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On April 25 2019 01:32 Archeon wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2019 05:45 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On April 20 2019 21:52 Yurie wrote:
Interesting to me is that they took the next Star Wars "RPG" to Respawn Entertainment instead of Bioware. Says a lot about how much they trust the studio now a days. Could of course also be that the schedules don't match up but switching the genres of the studios around as they have done doesn't really bode well for Bioware. Wasn't it a Star Wars RPG type of game with deep story and character development elements that put Bioware on the map around 15 years ago? Bioware also sunk a ton of money into a Star Wars (MMO)RPG which flopped immediately after getting bought by EA. Not surprised if EA gives other studios the job, especially since DAI is the only thing Bioware released in recent years that didn't struggle or outright flop. Just read their wiki page and god I wouldn't be surprised at all if EA announces the closure of Bioware.
Sadly wouldn't surprise me either. Liked all their games up until the mmo and that was decent. Think the focus on open world hasn't really panned out well. Even in mass effect most of it wasn't that open world focused. Multi hub and "instances" was more they layout and they did that well.
Might be an issue of EA management not knowing how to craft RPGs or trying to make big studio RPGs instead of medium size ones with decent return on money. Last non-shooter RPG with EA as publisher was Dragon Age: Inquisition it seems. The rest being shooters or sports games (more or less).
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Agreed with your verdict in all points.
I think RPGs are harder to market and have a smaller more hardcore community. They don't benefit in the same way from a larger budget that f.e. shooters do, most RPG-players don't care all that much about graphics and action.
Open world is basically the only way to use much much more money with a higher predicted revenue, but open world RPGs are very different beasts. It creates problems with story-dynamics and character interactions, imo old Bioware's strong suits. Level design and world vision were never really their forte imo, which are the main thing you need to create an exploration based game, which open world titles at their core are.
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Its pretty hilarious watching EA continue to play the "moral authority" card. They keep yapping about female empowerment and diversity in their games. What about employee empowerment EA? What about the gambling oriented mechanics in games directed at children EA? Picking fights with European governments EA? LOL.
Revenue growth is flat across the entire video game industry. EA is gesticulating and floundering around fighting wars on multiple fronts in an effort to continue big revenue/profit growth. The reality is the industry has matured and the massive growth decades are over.
In 1979, Space Invaders was an amazing, great story of shocking massive revenues and profits. Cut to 2019 , and multiple game companies are EXPECTING to manufacture the next Space Invaders ....year after year after year. That is a very difficult expectation for employees in the industry to face every week at work.
The video game industry is maturing into a brutal, cut-throat business like any other business ...while the grandfathers of the industry like Chris Metzen continue to claim we should close our eyes and proclaim its a wonderful world
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Dunno, imo Metzen proclaims that we need to chill out. On the one hand he probably knows most of the people in charge that get attacked personally, on the other hand he isn't wrong in that gamers tend to be toxic communities that are never happy, even more so when there's a lot nostalgia in play like with Blizzard games. Objectively speaking the last Blizz games weren't terrible, but people continue to claim Blizz is a garbage company when they are arguably one of the last big studios that continuously develop hits.
That the industry is garbage isn't news, I remember a friend of mine saying 5 years ago that he'd never go into that industry out of his free will since the working conditions are terrible. It also isn't the fault of EA or Blizz or Atvi, in fact they are some of the few companies a game dev can hope to work for more than 3-4 years.
Which in the end again lies mostly with the community and the expectations you describe that are shared by the community. Video games don't produce enough revenue to feed all the people that are working in the industry.
EA and Atvi get a lot of hate for trying to milk their costumers, which imo is absolutely right. But pretending that cutoffs are the most evil thing when studios go bankrupt and get closed all the time seems... one-sided.
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On April 26 2019 00:49 Archeon wrote:
That the industry is garbage isn't news,
check my sig. that is a quote from 1979. That said, when you're in an industry segment experiencing massive growth year after year and decade after decade its easy to find great jobs even if the people at the very top are evil. However, the big growth is over; we are left with a bunch of companies like EA, ATVI etc whose biggest investors see them no differently than how they see a pension fund.
On April 26 2019 00:49 Archeon wrote:
Which in the end again lies mostly with the community and the expectations you describe that are shared by the community.
if your product is aimed at young people with very little life experience while you hype the product to the moon ...this is what you get. As long as the industry was growing by leaps and bounds it was all good to engage in these hype practices.
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On April 26 2019 01:00 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On April 26 2019 00:49 Archeon wrote:
That the industry is garbage isn't news, check my sig. that is a quote from 1979. That said, when you're in an industry segment experiencing massive growth year after year and decade after decade its easy to find great jobs even if the people at the very top are evil. However, the big growth is over; we are left with a bunch of companies like EA, ATVI etc whose biggest investors see them no differently than how they see a pension fund. Show nested quote +On April 26 2019 00:49 Archeon wrote:
Which in the end again lies mostly with the community and the expectations you describe that are shared by the community. if your product is aimed at young people with very little life experience while you hype the product to the moon ...this is what you get. As long as the industry was growing by leaps and bounds it was all good to engage in these hype practices.
Well the number of people wanting to develop video games will plateau eventually as well. And my impression wasn't that it's easy to find great jobs, I've read multiple times that video game devs get significantly less than normal software devs.
Tbh I think that video games are underpriced and have been for years, but then again I'm buying most of my games on sale :/ There are too many games on the market, often partially developed by hobbyists or gamblers, so prices haven't risen according to inflation and probably average lower than a few years ago.
Also considering that most people I know have moved further and further away from mainstream titles I doubt we are going to be left with EA and Atvi. Obviously they still produce titles with a lot of draw for many people, but with casual gamers getting split up between handy games, LoL and Battle royales and every new western consumer generation getting smaller I'm not surprised Atvi's and EA's sales are down.
Imo the industry is way less dominated than it was 10 years ago, many people buy online and GoG and Steam have a lot of small titles. I don't think sales plateauing will influence the small studios as much as the large ones.
@hype tactics: the market is fought over like crazy, there's way too many games. Drawing the attention and disappoint a little is still way better than not drawing the attention and going bankrupt.
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On April 26 2019 00:49 Archeon wrote:
Dunno, imo Metzen proclaims that we need to chill out. On the one hand he probably knows most of the people in charge that get attacked personally, on the other hand he isn't wrong in that gamers tend to be toxic communities that are never happy, even more so when there's a lot nostalgia in play like with Blizzard games. Objectively speaking the last Blizz games weren't terrible, but people continue to claim Blizz is a garbage company when they are arguably one of the last big studios that continuously develop hits.
That the industry is garbage isn't news, I remember a friend of mine saying 5 years ago that he'd never go into that industry out of his free will since the working conditions are terrible. It also isn't the fault of EA or Blizz or Atvi, in fact they are some of the few companies a game dev can hope to work for more than 3-4 years.
Which in the end again lies mostly with the community and the expectations you describe that are shared by the community. Video games don't produce enough revenue to feed all the people that are working in the industry.
EA and Atvi get a lot of hate for trying to milk their costumers, which imo is absolutely right. But pretending that cutoffs are the most evil thing when studios go bankrupt and get closed all the time seems... one-sided.
This is most fandoms, TBH. If you look as sports super fans, they kinda suck. Same with people who are super into one band as part of their identity. The problem with the game industry is that they, like pro sports, used that fandom and turned it into an identity to market to. And promoting people link their personal identity to a commercial product is inherently toxic.
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I'd say the anonymity from being online is another factor, but agreed that people who feel strongly about something usually are not the most understanding. That games are inherently complex constructions built from very different aspects also means there's always somebody who's irritated by something.
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It has only allowed the worst aspects of fandom to grow and find like minded people. But back in the days of fanzines, there was the same flavor of entitled rage about 1960 batman TV show as there is today when a video game company decides to not serve up the exact thing fans have been expecting. Fandom has always sucked in ways that we don’t’ often take seriously.
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On April 26 2019 02:09 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On April 26 2019 00:49 Archeon wrote:
Dunno, imo Metzen proclaims that we need to chill out. On the one hand he probably knows most of the people in charge that get attacked personally, on the other hand he isn't wrong in that gamers tend to be toxic communities that are never happy, even more so when there's a lot nostalgia in play like with Blizzard games. Objectively speaking the last Blizz games weren't terrible, but people continue to claim Blizz is a garbage company when they are arguably one of the last big studios that continuously develop hits.
That the industry is garbage isn't news, I remember a friend of mine saying 5 years ago that he'd never go into that industry out of his free will since the working conditions are terrible. It also isn't the fault of EA or Blizz or Atvi, in fact they are some of the few companies a game dev can hope to work for more than 3-4 years.
Which in the end again lies mostly with the community and the expectations you describe that are shared by the community. Video games don't produce enough revenue to feed all the people that are working in the industry.
EA and Atvi get a lot of hate for trying to milk their costumers, which imo is absolutely right. But pretending that cutoffs are the most evil thing when studios go bankrupt and get closed all the time seems... one-sided. This is most fandoms, TBH. If you look as sports super fans, they kinda suck. Same with people who are super into one band as part of their identity. The problem with the game industry is that they, like pro sports, used that fandom and turned it into an identity to market to. And promoting people link their personal identity to a commercial product is inherently toxic.
This is a great point. When you play into a giant group of people's identity ... you are really playing with fire.
When Vince Mcmahon had complete control of the WWF I think he was able to extract maximum money from the "fans" with a minimal level of toxicity. During the 1991 Desert Shield//Storm war "Sargeant Slaughter" proclaimed himself to be an Iraqi sympathizer along with his "manager" General Adnon. They never got attacked or harmed. The Iranian Iron Shiek who favoured Iran taking dozens of American hostages for 444 days and was also never harmed by any fans.
Ultimately, in the climactic final act Vince Mcmahon always gave the fans what they wanted. People identified with "Hulk Hogan" as the noble, strong, American Patriot who is here to rid the world of evil. In the end Hogan always won.
So I think it is possible to market to fans and play into their fandom and into their identify and play into their delusions. While also avoiding toxicity. Its very difficult to do. Vince Mcmahon is a genius. If the business leader is less than a genius or doesn't have their finger on the pulse of their consumers then the organization can easily run into brutal problems with toxicity you mention in your last 2 posts.
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United States11896 Posts
As for the comments about difficult working conditions within the game industry, I've come to a sort of realization about why that may be. When indie developers are building a game, they want to work 16 hours a day every day because making a game is fun (and it is!). Games are passion projects. It's rewarding to see the code you wrote, the graphics you made, the design you crafted, all come together to coalesce into an enjoyable experience. However, when you expand the size of your team or adopt a megapublisher, not everyone is going to have the same level of passion. Some are going to want to just work 8 hours a day like a normal job, and that's totally fine. What tends to happen in "crunch" scenarios is that those more moderate employees are pressured or shamed into working overtime. Sometimes this is due to an impending feature/product deadline, but not always: other times it's simply coworker/team zeal.
As a producer (who's also lucky enough to be able to self-publish), I do everything I can do remind my teams that crunch is a bad practice and is almost always inexcusable. Caring about the mental and physical health of team members is far more important, since even from a practical standpoint, someone who has burned out is not going to perform optimally and usually requires days or weeks of time off to return to form (and you'd better hope they're not interviewing with other companies during that time!). Worst case is that someone quits and you have to hire a replacement, spending weeks of searching for candidates, fitting them onto the team, training them up on your infrastructure, all so they can work at probably 80-90% of the output of the person who quit -- all of which could have been avoided if you didn't push the team so hard.
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I've said this before, but many of my firm's clients operated under the same theory when it came to hiring law firms. They would make unreasonable demands for work for unreasonable rates. And when they got push back, they would pull their work and go to a new firm. It worked for a very long time, until they burned out most of the firms in teh state and only had a limited pool to pick from. And then that pool started collectively raising their rates and refusing work. But for like 15 years, the system worked great.
Video game developers are facing the same problems now. The idea that all these programmers were replaceable or hungry enough to work for nothing worked right up until everyone started talking about it. So now everyone is saying the same thing "working on video games is very hard and you won't get paid well". Now that talent they were losing is no longer easily replaceable and everyone is talking about unionizing.
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I remember reading an article by a business analyst in response to those tweets, which stated, with some pretty strong math, that it's unlikely steam could operate doing a 12% cut without going into the red since they actually invest in their platform and provide support unlike Epic at this point. I'll have to see if I can dig it up.
It just strikes me someone going "Yeah if hell freezes over, I'll do this really nice, selfless thing" and then acting like he's a pretty swell guy just for making promises he won't have to keep. Tim likely knows this, and as usual is trying to shore up any good PR he can, wherever he can, however he can.
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Tim knows Steam's not gonna do anything, hence why he's saying it in the first place. No moves coming out of Steam.
Worst comes to worst Steam could always finally make a third game to one of their ip's and everybody will love them again. Guess they still feel it's still too early to play that card since they're not exactly going to be in dire straits anytime soon, even after Artifact bombed, while also removing "off-topics" reviews in an effort to combat review bombing, pissing off part of the user base.
I myself haven't installed the Epic games launcher yet (despite them handing out free games) because of allegations of it being Chinese spyware, even if most of it was debunked. But first impressions are a bitch eh.
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I just want my games off any DRM-advertising launchers personally.
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United States11896 Posts
The Waypoint article on that is much better. The most humorous part of the D&I officer's statement is having a spreadsheet for employees to sign up for smaller, private talks. We see this tactic employed in police interrogations all the time, where police compare individuals' stories to see who can be turned and who will prove argumentative or hostile, systematically breaking down the bonds between groups. That may be a more extreme interpretation of their actions, but it's also Riot's best chance at getting to the heart of the organization efforts and disrupting them before things get out of hand for management.
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Blizzard will not have a presence at GamesCom
https://news.blizzard.com/en-gb/blizzard/22937753/blizzard-and-gamescom-2019
As they hinted in this news release they are probably saving any really cool new announcements for BlizzCon 2019. BlizzCon and GamesCom are less than 10 weeks apart.
I'd rather have Blizzard committing its limited resources to making new games and maintaining its pillar franchises than making announcements half way across the world. They can just make those announcement at BlizzCon 10 weeks later... and probably pull off a way more awe-inspiring presentation at their own show.
GamesCom is August 20-24 and BlizzCon is November 1-2. Here are the BlizzCon details for this year.
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/blizzcon-2019-dates-and-ticket-details-announced-p/1100-6466498/
The biggest change for 2019 is 3 tiers of tickets. They cost $230 USD, $550 USD, and $750 USD.
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Epic Games Acquires Psyonix and Rocket League
https://ca.ign.com/articles/2019/05/01/epic-games-acquires-rocket-league-studio-psyonix
the game will be removed from Steam.
As for these changes, in the short term Psyonix claims nothing will change at all. In the future, it plans on bringing Rocket League to the Epic Games store and will grow the game in ways it couldn't do before.
On May 01 2019 12:53 Excalibur_Z wrote:
The Waypoint article on that is much better.
thx for the recommendation ... i'll check it out.
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EPT
