On November 25 2024 10:38 Fleetfeet wrote: immediately by him whining about some shit.
I left. I let the quebecois and albertans keep on whining. I have opportunities an order of magnitude better in New York.
On November 25 2024 09:02 WombaT wrote: I just don’t understand how your various viewpoints join up. You continually say that the US has better opportunities than Canada and bemoan that, but you also dislike a program such as this which keeps opportunities available to native Canadian developers
Massive international corps get almost all of the subsidy money. Entrepreneurial game makers can not traverse the labyrinth of government agencies and holding companies that make getting government money possible.
This is why so few small dev studios are in Canada.
The 14,500 video game employees in Quebec produce an embarrassingly small amount of games.
Since the 1970s Canada has always been paranoid about their regs and subsidies producing a 'branch plant' type economy. Ironically, this is exactly what is happening now in the video game industry in Canada.
The big decision makers pulling levers on the Canadian employees are not in Canada.
At the bottom line: the games are bad. The last 10 games to come out of Canada are on average... Bad. Warframe is good. However, they do not get any Quebec subsidies and the studio formed when the regulations were different and easier to negotiate.
Hardly anything in Canada is organic.
On November 25 2024 10:38 Fleetfeet wrote: It isn't a consistent ideology. The hipocrisy exactly lines up with him declaring
i am always against billionaires and multibillion dollar international companies getting subsidies. Warren Buffet said it best: "it is time to stop coddling the super rich"
On November 25 2024 09:02 WombaT wrote: I just don’t understand how your various viewpoints join up. You continually say that the US has better opportunities than Canada and bemoan that, but you also dislike a program such as this which keeps opportunities available to native Canadian developers
Massive international corps get almost all of the subsidy money. Entrepreneurial game makers can not traverse the labyrinth of government agencies and holding companies that make getting government money possible.
This is why so few small dev studios are in Canada.
The 14,500 video game employees in Quebec produce an embarrassingly small amount of games.
Since the 1970s Canada has always been paranoid about their regs and subsidies producing a 'branch plant' type economy. Ironically, this is exactly what is happening now in the video game industry in Canada.
The big decision makers pulling levers on the Canadian employees are not in Canada.
At the bottom line: the games are bad. The last 10 games to come out of Canada are on average... Bad. Warframe is good. However, they do not get any Quebec subsidies and the studio formed when the regulations were different and easier to negotiate.
On November 25 2024 10:38 Fleetfeet wrote: It isn't a consistent ideology. The hipocrisy exactly lines up with him declaring
i am always against billionaires and multibillion dollar international companies getting subsidies. Warren Buffet said it best: "it is time to stop coddling the super rich"
I've lived in Alberta the last 12ish years and have heard more whining from you about Canada than I have anyone here. Leaving didn't stop you from whining. You're still whining.
On October 11 2024 03:43 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Lunark is excellent. It could've come out in the 1980s.
Set on a distant planet ruled by a totalitarian regime, LUNARK is a modern take on the 2D cinematic platformer genre of the '90s. As Leo, a courier with unique abilities and a mysterious past, you'll run, jump, hang, climb, roll, and shoot through gorgeously animated pixel-art environments ranging from a dystopian megalopolis to eerie caves to an alien forest. You must overcome traps, solve puzzles, earn upgrades, and battle enemy droids, and when you're not fighting for survival, you'll meet a cast of colorful characters who will put Leo's allegiances to the test. Uncover the dark origin of humanity's new home and the truth about yourself in this epic sci-fi adventure!
It is on sale for $10 USD. There is also a FREE DEMO you can try out before you buy.
It is made by Wayforward. These guys are knocking it out of the park. Their games are great. Atari publishes a lot of their stuff.
Atari rocks, Wayforward rocks. Digital Eclipse rocks. Great stuff all the way around.
This is still a quote from you where you call a game made by a quebec studio excellent.
Outlast, Sea of Stars, the new Deus Ex games, DBD, Spiritfarer, Dwarf Fortress (if we're using your above logic and crediting the publisher with making the game), just a couple of names of games made in quebec from a bit of quick searching. Not bad, Quebec. Not bad.
Yep, that is a small # of small games. The 14,500 workers within Quebec are producing very little quality games relative to the 9,000 Nintendo employees. Ubisoft is particularly inefficient with 21,000 employees producing very little. Ubisoft is amazing at getting government money from Singapore while their staff in Singapore has yet to make 1 decent game the last 10 years.
This guy explains nicely the problem with the industry in Quebec.
TL;DR
-$500/hr Boutique consultants who specialize in government bureacracy are required to get government money. This is not attainable for small studios. Studios spend more money on getting government money than on making games. -giant corps get governments to outbid each other for free money in a race to the bottom -giant corps use 1 form of tax incentive to get even more free money when they have very high revenues. Small entrepreneurial studios can not use the tax incentives in this way because they don't make $100M+ in revenue -there are lots of small studios in Quebec... the overwhelming vast majority of the money goes to Ubisoft and Gearbox. -the government aid makes it possible for an army of 200K/year software engineer contractor ... to make 300K/year. this isn't really where government aid is needed.
This video was from 5 years ago. The problems are even worse today. Jade Raymond is getting a tonne of money from Quebec. So far, in 5 years we've gotten 1 trailer. She is really good at bringing in government money. She opened the studio under the claim it was "independent". Made a deal with Quebec. Then, Sony bought it and now controls it. As noted in the video the corruption and exploitation of these "tax credits" is a problem. Jade Raymond worked the system.
The current Quebec finance minister stated they are taxing business too much and giving out too many subsidies when asked to comment why they were cutting back on subsidies to the industry. The people of Quebec and the CAQ are not exactly thrilled to be funding Ubisoft and Gearbox.
On November 25 2024 10:38 Fleetfeet wrote: I've lived in Alberta the last 12ish years and have heard more whining from you about Canada than I have anyone here. Leaving didn't stop you from whining. You're still whining.
I bought a house at age 24. It is not impacting me. I'm laughing at Freeland and feel bad for the average person hit hard by Canada's decline. Justin is embarrassing. Canada's leadership is poor and it used to be great. You're more than welcome to counter my chronicling of Canada's decline in the Canadian politics thread. If you think Justin is smarter than Pierre... go make your case.
Really cool seeing new games for the Atari 2600 and Atari 7800
I love how the Atari owners managed an amicable relationship with AtariAge and the homebrew community. It is really cool seeing these homebrew games turn into published cartridges.
I am getting the Atari 7800+ ; I want to get the Activision Spider Fighter physical badge for a score over 40,000.
Not the least bit surprising... Bad software tools and bad graphical rendering algorithms papered over via raw CPU/GPU power.
From a consumer perspective graphics peaked around 2015 and have not improved. This is the first time in the history of the industry that game graphics have stagnated.
It is hilarious watching AAA game marketers tout the greatness of 2024 games. Consumers subconsciously expect progress in graphics every year. Graphics ain't gettin' better. This contributes to the ongoing war between consumers and giant game corps.
Keep in mind that Digital Foundry is owned by the same media umbrella company that owns IGN. 😎
Eugene Fiume is probably rolling over in his grave...
Path tracing seems like a big improvement in specific games. But very few computers can render that at all, so most games don't bother doing it well.
I honestly think graphic engines and capabilities have improved since 2015. We simply publish thousands of more games per year now, so you can find a lot of poor examples. The cost for better graphics hasn't massively decreased since then either, so on average graphics might actually be worse.
We have a lot of more computer power for graphics now. The main thing that has given is higher resolution for similar graphics. Which is a large improvement but very hard to see in a video comparison at 1080p. The pace of improvement has massively slowed down, I will easily agree with that.
On December 07 2024 00:52 Yurie wrote: Path tracing seems like a big improvement in specific games. But very few computers can render that at all, so most games don't bother doing it well.
I honestly think graphic engines and capabilities have improved since 2015.
Epic created UE5 for its own specific purposes and gives it away for free. That is a big clue to deciphering the problems with the engine.
On December 07 2024 00:52 Yurie wrote: Path tracing seems like a big improvement in specific games. But very few computers can render that at all, so most games don't bother doing it well.
I honestly think graphic engines and capabilities have improved since 2015. We simply publish thousands of more games per year now, so you can find a lot of poor examples. The cost for better graphics hasn't massively decreased since then either, so on average graphics might actually be worse.
We have a lot of more computer power for graphics now. The main thing that has given is higher resolution for similar graphics. Which is a large improvement but very hard to see in a video comparison at 1080p. The pace of improvement has massively slowed down, I will easily agree with that.
The pace of easily visible improvement for sure. I mean they are better but rarely there’s that wow factor, which I think is to be somewhat expected.
There’s also far more pressure on hardware than in previous generations, or it’s certainly a wider band.
720p and then 1080p 60 FPS were the de facto standard for long periods in previous generations, with that as the baseline you did see pretty big leaps as hardware got more powerful, or devs got better at extracting value from console hardware.
Nowadays you’ve got consumers who want 4K or even 8K with the same or better fidelity. Others want 120 FPS as a baseline acceptable standard.
But even getting something as nice looking and performant as what came before comes with pretty hefty overheads, never mind something that looks noticeably better. So I think those kind of pressures have definitely hampered this generation a fair bit
On December 07 2024 04:26 WombaT wrote: Nowadays you’ve got consumers who want 4K or even 8K with the same or better fidelity. Others want 120 FPS as a baseline acceptable standard.
This is why the Nintendo Switch failed. Consumers wanted better than 60FPS @ 1080p. Those damn unreasonable consumers! ! !
On December 07 2024 04:26 WombaT wrote: Nowadays you’ve got consumers who want 4K or even 8K with the same or better fidelity. Others want 120 FPS as a baseline acceptable standard.
This is why the Nintendo Switch failed. Consumers wanted better than 60FPS @ 1080p. Those damn unreasonable consumers! ! !
Well yeah because the gaming consumer isn’t a monolith and different demographics have different desires.
Personally I love my Switch, and doubly so as it was the device I got Minibat into gaming, a hobby he shares with his da and not his ma or stepdad, and that’s always been cool. Love the concept and Nintendo absolutely nailed it.
Equally I mean I played SC2 on a 14 inch 4:3 monitor for the first 3 years of its life. Even now I’m playing on some bare bones 10 year old thing. I’m probably not getting the best out of my quite decent PC but hey.
But there are plenty of people who do want to see tangible graphical improvements.
Even amongst people who don’t really care, this generation has brought challenges. 4K becoming a near standard for displays, aside from network bandwidth isn’t really a strain computationally for video content. But it is a much bigger overhead on rendering games than 1080p or 1440p
Guys im an Overwatch expert and have a list of things they invented: - Spider themed women with guns - Ninjas with swords - Gorillas - Girl but in robot - Cowboys using guns - Multiplayer video games - Japan
Black Widow came out the same year as Ronald Reagan did his "A Time For Choosing" Speech in 1964 when we all know the USA was on the brink of collapse. The nanosecond I saw Widow Maker in Overwatch 8 years ago I instantly thought "Black Widow" archetype character.
Lol Bungie wholesale lifted the story of the Black Company fantasy series for their Myth games, but it was grand because gaming companies could do those things in the 90s. Either Glen Cook didn’t know, didn’t care, or Bungie got permission because it was blatant stuff.
It’s a tricky one, I find it with music claims especially. Or indeed most art forms. The line between inspiration, homage and outright plagiarism can be quite hard to draw and I tend towards some generosity unless it’s really blatant.
where are these evil text messages? LOL. When Bungie went haywire on Lono // SayNoToRage they telegraphed how weak they were.
So a game designer is suing a game developer because blablablabla. My god, how long is that video?! And whyyyyyy does anybody at all care?!
Prolly because Bungie engaged in anti consumer behaviour for years while pretending to be the moral compass of the video game industry. I can't say for sure though. Furthermore, why do 200,000 people need to explain themselves to you? if they're laughing at these idiots... great for them.
We don’t like companies that pretend they’re motivated by anything more than taking money from consumers. Corporate greed in the video game industry needs to be respected, praised, and acknowledged as the true catalyst that leads to great video games. Try and keep up.
On December 20 2024 22:07 Ryzel wrote: We don’t like companies that pretend they’re motivated by anything more than taking money from consumers. Corporate greed in the video game industry needs to be respected, praised, and acknowledged as the true catalyst that leads to great video games. Try and keep up.
On December 20 2024 22:07 Ryzel wrote: We don’t like companies that pretend they’re motivated by anything more than taking money from consumers. Corporate greed in the video game industry needs to be respected, praised, and acknowledged as the true catalyst that leads to great video games. Try and keep up.
Wait, I didn't catch the sarcasm again, did I.
My sig sums it up nicely. In 2024, it appears Wade Cohen and Bobby D are getting the last laugh. Good for them.
On December 19 2024 20:09 WombaT wrote: When did Bungie pretend to be the moral compass of the industry? Maybe they did I just don’t recall it
IGN did a series of articles about the 'Battle.for the Soul' of Bungie. They were 'shocked and in disbelief' regarding the stories they heard about favouritism and crunch time. Bungie had created a 'virtuous public image'. It was unbelievable. Lol.
The "soul" of a software giant pumping out a product whose intended goal is for it's consumers to sit motionless for hours while staring into a glowing flat screen centimeters from the consumers' face.
How could such an innately virtuous activity go awry and create such horrible evil?
EPT
