EPTUbisoft is so bloated and so reliant on government money they deserve to go down.
The Games Industry And ATVI - Page 83
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17737 Posts
Ubisoft is so bloated and so reliant on government money they deserve to go down. | ||
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Uldridge
Belgium5201 Posts
I'm starting to become jaded with the inefficiency/bloated metrics. Companies should be rewarded for hiring people, for creating a social layer. Granted, many don't do it the correct way, but patting yourself on the back because you can increase your profit due to cutting out humans is not something you should be very proud of. Let people do something and give them stuff in return so they can live. Simple concept. I'm so exhausted of hearing the need to be innovating yourself or pushing the envelope or being hypercompetitive, or otherwise you're cut out of deserving to earn a living wage. It's disgusting. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17737 Posts
On June 18 2026 01:40 Uldridge wrote: Why? Life quality in Canada is falling like a rock. Governments need to devote themselves to the basics and stop worrying about making video games. Please note, I live in New York. So my critique not coming from some personal animous. | ||
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Uldridge
Belgium5201 Posts
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Harris1st
Germany7356 Posts
On June 18 2026 00:34 Simberto wrote: Competition really is heavy. I game a lot. How much do i spend on games? Maybe 20 bucks a month. Between replaying older games i already own, cheap indies, bundles, and discounts, the games i need to spend my day gaming and want to play are simply not that expensive. I am rarely interested in buying a completely new title, despite basically identifying as a core gamer. I assume a lot of people feel the same considering just how many awesome games came out in the last decade that even i as a really major gamer haven't gotten around to playing yet. Same. And even from those 20 bucks, at least 5 are for a pile of shame game that I'll never play. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17737 Posts
In 2026, it is not very hard to get good at C# and learn the Unity engine. Compare that to MS C++ in 2000. We're living in a different world. Its probably about as big a difference as building Atari and Intellivision games in 6502 Assembly language versus MS C++ 6. Skyrocketing Hardware Prices The skyrocketing hardware prices have made for a fascinating time in the video game industry. XBOX has raised prices three times. Nintendo introduced a brand new console and was forced to employ a modest price increase. The Steam Machine price is sky high and hte Steam Deck went up huge. So far, I'd say Nintendo has handled the skyrocketing prices in hardware the best. I think Nintendo has handled it the best and 2nd place is not close. People whine about Nintendo's lack of creativity in moving their main line series forward. Perhaps that perspective has some merit. Seeing Starfox "64" and Super Mario World I can see where these people are coming from. However, there are aspects of the video game business where Nintendo remains #1 without question. On the business side of things I'm super impressed with Nintendo these past two years. And to quote Jesse "The Body" Ventura, former Governor of Minnesota: "I Don't Impress Easy".  | ||
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Fleetfeet
Canada2804 Posts
You'll need someone smarter than I am to tell you how much, how long, and in what way that impacts Valve's pricing, but it seems extremely intuitive to me that Valve is aware they have several million dollars in a protected digital bubble, and they really won't want to make it too appealing for people to pull their money out of that market. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17737 Posts
I think Steam's hardware pricing only went sideways this year. | ||
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Fleetfeet
Canada2804 Posts
On June 27 2026 06:22 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Why wouldn't that emptying have occurred when the 512 GB LCD Steamdeck was $320? I think Steam's hardware pricing only went sideways this year. I don't think we have exposure to the data to say it did/didn't. It could have happened on a small scale limited by the availability of steamdecks at that price and not fully crashed the market. I'm just saying Valve knows they have a market of 20m dollars of CSGO skins in circulation (or whatever the numbers may be) and they make 15% off each transaction, so they'll want to protect that economy. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17737 Posts
On June 27 2026 06:35 Fleetfeet wrote: I don't think we have exposure to the data to say it did/didn't. It could have happened on a small scale limited by the availability of steamdecks at that price and not fully crashed the market. I'm just saying Valve knows they have a market of 20m dollars of CSGO skins in circulation (or whatever the numbers may be) and they make 15% off each transaction, so they'll want to protect that economy. A real human customer buys a skin and gives STeam ~$23 in cash. ~$20 in Steam Wallet money is passed on to the seller. Steam is up $1 in cash. The game vendor is up $2 in cash. It is not like Steam is "down" $20. The customer is "down" $23 cash. None of this impacts any hardware purchases on Steam. There is nothing to "protect". Steam has banked the $1. | ||
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Fleetfeet
Canada2804 Posts
If Valve offered an out of $100 steam dollars for $100 USD, people could/would liquidate their inventories and the entire market of steam dollar things will restabilize at their value of actual-dollar things, which is some percentage lower than their current value in steam dollars. There would be a short-term increase in volume of sales but an overall deflation of the entire market (Unless you believe the CS2 skin market is actually worth somewhere north of 2 billion real USD). The only way to create steam dollars is by purchasing them at a rate of $1 steam dollar to $1 USD (or currency equivalent.) The only way to convert your steam dollars into USD (within the scope of their ToS, without risk) is to sell physical merchandise purchased with steam dollars. The closer Valve gets to letting people 'buy USD for steam dollars' this way at a 1:1 ratio, the worse it is for Valve as it deflates the value of the market, and they profit off the value of active trading in that market. Therefore, I would expect Valve not to price their hardware competitively/aggressively. Anyone -not- JJR willing to sanity check me here? I assume I'm a dumbass, because this is certainly not my wheelhouse, but it... seems intuitive, to me? | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17737 Posts
On June 27 2026 14:48 Fleetfeet wrote: Therefore, I would expect Valve not to price their hardware competitively/aggressively. Valve's hardware has been competitively priced for years. For years, the Steamdeck was a reasonably priced and sold millions. Their new controller is worth $100 USD. It sold out instantly. Several times the 512GB LCD was $320 USD. A great deal for a PC handheld. | ||
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Simberto
Germany11948 Posts
On June 27 2026 09:09 JimmyJRaynor wrote: A real human customer buys a skin and gives STeam ~$23 in cash. ~$20 in Steam Wallet money is passed on to the seller. Steam is up $1 in cash. The game vendor is up $2 in cash. It is not like Steam is "down" $20. The customer is "down" $23 cash. None of this impacts any hardware purchases on Steam. There is nothing to "protect". Steam has banked the $1. I think the situation is a bit more complex in general, because steam wallet is not completely cash, and that difference probably matters. If we track real cash, the human customer has given $21 to steam and $2 to the game seller (if your numbers are correct). Meanwhile, Steam has given S$ 20 to the seller, which they promise the seller can use to buy whatever he wants on the platform. Which means that steam probably eventually has to give some part of that $21 in real money they currently have to someone else when the customer uses that money to buy something else. I assume steam would like to keep more of the $21 if possible (and in fact some of it is certainly theirs with the platform duties they charge) The fact that steam dollars are locked to the platform also means that steam dollars are worth less that real dollars, which you can spend everywhere. I don't know exactly where all of this leads to in detail. | ||
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Yurie
12143 Posts
If they are willing to act like banks and leverage the money in accounts they could use 18$ of those 20$ for anything really. Assuming they can pull that money back in a decent time in case there ever would be a bank run. Making it more complex from the outside is that the money might not actually be in steam. People assume it has a value but the money is in the outside bank system until somebody puts it in. So then you have no money inside the company to play around with. You instead need to consider a sale once right now vs the same sale multiple times in the future. Steam does seem to care about the marketplace, the CS2 loot box changes to drop prices of knives probably moved more sales into their marketplace and out of third party sites. | ||
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Fleetfeet
Canada2804 Posts
I think my conclusion is that it's a lever they CAN use to control their own market, not a valve (pun intended) they MUST use, and it's gonna be basically impossible for anyone but Valve insiders to comment on their market strategies. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17737 Posts
Nintendo says.. screw that and raises the base salary of their employees in the face of a 40% stock price decrease. https://mynintendonews.com/2026/06/26/nintendo-has-raised-its-employees-base-salary-by-10/ Bungie is done like dinner. 'member when Bungie had 1,600 employees? 'member when Bungie had massive support studios within Activision helping them create Destiny 2 expansions? 'member when everything wrong at Bungie was all Activision's fault? Well, its over. Bungie can blame Micorosoft, Activision, and Sony all it wants.. its over. Some are complaining about the celebrating going on as Bungie sinks into the ocean and hundreds lose their jobs. This is a company that on 5 occasions ripped off independent artists and plagiarized their work. The 5th one was the worst.. it was stolen art work on a massive scale. Bungie got caught 5 times ... how many times did they actually steal the work of others? When you do stuff like this so often and you market to 10s of millions of people you will inevitably incubate and grow an audience of people that will cheer your demise. On June 27 2026 16:10 Simberto wrote: I think the situation is a bit more complex in general, because steam wallet is not completely cash, and that difference probably matters. If we track real cash, the human customer has given $21 to steam and $2 to the game seller (if your numbers are correct). Meanwhile, Steam has given S$ 20 to the seller, which they promise the seller can use to buy whatever he wants on the platform. Which means that steam probably eventually has to give some part of that $21 in real money they currently have to someone else when the customer uses that money to buy something else. I assume steam would like to keep more of the $21 if possible (and in fact some of it is certainly theirs with the platform duties they charge) The fact that steam dollars are locked to the platform also means that steam dollars are worth less that real dollars, which you can spend everywhere. I don't know exactly where all of this leads to in detail. Steam takes in more in real cash than they give back in Steam Wallet funds. So Steam ends up with extra cash. From Steam's perspective that wallet money represents LESS than what they took in ... in cash. The Steam Controller from 10 years ago, the current Steam controller, the Steam Deck, Steam Link etc etc etc .. Steam hardware in aggregate have all been aggressively priced for a decade. The current Steam Controller, for $100, is amazing. Its only been in the last few months where AMD has been getting euchred in the memory marketplace that Steam has had to back away from great pricing. On June 28 2026 05:51 Fleetfeet wrote: Thanks Simberto and Yurie! I think my conclusion is that it's a lever they CAN use to control their own market, not a valve (pun intended) they MUST use, and it's gonna be basically impossible for anyone but Valve insiders to comment on their market strategies. Steam's hardware prices have been great for 10 years. They went up for the same reasons the hardware prices went up for Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony. Valve is a much smaller hardware vendor and can never get the quantity deals the other 3 companies i named get. Thus, Valve is more sensitive to hardware component costs. This is why the Steam Machine is at a high price AND why all their other hardware had low prices for 10 years. | ||
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Fleetfeet
Canada2804 Posts
On June 28 2026 09:35 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Steam's hardware prices have been great for 10 years. They went up for the same reasons the hardware prices went up for Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony. Valve is a much smaller hardware vendor and can never get the quantity deals the other 3 companies i named get. Thus, Valve is more sensitive to hardware component costs. This is why the Steam Machine is at a high price AND why all their other hardware had low prices for 10 years. Sure. Doesn't disagree with or really address my conclusion at all. Feels a bit like you're talking to yourself. | ||
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Harris1st
Germany7356 Posts
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iPlaY.NettleS
Australia4437 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17737 Posts
another part time guy makes a game as a side hustle. a lot of personal stories in there so i asked CHatGPT to cut through that and give a summary of non-personal details. + Show Spoiler + 1. Start by proving demand before writing much code One of the smartest things he did was not programming. Instead he: created a website posted on wrestling forums announced the project publicly watched whether people cared That told him there was actually an audience. Lesson: Before building a game for five years, make sure people actually want it. 2. Build the smallest possible version first Originally the project wasn't RetroMania. It was simply: "Can I remake WrestleFest?" A very narrow goal. He didn't begin by saying: I'm going to build the greatest wrestling game ever. He copied a proven design first. This dramatically reduced complexity. 3. Programming experience transfers...but only partly He already had SQL accounting software database programming He says that experience helped... ...but only a little. Game programming is very different. Examples: Database programming: Read record Update record Save record Game programming: 60 FPS loop Input Physics Animation Collision AI Audio Rendering Repeat forever Different mindset. 4. Engines are the biggest decision He mentions how today you'd choose between Unity Unreal GameMaker Godot instead of writing an engine. That's probably the single biggest technical decision today. Notice he eventually chose GameMaker. That surprised me a little because RetroMania feels much more sophisticated than many GameMaker games. 5. Learn enough programming to understand developers One thing I liked: He didn't become the world's greatest programmer. He learned enough to understand C C++ Hello World basic coding That made him a much better project leader. He could communicate intelligently with programmers. That's huge. 6. Prototype with placeholder assets This is one of the best technical ideas in the interview. He says they: ripped existing sprites used them only as placeholders rapidly prototyped gameplay Then replaced everything later. That is exactly how many commercial games are built. Nobody wants artists waiting six months while programmers build combat. 7. Gameplay first Notice the order. They weren't worried about music polish menus First they wanted "Is this fun?" That's the correct order. 8. The first code usually gets thrown away He laughs about finding his original code. Apparently the hired developer basically said "We're not using any of this." This is extremely common. Professional software often rewrites Version 1 almost entirely. 9. Expect terrible time estimates One of the best quotes: Game development is terrible at estimating completion dates. Reasons include: bug fixing QA edge cases balancing unexpected problems He specifically compares this to GTA 6. This is one of the hardest parts of software engineering. 10. Never rush a patch He says they delayed a patch because they kept finding bugs. That is exactly right. A buggy patch usually creates more work than delaying a week. 11. QA takes much longer than beginners expect One thing beginners underestimate: Programming ≠ Finished game. You still need testing regression testing compatibility bug fixing That can easily equal the original programming effort. 12. Community feedback is valuable He repeatedly mentions: reading forums reading criticism reading emails Even hate mail sometimes exposed real problems. Good developers separate emotion from useful feedback. 13. Reach out to experienced developers He contacted: other indie wrestling developers hackers programmers people who understood sprite extraction He didn't try to reinvent everything. This probably saved years. 14. Budgeting matters One thing I'm looking forward to hearing later: He says he'll reveal Original budget vs. Actual spending. Every software project I've ever seen dramatically underestimates cost. 15. Documentation is incredibly valuable He still has emails journals prototypes budgets development logs Fifteen years later. This is gold.\ Many studios lose their history. 16. Public accountability helps Once he announced the project publicly... he couldn't quietly abandon it. That external pressure helped keep the project alive. 17. Keep your day job He says something important: RetroMania didn't make him rich. He never quit his accounting career. That reduced financial pressure enormously. Many indie developers fail because they need the game to pay next month's rent. 18. Don't build everything yourself One sentence really stood out. He says: I probably did the least amount of work besides funding it. That's actually a sign of good leadership. The job of a producer isn't to write every line of code. It's to assemble the right team. 19. Wrestling games are an underserved niche His reasoning was interesting. Instead of trying to compete with every video game... he competed inside a niche. Large enough: Millions of wrestling fans. Small enough: Very little competition. That's often where successful indie games come from. 20. The technical lesson that impressed me most The biggest takeaway for me wasn't a programming trick. It was this development philosophy: Build something small. Validate that people want it. Prototype quickly with temporary assets. Learn enough technology to communicate effectively. Ask experts for help. Rewrite when necessary. Polish only after the gameplay is already fun. That sequence explains why RetroMania eventually shipped after such a long development cycle. How this relates to your own projects Overall, I'd give this first episode 8.5/10 for developers. There isn't a lot of deep programming yet, but there are many practical lessons about how an indie game actually gets started. If the later episodes get into architecture, animation systems, AI, asset pipelines, or engine-specific decisions, I think they'll be even more valuable. today's engines make the game development process 1000X easier than it was 20,30, 40 years ago. So it should be easy for these newly unemployed hardworking geniuses to annihilate Retromania Wrestling. This was a game made part time as a side hustle by an aging Accountant whose biggest technical accomplishment was memorizing the 1992 ANSI SQL Syntax. All this whining by industry people about how "the market is saturated" occurs precisely because it is so easy to make a game in 2026. Video Game employees are protesting in the streets folks! On June 29 2026 10:05 Fleetfeet wrote: Sure. Doesn't disagree with or really address my conclusion at all. Feels a bit like you're talking to yourself. the price is competitive. their hardware has not been influenced by in game economies for many, many years including 2026. On July 02 2026 19:57 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: PS5 being more expensive now, over 5 years after it came out is insane.And here not by a small amount, actually 30-40% more expensive.Hardware market is completely cooked. you're paying for all of Sony's big bets that went bad. You're paying for Concord and Bungie. Nintendo has been correctly criticized for its lack of innovation the past few years. It is a criticism Nintendo deserves. However, it is worse to spend many Billions trying to be "innovative" and failing as Sony has. Nintendo and Gabe are quite good at doing nothing and winning. That said, they deserve credit for putting themselves in that position. | ||
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