On July 29 2023 05:32 JimmyJRaynor wrote: It looks like Gearbox Publishing did a fantastic job scooping Gunfire Games from THQ and giving them the resources necessary to make Remnant 2. Randy Pitchford was given a giant truck full of cash from Embracer. Whatever money went into making Remnant2... it was money well spent. I can't wait for the next Borderlands game.
On July 20 2023 23:27 Ryzel wrote: Man, that guy has the most punchable face I’ve ever seen.
Mission accomplished by the thumbnail creator. Maybe the thumbnail creator should get a job at the WWE.
You are reacting to "Bobby"; This is a meticulously crafted fictional character. The thumbnail was changed twice before they settled on that one.
Great leaders keep the spotlight shining on themselves so that the very smart people undertaking extremely difficult creative tasks can work in total privacy.
I develop software applications and I prefer the Project Manager take all the heat while I work in peace. If the Project Manager has a long track record of great results, is a stickler for detail, and is a total prick that is great as well. Project Managers like that have massive budgets. The only thing I like almost as much as crafting amazing interactive digital solutions .... is money.
Why are you so confident that it’s a meticulously crafted fictional persona?
Because of how common it is for the financial decision makers to PLAY THE ROLE of "bad cop".
its standard for the financial people to be the "bad cop" and the software makers to be the "good cop". the financial people do the firing... set the limits and scope of the project. the creatives make a working software solution possible that was impossible only months earlier. the creatives look like miracle workers.
Why do you have any confidence that this dynamic, which is going on right now in almost every software creation process, is not happening at Activision?
On July 29 2023 04:46 Zambrah wrote: Because his world view is warped around the idea wealth = morality.
This is way off topic... but i'll humour you. People have said money is the root of all evil. has any one ever stopped to ask : "what is the root of money?"
The world needs bastards, or is at least structured in such a way it’s advantageous to have them around.
Was reading some history recently and Stalin was a ruthless, almost inhuman monster. Soviet military doctrine figured out it was more efficient to have advances have men run through minefields than slow down, and potentially miss opportunities to break through the lines, potentially ultimately leading to even worse loss of life. So they did the former
You almost have to be some kind of monster to not crack under the pressure, the mass loss of life that hangs on your every decision being leadership in such an existential war. I wouldn’t want such an individual to be my boss in my relatively unimportant job, but if the Nazis are crossing my borders then yes, you need people with those attributes.
Bobby Kotick is an exceptionally useful asshole, to end my tangent. He is still an asshole though
I just don’t understand why you keep insisting it’s a performative thing, when little evidence anywhere points to him not being an asshole.
Going full Occam’s Razor maybe he’s just an asshole, and that makes him very good at what he does?
Everything he ever says in media usually points in that direction. He’s not exactly passionate about the medium
Steve Jobs was infamously tyrannical and perfectionist at times, and quite the asshole. I don’t think even his biggest detractors can say he didn’t actually care and believe in what he was doing. To take one example.
You’re not playing bad cop if you just are bad cop. No more than me not being an actor for playing myself on the daily
We're talking about video games here. A 100% unnecessary hobby and unnecessary job. So its impossible to really paint Kotick as any kind of evil because the entire industry is based on disposable income and free time of the consumer.
Here is "Bobby" carefully curating the role he plays as the "financial hard ass" that every org needs to function properly.
Mediagenic had ZERO video game employees when Kotick acquired it in 1991. The guy created thousand and thousands of jobs. No one was ever forced to work for Activision. Morhaime decided to "cash out" in the 1990s and lost control of his own IP. Team1 created Starcraft knowing they did not own the IP. THat's on Morhaime and the team. They created the IP on borrowed money. Contrast this with BUngie who created the Destiny IP under their own sovereign control.
Hey remember when Bobby Kotick continually downplayed accusations of company wide sexual impropriety every chance he got?
Somebody just playing bad cop to fulfil some role doesn’t do that. They pull that persona to the problem and go ‘this shit isn’t happening under my watch’ and go from there
Which, resolutely wasn’t Kotick’s approach.
It’s almost like I dunno, he’s a bit of an asshole. Not a fan of unionisation either
These aren’t stances for some lightning rod martyr to take the heat, they’re just his stances. I don’t know why you keep claiming otherwise
On July 29 2023 10:10 WombaT wrote: Hey remember when Bobby Kotick continually downplayed accusations of company wide sexual impropriety every chance he got?
Yep, and the DFEH got accused of professional misconduct by the EEOC and the person within the DFEH promulgating those accusations got canned. The DFEH overstepped its boundaries and got tangled up in the EEOC's investigation.
With (1) the misconduct by the DFEH (b) Whipper losing her job and (iii) EEOC agreeing to a settlement that included zero findings of anything systemic within ATVI
CONCLUSION: the government is useless. The DFEH still has not concluded its investigation LOL.
It is hard to say whether or not there were ATVI-wide "systemic" problems. Thus, it is hard to say if Kotick's denials are "evil" or not. Even still he is not some kind of evil national country dictator. No one is forced at gunpoint to travel to SoCal and work in the video games industry.
The best places to work in software development are places like upstate New York where houses are dirt cheap. I can pay my starting people 90K and they can afford a mortgage on a fully detached house less than a 20 minute drive from work. What person under 30 wants to work where a very small house on a very small piece of property costs $2.5 Million?
On January 03 2019 21:38 Harris1st wrote: I just read an article about game they cancelled with codename "Starblo", which I believe would have been awesome. Well, I think all their cancelled games could have been awesome. So that's one thing that did go wrong the last 15 years.
And as much as I love the remakes, you'll never get much revenue out of these. You can't sell WC3 remake for 50€
I still think they'll recover though, but the next big announcement has to be the thing. And it has to be for fucking PC
yea, you are right mostly gamers doesn't want to play remake games again because they already Played which impact a lot on revenue.
On January 03 2019 21:38 Harris1st wrote: I just read an article about game they cancelled with codename "Starblo", which I believe would have been awesome. Well, I think all their cancelled games could have been awesome. So that's one thing that did go wrong the last 15 years.
And as much as I love the remakes, you'll never get much revenue out of these. You can't sell WC3 remake for 50€
I still think they'll recover though, but the next big announcement has to be the thing. And it has to be for fucking PC
yea, you are right mostly gamers doesn't want to play remake games again because they already Played which impact a lot on revenue.
Depends on the remake, depends how good it is. Depends how old the original is.
The Resident Evil 2, albeit an actual remake rather than a remaster is the best selling in the series iirc.
I imagine the Metal Gear Solid 3 and Silent Hill 2 remakes will do really well too.
For a more conventional remaster, yeah you’re not usually going to make giant sums of money off it, you could turn a profit though.
Blizzard just shit the bed with WC3 Reforged absolutely hardcore by delivering something lesser than the original
WC3 was pretty playable even on modern machines anyway, all Reforged did was break my working install.
So for people who love WC3 you didn’t really need it all that much
The other big target demographic, which is absolutely there are (mostly) SC2 players looking another competitive RTS due to burnout/seeking new experiences. You saw this in AoE4 doing gangbusters when it launched, only for players to drop away back to their usual habitats.
WC3 Reforged launched without clans, tournaments and not even a functioning ladder.
So why would WC3 vets or competitive RTS players be interested in going?
It killed all the hype and this has a cascading effect. I may pick up x single player game my crew have all lost interest in if I think it looks cool. If it’s a game I want to play multiplayer specifically and everyone’s dropping, well I won’t have folks to play with so I’ll nope out to.
Our local SC2/now general RTS group me/friend convinced quite a few to give WC3 a shot (actually both of our favourite games over SC2). All that interest just melted away with all those missing features.
I think, speciallly with a big studio it’s quite good to do the odd remaster, they’re less laborious. You galvanise long-standing communities, you expose new audiences to new IPs, so lay interest for sequels too. It’s relatively cheap and is as close to a free win you can get, just to keep things ticking over between big projects, or use non main-line teams to give them projects and experience.
SC Remastered was decent, could have been way better in ways and WC3 Reforged was a fucking disaster in almost every way through corner cutting.
WoW Classic did pretty well did it not? It’s basically a remaster/re-release and D2R was received pretty well as far as I know
LTT's "mistakes" favoured the companies with sweetheart advertising deals and consistently under valued the performance of those same companies' competitors. Trying to call the litany of errors as "random mistakes" is a big stretch. If I ask one of my employees to transcribe a 5 member team discussion at 140 words per minute then mistakes are guaranteed and are not some "random unforeseen occurance". Same deal with pumping out 87 bazillion videos a day. Mistakes are guaranteed. Funny how the editorial process always missed mistakes favouring their favourite advertisers.
It is interesting to see how much Sony BS-ed about the PS5. Then to see how much the lies and deceptions were ignored.
It is kinda funnny watching people get "shocked" when they watch the video games industry does really scummy stuff. Its business as usual and has been going on since 1979.
Sony is going to keep on bullshitting on a massive scale. Why mess with success? It is rewarded.
SAG-AFTRA’s National Board has voted unanimously to send a strike authorization vote to members in advance of bargaining dates with signatory video game companies, the union said on Friday.
Its Interactive Media Agreement was extended beyond the original expiration date a year ago, but according to SAG-AFTRA, further negotiations failed to address key issues such as wage increases, rest periods and AI protections.
“Here we go again! Now our Interactive (Video Game) Agreement is at a stalemate too. Once again we are facing employer greed and disrespect. Once again artificial intelligence is putting our members in jeopardy of reducing their opportunity to work. And once again, SAG-AFTRA is standing up to tyranny on behalf of its members,” said SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher, referencing the union’s current strike over its TV/theatrical contract with the AMPTP. “The overlap of these two SAG-AFTRA contracts is no coincidence, but rather a predictable issue impacting our industry as well as others all over the world. The disease of greed is spreading like wildfire ready to burn workers out of their livelihoods and humans out of their usefulness. We at SAG-AFTRA say NO! Not on our watch!”
The union is seeking protective language in the contract that will require informed consent and “appropriate” payment for the creation and use of digital replicas and for training AI systems with members’ performances. Additionally, SAG-AFTRA is seeking the same wage increases for video game performers as for those who work under the film and television contracts: 11 percent retroactive to expiration and 4 percent increases in the second and third years of the agreement.
The union said it is also asking for on-camera performers to have a five-minutes-per-hour rest period, as well as a set medic present when stunts or hazardous work is performed, prohibitions against stunts on self-taped auditions, and vocal stress protections.
Information postcards will be mailed to voters on Sept. 5 and voting is scheduled to conclude on Sept. 25. Informational meetings for union members are scheduled to be held Sept. 7 and Sept. 12.
Signatory game companies include Activision Productions, Blindlight, Disney Character Voices, Electronic Arts Productions, Epic Games, Formosa Interactive, Insomniac Games, Take 2 Productions, VoiceWorks Productions and WB Games.
Said SAG-AFTRA national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland: “The voice and performance capture artists who bring video game characters to life deserve a contract that reflects the value they bring to the multibillion-dollar gaming industry. Voice and performance capture AI are already among the most advanced uses of AI: the threat is here and it is real. Without contractual protections, the employers are asking performers to unknowingly participate in the extinction of their artistry and livelihoods.”
Audrey Cooling, spokesperson for the video game producers party to the Interactive Media Agreement, added in a statement, “We all want a fair contract that reflects the important contributions of SAG-AFTRA-represented performers in an industry that delivers world-class entertainment to billions of players around the world. We are negotiating in good faith and hope to reach a mutually beneficial deal as soon as possible.”
the employers are asking performers to unknowingly participate in the extinction of their artistry and livelihoods.”
i recall the dirisive comment towards people getting laid off ... "learn to code".
Welp, that might not be good enough any longer. the new dirisive comment will have to be: "learn to code in prolog"
Why Prolog? I know Prolog. I also know it has 0 use outside academia and some very very niche applications that are almost all rapidly becoming obsolete due to deep neural networks doing the task better than complex logical programs.
a more apt comeback would be "learn to engineer prompts" which is actually not bad advice for creative people. a lot better advice than "learn to code", at least. engineering prompts is a lot more like design/technical writing than it is like engineering. and the result of a good prompt is best evaluated by an expert in the field, so those whose jobs are otherwise becoming obsolete. getting familiar with the new tools of the trade is pretty much a job requirement. but I don't think authors, artists and designers jobs are disappearing. I do think they're changing, and in general well crafted documents, images and design will become more broadly available. suddenly the local football club will have a cool bespoke logo rather than whatever the coach could come up with on a lazy Saturday.
why prolog? keep in mind the comment is dirivise and therefore prolog is the best choice in a dirisive/snarky/fuck-you comment for the exact reasons you named.
EDIT: and if i'm fully explaining the joke i guess i should state explicitly that Prolog is an AI language and the actors fear they are being "replaced by AI".
uhhhh, because i'm not working and i'm having fun.
So many popular games are remakes and remasters. Hell, who needs new games. Retro arcade bars seem to be popping up everywhere. A topic more important to consumers is how poorly games are being preserved.
Yes it is most fun every single time anyone in the wider tech industry ever discusses regulatory oversight or unionisation, or basically anything for ‘Hey remember that time you (or in more likelihood, other people) said “learn to code”?’
Ah, endless whimsy it is.
Perhaps it’s my locale, as yet gaming-related commercial ventures have resolutely failed for the last 15 years. Regular bars with a hipster vibe that have attached a few arcade tabs and board games have done alright, but no purpose-built gaming kind of venue.
And yeah some sensible halfway house to making emulation legal past a reasonable point of commercial inactivity would go a long way and has been sorely lacking in forever.
Aside from games publishers sit on and do nothing with, there’s innumerable titles from defunct devs and publishers
On September 04 2023 02:52 WombaT wrote: Yes it is most fun every single time anyone in the wider tech industry ever discusses regulatory oversight or unionisation, or basically anything for ‘Hey remember that time you (or in more likelihood, other people) said “learn to code”?’
Ah, endless whimsy it is.
it is hilarious when a group as meaningless as video game voice actors complains about their life quality. WHen grocery store clerks, nurses or police officers collectively bargain its important because those jobs are essential to a functioning society. Similarly, the internal standards of the college of physicians and surgeons make me take their collective bargaining stances seriously.
We don't really need video games. And, there is already so many great games out there we can just play the old stuff. That is what is going on in 2023.
On September 04 2023 02:52 WombaT wrote: Yes it is most fun every single time anyone in the wider tech industry ever discusses regulatory oversight or unionisation, or basically anything for ‘Hey remember that time you (or in more likelihood, other people) said “learn to code”?’
Ah, endless whimsy it is.
it is hilarious when a group as meaningless as video game voice actors complains about their life quality. WHen grocery store clerks, nurses or police officers collectively bargain its important because those jobs are essential to a functioning society. Similarly, the internal standards of the college of physicians and surgeons make me take their collective bargaining stances seriously.
Right, of course. And you say that for regular auld folks trying to unionise and not say, the massively renumerated folks like god forbid his glorious worth ever be criticised, Bobby Kotick.
It’s ridiculous how you don’t so much lick the corporate boots as go full deep throat on it, every single time possible
On September 04 2023 02:52 WombaT wrote: Yes it is most fun every single time anyone in the wider tech industry ever discusses regulatory oversight or unionisation, or basically anything for ‘Hey remember that time you (or in more likelihood, other people) said “learn to code”?’
Ah, endless whimsy it is.
it is hilarious when a group as meaningless as video game voice actors complains about their life quality. WHen grocery store clerks, nurses or police officers collectively bargain its important because those jobs are essential to a functioning society. Similarly, the internal standards of the college of physicians and surgeons make me take their collective bargaining stances seriously.
We don't really need video games. And, there is already so many great games out there we can just play the old stuff. That is what is going on in 2023.
EPT
