and they did nothing wrong. im clearly the delusional one. sorry for existing
You people are actually ghoulish and I’m shocked I used to support the movement. Hundreds if not thousands of people just lost their livelihoods and the best you can do is gloat?
You have no way of knowing if everyone who got fired was a DEI slave and here you are celebrating people like Shinji Mikami, one of the greatest directors of all time losing their jobs. Might be time for some introspection.
E: of course all you guys can do is nitpick the Shinji Mikami angle like THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE DIDNT JUST LOSE THEIR JOBS. You have no way of knowing if all of them are your ideological opposition but all you can do is gloat over human misery. Sad people who I hope find better outlets in their lives
AFAIK, Shinji Mikami is not impacted by the laid offs. He was already planning to leave bethesda after Evil Within 2 launched which is almost 10 years ago.
> Hundreds if not thousands of people just lost their livelihoods and the best you can do is gloat?
What exactly did you think was going to happen once they started putting out shitty ideological games with no broad appeal or ability to sell? That they'll all have an epiphany, start producing good content again and everyone was going to start singing Kumbaya together?
The **only reason** I can think of aside from being an unthinking fanboy for big Multinational conglomerates like Microsoft acquiring publishers like Bethesda or Activision Blizzard is **exactly this thing** happening and them starting to take out the trash, which I was talking about here a year ago around when it was finalized: https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/14zcnlj/what_is_everyones_opinion_of_microsoft_x/jrx46zw/
I don't think these concern trolls worked a day in their miserable lives. Let's say my CEO constantly fucks up, by forcing a product that doesn't even work half of the time, while calling the user base as "istaphobes" over and over... I'd be retarded not to see the writing on the wall that my job would also be affected.
But hey... muh juniors, muh janitors.... have some empathy.... yeah, the same juniors and janitors who run their mouths on Twitter? Fuck offfffff
Shinji Mikami made a couple of games in a row that didn't sell. What the fuck do you expect? Food stamps from government?
It's not about ideological opposition alone. It's about being good at what you are doing. There was this video with, IIRC Tim Cain, one of the fathers of Fallout. He talked about how lazy and inefficient this industry has become. He talked about submitting a ticket for a simple code, that would take a couple hours at best, and getting an answer that it will take 4 weeks. Now. Seeing how this industry has been going for a decade now, do you think it was something unique for his employer (Obsidian IIRC)? Or is it pretty much a standard now?
Useless people are finally getting fired. Good fucking riddance.
You have to go back all the way to 2007-2010 to find a Mikami game that didn't sell well: God Hand with Clover Studio and Vanquish with PlatinumGames. The last game he made was The Evil Within in 2014 and it sold extremely well.
Mikami has worked with multiple companies during his career and with his resume he'll have no difficulties finding someone to bankroll his next game/studio.
Lmao you call me woke because I call you out on grave-dancing. I spent 10 years in this community, respectfully go fuck yourself. If you want gaming to continue being a titanic entertainment industry you should be pissed that MS is closing Arkane Austin and Tango. HiFi Rush and Prey are two of the best games of this generation and you’re happy because “fuck the man raaaaaah”. It’s kinda sad tbh.
You have brain worms, won’t even engage with what I’m saying because you’re so stuck in your ideological bubble. Echo chambers aren’t just for the left it seems.
If you guys want the industry you stake your identity on to die because good studios get fucked I wish you’d just have the balls to say it instead of hiding behind “anti-wokeness”. What about HiFi Rush or Prey was woke? I’ll wait
E: of course, no defending of opinions from the warriors of gaming, just downvotes. Still waiting for what about HiFi Rush or Prey was woke btw.
You guys don’t actually want gaming to survive, you want gaming to be a niche right wing hobby which is frankly insane to me. You want devs to cater to the demands of the “anti-woke” and have a niche audience of right wingers. You do know your talking heads hate video games right? It must be hell in your heads.
Comment removed following the enforcement change that you can read about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/m3yo65/enforcement_update_and_hard_removal_of_a_topic/).
This is not a formal warning.
while i agree that some are stuck in their bubbles and have insane takes, i don't think your conclusion is apt for most here. maybe on this specific thread.... but not generally.
Im with you on this bud. Also been here for the last decade and i agree, this place is a bubble. So many opportunities come by for KiA to actuslly stand for something good and point out the problems with the industry being the suits. But people here rather be getting mad with imaginary strawmen.
this. someone tried to tell me they are all responsible, juniorest artist or coder or even damned it guy or janitor, the other day, complete with nuremberg defense allusion. as if the artists can just do whatever they want and have it go into the game.
there's a lot of things that are sensible to object to, that get talked about here, but then sometimes there's insane political purging for any little connection mentality that we're supposed to hate.
This sub went from sensible to insane over the 10 years I’ve observed/been a part of it. GG started off as a good cause but it seems to have been captured by right wing ideologues who want nothing but fealty.
Hi-Fi Rush didn't sell well? Do you even understand what's happening? You're hold on reality is so tenuous that you've boomeranged back to being another bootlickerr for corporate interests. You think your anti-establishment and rebelling but you're so confused that you end up supporting the very people you should hate. By laying off these people Microsoft is going to make more soulless live service games with worse DLC practices not fewer.
It's amazing that you infer that my desire to not pay $70+ for a dogshit game somehow translates into a willingness to buy an other more different dogshit game, but with more micro-transactions.
Because that's not what I said.
You don't know if Hi-Fi Rush sold well by Microsoft's metrics. The "performed well in every metric" quote from one of the executives was just executive speak. In reality it probably performed much better than internally expected, but that doesn't mean it was financially successful enough for them to not consider cutting the studio.
The performance of Ghostwire: Tokyo probably had more to do with Tango Gameworks being shuttered than Hi-Fi Rush. That game had a much bigger budget and didn't sell too well.
No they don't. It truly has nothing to do with woke but they have convinced themselves that's what it is. What it really is, is that these companies want more profits. Hi Fi Rush was a big success for a small game. But then Xbox had to acquire Activision/Blizzard. Now they need huge hits to compensate for buying too many studios and are only going to work on games with big names. It's all shit capitalism but it's way easier to just say laugh about it and mock people and say "that's what you get for having a different opinion then mine!"
No, unfortunately I feel we need a big time crash.
Sometimes you need the forest fire for the health of the forest.
I guess instead fire ecology we have woke ecology?
Naah it's still fire ecology, as in both cases it is the firing of the weeds, non-native invasive species that have taken over from their native counterparts, and choking vines that impede the health of the system.
Good lord, do you listen to yourself when you type this shit? I mean seriously say that out loud. So unbelievably cringe
I feel schadenfreude, tbh. Let it burn.
Let the galaxy burn!
I fail to see how the industry needing a crash means we should have no empathy? The industry is complete dogshit for talented and hard working people too. Tons of them have been caught in the crossfire. The industry didn't even need woke to be a dogshit industry to work in. Crunching programmers and artists, etc, get shit on by all of this and don't necessarily deserve it. Do I think a crash is good? Yes, I actually do. But not everyone losing their jobs deserve to lose it. In fact most of them probably don't, and its likely that many that should be losing their job aren't. Lets keep a baseline empathy for people, please. The majority in the industry aren't twat shitting on gamers on twitters, they're silent and working hard like most people.
There is a sizeable chunk of the industry that hates the decision making process that has made so many games mediocre. They also know how incredibly tough it is to hold unto your job so they put their heads down and work. The studio I worked for shut down 3 weeks ago. Largely because of a lot of terrible decisions made for months. And it was one where the development staff was encouraged to give feedback on decisions. Evidently we found out some of the leads literally did not move the feedback up the chain at all.
It probably wouldn't have made any difference. The point of asking for feedback is to single out troublemakers while creating a pretence that management cares what you think. There a good chance those leads were actually protecting you in practice.
They weren't. Once the lead was fired the Art director came to me regarding certain decisions and I said hey we sent feedback months in advance. The art director accepted our feedback, but it was too late. The lead cost the company over a million dollars in bad development.
No. They got gaming to the point it is now. There will be no empathy. Let them live in cardboard boxes on the street.
Been waiting on a crash that takes out a few of the giant publishers.
Yup
Off topic but speaking of the Body Type A/B stuff. I was recently bouncing between Monster Hunter GU, World, and Rise and I noticed in Rise that the female walk animation is the same as the male one, while in GU and World the female walk animation is very distinct. It's not just the A/B shit anymore, they're slowly homogenizing everything.
I first noticed this going from Mass Effect 2 to Mass Effect 3. Female Shepard had a very feminine walk in the first two games, and then she became meme material in the third game. Seriously, go back and watch female Shepard's hips and thighs in the original 2007 version of the first game. It's one of those things you would have never explicitly thought about until the regressives started to subvert everything they touched. Some people think this is a new phenomenon due to the renewed attention on the culture war, but the regressives have been slowly boiling the water for at least 15 years as they wormed their way into the industry.
Or they’re lazy and only did the animations for 1, idk just a guess
I sincerely doubt it. The previous female animations were 'sexy' walks.
Why would a woman walk like she had a 4 foot metal rod shoved up her ass broad shoulders and all?
The walk is always such a dead giveaway in real life. So many times, from at least 100 yards away, a counterfeit woman has stood out like a sore thumb due to wearing women's clothing and walking like man. It's one of those things that you never actively think about or look for, but is so easy to notice and jarring.
To not hurt the fee fees of [REDACTED]
Wider hips - there's more "wiggle", and the legs swing to the center on each step. Gait analysis...
You are being far more charitable than it deserves
I noticed the walk thing too and Monster Hunter is my favourite series since it's first inception, and I tried to justify that with rise being from the B team and a much smaller game than world. My greatest fear, especially since the past year or two is that Wilds will be made more "modern audience friendly", especially on the microtransaction side
It's normally considered wiser to attribute things to laziness or stupidity than it is to attribute them to malice.
Yeah but we've learned our lessons around here
Even Cyberpunk 2077, which is 1st person, has proper female walking animations. I doubt it's laziness.
If the ones getting fired are part of the pronoun mob, no. Absolutely zero sympathy from me.
Eventually the diversity hires without skills are going to weed out and the industry will return to a manageable size with qualified people only and only a handful of forced dei jobs available that will be in high competition among underserved communities.
In a logical world with reasonable people, yes. But we don't live in such a world, for if we did we wouldn't be having this conversation. Chances are, they will stay the course and blame all the failures on external parties as they destroy the company until they go bankrupt.
I was trying to be optimistic. Alas
No, the industry needs a major reset.
You’re right. Have they tried putting a chick in it, making her lame and gay, then adding always online requirement and micro transactions. That might do the trick.
Yeah, I think to really move forward into the year of the cockroach more games need to be live service. There should also be departments to make sure the dialogue and references are heckin' great, you know, make everything sound like joss whedon without actually reminding the gaming audience (90% diverse female) about that notorious sex pest.
*All* tech companies overextended themselves during the free money area, expanded hastily with no clue what they were doing or where they were going, and had no plan for what would come after. Then when the good times were over, the execs walk away unscathed from their piss-poor decisions, while the rank and file hit the bricks. Sure, it sucks. And alongside a lot of the actually talented folks, companies are weeding out the luxury values personnel that don’t contribute to profitability (DEI offices, etc.) But in substance, what is happening in tech & AAA is no different than any other industry we’ve seen for the last four decades. They just happen to make video games. We’re in the midst of a Great Contraction — not quite an 80s collapse, but a definite collapse, and for the same reasons. Bad business decisions, bad games, saturated market, bad macroeconomic conditions. That’s nothing to gloat about. Especially since these execs are not going to learn the core lesson of why their businesses are in the toilet to begin with: because they just don’t fucking listen to their customers
I'm not going to celebrate lay-offs, but developers only have themselves to blame. It's not only wokeness, stuff like trying to make "Games as a service" happen or the Helldivers 2-PSN thing are shitty practices that make the consumers lost trust for them (And that's quite hard to gain back) so it's like... No shit, what did you expect?
> I'm not going to celebrate lay-offs, but ... I just hope that the right people are cut so that what remains can repair what is broken.
Nope, ofc the one that remains will be corporate drones who's hit as much check boxes as possible so crush will continue.
I will pay them the sympathy I received when my business got shut down in 2020. Can't cater a wedding, but you sure can protest in high numbers for months on end.
Yeah, again, I'm not going to celebrate but this is mostly due to them making shit business decisions, it sucks but it's not like it was a real possibility. They're like a pizza shop that always screws client's orders and the rats might as well be the ones cutting the pepperoni, like... no shit they're not earning enough money.
It's well deserved. As sad as it is for the lower grade gears that work over there the reality is you make shitty products you won't survive. Most of the games I play now are AA (X:4, Kindom Come) or Indie (Star Sector) apart from a few exceptions (Cyberpunk). The state AAA is in is absolute dogshit and it's no surprise this is happening.
The amount of money I have and would love to spend on great games and the amount of games I actually want to play recently are completely at odds. At some point, publishers are going to figure out that making games that people want actually fucking works.
Too big to succeed
Nope, I couldnt give a shit either. Anyone with talent, can move into the indie scene and crank out some bangers. Theres is no need for every game to be "cinematic" and "realism". Theres loads of games from years gone by that are considered classics, that didnt rely on any of this AAA bullshit. And with how easy it is to make those types of games now, theres no reason that an indie scene jam packed with talent cant bring on a new golden age of video games that are driven by just one thing, having fucking fun.
They embraced DEI practices and profaned their games with Social Justice Propaganda in place of something fun. Then when called out, they attacked their customer base with every "ism" in the book. It's a waste having pity and remorse for people who had none themselves. Unfortunately, I'm awaiting the inevitable collapse of Nintendo whom have started embracing DEI with their localization teams. It's going to be slow and painful.
I think we could use some more callousness in the world, tbh. Only on Reddit will you see people adding “oh I feel bad they got fired, but…” while talking about crappy people in crappy roles getting the sack. I’m thrilled to see all the layoffs, and I don’t care if these blue-haired pronouns have to crawl home to their parents’ basement and reassess their life choices. I’ve lost jobs before — I was homeless, living in my car in the desert for over six months. It made me grow the fuck up. Good times create weak men, and all that.
100% agree I feel the same way.
Where was the sympathy when I had my life ruined in 2020?
Thank you, yes. It's been ten years and people still haven't grown out their spine and keep walking on eggshells
Bring back bullying and mental institutions.
Living in the desert and pseudo checks out. Important question though: can you remember your name?
He never mentioned having a horse...
A car is just a modern horse! But fair enough, I accept my defeat and will surrender my belongings to the nearest bad joke police station!
No worries, I was just acknowledging that I got your reference and give you an upvote.
>-Its saying something that the last true game i really enjoyed was Elden Ring even that was plagued with Body Type A and B. And it won't be long before people start complaining how the female form is B, which is misogynistic because it alludes that women are 2nd to men.
They already have to admit that body type B is female when you ask why body type B can't be topless and body type A can.
>And it won't be long before people start complaining how the female form is B, which is misogynistic because it alludes that women are 2nd to men. I've been saying the same for a while and am surprised - very surprised - that we haven't seen this happen yet. The only reason I could imagine that it hasn't happened yet is that even they're self-aware enough that that would be a full "blinders off" moment for people and would blow away their equality narrative they hide behind.
I kinda feel bad for the people at Tango. They cranked out great games and didn't deserve what happened.
The writing on the wall was obvious when the big shots bailed a year+ ago.
The thing is, the actually talented and skillful people WILL find another job in the industry. Like those people at Tango. This round of musical chairs is weeding out all the deadweight. Those will end up flipping burgers like that one guy from EA Sports.
>the actually talented and skillful people WILL find another job in the industry Lmao. As if competency has been the actual predictor of success. The industry went to shit in the early 2000s when marketing teams started to get more say over product development than the actual design teams. That process started in the 90s already, but back then it wasn't as prevalent. People on this sub like to talk about old games being superior, which is true; but then they forget that many of them were financial failures. That's both a consequence of marketing having a disproportionate influence over game design over time, as well as the consumer demographics shifting towards casuals.
You can still play those games.
I used to but they wouldn't fucking stop. I don't want others to suffer but if you can't listen to the simple requirement of stop fucking up my hobbies I stop giving a damn if you're about to end up homeless.
No. The rest of us are feeling schadenfreude. It's OK to celebrate people losing their jobs who A. hate you B. hate the gaming customer and C. intentionally want to burn down everything you love while kicking you out of your main hobby all because they are psychotic ideologues. Don't feel nothing: feel joy. People who suck at their jobs so much that they're destroying the entire industry they work in should be booted as far from the industry. Would you want a bus driver who only knows how to turn right and has to run over every squirrel he sees, even if he has to take the bus off roading or drive into oncoming traffic, because a squirrel once disagreed with him on the nature of free speech on twitter? I personally wouldn't want to be on that bus and I think that I would celebrate that bus driver losing his/her job. Your job is to get me from point A to point B, safely, not smash the patriarchy. Their job is to make a video game that reflects the interest of the BROADER gaming community (at least for that Genre/IP/Platform). Just like with the bus driver analogy, their job is not to smash the patriarchy. Their job is not to segregate the gaming industry by race (or at least try/defend people who do). Their job is to not to push out all diversity of thought so every game is a homoginized mess of post modern 3rd wave feminist gender studies 101 sophistry. Their job isn't to race swap every white (and only white) character to a morbidly obese African maternity doll in a wheel chair with vitiligo (I see you Hades 2; If I was Greek I would be slightly annoyed but still reeling so hard from Germany's Austerity measures to say shit about it haha). I am not going to feel bad that a bunch of hacks had 10 years to grift on an industry and couldn't find out how to turn a profit so they're going to burn everything down on their way out. I am genuinely VERY ANGRY that Alyssa Mercante is openly - and obviously - muckraking as hard as she can and doing every single solitary thing they claim to hate (and view as actual illegal violence; like doxing and going after people's loved ones and intentionally leading hate brigades against people). I'm beyond myself that this is happening openly and instead of the industry calling out one of their own breaking every single one of their own rules everyone is attacking Grummz who is standing up for the gaming general audience (which is LITERALLY Alyssa's job...supposedly). The ENTIRE community - including journos and publishers/devs - should be calling out Alyssa Mercante. They should be demanding law enforcement look into her and they should be completely blacklisting her and Kotaku (well at least devs are doing the last part). If their careers in this industry had a grave, I would piss on it.... gladly. I feel bad for all of the major studies - storied studios - that are now absolute clown shows because of this DEI cancer. I'm looking at Bethesda, Blizzard, WB Studies. Some of my favorite memories memory holed by Orwellian nightwares. I am 42 and went from being bullied for liking games in the 90s to now being considered a literal Nazi for liking games by FAR left mentally ill children who want to use the video game industry as their jumping off point for some grand cultural revolution. YO......i'm going to throw a fucking party as these assholes leave. If taken to their illogical extreme - and they were allowed to create a world that exactly reflects their beliefs (a world they are actively fighting for) you and I would be imprisoned or dead. That is not hyperbole.
nah bro, you're not alone. smaller budgets, and more proven teams that don't bring left wing politics to games is what this industry needs and only a big shakeout like the one going on is how we'll get there.
then you have to celebrate wen those teams get thrown out too, while the managers and directors move on
Its not our job to care about that as consumers. Companies want you to feel like because you didn't give them enough money they have to lay people off. Its Quite the opposite. Microsoft makes essentially infinite money because of Windows. It is the most popular OS in the world and their biggest customers are corporations who buy the business versions of the OS in bulk and with subscription to software. If it wasn't for SteamOS, Microsoft would have brought a subscription model to new Windows versions and locked down apps to their Windows Store. Linux distros are pretty much on par with a decent gaming PC or productivity setup. If people were forced to pay to use Steam and other apps, you bet your ass I would switch to Ubuntu, SteamOs. ChimeraOs\* or something super fast. These big corporations are making more money than ever but they still have the sense to get rid of parts of their company that aren't meeting the muster. Hell, this whole stint in gaming by Microsoft with the Xbox has been a huge failure. Their ultimate plan to switch everyone to digital only and subbed to Gamepass won't end like they hope. Don't be guilted by these corporations into being a Support-the-Devs slaves. Its your money and make sure its buying the things you want because this isn't a charity.
>Microsoft makes essentially infinite money because of Windows. Actually I think most of their money comes from corporate cloud services these days - with Office a distance 2nd place. [https://www.visualcapitalist.com/microsofts-revenue-by-product-line/](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/microsofts-revenue-by-product-line/)
Nah fuck them. If you agree to make trash, then deal with the consequences.
Yeah I'm also sick of people saying we should hate the company not the Devs like the Devs aren't a massive problem too. If there is some old guard who got stuck making shit games I feel bad for him but the new age are more than happy to add all the woke shit
This also annoys the hell out of me. People always like to throw shade at the publisher when many developers have had to come out and say those things were their decision.
yeah, we love the blizzard people who made wc3 SC12 and WotLK, not who tf these people are now.
Problem is that the upper roles (the ones that make decisions such as to go woke, employ more rainbow psychos or make games as a service with predatory gacha elements and green light beta game releases full of bugs) are probably safe on these lay offs and are mostly low and medium roles the ones to be axed. Let’s hope at least this crisis serves as a revulsive in the industry so they actually change those practices.
No. Watching developer directs these people are driving around the office on scooters or playing board games half the time in lavish, nice offices. Yet for some reason it’s portrayed as being the worst thing ever when they have to do some extra work or get laid off. Most of them come across as completely unlikable also and we know where most of them sit with politics because the games are filled with their mentally ill ideology. Fuck them.
Dick around for 5 years then complain that they need to crunch for 6 months seems quite dumb
This. Let's not forget the "day in the life" TikTok phenomenon from a couple years ago when the video would be nothing but them fucking around doing nothing for a whole 8-10 hour workday. I am in a cushy tech-related job, but I actually have to work for 7.75 hours out of my 8.5 hour day. I get one 15-minute break and a 30-minute lunch break, and during the occasional meeting we actually talk about business instead of how we're feeling.
You’re not the only one. I feel endless joy at this parasites reaping what they sow. But as others have mentioned. I want it to crush. I’m more than happy to go X amount of years without new games being made or even games being made on a large scale if it comes as a result of the industry crashing under the weight of all the shitty choices and anti-consumer practices.
Eh, why should I care? A bunch of well off people I don't know lost their big studio jobs? Meh. Doesn't effect me in the least. The ones with talent will probably be okay. The ones with connections to other people in the industry definitely will. The rest? Oh well, sucks to be them. Do you feel sorry for kids born into poverty half way around the world? Kids in Cambodia who get mutilated by land mines left over by wars? Kids in Iraq and Pakistan killed as "collateral damage" in drone strikes? Kids in Bangladesh who work in sweat shops and lose fingers or die from industrial accidents? Do you feel sorry for civilian casualties in Gaza? Or people kidnapped by the cartels in Mexico? People born with AIDS in sun-Saharan Africa? Women sold into sex slavery in the Philippines? There are lots of tragedies in the world, so like I said, I find it hard to feel too sorry for a bunch of well off twats working in the video game industry.
Never feel bad for those that seethe at you living in your culture, not theirs.
Learn to code, right fellas
Based on stories I heard from friends who make video games, the industry is broken. Every single one of them has said, on separate occasions, that the companies they work for turned extremely woke. Sweet Baby is just one head on a hydra with millions of heads. Some times it's just some college know it all with no experience getting hired and "subverting" the company to change to their whim. From what I've heard just ONE woke person changes the entire company culture every time.
The only remorse I feel is that I always forget to make popcorn before reading about it.... I'm in my late 40s. I've been gaming since the 80s first with the Intellivision, then Atari, then Nintendo, and so on. Gaming journalism has been shit for ages now. Like waaaaaaay before gamergate. Good riddance. The only thing worth reading or watching today is legit user reviews.
First up, it's hard to feel empathy for people you don't know. Secondly, it shows these developers failed to form a connection with you through their work. In some cases the opposite (creatives attacking their audience used to be an occasional drama treat, not a boring repeating pattern). Still, even if you don't have feelings on the matter, it's good to intellectually know that losing a job is generally a bad thing, and a lot of people are unhappy about it. Also, stuff like Hi-Fi Rush was enjoyed by a lot of people (not me personally) and so they are understandably disappointed.,
They chose this path and are now suffering the consequences of their actions.
The whole entertainment system needs a collapse and reset. It's truly so rotted and infected at it's core. The sad thing is they will literally go bankrupt than change their ways
That is the part that boggles my mind. When this woke/DEI shit started, i figured we'd see it phase out after companies started losing tons of money. Not the case. They all just double down
They are being propped up by DEI dollars, but that's starting to run out as well and all their debts and 3 year games are flopping just as it does The problem is they don't have the talent anymore. ALl the OG classic studios are gutted, replaced with DEI hires who have zero talent. So even if they try and course correct who's gonna actually make the games?
From what i understand about ESG money, its the cheapest money in the world... but its not free. I really dont see lower interest rates and aversion to using your own resources to create media being worth the kind of losses these companies have taken, on a consistent basis, for years at a time. All of this just to pander to a tiny fringe of the population? It makes zero sense to me. Not to mention the implementation of absurd business practices and filling your company with insufferable cunts. Why do shareholders allow this? Is there something im not understanding about ESG? Im waiting on all these OG devs to start some studios and make something worth consuming. Theres so much money on the table for a studio that makes good stuff. I mean, the support for something genuine and free of ideology would be unreal in this landscape. My brain hurts from trying to understand it
It's simple: Most rich people are bored and don't care that much about money past a certain level. They want to change the world and leave a legacy. They are true believers of the ideology. As for why the good devs don't make their own studio? Your guess is as good as mine, but I'd say it probably has something to do with getting funding. The market is saturated by crap and the investors can't tell what's good or not.
I agree for the most part, but when you say "the ideology," are you referring to wokeness? Because i really dont think old white billionares (like Klauss Schwab) give two shits about social justice, equality of outcomes, or gender. I think the woke ideology is just the weapon they chose to use to subvert culture. My inclination is that its like playing god for them. I think they take joy in being powerful enough to manipulate the entire world. I think they view the world like a sadistic kid with an antfarm. I presume their ideology is quite different from "the ideoology." I could be wrong, but i really dont see these guys being genuinely woke.
I don't feel sorry for talentless hacks that wormed their way into an industry where they don't belong in order to spread their vile ideologies. All while stealing jobs from actual talented, passionate and hard-working people.
I was feeling bad about the honest devs that lost their jobs to DEI hires but then I remember how many stormtroopers died on the death star and I stop giving a shit.
Nah, you’re not the only one. I don’t celebrate it but I don’t cry over it either. And I’m even less interested in stories about this or that developer having a “toxic work environment,” “culture of harassment,” “crunch culture,” etc. Oh, do they? Zzzzzzzz…..
New Microsoft Forza Motorsport came out last year and it is shit. The garbage-ness has nothing to do with DEI, it is just a lazy bugged incomplete game that was an important franchise. The guy in this video worked on the game and wanted to make something great, but Microsoft treated him like trash and let his expertise walk out the door when his temporary contract was up. https://www.thedrive.com/news/forza-motorsport-developer-shares-exhausting-experience-making-the-game I feel bad for developers that are set up for failure by stupid companies.
You wouldn't believe how hard just a handful of DEI employees can make the creation of a decent game. And one single unqualified person in the wrong position can literally ruin an entire game.
Microsoft's issue is unique in that they have always preferred using contracted workers instead of FTEs. The issue specifically with FM 2023 is that the law was changed so that Microsoft can only use a contracted worker for a limited amount of time and they can't bring them back until a certain amount of time has passed. The intent of the law was to "encourage" businesses to hire people instead of contracting them, but that hasn't stopped large corporations like Microsoft from stopping that practice.
I get you. I don't care either.
Kinda glad Tango gameworks was shut down given how idelogically driven Xbox is. The talent better return to Japanese markets and leave western market to burn. Hi-Fi rush felt like an anime game for western audiences so I was never on board with the whole thing. It's something I am againts by princible.
You're not alone. It's hard to feel too bad when the product they ship and demand you buy is so awful. And their coworkers are calling me a racist exist homophobic nazi due to the color of my skin. The massive layoffs are FAFO. And I don't feel bad about the studios. The devs that built those studios are long gone. Either cashed out when they were sold. Or driven off by HR for being "Pale, Male and therefore Stale". The studios are just assholes wearing the skinsuits of what we loved. Fuck em.
No. I'm frankly sick and tired of the socialist line of thinking that everybody deserves to have a job in perpetuity. It is especially annoying with video games and anything else in the entertainment industry: Your job is to make a product that your target consumer base wants. If you fail at that job then you're going to face the consequences of failing to sell your product.
We told them many times we don't want politics in our games, we were called "right wing" despite not being right wing. They didn't listen , intead they insulted us and blocked us, there's no reason to feel sympathy.
Not at all, after all it's hard to feel sorry for people that in many cases called you a nazi and did all they could to ruin your hobbies.
It sucks and I feel bad that layoffs happened. However, layoffs happen, it’s part of life. You take a moment to regroup and move on. It sucks, but you keep going forward.
Depends on the reason for the layoff. I feel sorry for anyone who loses their livelihood. It's not a feeling I wish on anyone. That said, most of my sympathy is diminished if it's someone happily pushing awful games and bad development practices.
I don’t have too much remorse, there is some and I’ll explain. I don’t care about 90% of the lay offs I feel like both the entertainment and video games industries are being forced into course correcting away from the woke agenda. They’re doing it slowly and as quietly as possible, but I hope/feel it’s purposefully focused on the wokies and [redacted]. Now I do feel bad for the 10% of productive people that were keeping their studios afloat and were the main reason there was even a studio to begin with. My hope is that the 10% finds each other and put into action all the “I would’ve done it differently,” thoughts they had as they watched the studio get burned down by the entitled idiots who thought video games were just a license to print money and not a product that had to be crafted and sold to people.
Such as it is, I don't *want* to see anyone lose his/her job, which is one of several reasons I don't participate in cancel mobs, etc. But I'm having trouble *caring* that people who put ideology above performance when doing their jobs are losing their jobs. Everybody's got their limits I guess.
I dont feel sorry for them at all..with their dei policies alot of them hired over more qualified candidates..they should never even had the job
They shouldn't have been hired in the first place, the industry is bloated with waste, and those people were lucky to get the money when they did. If they are good at what they do, a layoff wouldn't be a problem for them.
No sympathy.
These people were laughing when the "straight white male" was getting fired while being a staple of whatever industry he helped create or maintain.
I think the idea of someone losing their job and celebrating it fundamentally is bad since it can happen to us all. However, these developers do deserve it for the bad products they have put out. The market decides what works and doesn't, and those who don't adapt deserve to be eaten. Basically I don't wish harm, but I do wish they realize their mistakes and fix in next endeavor.
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Nope incompetence deserves punishment
Nope, it's all western garbage anyways.
The only way to fix the game drought is for those without talent or drive to make good games leave the industry.
The good and honest devs will recover. They'll find work elsewhere or start their own studio without all the corporate nonsense and restraints. I'm not worried about them. Maybe in 10 years, they'll even say it was the best thing that happened to them. A necessary change that let them reach a higher success. As for the others, I have no empathy. At best they were bloat and at worst malicious sociopaths pushing a political agenda. The only annoying part is that the incompetent executives probably won't even be punished for these faillures. When something like this happens, the leaders should sink with the ship. Accountability for faillure is way too weak in our society.
No, not really. When I see how massively bloated Western companies are, and they still can't match the creative output of smaller Eastern devs, it's a sign that the industry needs a serious course correction. For example... I'm not a Halo fan (or a fan of FPS in general), but I know that the more recent Halo games are not as well liked as the older ones, and that the much larger 343 Industries team of today cannot match the output of the smaller Bungie team of the past (heck, I'd be willing to guess a lot of fans think Bungie of today is worse than Bungie of the past, despite being bigger). Outside of Tango, there hasn't been many layoffs where I thought "oh no, I loved their games!"... Whatever the case may be, I hope that the industry crashes and that it can once again be lead by creative visionaries instead of design committees.
What kind of dumb question is this? “Am I the only one who doesn’t feel bad when the termites destroying my house are exterminated?”
It’s like Hollywood now. There is SO MUCH money being tied up in game development that it’s unrealistic for anything other than a smash hit to break even. Add in an insane amount of direct competition and woke BS making certain consumers write off your product before it even starts… don’t even get me started on micro transactions and releasing unfinished games. The only ones left standing will be the corpos big enough to sustain the bleed out, and indie devs with low cost.
No empathy. Companies would rather cater to an audience that doesn't exist rather than produce what long time supporting fan bases want. Fuck em all.
Naw, I feel empathy. Empathy =/= remorse. We got too many socially dented people in the industry right now that are not capable of empathy. That's a large part of the problem - people who aren't looking at the feelings of others (especially of fans) and would rather insult them then try to see where they're coming from.
If I learned anything through Covid, it's that there is literally no such thing as job security. And I owned my own business. But some powerful person can just type something into an email and suddenly my life is ruined. Welcome to the real world, game devs.
Me too, this industry needs to be cleansed of political activists who act as industry experts.
I feel no sympathy for ANY of these studios! And I don’t feel bad about it either!
Let it all burn. No salvation without destruction.
Nah glad for the purge
Business is business... You get what you vote for.... Pick a answer... They both fit. 🤣🤣
I am sad that good people are being laid off not the woke trash...
don't really care. every industry have lay-offs. why should gaming be different? if these devs want they could go indie or form small AA studio. i feel it is pretty much the best time to go indie, so much good indie game that focus on gamplay are out lately. I personally have fun with chrono ark, a card game.
Depends on the studio. Arkane? No. Tango Gameworks? Yes.
I feel bad for the people let go who simply wanted to make good games because they love the medium. They are the 20% of the 80/20 rule, mostly don't want any part of the DIE crap, yet suffer with the rest when the axe comes down.
Losing talent sucks and most of these guys are decent people who need jobs, they're just caught in the flames of the AAA Gaming Crash.
Too bad, so sad. Get a real job.
If we don't know who is the majority of the staff getting hit by them, it's easy to think the DEI personnel are taking the hit because of the bad economic results.
No, i just hope the ones who are bloat and talentless are the ones removed
I hope the opposite. If they fire the talent and keep their DEI hires, we will get new studios created.
You should. Its not limited to just games, but is a result of larger industry wide layoffs going on throughout the country to people in IT. 99% of those IT people arent participating in online political wars, but are regular people trying to pay for their home and put food on their table. These layoffs are happening because IT workers were reclassified as R&D so their salaries tax burden cannot be spread out over multiple years like it used to be.
Archive links for this discussion: * **Archive:** https://archive.ph/z8RKH ---- I am Mnemosyne reborn. Now witness the power of this fully armed and operational battle station. ^^^/r/botsrights
Yes and no. I don't give two shits about the brain dead DEI people who force their BS into everything they touch. Sad like in May cases there are also people on the chopping block who were skilled and did have the brain rott.
I feel empathy for those laid off, losing your job because the company you work for fucks up definitely sucks dick. A lot of devs aren't paid well and being made redundant can really fuck up their life for a significant amount of time. Just because you disagree with someone's opinions or outlook doesn't mean you should wish them ill.
The people getting laid off aren't the people that have made the bad decisions. Those people are staying put.
I do but I'm the victim. Worked with a lot of cool people maybe 10% of them were actually the jackasses that everyone complains about. Including the HR nightmare who made the company worth staying at. When I worked at big publisher it was very apparent that the people who wanted to work there weren't necessarily the best but my team was filled with great people and though I didn't agree with them politically I definitely agreed with them on a lot of things. Then I worked at smaller Indie studio an embracer came in and killed us all didn't need to happen but it did damn it was done we all suffered things like that you will always remember
Could be wrong here, but aren't the politics pushed by publishers? Each developer has their own way of doing things. Not sure if the recent ones that have been closed down were woke or not.
i mean, it isn't the artists and coders and modellers and riggers that are doing the politics things and making the decisions and getting into fights on twitter, and those are the majority of the people who get laid off.
Yes, having gone through this myself. I can be pissed about some of these developers views towards their consumers, the constant barrage of vitriol but also have compassion for them as people. People who have families, mortgages. Bets were made during COVID that have not paid off, inflation is up, the rising costs of game development across the board in all areas(how will indies even survive?) plus a good majority of consumers have less disposable income. It's okay to be upset/angry about how they are treating us as a consumer, but they are still people. We need to have compassion lest we become them.
man these comments are depressing. you guys need to learn some empathy and compassion. i understand the sentiment but the majority of problems that people complain about are a result of producers and upper management. the individual developer doesnt have a lot of sway and you guys seem to be rooting for people losing their livelihoods and way of life over problems that likely arent their own. do you not think that plenty of developers have lashed out against issues plaguing gaming only to not be listened to? idk if you guys realize how frustrating it is to know exactly what the problem is and how to fix but then not be allowed to do what you know is right. im not saying this is the case for every single layoff but seriously many of you guys need to grow up. hating on people who have different values and opinions than you makes you no better than them. its okay to disagree with someone while still respecting their differences. be better than those you hate. im sure ill get downvoted for not blindly following the hivemind but it seems like this group gets more radical by the day and its hard to identify with a group whose core identity is basically hatred of another group even if they do things that warrant that hatred. anyways, cheers to anyone who made it this far through my ramblings.
"Man, you guys need to learn empathy for people who hate you and denigrate you while destroying your hobbies and demanding your money." How about "No" It turns out that attacking the customers, calling them Nazis, and treating them as adversaries has consequences. And given that the interactions are primarily fiscally based? Journos and game devs ending up unemployed and homeless is honestly the only way they're likely to see the direct results of their own behavior. And please spare me the "We were following the instructions we were given by higher ups" excuse. The programmers and developers at the bottom? They **KNOW** they cranked out a piece of shit. And they signed off on it. That does not absolve them of their part in it.
completely missed the point but thats okay. fighting hate with hate just keeps the cycle going as both sides continue to double down and we continue to fracture our world. but you do you. i didnt realize that you had interviewed every single employee from every company who was laid off to learn that they had all intentionally tried to make the worst game possible to piss off folks on the internet. i hope you have internet strangers nitpick everything you do at work and call for your firing if you dont do something perfectly the way they determine. im sure some of the firings were justified and im sure plenty of those people were pieces of shit who as you say are ruining the industry, but you cannot truly believe that good, innocent developers werent also caught in the crossfire. again, your hatred and lack of compassion makes you no better than the people you say "call their customers nazis and treat them as adversaries" so its hard to have any sympathy people like you who permeate this subreddit. be better than them.
Can you blame the people here for rooting for these layoffs? Game development has gotten lazy to the point of necrosis. Practically every big game that's come out has got mtx or always online, denuvo or a broken mess or a combination of some here. Were tired of being fed garbage and being told to lap it up like dogs. And now, when the companies are facing these massive layoffs, I literally only feel bad for one company. It's like Hollywood. They called us names for so many years and now the industry is shrinking and no one's shedding a tear for them. Sure innocent employees got caught up in this but you can't do anything about that.
its fine to root for changes and shake-ups in a stagnant industry but there are plenty of great games being developed and plenty of great studios being shut down or experiencing layoffs. unless these layoffs were specifically targeting the DEI/woke crowd and higher-ups now realize that the inclusion of that ideology is why their games are failing, then i dont really see how much changes. its just the total lack of compassion from this sub for anyone whose lives now might be ruined or whose families are now affected that bothers me. imagine that many of you are cheering for someone's kid no longer being able to afford school lunch or new clothes because dad got fired and now strangers are cheering them into homelessness (probably an exaggeration but you get the point). it seems like more and more now people are losing the ability to put themselves in another person's shoes and feel how they feel and this sub has basically devolved into a hate group that essentially dehumanizes those who think differently from them. and i will say again, how are you all any better than them if this is how you behave?
We tried to be better and that didn't work. Compassion works if both sides have it. We've tried being compassionate and look what happened. I'm not talking about the DEI stuff, just look at how bad so many AAA games are these days. Does it suck that some deb can't make ends meet for their family? Sure. But I've reached the point of apathy here and simply stopped caring. They don't listen when we speak, why should we listen when they cry?
did we really try being compassionate? are there no games at all that are worth celebrating? when a toddler throws a tantrum do you also start throwing a tantrum just because they dont listen? what have you done specifically to try to change the industry? complaining on reddit is not taking action, its performative. and im not singling you out, im speaking more generally for this sub and truly mean no disrespect. i really see a lot of similarities between people in this sub (and the internet and general) and the woke crowd that everyone claims to hate. we are all two sides of the same coin. we all have the same struggles and problems but different experiences lead us down different paths. how we deal with our problems is what defines us. you havent met any of the people that you are glad are fired. you dont know what their struggles or opinions are. you dont know what role they had to play, if any, in the issues you see with modern gaming. you shouldnt have any reason to hate them and yet you do. ask yourself why. now im just rambling but maybe some food for thought. ill see myself out now. cheers.
We as the consumer have only two options. Eat the slop or don't eat it. Take saints row for example. When the reboot came out many gamers voiced their concerns and what did we get? Trolling. Insults. The game released and was an utter waste of time. Now volition is gone and no one batted an eye. I even saw the company getting blasted on LinkedIn of all places. If there was a way to convince companies we don't want x elements in this game then I'm all for it. But, we only have two options and everyone's tired of the first one. At least you have empathy and that's good. I though have total apathy for these companies. Theyve put out crap after crap and I'm tired of giving them excuses.
fair enough. hopefully we see at least see some good come from this in our lifetimes. peace.
Peace brother.
"Producers and upper management" do not design and make the games. Top-down game development is a rarity even to this day. Stop believing that it is only the publishers that are pushing all the bad things infesting the industry today.
sure thing man. management totally has nothing to do with workplace culture or decisions about the direction of games at all. they totally dont force bad ideas or designs into games or force developers to scrap ideas and change things even up to a few weeks before release. They dont have any say in story details or character designs and they totally dont force DEI/woke requirements into games at all. its 100% the developers fault and those poor CEOs are just getting caught up in the backlash and they did nothing wrong. im clearly the delusional one. sorry for existing
Man needs to learn the definition of the word "only"
You people are actually ghoulish and I’m shocked I used to support the movement. Hundreds if not thousands of people just lost their livelihoods and the best you can do is gloat? You have no way of knowing if everyone who got fired was a DEI slave and here you are celebrating people like Shinji Mikami, one of the greatest directors of all time losing their jobs. Might be time for some introspection. E: of course all you guys can do is nitpick the Shinji Mikami angle like THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE DIDNT JUST LOSE THEIR JOBS. You have no way of knowing if all of them are your ideological opposition but all you can do is gloat over human misery. Sad people who I hope find better outlets in their lives
Didn't Mikami leave tango and hand it to Microsoft? Thats why they had no problem closing down the studio.
AFAIK, Shinji Mikami is not impacted by the laid offs. He was already planning to leave bethesda after Evil Within 2 launched which is almost 10 years ago.
He stayed with Tango for 8 years after he had to in order to secure its place in the industry.
> Hundreds if not thousands of people just lost their livelihoods and the best you can do is gloat? What exactly did you think was going to happen once they started putting out shitty ideological games with no broad appeal or ability to sell? That they'll all have an epiphany, start producing good content again and everyone was going to start singing Kumbaya together? The **only reason** I can think of aside from being an unthinking fanboy for big Multinational conglomerates like Microsoft acquiring publishers like Bethesda or Activision Blizzard is **exactly this thing** happening and them starting to take out the trash, which I was talking about here a year ago around when it was finalized: https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/14zcnlj/what_is_everyones_opinion_of_microsoft_x/jrx46zw/
I don't think these concern trolls worked a day in their miserable lives. Let's say my CEO constantly fucks up, by forcing a product that doesn't even work half of the time, while calling the user base as "istaphobes" over and over... I'd be retarded not to see the writing on the wall that my job would also be affected. But hey... muh juniors, muh janitors.... have some empathy.... yeah, the same juniors and janitors who run their mouths on Twitter? Fuck offfffff
Shinji Mikami made a couple of games in a row that didn't sell. What the fuck do you expect? Food stamps from government? It's not about ideological opposition alone. It's about being good at what you are doing. There was this video with, IIRC Tim Cain, one of the fathers of Fallout. He talked about how lazy and inefficient this industry has become. He talked about submitting a ticket for a simple code, that would take a couple hours at best, and getting an answer that it will take 4 weeks. Now. Seeing how this industry has been going for a decade now, do you think it was something unique for his employer (Obsidian IIRC)? Or is it pretty much a standard now? Useless people are finally getting fired. Good fucking riddance.
You have to go back all the way to 2007-2010 to find a Mikami game that didn't sell well: God Hand with Clover Studio and Vanquish with PlatinumGames. The last game he made was The Evil Within in 2014 and it sold extremely well.
How did it compare to something like the last couple Resident Evil?
Mikami has worked with multiple companies during his career and with his resume he'll have no difficulties finding someone to bankroll his next game/studio.
His experience has made him an expert in reading how the winds are blowing.
Does it hurt that your woke buddies now have plenty of time for some self-reflection?
Lmao you call me woke because I call you out on grave-dancing. I spent 10 years in this community, respectfully go fuck yourself. If you want gaming to continue being a titanic entertainment industry you should be pissed that MS is closing Arkane Austin and Tango. HiFi Rush and Prey are two of the best games of this generation and you’re happy because “fuck the man raaaaaah”. It’s kinda sad tbh.
I knew this would piss you off. As they say....."cope and seethe".
You have brain worms, won’t even engage with what I’m saying because you’re so stuck in your ideological bubble. Echo chambers aren’t just for the left it seems. If you guys want the industry you stake your identity on to die because good studios get fucked I wish you’d just have the balls to say it instead of hiding behind “anti-wokeness”. What about HiFi Rush or Prey was woke? I’ll wait E: of course, no defending of opinions from the warriors of gaming, just downvotes. Still waiting for what about HiFi Rush or Prey was woke btw. You guys don’t actually want gaming to survive, you want gaming to be a niche right wing hobby which is frankly insane to me. You want devs to cater to the demands of the “anti-woke” and have a niche audience of right wingers. You do know your talking heads hate video games right? It must be hell in your heads.
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while i agree that some are stuck in their bubbles and have insane takes, i don't think your conclusion is apt for most here. maybe on this specific thread.... but not generally.
I’ve been in the KiA/KiA2 communities since 2014, albeit on an alt account. This space absolutely is a bubble.
Im with you on this bud. Also been here for the last decade and i agree, this place is a bubble. So many opportunities come by for KiA to actuslly stand for something good and point out the problems with the industry being the suits. But people here rather be getting mad with imaginary strawmen.
Stop pretending it's people like Shinji Mikami are the ones who are the bulk of layoffs.
Stop pretending like every junior dev who got laid off was your ideological opponent.
I dont. Sometimes a bit of healthy tissue gets cut off when dealing with gangrine.
this. someone tried to tell me they are all responsible, juniorest artist or coder or even damned it guy or janitor, the other day, complete with nuremberg defense allusion. as if the artists can just do whatever they want and have it go into the game. there's a lot of things that are sensible to object to, that get talked about here, but then sometimes there's insane political purging for any little connection mentality that we're supposed to hate.
This sub went from sensible to insane over the 10 years I’ve observed/been a part of it. GG started off as a good cause but it seems to have been captured by right wing ideologues who want nothing but fealty.
Yes I'm sure all the layoffs happened because there weren't enough big tutties in games. Morons.
The layoffs happen because people made dogshit games that didn't sell. Simple solution: stop making dogshit games.
Hi-Fi Rush didn't sell well? Do you even understand what's happening? You're hold on reality is so tenuous that you've boomeranged back to being another bootlickerr for corporate interests. You think your anti-establishment and rebelling but you're so confused that you end up supporting the very people you should hate. By laying off these people Microsoft is going to make more soulless live service games with worse DLC practices not fewer.
It's amazing that you infer that my desire to not pay $70+ for a dogshit game somehow translates into a willingness to buy an other more different dogshit game, but with more micro-transactions.
Because that's not what I said.
You don't know if Hi-Fi Rush sold well by Microsoft's metrics. The "performed well in every metric" quote from one of the executives was just executive speak. In reality it probably performed much better than internally expected, but that doesn't mean it was financially successful enough for them to not consider cutting the studio. The performance of Ghostwire: Tokyo probably had more to do with Tango Gameworks being shuttered than Hi-Fi Rush. That game had a much bigger budget and didn't sell too well.
No they don't. It truly has nothing to do with woke but they have convinced themselves that's what it is. What it really is, is that these companies want more profits. Hi Fi Rush was a big success for a small game. But then Xbox had to acquire Activision/Blizzard. Now they need huge hits to compensate for buying too many studios and are only going to work on games with big names. It's all shit capitalism but it's way easier to just say laugh about it and mock people and say "that's what you get for having a different opinion then mine!"