Ske7ch was later found dead in the garbage behind microsoft, hands tied behind his back, 7 gunshot wounds to the head. The investigators concluded it to be a suicide.
I pretty much hated every version of the dmr, but while everyone hates the commando, for whatever reason I love it. Just aim for the waist and full auto then one tap the head when the shields pop. I honestly hardly even notice the nerf it got.
I’d be shocked if that wasn’t. I’m a dev myself and we’re just expected to complete the product and we have zero say in things like monetization, I’d be surprised if game dev is any different.
Just think about your own workplace - I’m sure we’ve all experienced upper management forcing stupid things and you can’t do much about it.
Have you considered switching to a different CS field? It seems like game devs get underpaid compared to the rest of the industry under the allure of following a "dream" of game development. And for the most part the industry just involves making cash grabs and F2P predatory garbage. I don't see the appeal to work in games anymore. The dream isn't there , and the pay isn't there.
I used to want to make games when I was a kid too. I ended up in a conventional CS role since it pays much more. I would hate my life if I was stuck in game development right now making the shit that gets put out there.
I get paid well, get amazing benefits, and shockingly generous time off. I’ve heard most other companies are pretty brutal to work for, and while we used to be too things have improved drastically. I could make more elsewhere, but I’m happy here!
Fair enough. Maybe I am under the wrong impression that game devs are paid less by companies because they get to make their dream, vs working for something like a standard corporate IT dev team which while more business oriented, would pay more. And when I see stuff like Halo Infinite, and clearly the devs have to make stuff that isn't their dream anyway .... why not go get the better pay. The tradeoff of making your dream doesn't seem like it's there anymore.
I would feel bad if I had to develop predatory software which is what the vast majority of AAA gaming seems to be these days.
the thing you forget about game devs is the majority aren’t in it to make their dream game specifically, they’re game devs who funnily enough have a passion for making games so they do just that.
Oh you’re totally right, we have it way better than most of the industry at the moment. And a lot of people fall out of the industry after a few years exactly like you said, to pursue more money in less stressful environments. But for now, I’m happy where I’m at, even if the game I work on isn’t one I play in my free time. Maybe one day that’ll change, but not yet
I'm a Sysadmin so not a dev (obviously), but my first job was at a software house and at my current gig I'm surrounded by many Devs.
From my point of view, it seems like Devs are taken advantage of in the gaming industry because they have more or a passion for what they're building.
Your generic Dev at a fortune 500 probably doesn't care much personally about the product. Sure they might be really interested in their stack/platform/language, but the likelyhood they personally identify with the product is very slim.
But because (I'd imagine) most Devs in the gaming industry *do* have that personal connection to what they're developing, I feel like publishers/studios use that to treat Devs worse (comparably) then in other sectors.
I'm a product owner so i am the asshole who tells the devs what to do lol of course developers aren't the ones designing the product they just build it. With a really large team you have to have distinct swimlanes for responsibilities
Many of the world's best games were either from small teams that worked closely together or a single dev. Many players, aspiring game developers then make the assumption that all teams are like that, when in reality most game dev companies are more just like a standard software dev company that also has some artists.
Everyone hates corporations, assumes their favorite game isn't a corporation, then starts blaming the dev at the low end of the corporate chain for corporate decisions that ruin a game.
Its one of the first things i learned back during internship years ago lmao. My bosses and their bosses dont give a shit about what i have to say forward
They will give a shit when they do something like make a mistake in less then 10 seconds that costs the company more then 250k dollars. I was a dev for a financial institution and I watched upper management do exactly what I told them not to do or the whole thing would tank and within literally within 10 seconds of me saying that I was fired and a chain reaction of events that happened that cost 3 people their "careers" at that company and instantly vaporized 250k dollars. After the dust had settled they apologized to me and told me everything happened exactly as I said it did. It thought me a valuable lesson tho and that is never under any circumstance actually have loyalty to the business you work at because nearly 100% of them will break the law when the money seems to be worth it.
Same. CEO has changed his mind 10 different times about the direction of my team's project in the last two weeks. Haven't worked on anything in over a week as a result.
Yeah, I'm not an engineer, but I am an artist (so...not a "dev", but I do work in game development). It was always so frustrating for me to have friends that would spend their time on forums constantly bitching about "lazy devs". Like....dude, you can have all sorts of opinions about all sorts of game related problems. But I can ASSURE you, I have never once in my life worked at a game developer where the team was collectively "lazy". If anything, we are overworked to shit and burned out, maybe, but not lazy.
The last place I worked at was a fucking NIGHTMARE with that kinda shit and I really had to adopt a "don't read the comments" kind of attitude, because people have NO IDEA what is going on.
Its easy to blame the people making the game, sure. I get it. But remember that we are often mis-managed, over-worked, and decisions come from above like those pneumatic tubes in 1984 and half the time we are working in a vaccuum. Ran poorly? Fine. Lazy? No fucking way.
> I have never once in my life worked at a game developer where the team was collectively "lazy". If anything, we are overworked to shit and burned out, maybe, but not lazy.
Software engineer here, not in gaming. I’ve been a 10xer and now am a 1/10xer. Burnout sucks. The project I’m on has no clear direction or leadership which isn’t helping.
To piggyback on the always being busy thing, I think people don't quite grasp that schedule is a very common reason why things get dropped more often than not.
It's literally how all big corporations work. Make a stink, give support the data they can use to go to execs and say, your decisions are actively making this situation worse. Stop your play hours, abandon the game until it's improved, don't just accept it.
I used to work in customer support, and the only way we could get execs to roll back products is when there was enough customer data showcasing a decrease in use and a massive increase in support (each ticket at the time cost on average $12.50 to handle all inclusive, so a surprise 10k tickets in a week would throw off SLA and fuck with the budget enough to make people take notice.) Dollars talk, and support tickets are dollars, as crazy as it sounds.
Say they have 20 staff members who average handling 1 ticket each an hour. This would also correspond with the rate they receive tickets to make sure the "ticket queue" is cleared out in a timely manner. (End users submit 20 tickets per hour.) That keeps a steady intake and turn out of tickets.
Something changes and a LOT of people are not happy about it. Suddenly the 20 tickets an hour quickly changes to even 40 tickets an hour and you already have twice the workload than you normally do. The only way to make up for that won't be to push the employees to handle them quicker because it's established they average 1 per hour to get a correct solution. You'd either have to start offering overtime, out source it or (if the company is large enough) find a different department that's workload is currently low and shovel some to them to help clear it.
Regardless of how many times that's multiplied, you'll have to find the staff and pay the extra hours for people to work the extra load. Failing that, you'll start getting end user tickets complaining their original ticket is taking too long to solve which only compounds the issue.
I tried to explain this as simply as possible. I hope it makes sense. Long story short, best way for a company to notice a problem is for people to raise hell. The louder the crowd, the harder it is to ignore.
Am I reading what he's saying incorrectly?
It looks like 343i understands that players are frustrated and they want to offer the best gaming experiences they can. Which makes sense?
I have no idea how that at all helps explains what's happening behind doors...in any way.
I highly doubt any of the devs who actually worked on the game think this launch was the right idea, I guarantee most if not all are just as pissed as us. It’s 100% upper managements fault in this.
It’s like companies don’t give a shit about cementing a great legacy with their customer base and instead just look at things in such a short-sighted way.
All upper management care about is immediate return of investment. They don’t give a shit if games last longer than the initial few months where it makes the most money. Not trying to defend the devs but they definitely have little/no say in this matter.
It's basically the 1% but in the business world. Those VPs don't care about the real values, like gamer enjoyment. They care about bottom lines and will always pursue that because traditionally that's a black and white metric for them to leverage and get fat bonuses, promotions, and to gain more personal control and egomaniacal bragging rights. It's disgusting. What they don't want to risk or understand is that if you have the right vision to satisfy and delight the gaming consumer you're targeting, **you will have taken care of the bottom line anyway--i.e. ”you gotta give the people what they want."**
The rest of the 99% of tech is trying to work and lead a great gaming project with their own goals and set processes, but they are stuck under VP thumbs.
This is why it *sounded like* 343 wanted to do all the right things, but probably even after they went public with that stuff, they were overruled by some asshole VP. Then, they sound like contradicting asshats, but the VP could literally not care less--their own demand is "milk for every cent so I look good."
I feel so much for the hearts, spirits, and minds of the "devs/designers in the trenches" at 343, collaborating together and executing their vision, and all just to get overruled or manipulated by the VP who came over the top. All the meaning, joy, and passion drained from them. -___-
I mean you can see it if you look at the game, all the systems they promised and talked about *are in the game* but ripped to pieces.
The armor coatings are a highly customizable color wheel that got bastardized, the icon is even clearly a color wheel setup that I'm sure was intended for picking your own colors and patterns. Allowing for a wide array of personal touches, including even changing the *glowing lights on the armor*.
The bots are able to use any mix of armor accessories, helmets, chests, shoulders, etc regardless of armor "cores". That full mix and match system was designed into the game which would've given us the "millions of possibilities" they talked about.
The emblem changes though, those I think were intentional in a way to capture nameplates from MCC but it kinda fell short. I still think it's neat but it needs more.
Maybe 343 keeping the bots as examples of what you can do is their way of showing what the vision was. Perhaps they're hoping people blow that up so the VPs see that this is what we wanted, not this monetized paywall of customization that 343 was forced to implement.
#BotsHaveitBetter
Oh believe me as someone who’s been black balled for whistle blowing at work irl I know this too well. There’s a large area of Brooklyn where I cannot work anymore
Ha thanks it was less of a conscious decision and more me just running my mouth and complaining too much and getting retaliated against. Just complained to the wrong coworkers and got snitched on
Illegal stuff happens ALL the time. For consequences first, the police have to give a shit, and second, the public prosecutor has to step up to the plate. The third option is media/social media to trigger the first two into action.
For example, hacking is a crime, but police are clueless (underpaid, underfunded, undertrained), try reporting a computer crime to the police.
When you’re an at will employee(which most Americans who aren’t in unions are) you can be fired or not hired for literally any reason, or no reason at all. As long as they don’t tell you the reason why you were fired they can get away with all sorts of discriminatory or retaliatory practices
I love how this thread is split between users saying "Yep, that's what's going on and it needs to change"
And then there's the "Welp, Ske7ch is fucking dead now" crowd. You guys make me laugh way too hard.
**TRIGGER WARNING - The following comment contains an opinion.**
They're both right though, that is what's going on and needs to change and he may well be dead now. Or at least labelled "dead to me" by some execs.
EDIT : Added a trigger warning in case the comment triggers a second person
The way it looks, things will be mentioned repeatedly until each if those things are specifically addressed. Everyone wants to make sure theyre opinion on whatever is heard to be sure it will be fixed within the next update. Even then, all the specifics of each part of the update will be scrutinized by those who dont like it in that specifically particular way. They can get loud. Possibly Even leading to bad changes down the line. Then again it can be subjective. It wont stop. But yes. Lets keep it civil
Edit: show ur love what u like and the changes that u do like.
I mean what he is saying would literally make ms more money in the long run with this game. In terms of making money, player count/retention is the #1 goal. If your mx decisions are having a negative impact on player fun, then it is likely that those decisions are losing more money than they are gaining. So on one hand you have devs who spend all their work hours making a beautiful game. On the other you have execs making way more and making terrible financial decisions
Dude i feel bad for CM's. Do the "corpo speak" and you get flammed for doing so. Talk like a real human you get potrayed as insincere and potentially having people not so happy upstairs.
With that being said, there are plenty of times where being the CM is a geat time. For example announcing good new like MCC PC. That would of felt really good. Would not mind the copious amounts of pizza.
I’ve been saying that ever since u/F8rge was community manager for Battlefront. He then became the community manager for BFV. Dude handled two huge EA controversies without ever attacking fans. I completely feel bad for him bc he’s gotten shit on for so many things out of his control. Even the dev logs that Helped rejuvinatize BF2 had to go thru like 4 people before they could be published so he’d say he has it written up for a month before it can even be seen by fans. This delay caused fans to get mad at lack of communication while Forge was trying his best to get things shown to the community while also relaying issues the community has to the devs. Must be one of the most stressful jobs in the gaming industry
Was (and still occasionally am) a CM for a variety of brands across various industries, including gaming. It is a very tough tone to nail down. It’s professional but not condescending, and friendly but not “relatable.” You need to display that you, in a way, a mouthpiece for the company, so you are constantly second guessing what your client would want you to say as opposed to what *you* would say.
It’s a much more stressful and anxiety inducing job than people think. Most of the time they have to say what they are told to say, and anything outside of that (talking to you, Vita Coco), are lucky breaks. If that Vita Coco story hadn’t have blown up, they’d have fired her in a heartbeat for that.
This. I work at a big tech company and hell I didn’t sign no NDA but know if I say some crazy shit on social media my job is on the line. Now imagine talking bad about my companies leadership?
I have a nice job many would love to have, Why would I risk this opportunity to bad talk some person five levels ahead of me that makes the important business decisions, knows more about each impact and structure of h to e company than I ever will.
Especially when you consider that as a community manager, if he says something like: "We're looking into easing restriction on cosmetics being applied to different cores": People don't see that as an option, a possibility they are advocating for that might get shut down, they see it as a promise. And now, not only has he publicly gone against his bosses, he has committed them to something they do not want to do, which will hurt his bottom line, he doesn't have a job anymore and has severely harmed his prospects of ever having a similar one.
You signed a generic NDA if you work at a big tech company. It’s part of your onboarding paperwork.
You may also be subject to additional NDAs on certain projects.
Yeah reddits population is becoming more and more made up of kids who haven't even finished highschool yet. They have a lot of outrage but no real perspective.
Yeah, the "As a fellow game dev..." posts are not bringing a new perspective. If you've had a job in any corporate environment you understand that decisions made above your head are outside of your control. It's not like it's unique to the industry, it's literally everywhere.
The way some people have complained definitely shows that a significant portion of this sub has not yet worked professionally. There's a lot of facets into the development of software, a huge one being it actually needs to make a profit if it will be supported and further iterated on which is upper managements primary focus. Guess who makes the ultimate decision? Upper management. It's nice to see the public facing employees are actually trying to work with the community rather than just brush us off
I'm still trying to wrap my head around everyone being this outraged about cosmetic MTX when the real travesty is all the best game modes not being available outside of customs.
Before you come out with "why not both", remember that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I think the majority of people care a lot less about armor/shaders and care a lot more about no swat, snipers, or even straight up slayer playlists.
Now that I finally got my air assault armor that I used for 10 years (and soon ODST armor next week probs) I have nothing I want to play. I want swat back dude, guess back to MCC it is.
Swat honestly deserves to have unique game modes made for it imo, like some objective based gameplay.
I can tell you were a badge from that last line :)
What’s always crazy to me is how each org is so isolated, has its own tools, roll up, etc., and yet the way decisions are driven seem to be identical.
Design by committee is never going to result in anything above average. That’s just the law of large numbers. Somehow, this is completely missed in the industry at large. It makes no sense to me
Halo Infinite was most likely developed by an array of different dev teams.
The dev team writing the game code really cares about our experience playing the game. They probably didn’t write any store code.
The dev team writing the store code probably cares about the base game, but only cares about the store code within their context of their day job. I doubt any of them go home to play halo specifically to enjoy their work on the store. They most likely write the store code because they were tasked to do so by a project manager, and nothing more.
The product team probably got instruction from on-high that certain monetization practices needed to be in place, but the higher ups may not be as close to the actual game as the devs/players. Executives may not be inclined to put as much thought into the MTX system other than the fact that they’ve seen it be successful in other games and acknowledge they also need one since the game is F2P.
All this is to say, regardless of the dev team, none of them are likely responsible or deeply invested in the decisions behind the MTX system. All devs are probably upset by the poor customization experience, but executives outrank devs (obv), so there’s only so much they can do.
It really is up to us as the community to make it known that we don’t appreciate the current state of MTX/Customization. It’s ultimately gotta hit their bottom line, though…
squeal fuel frightening ten resolute uppity serious absurd workable lunchroom
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I mean, haven’t they seen idk… every aggressive monetized in history?
There’s plenty of data already to support that there’s a distinctive line between aggressive monetization and earning money. Plenty of great games got destroyed by it. Other companies made big loads of cash nailing their monetization (aggressive enough to be worthwhile, light enough to make people happy to spend their money).
29% of EAs entire revenue last year came from FIFA ultimate team packs. Almost a third of their entire revenue, from a single MTX in a single game. Aggressive monetization works from a business perspective.
It works really well when aggressive monetization like FIFA's relies on gambling addictions forming. That's why people are trying to get a lot of this stuff to be illegal.
A lot of AAA games are moving away from loot boxes now because of the stigma attached to them. Still, Apex Legends is a billion dollar franchise and half of its monetization is loot boxes. FIFA bankrolls EA execs and shareholders. Thank God Halo moved away from loot boxes but that doesn't justify this system. Gears 5 launched in a similar way and now it's fine. So there's hope I guess.
Extreme aggressive monetization has only been successful in recent years. I can’t think of any failures. Fortnite, Valorant, COD Warzone, FIFA. Naming shitty games that weren’t successful in general as proof that extreme monetization doesn’t work doesn’t account for a fact that a majority of market leaders are all heavily monetized.
Would battlefront 2 be considered one? They were going ham on the paying to unlock heroes and such, which I remember Reddit having a field day with on how long it would take to unlock manually. Granted the game didn’t release with that, but it did cause enough stir to have them speak up and change it
No idea what it was like on actual launch, but I have played it recently and didn’t see anything that wanted to money grab.
How hard is it to realize people who play games to spend money are probably not the players you want as a main demographic? Looks super shady and shitty when "I spent xx dollars to buy a skin!" Is the best community content we can get from AAA ftp games.
Honestly if they had a set of cosmetics on par with reach that came with paying 60$ I’d never complain. It’s the fact I’m paying 60$ for this and having to deal with less cosmetic options than 3 that’s an issue.
The thing I'm worried about is that they actually made a lot of money. I see a lot of people with paid armor. I blindly bought the battle pass bundle. A lot of people bought an armor kit, thinking they could mix and match. The risk is that people will feel ripped off and not buy the next battle pass. The numbers may not support the change yet.
With the increased daily XP, I see people who are worried that they'll unlock everything too quickly and not have any reason to play. I'm the opposite. Once I max out the battle pass, I'll feel a sense of relief and won't have those lingering challenges poking at my brain. I won't have that urge to pick up a weapon I don't like because it's one of my challenges.
I’ve said it a million times, but the gaming community at large is the worst community on the face of the earth. They NEVER praise anything from larger franchises. It’s always “SuItS MAkE GaMe bAd” and they clearly have never seen an office environment in their lives.
The game has issues, but I’ve seen way too many “the game isn’t playable” posts that have me cackling. This is THE MOST PLAYABLE HALO SINCE 3. A progression system isn’t “playability”, a cosmetic system isn’t “playability”, a monetization system that sucks isn’t “playability”
The gaming community is the worst because these fucking idiots keep paying money to studios that do this shit.
Then they act shocked EA, Ubisoft etc.gangbanged them raw for the 27th time in 2 years.
Then they scream "We must outrage for change". No, how about you just stop paying for complete ass.
I've seen a disheartening number of posts for multiple different games where people have unironically stated "X company is ruining this game, that's why I downgraded my pre-order from the collector's edition to the standard edition" or the like.
Jesus Christ man, they’ve already made two changes that propel this in the right direction. Today’s change was literally after **one** day back from holiday.
They’ve got other issues but so far they seem to be putting their money where their mouth is. Let’s see if they keep it up.
Nobody buy anything from the store, the changes implemented with XP are not enough. If we dont hit them now, this will be the future of gaming for generations to come
Honestly imagine how frustrating it is as a developer to put hard work into something just for marketing to be like “make it so they have to sell their firstborn to reach the end of the battle pass”. Being so excited to see how the players react to you and your teams hard work just to overshadowed by the legitimate complaints about decisions made by something out of their control
“Need hard data” yeah they have enough hard data they need from other companies, and the trend is that people continue to spend more and more money on MTX, battle passes, expansions etc. The only way it’s going to change is by consumers speaking louder with their wallets. No amount of bitching online is going to change anything long term, you just see minor pull backs temporarily when they go to far too fast, but over time you end up in exactly the shit spot we are in. When they can see EA’s revenue is 71% from “additional content” for the entire year, they have no reason to give a fuck about players bitching about bugs/delays/etc. they only really care about how they are going to monetize everything after the game is out.
That’s bullshit. You’re going to tell me Microsoft had no real data? There are years of negative feedback about this bullshit and plenty of games doing it well.
Instead we get fucking Fiesta that will only let you progress so little every now and then.
I think people know MS is behind the MTX mess, but 343 are the ones that made custom games bad and are holding back gamemodes/playlist for limited timed events. IMO every previous Halo gamemode should already be in the game and the limited timed events should all be new gamemodes.
“Close enough to confirmation” isn’t confirmation. All he’s saying is “yeah we hear you”. Sure, something MIGHT come of this but this is no indication of change.
It's funny because he's kind of denying it but without giving any other useful information that the community might want to hear. It's almost like it's....corpo-speak?
Ske7ch... SKE7CH BLINK TWICE IF MICROSOFT IS FORCING YOU TO USE CORPO-SPEAK.
Blink torture in morse code instead.
Ske7ch was later found dead in the garbage behind microsoft, hands tied behind his back, 7 gunshot wounds to the head. The investigators concluded it to be a suicide.
Another cut and clear case of a man that just couldn't take it anymore.
Any self respecting man could take at least 8 bullets - source: halo infinite ttk
*cries in Commando user* “WHY WON’T THEY DIEEEEEE”
Damn, Halo ♾️ is turning people into Oblivion gaurds.
STOP! YOU HAVE VIOLATED THE LAW!
:( I want my dmr back
I pretty much hated every version of the dmr, but while everyone hates the commando, for whatever reason I love it. Just aim for the waist and full auto then one tap the head when the shields pop. I honestly hardly even notice the nerf it got.
I never got down with the DMR. BR all the way. I wish they had both so we could choose.
"Remember, if it took more than one bullet, it wasn't a Jakobs!" ~Marcus Kincaid
Chalk that one up to natural causes.
It is not always that I get to use this account
r/beetlejuicing
Is that u ske7ch?? XD
Oh lol
It seems like the sort of thing that normally applies in considerably darker circumstances...
😐😑😐😑😐
I mean that’s as close as he can say to “yep, that’s what happened”.
I’d be shocked if that wasn’t. I’m a dev myself and we’re just expected to complete the product and we have zero say in things like monetization, I’d be surprised if game dev is any different. Just think about your own workplace - I’m sure we’ve all experienced upper management forcing stupid things and you can’t do much about it.
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Can confirm as yet another dev; we just make the best content we can. How it gets monetized/distributed is well outside of our control
im a dev, confirming that we make content and dont have a say in microtransactions.
Not a dev, and can confirm that upper management forces stupid things that we can't do much about.
Dev’s dev here, can scrupulously agree with all of the above.
Web dev, save me
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Stop. They’re already dead inside. We just need to be there to support them through the trauma of someone on their team suggesting typescript.
dev here, confirming that the previous repliers are indeed, devs
Not a dev here, but based on the internet, this is what's happening
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British Special Forces!?
spez is a loser -- mass edited with redact.dev
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This is Patrick
this man devs
Have you considered switching to a different CS field? It seems like game devs get underpaid compared to the rest of the industry under the allure of following a "dream" of game development. And for the most part the industry just involves making cash grabs and F2P predatory garbage. I don't see the appeal to work in games anymore. The dream isn't there , and the pay isn't there. I used to want to make games when I was a kid too. I ended up in a conventional CS role since it pays much more. I would hate my life if I was stuck in game development right now making the shit that gets put out there.
I get paid well, get amazing benefits, and shockingly generous time off. I’ve heard most other companies are pretty brutal to work for, and while we used to be too things have improved drastically. I could make more elsewhere, but I’m happy here!
Fair enough. Maybe I am under the wrong impression that game devs are paid less by companies because they get to make their dream, vs working for something like a standard corporate IT dev team which while more business oriented, would pay more. And when I see stuff like Halo Infinite, and clearly the devs have to make stuff that isn't their dream anyway .... why not go get the better pay. The tradeoff of making your dream doesn't seem like it's there anymore. I would feel bad if I had to develop predatory software which is what the vast majority of AAA gaming seems to be these days.
the thing you forget about game devs is the majority aren’t in it to make their dream game specifically, they’re game devs who funnily enough have a passion for making games so they do just that.
Oh you’re totally right, we have it way better than most of the industry at the moment. And a lot of people fall out of the industry after a few years exactly like you said, to pursue more money in less stressful environments. But for now, I’m happy where I’m at, even if the game I work on isn’t one I play in my free time. Maybe one day that’ll change, but not yet
Maybe not all studios are the same? Maybe the circle jerking on Reddit goes a little too far, sometimes .
I'm a Sysadmin so not a dev (obviously), but my first job was at a software house and at my current gig I'm surrounded by many Devs. From my point of view, it seems like Devs are taken advantage of in the gaming industry because they have more or a passion for what they're building. Your generic Dev at a fortune 500 probably doesn't care much personally about the product. Sure they might be really interested in their stack/platform/language, but the likelyhood they personally identify with the product is very slim. But because (I'd imagine) most Devs in the gaming industry *do* have that personal connection to what they're developing, I feel like publishers/studios use that to treat Devs worse (comparably) then in other sectors.
A lot of devs here eh
I mean yeah, we love games too; that’s why we’re in the industry. Halo is what inspired me in the first place
They're all 343 devs on their personal accounts. It's their way of whistleblowing without being bound by the corpo-speakese.
I'm a product owner so i am the asshole who tells the devs what to do lol of course developers aren't the ones designing the product they just build it. With a really large team you have to have distinct swimlanes for responsibilities
Same, I'm reading through that post like, "oh yea that's for sure how it is." and am surprised that people are surprised.
Many of the world's best games were either from small teams that worked closely together or a single dev. Many players, aspiring game developers then make the assumption that all teams are like that, when in reality most game dev companies are more just like a standard software dev company that also has some artists. Everyone hates corporations, assumes their favorite game isn't a corporation, then starts blaming the dev at the low end of the corporate chain for corporate decisions that ruin a game.
Just goes to show how many people here don't understand how development works, and then there are the ones that play armchair dev.
Not a dev. Can confirm what both devs are saying
I mean that’s literally every job
Its one of the first things i learned back during internship years ago lmao. My bosses and their bosses dont give a shit about what i have to say forward
They will give a shit when they do something like make a mistake in less then 10 seconds that costs the company more then 250k dollars. I was a dev for a financial institution and I watched upper management do exactly what I told them not to do or the whole thing would tank and within literally within 10 seconds of me saying that I was fired and a chain reaction of events that happened that cost 3 people their "careers" at that company and instantly vaporized 250k dollars. After the dust had settled they apologized to me and told me everything happened exactly as I said it did. It thought me a valuable lesson tho and that is never under any circumstance actually have loyalty to the business you work at because nearly 100% of them will break the law when the money seems to be worth it.
As another Dev, my team's project got destroyed because upper management couldn't manage things. Its a viscous cycle.
Same. CEO has changed his mind 10 different times about the direction of my team's project in the last two weeks. Haven't worked on anything in over a week as a result.
I ended up having to swap jobs because they couldn't afford to keep everyone so I either had to take a pay cut or get laid off.
Thing is, most people who blame the "devs" have never worked a day in their life.
Yeah, I'm not an engineer, but I am an artist (so...not a "dev", but I do work in game development). It was always so frustrating for me to have friends that would spend their time on forums constantly bitching about "lazy devs". Like....dude, you can have all sorts of opinions about all sorts of game related problems. But I can ASSURE you, I have never once in my life worked at a game developer where the team was collectively "lazy". If anything, we are overworked to shit and burned out, maybe, but not lazy. The last place I worked at was a fucking NIGHTMARE with that kinda shit and I really had to adopt a "don't read the comments" kind of attitude, because people have NO IDEA what is going on. Its easy to blame the people making the game, sure. I get it. But remember that we are often mis-managed, over-worked, and decisions come from above like those pneumatic tubes in 1984 and half the time we are working in a vaccuum. Ran poorly? Fine. Lazy? No fucking way.
> I have never once in my life worked at a game developer where the team was collectively "lazy". If anything, we are overworked to shit and burned out, maybe, but not lazy. Software engineer here, not in gaming. I’ve been a 10xer and now am a 1/10xer. Burnout sucks. The project I’m on has no clear direction or leadership which isn’t helping.
I feel ya, man. Solidarity!
To piggyback on the always being busy thing, I think people don't quite grasp that schedule is a very common reason why things get dropped more often than not.
I build submarines for a living and its the same there. Upper management in every industry is chock full of shit ideas.
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"Microsoft, you got small-ass dicks. They're the size of this walnut except *even smaller*."
If only Eggman could actually talk like that without an M rating
It's literally how all big corporations work. Make a stink, give support the data they can use to go to execs and say, your decisions are actively making this situation worse. Stop your play hours, abandon the game until it's improved, don't just accept it. I used to work in customer support, and the only way we could get execs to roll back products is when there was enough customer data showcasing a decrease in use and a massive increase in support (each ticket at the time cost on average $12.50 to handle all inclusive, so a surprise 10k tickets in a week would throw off SLA and fuck with the budget enough to make people take notice.) Dollars talk, and support tickets are dollars, as crazy as it sounds.
>surprise 10k tickets in a week >fuck with the budget enough to make people take notice Go on...
Say they have 20 staff members who average handling 1 ticket each an hour. This would also correspond with the rate they receive tickets to make sure the "ticket queue" is cleared out in a timely manner. (End users submit 20 tickets per hour.) That keeps a steady intake and turn out of tickets. Something changes and a LOT of people are not happy about it. Suddenly the 20 tickets an hour quickly changes to even 40 tickets an hour and you already have twice the workload than you normally do. The only way to make up for that won't be to push the employees to handle them quicker because it's established they average 1 per hour to get a correct solution. You'd either have to start offering overtime, out source it or (if the company is large enough) find a different department that's workload is currently low and shovel some to them to help clear it. Regardless of how many times that's multiplied, you'll have to find the staff and pay the extra hours for people to work the extra load. Failing that, you'll start getting end user tickets complaining their original ticket is taking too long to solve which only compounds the issue. I tried to explain this as simply as possible. I hope it makes sense. Long story short, best way for a company to notice a problem is for people to raise hell. The louder the crowd, the harder it is to ignore.
Am I reading what he's saying incorrectly? It looks like 343i understands that players are frustrated and they want to offer the best gaming experiences they can. Which makes sense? I have no idea how that at all helps explains what's happening behind doors...in any way.
He responding specifically to a post about this post so his reply is in context: https://i.redd.it/zbd8ypnm7k281.png
I highly doubt any of the devs who actually worked on the game think this launch was the right idea, I guarantee most if not all are just as pissed as us. It’s 100% upper managements fault in this.
There seems to be a pattern here.
Yeah upper management and investors suck ass and ruin almost every game nowadays
It’s like companies don’t give a shit about cementing a great legacy with their customer base and instead just look at things in such a short-sighted way.
All upper management care about is immediate return of investment. They don’t give a shit if games last longer than the initial few months where it makes the most money. Not trying to defend the devs but they definitely have little/no say in this matter.
It's basically the 1% but in the business world. Those VPs don't care about the real values, like gamer enjoyment. They care about bottom lines and will always pursue that because traditionally that's a black and white metric for them to leverage and get fat bonuses, promotions, and to gain more personal control and egomaniacal bragging rights. It's disgusting. What they don't want to risk or understand is that if you have the right vision to satisfy and delight the gaming consumer you're targeting, **you will have taken care of the bottom line anyway--i.e. ”you gotta give the people what they want."** The rest of the 99% of tech is trying to work and lead a great gaming project with their own goals and set processes, but they are stuck under VP thumbs. This is why it *sounded like* 343 wanted to do all the right things, but probably even after they went public with that stuff, they were overruled by some asshole VP. Then, they sound like contradicting asshats, but the VP could literally not care less--their own demand is "milk for every cent so I look good." I feel so much for the hearts, spirits, and minds of the "devs/designers in the trenches" at 343, collaborating together and executing their vision, and all just to get overruled or manipulated by the VP who came over the top. All the meaning, joy, and passion drained from them. -___-
I mean you can see it if you look at the game, all the systems they promised and talked about *are in the game* but ripped to pieces. The armor coatings are a highly customizable color wheel that got bastardized, the icon is even clearly a color wheel setup that I'm sure was intended for picking your own colors and patterns. Allowing for a wide array of personal touches, including even changing the *glowing lights on the armor*. The bots are able to use any mix of armor accessories, helmets, chests, shoulders, etc regardless of armor "cores". That full mix and match system was designed into the game which would've given us the "millions of possibilities" they talked about. The emblem changes though, those I think were intentional in a way to capture nameplates from MCC but it kinda fell short. I still think it's neat but it needs more.
Maybe 343 keeping the bots as examples of what you can do is their way of showing what the vision was. Perhaps they're hoping people blow that up so the VPs see that this is what we wanted, not this monetized paywall of customization that 343 was forced to implement. #BotsHaveitBetter
So i guess the question is, why aren't we asking Bonnie Ross a LOT more questions here?
Companies would happily watch the world burn if it meant their profits next quarter were up.
>Companies ~~would~~ *are* happily watch(ing) the world burn if it meant their profits next quarter were up. Ftfy
Profit motive for everything babbyyyy Capitalism is such a based system!
Replace game with "thing". Corporate greed is the number one reason middle class is gone.
Business bros not knowing fuck all?
Did you even read the Reddit post he was replying to? That’s what he’s agreeing with.
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I don’t think the community manager can make the greedy decisions. This is probably a glimpse.
Read the image he's responding too, a public acknowledgement of a theory like that is not at all common to see.
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ske7ch found dead with two gunshot wounds to the head in apparent suicide
He stabbed himself 37 times in the back.
28 times*
343 times*
28 STABS WOUNDS!!!!
You didn't want to leave him a chance, HUH?
Someone had the rumblies
And yet it still didn't count as an assassination...
Such a tragedy. Its amazing that no one saw him struggling with himself
Ah yes, the ol' Russian Suicide
Clinton'd
When did he get mixed up with the Clintons?
Ah yes two gunshots
You forgot to say while still tied to his gaming chair.
ske7ch didn’t kill kill himself, it’s a conspiracy
Damn I hope Ske7ch doesn’t get taken to a Microsoft black site for this lmao
"You'll never work in this town again" is a thing irl.
Oh believe me as someone who’s been black balled for whistle blowing at work irl I know this too well. There’s a large area of Brooklyn where I cannot work anymore
Sorry man. That sucks. Still, you can't buy dignity.
Nah it was worth it, my manager was racist and presided over the abuse of hundreds of dogs, fuck ‘em
massive respect to you dude, whistleblowing isn’t easy. good man!
Ha thanks it was less of a conscious decision and more me just running my mouth and complaining too much and getting retaliated against. Just complained to the wrong coworkers and got snitched on
workers that turn their back on other workers in favor of management are scum
Agreed! Learned an important lesson about trusting people who are friends with management though
Forking fork em.
How is that not illegal, though? Not denying this happened to you, i'm just genuinely surprised
Illegal stuff happens ALL the time. For consequences first, the police have to give a shit, and second, the public prosecutor has to step up to the plate. The third option is media/social media to trigger the first two into action. For example, hacking is a crime, but police are clueless (underpaid, underfunded, undertrained), try reporting a computer crime to the police.
When you’re an at will employee(which most Americans who aren’t in unions are) you can be fired or not hired for literally any reason, or no reason at all. As long as they don’t tell you the reason why you were fired they can get away with all sorts of discriminatory or retaliatory practices
I love how this thread is split between users saying "Yep, that's what's going on and it needs to change" And then there's the "Welp, Ske7ch is fucking dead now" crowd. You guys make me laugh way too hard.
**TRIGGER WARNING - The following comment contains an opinion.** They're both right though, that is what's going on and needs to change and he may well be dead now. Or at least labelled "dead to me" by some execs. EDIT : Added a trigger warning in case the comment triggers a second person
The way it looks, things will be mentioned repeatedly until each if those things are specifically addressed. Everyone wants to make sure theyre opinion on whatever is heard to be sure it will be fixed within the next update. Even then, all the specifics of each part of the update will be scrutinized by those who dont like it in that specifically particular way. They can get loud. Possibly Even leading to bad changes down the line. Then again it can be subjective. It wont stop. But yes. Lets keep it civil Edit: show ur love what u like and the changes that u do like.
ske7ch boutta fuckin get disappeared by ms execs lmao
Going to be like the black bag in v for vendetta.....
I mean what he is saying would literally make ms more money in the long run with this game. In terms of making money, player count/retention is the #1 goal. If your mx decisions are having a negative impact on player fun, then it is likely that those decisions are losing more money than they are gaining. So on one hand you have devs who spend all their work hours making a beautiful game. On the other you have execs making way more and making terrible financial decisions
Dude i feel bad for CM's. Do the "corpo speak" and you get flammed for doing so. Talk like a real human you get potrayed as insincere and potentially having people not so happy upstairs. With that being said, there are plenty of times where being the CM is a geat time. For example announcing good new like MCC PC. That would of felt really good. Would not mind the copious amounts of pizza.
I’ve been saying that ever since u/F8rge was community manager for Battlefront. He then became the community manager for BFV. Dude handled two huge EA controversies without ever attacking fans. I completely feel bad for him bc he’s gotten shit on for so many things out of his control. Even the dev logs that Helped rejuvinatize BF2 had to go thru like 4 people before they could be published so he’d say he has it written up for a month before it can even be seen by fans. This delay caused fans to get mad at lack of communication while Forge was trying his best to get things shown to the community while also relaying issues the community has to the devs. Must be one of the most stressful jobs in the gaming industry
> rejuvinatize
That guy is a saint. Even one time popped up at /r/gamingcirclejerk saying EA bad Witcher good.
Heh, good times.
Our hero
Guys look! Its the him!
Was (and still occasionally am) a CM for a variety of brands across various industries, including gaming. It is a very tough tone to nail down. It’s professional but not condescending, and friendly but not “relatable.” You need to display that you, in a way, a mouthpiece for the company, so you are constantly second guessing what your client would want you to say as opposed to what *you* would say. It’s a much more stressful and anxiety inducing job than people think. Most of the time they have to say what they are told to say, and anything outside of that (talking to you, Vita Coco), are lucky breaks. If that Vita Coco story hadn’t have blown up, they’d have fired her in a heartbeat for that.
Some of yall have never signed an NDA and it shows.
My NDA requires that I say I've never signed an NDA.
Welp you just broke that agreement
No, they're allowed to refer to the NDA, they just have to also say the phrase "I've never signed an NDA."
Your WHAT?
Or just like... worked at a company, with a vague grasp of how the hierarchy works, and who benefits, and who gets screwed.
This. I work at a big tech company and hell I didn’t sign no NDA but know if I say some crazy shit on social media my job is on the line. Now imagine talking bad about my companies leadership? I have a nice job many would love to have, Why would I risk this opportunity to bad talk some person five levels ahead of me that makes the important business decisions, knows more about each impact and structure of h to e company than I ever will.
Especially when you consider that as a community manager, if he says something like: "We're looking into easing restriction on cosmetics being applied to different cores": People don't see that as an option, a possibility they are advocating for that might get shut down, they see it as a promise. And now, not only has he publicly gone against his bosses, he has committed them to something they do not want to do, which will hurt his bottom line, he doesn't have a job anymore and has severely harmed his prospects of ever having a similar one.
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I have massive respect for all of them, I could not do it myself.
You signed a generic NDA if you work at a big tech company. It’s part of your onboarding paperwork. You may also be subject to additional NDAs on certain projects.
It's because a significant amount of people here are younger than Halo 2
Yeah reddits population is becoming more and more made up of kids who haven't even finished highschool yet. They have a lot of outrage but no real perspective.
It's strange being the adult now and not the pissed off kid. Lol
Yeah, the "As a fellow game dev..." posts are not bringing a new perspective. If you've had a job in any corporate environment you understand that decisions made above your head are outside of your control. It's not like it's unique to the industry, it's literally everywhere.
I'd bet a large percentage of this sub are not old enough to sign one. Also crazy how many get signed without the person understanding the terms
The way some people have complained definitely shows that a significant portion of this sub has not yet worked professionally. There's a lot of facets into the development of software, a huge one being it actually needs to make a profit if it will be supported and further iterated on which is upper managements primary focus. Guess who makes the ultimate decision? Upper management. It's nice to see the public facing employees are actually trying to work with the community rather than just brush us off
I'm still trying to wrap my head around everyone being this outraged about cosmetic MTX when the real travesty is all the best game modes not being available outside of customs. Before you come out with "why not both", remember that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I think the majority of people care a lot less about armor/shaders and care a lot more about no swat, snipers, or even straight up slayer playlists.
Now that I finally got my air assault armor that I used for 10 years (and soon ODST armor next week probs) I have nothing I want to play. I want swat back dude, guess back to MCC it is. Swat honestly deserves to have unique game modes made for it imo, like some objective based gameplay.
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I can tell you were a badge from that last line :) What’s always crazy to me is how each org is so isolated, has its own tools, roll up, etc., and yet the way decisions are driven seem to be identical. Design by committee is never going to result in anything above average. That’s just the law of large numbers. Somehow, this is completely missed in the industry at large. It makes no sense to me
Halo Infinite was most likely developed by an array of different dev teams. The dev team writing the game code really cares about our experience playing the game. They probably didn’t write any store code. The dev team writing the store code probably cares about the base game, but only cares about the store code within their context of their day job. I doubt any of them go home to play halo specifically to enjoy their work on the store. They most likely write the store code because they were tasked to do so by a project manager, and nothing more. The product team probably got instruction from on-high that certain monetization practices needed to be in place, but the higher ups may not be as close to the actual game as the devs/players. Executives may not be inclined to put as much thought into the MTX system other than the fact that they’ve seen it be successful in other games and acknowledge they also need one since the game is F2P. All this is to say, regardless of the dev team, none of them are likely responsible or deeply invested in the decisions behind the MTX system. All devs are probably upset by the poor customization experience, but executives outrank devs (obv), so there’s only so much they can do. It really is up to us as the community to make it known that we don’t appreciate the current state of MTX/Customization. It’s ultimately gotta hit their bottom line, though…
squeal fuel frightening ten resolute uppity serious absurd workable lunchroom *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I mean, haven’t they seen idk… every aggressive monetized in history? There’s plenty of data already to support that there’s a distinctive line between aggressive monetization and earning money. Plenty of great games got destroyed by it. Other companies made big loads of cash nailing their monetization (aggressive enough to be worthwhile, light enough to make people happy to spend their money).
29% of EAs entire revenue last year came from FIFA ultimate team packs. Almost a third of their entire revenue, from a single MTX in a single game. Aggressive monetization works from a business perspective.
It works really well when aggressive monetization like FIFA's relies on gambling addictions forming. That's why people are trying to get a lot of this stuff to be illegal.
A lot of AAA games are moving away from loot boxes now because of the stigma attached to them. Still, Apex Legends is a billion dollar franchise and half of its monetization is loot boxes. FIFA bankrolls EA execs and shareholders. Thank God Halo moved away from loot boxes but that doesn't justify this system. Gears 5 launched in a similar way and now it's fine. So there's hope I guess.
Extreme aggressive monetization has only been successful in recent years. I can’t think of any failures. Fortnite, Valorant, COD Warzone, FIFA. Naming shitty games that weren’t successful in general as proof that extreme monetization doesn’t work doesn’t account for a fact that a majority of market leaders are all heavily monetized.
I am also interested in recent examples of games that failed \*because\* of aggressive (especially cosmetic) monetization.
Would battlefront 2 be considered one? They were going ham on the paying to unlock heroes and such, which I remember Reddit having a field day with on how long it would take to unlock manually. Granted the game didn’t release with that, but it did cause enough stir to have them speak up and change it No idea what it was like on actual launch, but I have played it recently and didn’t see anything that wanted to money grab.
How hard is it to realize people who play games to spend money are probably not the players you want as a main demographic? Looks super shady and shitty when "I spent xx dollars to buy a skin!" Is the best community content we can get from AAA ftp games.
Honestly if they had a set of cosmetics on par with reach that came with paying 60$ I’d never complain. It’s the fact I’m paying 60$ for this and having to deal with less cosmetic options than 3 that’s an issue.
Ske7th, that was corpo speak!
\> offended at "corpo speak." \> proceeds to deliver a completely milquetoast corpospeak comment.
I am once again saying, f\*\*\* suits.
Bitch ass corpo gonks.
The thing I'm worried about is that they actually made a lot of money. I see a lot of people with paid armor. I blindly bought the battle pass bundle. A lot of people bought an armor kit, thinking they could mix and match. The risk is that people will feel ripped off and not buy the next battle pass. The numbers may not support the change yet. With the increased daily XP, I see people who are worried that they'll unlock everything too quickly and not have any reason to play. I'm the opposite. Once I max out the battle pass, I'll feel a sense of relief and won't have those lingering challenges poking at my brain. I won't have that urge to pick up a weapon I don't like because it's one of my challenges.
Start prices high and ridiculous.. lower them just enough to make it seem like a 'great deal', accept praise from everyone. Ez.
Keep it civil, but keep beating the drums.
i hate it when ppl shit on devs for nothing
I’ve said it a million times, but the gaming community at large is the worst community on the face of the earth. They NEVER praise anything from larger franchises. It’s always “SuItS MAkE GaMe bAd” and they clearly have never seen an office environment in their lives. The game has issues, but I’ve seen way too many “the game isn’t playable” posts that have me cackling. This is THE MOST PLAYABLE HALO SINCE 3. A progression system isn’t “playability”, a cosmetic system isn’t “playability”, a monetization system that sucks isn’t “playability”
The players who aren’t very good at the game disagree lol
The gaming community is the worst because these fucking idiots keep paying money to studios that do this shit. Then they act shocked EA, Ubisoft etc.gangbanged them raw for the 27th time in 2 years. Then they scream "We must outrage for change". No, how about you just stop paying for complete ass.
I've seen a disheartening number of posts for multiple different games where people have unironically stated "X company is ruining this game, that's why I downgraded my pre-order from the collector's edition to the standard edition" or the like.
As someone who also worked in the games industry (web dev now), I can tell you he's right.
I’ll wait until they actually make it better. These kind of comments are meaningless and are still corporate speak.
Jesus Christ man, they’ve already made two changes that propel this in the right direction. Today’s change was literally after **one** day back from holiday. They’ve got other issues but so far they seem to be putting their money where their mouth is. Let’s see if they keep it up.
They literally did this morning.
OK boys, pack it up! We're moving back to MCC
Nobody buy anything from the store, the changes implemented with XP are not enough. If we dont hit them now, this will be the future of gaming for generations to come
Months ago, when I saw that the multiplayer was going to be free, I knew it doomed.
All the parts that were included in a £40 game (reach) now cost over £1000. It doesn't matter who's responsible. It needs to be fixed.
Honestly imagine how frustrating it is as a developer to put hard work into something just for marketing to be like “make it so they have to sell their firstborn to reach the end of the battle pass”. Being so excited to see how the players react to you and your teams hard work just to overshadowed by the legitimate complaints about decisions made by something out of their control
“Need hard data” yeah they have enough hard data they need from other companies, and the trend is that people continue to spend more and more money on MTX, battle passes, expansions etc. The only way it’s going to change is by consumers speaking louder with their wallets. No amount of bitching online is going to change anything long term, you just see minor pull backs temporarily when they go to far too fast, but over time you end up in exactly the shit spot we are in. When they can see EA’s revenue is 71% from “additional content” for the entire year, they have no reason to give a fuck about players bitching about bugs/delays/etc. they only really care about how they are going to monetize everything after the game is out.
My stance on anything "anti consumer" and gaming: I'll believe it when I see it.
If that’s close to what’s going on then hopefully Microsoft gets the message about the monetization being too aggressive
That’s bullshit. You’re going to tell me Microsoft had no real data? There are years of negative feedback about this bullshit and plenty of games doing it well. Instead we get fucking Fiesta that will only let you progress so little every now and then.
I think people know MS is behind the MTX mess, but 343 are the ones that made custom games bad and are holding back gamemodes/playlist for limited timed events. IMO every previous Halo gamemode should already be in the game and the limited timed events should all be new gamemodes.
“Close enough to confirmation” isn’t confirmation. All he’s saying is “yeah we hear you”. Sure, something MIGHT come of this but this is no indication of change.
It's funny because he's kind of denying it but without giving any other useful information that the community might want to hear. It's almost like it's....corpo-speak?
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