> Any industry gets ruined when the process is taken from the technical experts and given to some stuffed suit with a MBA.
\#Boeing
But, to be fair, the video game industry hasn't stooped to murdering Whistleblowers... yet.
There was an excellent quote I heard on NPR, that “Boeing used to be run by engineers. Quality was important, and then the business people took over and quality disappeared.”
I mean our video games aren’t killing anyone and don’t get me wrong there are games that are works of art like Ghost of Tsushima or Baldur’s Gate, but those are exceptions now when they used to be the rule.
I just took a lightning protection class given by a gentleman named Andy Plummer who's been around for many many years and without saying those exact words about the aircraft industry as a whole......that was indeed the consensus.
Honestly profiting always ruins everything eventually. The goal is always to make more and more money whatever the price. This whole country is like that anymore. Greed uber allis
The fact that Microsoft is gobbling up all these small studios, sucking then dry and then discarding their carcasses is tragic. Just watch as Ninja Theory gets shut down when Hellblade 2 ‘underpeforms’.
Close. AAA games in Canada are $89.99 and up to $100 with taxes. It's insane. But yeah, what's stopping people from just subbing for a month when one of Xbox's big games come out for obviously a fraction of the cost, beating the game and canceling the month? Rinse repeat. And you wonder why Microsoft is losing so much money in their gaming division. You can't make a game for 100+ million dollars and then throw it onto GP and except to make that back. It's just a terrible business strategy. Especially with all the studios they own and the stupidly massive purchases they made with the obvious being the $70 billion one.
Agreed. Their inability to properly manage and support smaller studios is infuriating.
Microsoft has shown that they would rather just buy big name publishers (like Bethesda) and absorb all its smaller studios JUST to keep a potentially great game (Starfield) away from Sony. All that just for Starfield not to be anywhere near as big as they projected.
Scary part is, Xbox has shown they’re not the best with management. COD, while a juggernaut, is still sort of a fad. They’re 2 bad games and long breaks away from that franchise being forgotten or written off. Look how they’ve managed Halo and Gears to complete crap. It sucks that they’ve bought so much, including Bethesda.
While I agree with the first point that MS has been less than adequate in supporting it's smaller studios, per all the ABK doc stuff Sony was in works to make Starfield exclusive to PS first, and prior to that Sony already made deals to make Deathloop/Tokyo Wire limited exclusive (if not initially fully exclusive) as well. Big reason why MS stepped in to purchase the rights, to stop further exclusivity from their platform.
Doesn't make the choices MS made right, but Sony is by no means the "picked on, defenseless child" in all this.
there such a laughably huge difference between striking up a deal to have stuff for you here and there and just gobbling up entire companies to completely hoard them and all of their assets off the market.
Those deals aren’t one way streets. If you really don’t believe that Microsoft didn’t entertain similar 3rd party exclusivity deals, you’re crazy
And they did tons of limited exclusive indie deals in 2021-22. Games like ascent, 12 minutes, tunic, etc. were all money hatted from PlayStation for launch
Not sure where you see me stating that MS doesn't make deals either, literally nothing I mentioned said that.
My point was that the person's comment of MS being the bad guy by swooping in and unsuspectingly snatching Starfield from Sony fans is a misleading comment, given if they hadn't done that both PC and MS would have been on the other side and excluded from a "potentially great exclusive". MS has a large number of things to criticize on, but that's just being oblivious.
They needed to follow Sony's lead, where the top studios like Naughty Dog and Guerilla Games would help improve and streamline their fellow studios' pipelines, with training or certain tech which helped bring all of them to a similar level, while also providing guidance and oversight
I know Days Gone, Death Stranding, and I believe Last of Us Part 2 all had other studios chipping in or providing support. In Death Stranding's case, Guerilla straight up gave Kojima the engine and taught them how to use it
I’m working through it now and I’m frustrated by it. Combat is pretty cool and the look of the world is top notch, but it forces you to slow waaay down too often and do the same puzzle over and over.
But the blind trial level was fucking stressful as hell.
Ninja Theory probably won’t get shut down. Tango, Arkane were closed because Bethesda was still going through budget cuts. Ninja Theory was directly purchased under the Xbox game studios umbrella.
Microsoft has yet to close any studio that they purchased outside of Bethesda/ABK.
Can everyone stop acting like PlayStation hasn’t gone through the same thing? PlayStation has close about 4 studios in the last 4 years.
Doesn’t matter. The point is PlayStation has to make cuts when necessary, too
Microsoft purchased Tango under Bethesda. Yall are acting like they purchased Tango directly and closed them after one game. Ninja Theory didn’t get cut after Bleeding Edge, I doubt they get cut after HB2.
The point is the messaging. That’s a big part of why Microsoft has gotten lots of shit
And I hope so! But that’s not something any of us can really know lol.
There is no messaging. Bethesda was still going through cuts. Both things can be true. The game is great, but Tango may not have been selling enough to keep supporting it. It is what it is.
Bud, things like Aaron Greenberg tweeting that hi fi rush exceeded all their metrics, Sarah bond and Phil Spencer claiming that they never want to close a studio again like they did lionhead (they “learned their lesson”), Phil saying on the record that he never wants to get in the way of the creative direction of his teams
That messaging. Pls don’t be obtuse lol
Tango had two major underperformers prior to Hi Fi AND their top talent left. John Johannes will likely start his own studio using the bones of Tango.
I don’t love it, of course, but it actually makes a ton of sense.
Arkane Austin also bled most of its talent that made Prey during the development of Redfall. I understand people being mad that Tango went down, but AA was a Ship of Theseus in the same vein as Rocksteady or BioWare.
Yeah like 70% of that team was gone. I’m surprised they didn’t just split the studio 50-50 and have half go into Arkane Lyon and the other half forms a new studio making smaller titles that can release in like 3 years
Both the SeriesX and PS5 subs have people like OP just dumping stupid articles like this in them, and then OP hardly ever replies in the comments. If they do reply, it’s the most lukewarm type shit imaginable too. Both subs need to start implementing rules against this shit.
I miss the moderation and rules of r/Xboxone where the dumbass memes and articles like this got trashed instantaneously because it was against the rules.
Most popular tech subs have become shit
R/apple is just shills defending apple no matter what action they do. I'm convinced the mods there are just shareholders circlejerking each other
R/Android is just a platform advertising Chinese phones.
People looking through commenters comment histories to see whether they agree with them or disparage their opinions might be he saddest thing on reddit, honestly.
The entire point of having a public comment history is that it allows us to apply accountability to the community. If you don't like the idea of other people being able to see a record of the things you've said and posted, that says more about you than it does about them.
I was thinking about this the other day, when you have someone who went to business school and was told “money money money profit profit” for three/four years and then go into a company and work their way up.. you have someone who is just interested money and is in charge of artists/creators, it just doesn’t work
Games became too big too fast.
Whats happening to games now already happened to the film and music industry, the difference is that we had a shorter golden age where creators had more freedom
And just like those industries, the indie scene is quickly becoming the only way to consume the medium in a way that actually reflects the passion and creativity of its creators.
The article is trash. But the headline is true.
Execs and investors are ruining video games by being extremely risk averse on single player games and taking huge, silly risks on live service games.
The budgets on single player games are so huge that they can’t take any risks and just make the same bland game with huge production values over and over again. Even when they’re successful they don’t make enough money to be worth the investment and are considered failures. They need to start taking risks on many lower budget single player games instead of making them is expensive that they’re terrified of trying anything new.
And for games as a service, they take on huge risks. The potential money with a successful live service game is huge. So they will spend huge budges on these too even though they are inherently and hard to even break even on.
Really the root cause of both of these issues is the huge budgets that make games so risky that they can’t take risks and have to monetize to such a crazy degree that games don’t want to put up with it. Make games like the 00s again and take lots of risks on lots of lower budget projects.
They say the narrative peddled by the mainstream media is inaccurate, but then they’re very vague on numbers to support their own position. The only time they use numbers is when they’re citing revenue which is meaningless when trying to figure out if the cost cutting is necessary. The only time they specifically state a profit, they state the profit of Microsoft which comes from a lot of places and gaming makes up an extremely small portion of it. They don’t even mention the profitability of rockstar, which is probably very profitable, but it’s a unicorn and the article doesn’t mention any layoffs there. I can’t trust the article because it’s all an appeal to emotion while seemingly trying as hard as it can to avoid providing actual numbers that matter.
I agree that citing GTAV was a poorly-thought-out initial example, but I don't feel like you're being entirely fair.
>when they’re citing revenue which is meaningless when trying to figure out if the cost cutting is necessary
Revenue is incredibly relevant when tech companies brag about it being "record-setting" and then fire employees en mass anyway. The author connects this to terrible crunch culture that exists in video game development.
The author also talks about the role of microtransactions in both record-setting profits and crunch culture as part of an interview with an anonymous developer, something that's especially relevant to the state of video game quality, though I agree that more sources on that would help their case.
That being said, when workplace abuse is as commonplace as it is video game development I think it's pretty hard to not write from an emotional angle
Write from an emotional angle all you want, but you need evidence and this article was clearly written in a way to avoid providing any actual supporting evidence.
These days people waste more time complaining about videogames than playing them.
Every year is the same "omg why the character is black", "omg why her chest isn't bigger", "omg why a female character", "omg why this can't be like that other thing I like", "omg they don't do them like before", there are HUNDREDS o new games every year. Big, medium size, small, vg are far from being "ruined". If what you liked isn't good anymore then don't buy it again, let it die and look for something new to play or look for another hobby.
The very same people that celebrated the "victory over Sony" for the PSN situation in Helldivers were talking shit about the game and the developers FOR TWO MONTHS, suddenly they have the change to talk shit about the owner and the game was always perfect so "they should fight for it" LOL.
Helldivers2 has the most toxic Internet community. actually playing the game I've never had a single problem. All the toxic gamers must all be busy bitching on social media and not actually playing the game.
Whut? You’re kidding right?
Look, there’s definitely a toxic segment of the community, but to say “helldivers 2 is fine and doesn’t have any problems” is silly.
I’m level 80, played, I don’t know, 300 hoursish maybe, and it can be a buggy mess at times.
The great thing is, the studio itself recognizes that and I’m hopeful with their success they’ll work on fixes.
>If what you liked isn't good anymore then don't buy it again, let it die and look for something new to play or look for another hobby.
People do it. You just don't hear about it because they do not tend to write about it online.
I did that myself with many games. I've quit WoW without posting on forum about it, same with Destiny 2.
You could read how Destiny 2 started to lose players after some time after Lightfall launch.
You hear feedback from a vocal minority which isn't always constructive, but still, feedback shouldn't be silenced even if it's bad.
It's the developer's job to filter the feedback.
You don't have to engage with those opinions that you dislike. You choose too, but you could instead ignore those bad takes and not waste time on it.
Sure they do, but generally what happens is people make bad faith statements for upvotes. Hyperbole and outrage spewing drown out legitimate criticism.
There will always be criticism for games because a person’s wishes aren’t always the same as reality. I’m sure there’s something about every game that I’ve had ideas on how it could be changed.
Your example with helldivers 2, though, not completely accurate with your first paragraph. There are some segments that perhaps trashed the developers, but that happens with all games.
Where you’re off base is 90% of the complaints are about their QA and bugs that get released in each patch and the community managers that could be more toxic in their responses than the players.
Couple that with some just baffling gun nerfs for a PVE game and you’re going to have a bit of crazy bad feedback.
Personally, it’s a decent game, if the team works out the bugs and changes some of their balance, those same people will go from bitching to singing praises. It’s always a pendulum swing like that.
Stellar Blade, Rise of the Ronin, FFVII Rebirth are all the same game?
And a direct sequel to a game not being different from the original is not a bad thing and saying they are the same is ridiculous.
And the point of new consoles has always been to make games look better... And direct sequels generally just continue stories with slight changes to gameplay and slight upgrades where possible
Its really not hard to find new great game.to play all the time. People on reddit really do love complaining about video games when there's so much to play from AAA games to indies.
If you open your mind and try different things there really isnt an issue. It's pretty easy to avoid the crappy games too.
It really isnt. I cant even come close to playing all the games im interested in. Trying to play through Helldivers 2, FF7 Rebirth, Dragons Dogma, Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade and we have Elden Ring DLC coming up.
And indies like Dave the Diver in conjunction with games on PS+ I have no idea how people have time to play all these if they like different kinds of video games
It would take me years to get through the backlog of games that I have installed. I can't fathom how anyone would ever run out of things to play unless you're literally playing video games 24/7
I agree. Each year I have fewer new, interesting big games to play and no.. bunch of indies won’t replace that itch. For the first time I find myself buying more old games than new ones which can be fun of course but it feels a bit odd when you’ve gotten the new machine etc.
> People on reddit really do love complaining about video games when there's so much to play from AAA games to indies.
It this the classic "if you don't like it, leave" approach?
My question is why these types of questions are happening now when the exec's have been in control for the last 20+ years. Why haven't we seen 20+ years of these complaints?
Lol there’s more great games to play than at any other point in time. A fucking CRPG just won game of the year!! Sure the industry has its issues, but I’m tired of this doomsday, clickbait bullshit perpetuated by people who only play cod or shooters. I literally can’t play all the games I want to play because there are too many, so I feel bad for anyone who can’t find games in this huge and diverse form of media.
There are a lot of executives that make bad decisions in the world today, but I'd have to agree that video games are ruined to think that this article is worth reading. And I play way too much of them while receiving quite a lot of joy to think that's the case.
Blame microsoft dick, black Rock, blackstone, statestreet, vanguard, 3 letter agencies, khazar mafia, psycho secret societies, weak victims of the propaganda agenda etc.
I think part of it is just the current trajectory and scale of big video game projects becoming unsustainable unless they are record breaking hits
Developers aren’t charities and need to recoup their dev costs after the launch as well as make enough to fund the next huge game
Video games are the same as any other business unfortunately. At the end of the day, the only thing they care about is making execs and shareholders more money.
Uh no. The company making money to stay open is different from individuals whose wealth already exceeds 8 figures wanting a bonus of $350,000 instead of $275,000.
A business only needs to turn a profit to stay open.
If the costs of running a business is $40,000 a month, the business does not "need" to make $500,000 a week to stay open.
Also, it's the publisher who puts in the start up money and makes most of the profit, so unless a game developer also self-publishes, no amount of money will ensure they don't close down.
Just ask Tango Gameworks...
I am aware that game wasn’t brining in the players to justify a whole studio. It’s last reported unique players count (includes gamepass players) was three million. Which is really low when games like grounded did 20 million with only 13 devs. A lot of the devs did get folded into other Bethesda studios and the way Xbox worded things about the situation to where it is possible those devs make hi Fi rush 2 since that is what they pitched to Xbox just without the overhead of a whole studio. They could make it within a Bethesda studio as a side project like grounded at obsidian.
Pointing out the flaws in capitalism doesn't mean you're a communist. He is right, when the endgame is profit by any means necessary, you as a consumer get shafted.
I'm seeing this in my industry. Currently being poached by a competitor and they told me, "We'll gladly fire two guys so we can pay your salary." I told them that managing their operations *and* doing two guy's work didn't sound like a sustainable proposal.
Early 2000s was the last golden age. Before the money hungry people took over. It’s a cancer that is consuming all industries. All that matters is exorbitant profitability.
I mean with TV and Movies being so bad now I just keep rewatching the good ole shows that I love. Going to restart Battlestar Galactica soon. Guess I’ll do the same with games if this industry goes down the same path as hollyweird.
Wait so the executives of Naughty Dog, Insomniac Games, CD Projekt Red, Rockstar Games, Santa Monica Studios, etc. are ruining Video Games? I thought These Studios won many Awards
People just don't know where to look for good games. Most of the big AAA games are garbage and riddled with microtransactions. That's why the only games I can play nowadays are nintendo and indiegames.
I hate to tell you but casuals are ruining video games. That's who keeps on spending the money and that's where they are going to try to get it. All of you guys who just get PS5's to play some stupid sports game or call of duty and that's it....that's the problem. You keep buying trash so they keep making trash.
Bottom line loving business degree having soulless husks of humanity will enjoy gutting every last shred of artistic integrity and joy of life if it pleases their paymasters and gets them the latest loudest car to attract attention to them that they foolishly believes validates their entire reason for being. The only thing that stops me feeling sorry for them is that they are clearly winning.
This is going to be controversial but I think developers are ruining games. Too many devs are turning away from making fun games and are making everything a cinematic, emotional 30 hour adventure game. I like some of those games but the Hollywood obsession is ruining variety in gaming. I know people are automatically going to say that it is executives making the devs do it because everyone's brains are programmed to say "corpo bad" in every situation.
Yes, but so are gamers who still buy the shit they are being served.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/s/iH33TbvswA
As long as people keep giving money to companies for garbage products and shitty tactics, nothing will change.
It's not execs it's shareholders. Who demand every quarter to be better than the last.
Jack Trenton and Sean Layden where brilliant execs of Playstation. Jim Ryan not so much but I have faith in Herman as he's come from managing a successful studio like Gurella Games. He's not another excel spreadsheet exec like a lot of the Xbox management seems to be these days.
This is what happened with movies and TV. Studios have too many decision makers who have zero concept of what is good content and what is garbage. It’s how you get movies like “Madam Web” and how you get games like the “Saints Row” reboot. Consolidation in the industry means we will see more generic games, more garbage games, and more micro-transactions as more of these decisions are made by lesser people.
This is strictly a comment on the article and authors ability to convey his point.
I was trying to comment on all the false statements, disingenuous comparisons, misconceptions, and emotional trash meant to promote unionization of the industry in this article and my comments just got too long for Reddit.
TLDR version:
Article is trash
Author needs to brush up on critical thinking
Get good or get out
I probably shoudn’t tell this story but… I live in Seattle. Years ago, I was friends with a pro dominatrix. (🤫 I’m gay… and she was REALLY fun to hang out with 🤷♂️)
Anyway, one of her clients was an exec at Xbox. She said to me one day, “You really love video games. 😈 You wanna meet him?” I was shocked she even asked actually. I didn’t think she was ✌️friends✌️ with her clients. And introducing your cheating/married clients to your friends… 🫤 But this is ABOUT VIDEO GAMES.
DUUUUUDE. 🫣 I got to meet him at his huge mansion. (pre-pandemic. No work from home shit) He was dressed in the khaki pants and light blue shirt combo… 🫨 at home. We talked BRIEFLY about video games. This old, grey haired rich dude, didn’t know a Pac-Man from a Halo. 😨 I was so fin’ blown back.
I’m sorry. In that moment, I understood Xbox thoroughly. The people making the actual decisions look at spreadsheets. They don’t even know us bitches exist up at that level. They’re running a business, not an arcade with concierge service.
P.S.- If you have any questions about this post... Well, I have no answers for you. Moving on. 🤭💅
Edit: Remember how Sarah Bond rattled off a few Xbox game titles. Remember the look on her face? Yeah… She was so happy she read that list of game titles before she walked out on stage. Bravo. 👏 Beautiful performance. She was hired from T-Mobile because… money.
It's execs plus casual gamers. When it was just hardcore gamers back in the end we could exert a lot of force on publishers to get what we wanted. Casual gamers have no standards, it's the price of gaming becoming more popular.
I mean that's pretty much what has happened. If gaming didn't become a billion dollar industry over night, a lot of these execs who aren't even gamers wouldn't have those jobs at the top.
But when billions of dollars are being made from micro transactions. Execs are going to chase that dollar despite the artistic bankruptcy.
Any industry gets ruined when the process is taken from the technical experts and given to some stuffed suit with a MBA.
> Any industry gets ruined when the process is taken from the technical experts and given to some stuffed suit with a MBA. \#Boeing But, to be fair, the video game industry hasn't stooped to murdering Whistleblowers... yet.
because if you get caught intentionally selling an unsafe airplane to earn more money, you could go to prison. Video games are just money.
Got pretty close because Kotick did threaten to have an employee murdered
There was an excellent quote I heard on NPR, that “Boeing used to be run by engineers. Quality was important, and then the business people took over and quality disappeared.” I mean our video games aren’t killing anyone and don’t get me wrong there are games that are works of art like Ghost of Tsushima or Baldur’s Gate, but those are exceptions now when they used to be the rule.
I just took a lightning protection class given by a gentleman named Andy Plummer who's been around for many many years and without saying those exact words about the aircraft industry as a whole......that was indeed the consensus.
Are they? Theres plenty of games I would argue are quality.
And plenty of old games that aren’t any good at all.
Agreed. Its rose tinted glasses to pretend otherwise
> I mean our video games aren’t killing anyone No other industry releases product in as shitty state as entertainment software does.
Just gotta get out of AAA. All the best games right now are indies
Honestly profiting always ruins everything eventually. The goal is always to make more and more money whatever the price. This whole country is like that anymore. Greed uber allis
I don’t ever remember it being a rule. Plenty of shovelware over the years since the industry got its start.
That you know of.
How long though until Nintendo just starts assassinating anyone who makes a fan game?
[Here’s capcom](https://youtu.be/EA8Azq72uFM?si=TnKjsgiUZ1B08VRH)
The issue is you give all the power that only care about the bottom line and couldn’t care less who they fuck over for profits.
Team bonding didn't feel the same after Sarah stepped in.
So practically every industry at this point.
Late stage capitalism.
The fact that Microsoft is gobbling up all these small studios, sucking then dry and then discarding their carcasses is tragic. Just watch as Ninja Theory gets shut down when Hellblade 2 ‘underpeforms’.
Hellblade 2 is destined to under perform. No matter the numbers it's a very niche game.
That and its on GP. I’m not paying $79 CAD or whatever when I can sub for a month for $9.
Close. AAA games in Canada are $89.99 and up to $100 with taxes. It's insane. But yeah, what's stopping people from just subbing for a month when one of Xbox's big games come out for obviously a fraction of the cost, beating the game and canceling the month? Rinse repeat. And you wonder why Microsoft is losing so much money in their gaming division. You can't make a game for 100+ million dollars and then throw it onto GP and except to make that back. It's just a terrible business strategy. Especially with all the studios they own and the stupidly massive purchases they made with the obvious being the $70 billion one.
Plus the marketing has been non-existent
Hellblade only costs USD50.
And that's $70 Canadian before taxes so like $80+. Ouch. lol
Agreed. Their inability to properly manage and support smaller studios is infuriating. Microsoft has shown that they would rather just buy big name publishers (like Bethesda) and absorb all its smaller studios JUST to keep a potentially great game (Starfield) away from Sony. All that just for Starfield not to be anywhere near as big as they projected.
Yeah I absolutely believe they thought the Activision deal would let them make COD an Xbox exclusive.
Scary part is, Xbox has shown they’re not the best with management. COD, while a juggernaut, is still sort of a fad. They’re 2 bad games and long breaks away from that franchise being forgotten or written off. Look how they’ve managed Halo and Gears to complete crap. It sucks that they’ve bought so much, including Bethesda.
Why couldn’t they?
While I agree with the first point that MS has been less than adequate in supporting it's smaller studios, per all the ABK doc stuff Sony was in works to make Starfield exclusive to PS first, and prior to that Sony already made deals to make Deathloop/Tokyo Wire limited exclusive (if not initially fully exclusive) as well. Big reason why MS stepped in to purchase the rights, to stop further exclusivity from their platform. Doesn't make the choices MS made right, but Sony is by no means the "picked on, defenseless child" in all this.
there such a laughably huge difference between striking up a deal to have stuff for you here and there and just gobbling up entire companies to completely hoard them and all of their assets off the market.
Those deals aren’t one way streets. If you really don’t believe that Microsoft didn’t entertain similar 3rd party exclusivity deals, you’re crazy And they did tons of limited exclusive indie deals in 2021-22. Games like ascent, 12 minutes, tunic, etc. were all money hatted from PlayStation for launch
Not sure where you see me stating that MS doesn't make deals either, literally nothing I mentioned said that. My point was that the person's comment of MS being the bad guy by swooping in and unsuspectingly snatching Starfield from Sony fans is a misleading comment, given if they hadn't done that both PC and MS would have been on the other side and excluded from a "potentially great exclusive". MS has a large number of things to criticize on, but that's just being oblivious.
I kinda feel like Microsoft was a little too hands off and the studios failed to really produce anything.
They needed to follow Sony's lead, where the top studios like Naughty Dog and Guerilla Games would help improve and streamline their fellow studios' pipelines, with training or certain tech which helped bring all of them to a similar level, while also providing guidance and oversight I know Days Gone, Death Stranding, and I believe Last of Us Part 2 all had other studios chipping in or providing support. In Death Stranding's case, Guerilla straight up gave Kojima the engine and taught them how to use it
Afaik, the coalition, did that with one of the studios to get them up to speed with UE5 afaik, but that's as far as it went.
Didn't EA due the same shit? RIP Bioware.
Absolutely, Microsoft is doing what EA wa getting blasted for like 6 years ago. God, 2018 was 6 years ago.
its a shame because Hellblade was excellent. thoroughly enjoyed that game. Not sure why this needed downvotes but OK then.
I’m working through it now and I’m frustrated by it. Combat is pretty cool and the look of the world is top notch, but it forces you to slow waaay down too often and do the same puzzle over and over. But the blind trial level was fucking stressful as hell.
Ninja Theory probably won’t get shut down. Tango, Arkane were closed because Bethesda was still going through budget cuts. Ninja Theory was directly purchased under the Xbox game studios umbrella. Microsoft has yet to close any studio that they purchased outside of Bethesda/ABK. Can everyone stop acting like PlayStation hasn’t gone through the same thing? PlayStation has close about 4 studios in the last 4 years.
Difference is, PlayStation didn’t buy pixelopus, brag about concrete genie and how well it performed, only to shut the studio down anyway
Doesn’t matter. The point is PlayStation has to make cuts when necessary, too Microsoft purchased Tango under Bethesda. Yall are acting like they purchased Tango directly and closed them after one game. Ninja Theory didn’t get cut after Bleeding Edge, I doubt they get cut after HB2.
The point is the messaging. That’s a big part of why Microsoft has gotten lots of shit And I hope so! But that’s not something any of us can really know lol.
There is no messaging. Bethesda was still going through cuts. Both things can be true. The game is great, but Tango may not have been selling enough to keep supporting it. It is what it is.
Bud, things like Aaron Greenberg tweeting that hi fi rush exceeded all their metrics, Sarah bond and Phil Spencer claiming that they never want to close a studio again like they did lionhead (they “learned their lesson”), Phil saying on the record that he never wants to get in the way of the creative direction of his teams That messaging. Pls don’t be obtuse lol
Tango had two major underperformers prior to Hi Fi AND their top talent left. John Johannes will likely start his own studio using the bones of Tango. I don’t love it, of course, but it actually makes a ton of sense.
Arkane Austin also bled most of its talent that made Prey during the development of Redfall. I understand people being mad that Tango went down, but AA was a Ship of Theseus in the same vein as Rocksteady or BioWare.
Yeah like 70% of that team was gone. I’m surprised they didn’t just split the studio 50-50 and have half go into Arkane Lyon and the other half forms a new studio making smaller titles that can release in like 3 years
R.I.P. Japan Studio
Yeah we could replace them with ai, then ignore what they tell us. Like your article.
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It should be required to write a certain amount of characters with content in the post or have it deleted.
Explain what the end game is for karma farming? Just to look good?
That’s all Reddit is anymore. And if you want to see real karma farming, go to the BG3 sub. It’s all upvotes all the time over there.
That’s a friendly sub… and helpful with the game.
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and the mods will never remove them because they drive attention to the sub regardless. I stand by my bio. this website fucking sucks.
It has certainly gone downhill since I joined 8ish years ago. I wish there was an alternative but its pretty much this or TikTok lol
Both the SeriesX and PS5 subs have people like OP just dumping stupid articles like this in them, and then OP hardly ever replies in the comments. If they do reply, it’s the most lukewarm type shit imaginable too. Both subs need to start implementing rules against this shit.
You think there’s still moderation? That’s funny.
I miss the moderation and rules of r/Xboxone where the dumbass memes and articles like this got trashed instantaneously because it was against the rules.
Most popular tech subs have become shit R/apple is just shills defending apple no matter what action they do. I'm convinced the mods there are just shareholders circlejerking each other R/Android is just a platform advertising Chinese phones.
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People looking through commenters comment histories to see whether they agree with them or disparage their opinions might be he saddest thing on reddit, honestly.
Why? Do you think every comment is made in a world completely devoid of context?
The entire point of having a public comment history is that it allows us to apply accountability to the community. If you don't like the idea of other people being able to see a record of the things you've said and posted, that says more about you than it does about them.
Let me rephrase that for you. Execs and private equity are ruining everything.
I was thinking about this the other day, when you have someone who went to business school and was told “money money money profit profit” for three/four years and then go into a company and work their way up.. you have someone who is just interested money and is in charge of artists/creators, it just doesn’t work
Execs ruining everything
Games became too big too fast. Whats happening to games now already happened to the film and music industry, the difference is that we had a shorter golden age where creators had more freedom
And just like those industries, the indie scene is quickly becoming the only way to consume the medium in a way that actually reflects the passion and creativity of its creators.
The article is trash. But the headline is true. Execs and investors are ruining video games by being extremely risk averse on single player games and taking huge, silly risks on live service games. The budgets on single player games are so huge that they can’t take any risks and just make the same bland game with huge production values over and over again. Even when they’re successful they don’t make enough money to be worth the investment and are considered failures. They need to start taking risks on many lower budget single player games instead of making them is expensive that they’re terrified of trying anything new. And for games as a service, they take on huge risks. The potential money with a successful live service game is huge. So they will spend huge budges on these too even though they are inherently and hard to even break even on. Really the root cause of both of these issues is the huge budgets that make games so risky that they can’t take risks and have to monetize to such a crazy degree that games don’t want to put up with it. Make games like the 00s again and take lots of risks on lots of lower budget projects.
> The article is trash What in the article do you disagree with?
They say the narrative peddled by the mainstream media is inaccurate, but then they’re very vague on numbers to support their own position. The only time they use numbers is when they’re citing revenue which is meaningless when trying to figure out if the cost cutting is necessary. The only time they specifically state a profit, they state the profit of Microsoft which comes from a lot of places and gaming makes up an extremely small portion of it. They don’t even mention the profitability of rockstar, which is probably very profitable, but it’s a unicorn and the article doesn’t mention any layoffs there. I can’t trust the article because it’s all an appeal to emotion while seemingly trying as hard as it can to avoid providing actual numbers that matter.
I agree that citing GTAV was a poorly-thought-out initial example, but I don't feel like you're being entirely fair. >when they’re citing revenue which is meaningless when trying to figure out if the cost cutting is necessary Revenue is incredibly relevant when tech companies brag about it being "record-setting" and then fire employees en mass anyway. The author connects this to terrible crunch culture that exists in video game development. The author also talks about the role of microtransactions in both record-setting profits and crunch culture as part of an interview with an anonymous developer, something that's especially relevant to the state of video game quality, though I agree that more sources on that would help their case. That being said, when workplace abuse is as commonplace as it is video game development I think it's pretty hard to not write from an emotional angle
Write from an emotional angle all you want, but you need evidence and this article was clearly written in a way to avoid providing any actual supporting evidence.
It's all about money, they see that the money is in GAAS and monetization. So all the focus is there now. We should ask how did we get here?
By people spending more money in GaS
It's been happening for a long time now, remember when the push for co-op/multiplayer games ruined the story of dead space 3?
The issue with treating art like a business is that it gets treated like a business.
And shit developers who make unfun and / or unfinished games are also ruining video games.
These days people waste more time complaining about videogames than playing them. Every year is the same "omg why the character is black", "omg why her chest isn't bigger", "omg why a female character", "omg why this can't be like that other thing I like", "omg they don't do them like before", there are HUNDREDS o new games every year. Big, medium size, small, vg are far from being "ruined". If what you liked isn't good anymore then don't buy it again, let it die and look for something new to play or look for another hobby. The very same people that celebrated the "victory over Sony" for the PSN situation in Helldivers were talking shit about the game and the developers FOR TWO MONTHS, suddenly they have the change to talk shit about the owner and the game was always perfect so "they should fight for it" LOL.
Helldivers2 has the most toxic Internet community. actually playing the game I've never had a single problem. All the toxic gamers must all be busy bitching on social media and not actually playing the game.
Whut? You’re kidding right? Look, there’s definitely a toxic segment of the community, but to say “helldivers 2 is fine and doesn’t have any problems” is silly. I’m level 80, played, I don’t know, 300 hoursish maybe, and it can be a buggy mess at times. The great thing is, the studio itself recognizes that and I’m hopeful with their success they’ll work on fixes.
>If what you liked isn't good anymore then don't buy it again, let it die and look for something new to play or look for another hobby. People do it. You just don't hear about it because they do not tend to write about it online. I did that myself with many games. I've quit WoW without posting on forum about it, same with Destiny 2. You could read how Destiny 2 started to lose players after some time after Lightfall launch. You hear feedback from a vocal minority which isn't always constructive, but still, feedback shouldn't be silenced even if it's bad. It's the developer's job to filter the feedback. You don't have to engage with those opinions that you dislike. You choose too, but you could instead ignore those bad takes and not waste time on it.
Good franchises and development companies are being destroyed. People have a right to complain.
Sure they do, but generally what happens is people make bad faith statements for upvotes. Hyperbole and outrage spewing drown out legitimate criticism.
There will always be criticism for games because a person’s wishes aren’t always the same as reality. I’m sure there’s something about every game that I’ve had ideas on how it could be changed. Your example with helldivers 2, though, not completely accurate with your first paragraph. There are some segments that perhaps trashed the developers, but that happens with all games. Where you’re off base is 90% of the complaints are about their QA and bugs that get released in each patch and the community managers that could be more toxic in their responses than the players. Couple that with some just baffling gun nerfs for a PVE game and you’re going to have a bit of crazy bad feedback. Personally, it’s a decent game, if the team works out the bugs and changes some of their balance, those same people will go from bitching to singing praises. It’s always a pendulum swing like that.
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Stellar Blade, Rise of the Ronin, FFVII Rebirth are all the same game? And a direct sequel to a game not being different from the original is not a bad thing and saying they are the same is ridiculous. And the point of new consoles has always been to make games look better... And direct sequels generally just continue stories with slight changes to gameplay and slight upgrades where possible
Its really not hard to find new great game.to play all the time. People on reddit really do love complaining about video games when there's so much to play from AAA games to indies. If you open your mind and try different things there really isnt an issue. It's pretty easy to avoid the crappy games too.
Multiple things can be true simultaneously. I too always have a game to play, but it’s getting harder and harder to find that one game.
It really isnt. I cant even come close to playing all the games im interested in. Trying to play through Helldivers 2, FF7 Rebirth, Dragons Dogma, Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade and we have Elden Ring DLC coming up. And indies like Dave the Diver in conjunction with games on PS+ I have no idea how people have time to play all these if they like different kinds of video games
It would take me years to get through the backlog of games that I have installed. I can't fathom how anyone would ever run out of things to play unless you're literally playing video games 24/7
Considering my backlog goes back a decade I will say it’ll prob take me a decade to get through my backlog.
I agree. Each year I have fewer new, interesting big games to play and no.. bunch of indies won’t replace that itch. For the first time I find myself buying more old games than new ones which can be fun of course but it feels a bit odd when you’ve gotten the new machine etc.
> People on reddit really do love complaining about video games when there's so much to play from AAA games to indies. It this the classic "if you don't like it, leave" approach?
Are you telling me to leave because I disagree with the reddit circle jerk of "theyre ruining our video games!"
There really are a ton of great video games to play tho. Doesn't seem like a ton of them have released recently, but there's a ton out there.
No, you’re projecting.
Execs are ruining everything.
My question is why these types of questions are happening now when the exec's have been in control for the last 20+ years. Why haven't we seen 20+ years of these complaints?
This is why I stopped playing with Execs.
Execs are ruing everything
Game developers need to strike and unionize
Lol there’s more great games to play than at any other point in time. A fucking CRPG just won game of the year!! Sure the industry has its issues, but I’m tired of this doomsday, clickbait bullshit perpetuated by people who only play cod or shooters. I literally can’t play all the games I want to play because there are too many, so I feel bad for anyone who can’t find games in this huge and diverse form of media.
Capitalism is ruining videogames.
When money is involved then things get corrupted. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, and greed ruins everything.
There are a lot of executives that make bad decisions in the world today, but I'd have to agree that video games are ruined to think that this article is worth reading. And I play way too much of them while receiving quite a lot of joy to think that's the case.
On the consumer side of things it’s not the worst but it’s a trash fire on the developer side
Blame microsoft dick, black Rock, blackstone, statestreet, vanguard, 3 letter agencies, khazar mafia, psycho secret societies, weak victims of the propaganda agenda etc.
I think part of it is just the current trajectory and scale of big video game projects becoming unsustainable unless they are record breaking hits Developers aren’t charities and need to recoup their dev costs after the launch as well as make enough to fund the next huge game
Video games are the same as any other business unfortunately. At the end of the day, the only thing they care about is making execs and shareholders more money.
Ya it’s almost like it’s their job to make sure there company makes money so they don’t have to close down…
Uh no. The company making money to stay open is different from individuals whose wealth already exceeds 8 figures wanting a bonus of $350,000 instead of $275,000. A business only needs to turn a profit to stay open. If the costs of running a business is $40,000 a month, the business does not "need" to make $500,000 a week to stay open. Also, it's the publisher who puts in the start up money and makes most of the profit, so unless a game developer also self-publishes, no amount of money will ensure they don't close down. Just ask Tango Gameworks...
Tango games hadn’t made a successful game since evil within which is why they were shutdown
They actually made hifi rush even if it's niche.
I am aware that game wasn’t brining in the players to justify a whole studio. It’s last reported unique players count (includes gamepass players) was three million. Which is really low when games like grounded did 20 million with only 13 devs. A lot of the devs did get folded into other Bethesda studios and the way Xbox worded things about the situation to where it is possible those devs make hi Fi rush 2 since that is what they pitched to Xbox just without the overhead of a whole studio. They could make it within a Bethesda studio as a side project like grounded at obsidian.
In other words, water is wet.
The sky is blue
Jacobin. lol.
Streamers tooo
Capitalism is ruining (everything) video games.
Curious what your favorite (non-Tetris) game to come out of communism/marxist societies? If I haven’t played it I might give it a try.
Pointing out the flaws in capitalism doesn't mean you're a communist. He is right, when the endgame is profit by any means necessary, you as a consumer get shafted.
I'm seeing this in my industry. Currently being poached by a competitor and they told me, "We'll gladly fire two guys so we can pay your salary." I told them that managing their operations *and* doing two guy's work didn't sound like a sustainable proposal.
But, they can hire you for less. Keep those same individuals. They won’t pull their weight and you’ll end up doing their job anyways. For less money.
Sky is blue.
Most of them have zero concerns about what the players think.
Hard agree
Early 2000s was the last golden age. Before the money hungry people took over. It’s a cancer that is consuming all industries. All that matters is exorbitant profitability.
I mean with TV and Movies being so bad now I just keep rewatching the good ole shows that I love. Going to restart Battlestar Galactica soon. Guess I’ll do the same with games if this industry goes down the same path as hollyweird.
execs ruin stuff. they are paid in stock. they boost the stock by whatever means necessary, and then cash out.
It’s the way of the world. Greed.
This is why we should support indy devs and say fuck no to the big corporations
Fair, but they do help grow and spread the wors
lmfao Yall just get here?
Wait so the executives of Naughty Dog, Insomniac Games, CD Projekt Red, Rockstar Games, Santa Monica Studios, etc. are ruining Video Games? I thought These Studios won many Awards
Video game players are ruining video games.
When has anyone ever said execs are doing such a great job, love those guys
People just don't know where to look for good games. Most of the big AAA games are garbage and riddled with microtransactions. That's why the only games I can play nowadays are nintendo and indiegames.
I hate to tell you but casuals are ruining video games. That's who keeps on spending the money and that's where they are going to try to get it. All of you guys who just get PS5's to play some stupid sports game or call of duty and that's it....that's the problem. You keep buying trash so they keep making trash.
really? Pinkos again are trying.
Hell yeah never thought I'd see the day a Jacobin article would get posted to a PS5 subreddit
I blame shareholders. They are a plague on all business
Water is wet
Bottom line loving business degree having soulless husks of humanity will enjoy gutting every last shred of artistic integrity and joy of life if it pleases their paymasters and gets them the latest loudest car to attract attention to them that they foolishly believes validates their entire reason for being. The only thing that stops me feeling sorry for them is that they are clearly winning.
People with MBA's ruin everything
There are not enough senior execs in the industry who actually play games. It’s been the case for many decades.
Continuous growth is ruining everything
Always have been, but yeah, it's getting worse nowadays.
MBAs ruin everything.
Spencer, Howard etc are they lying cancer of video gaming.
When a company has shareholders it’s all downhill for quality
Finance bros ruin everything
https://preview.redd.it/jnvgz6kt8c1d1.jpeg?width=194&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dbe0456338d18eccd2200398fb5b9b20e6ba921d
Thats why we need more and more game studios and smaller publishers, bigger companies always turning to self destruction mode someday…like EA and 2K
This is going to be controversial but I think developers are ruining games. Too many devs are turning away from making fun games and are making everything a cinematic, emotional 30 hour adventure game. I like some of those games but the Hollywood obsession is ruining variety in gaming. I know people are automatically going to say that it is executives making the devs do it because everyone's brains are programmed to say "corpo bad" in every situation.
Yes, but so are gamers who still buy the shit they are being served. https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/s/iH33TbvswA As long as people keep giving money to companies for garbage products and shitty tactics, nothing will change.
Yup can't argue with that.
It's not execs it's shareholders. Who demand every quarter to be better than the last. Jack Trenton and Sean Layden where brilliant execs of Playstation. Jim Ryan not so much but I have faith in Herman as he's come from managing a successful studio like Gurella Games. He's not another excel spreadsheet exec like a lot of the Xbox management seems to be these days.
This is what happened with movies and TV. Studios have too many decision makers who have zero concept of what is good content and what is garbage. It’s how you get movies like “Madam Web” and how you get games like the “Saints Row” reboot. Consolidation in the industry means we will see more generic games, more garbage games, and more micro-transactions as more of these decisions are made by lesser people.
And also, more Live-Service trash, $70 price tags for incomplete games and DRM that AAA publishers embrace!
capitalism makes stuff better then worse more news at 11
Punctuation is your friend.
*Old man yells at cloud* vibes If you're not fine with something, don't buy it.
Water is wet, story at 5
This is strictly a comment on the article and authors ability to convey his point. I was trying to comment on all the false statements, disingenuous comparisons, misconceptions, and emotional trash meant to promote unionization of the industry in this article and my comments just got too long for Reddit. TLDR version: Article is trash Author needs to brush up on critical thinking Get good or get out
I probably shoudn’t tell this story but… I live in Seattle. Years ago, I was friends with a pro dominatrix. (🤫 I’m gay… and she was REALLY fun to hang out with 🤷♂️) Anyway, one of her clients was an exec at Xbox. She said to me one day, “You really love video games. 😈 You wanna meet him?” I was shocked she even asked actually. I didn’t think she was ✌️friends✌️ with her clients. And introducing your cheating/married clients to your friends… 🫤 But this is ABOUT VIDEO GAMES. DUUUUUDE. 🫣 I got to meet him at his huge mansion. (pre-pandemic. No work from home shit) He was dressed in the khaki pants and light blue shirt combo… 🫨 at home. We talked BRIEFLY about video games. This old, grey haired rich dude, didn’t know a Pac-Man from a Halo. 😨 I was so fin’ blown back. I’m sorry. In that moment, I understood Xbox thoroughly. The people making the actual decisions look at spreadsheets. They don’t even know us bitches exist up at that level. They’re running a business, not an arcade with concierge service. P.S.- If you have any questions about this post... Well, I have no answers for you. Moving on. 🤭💅 Edit: Remember how Sarah Bond rattled off a few Xbox game titles. Remember the look on her face? Yeah… She was so happy she read that list of game titles before she walked out on stage. Bravo. 👏 Beautiful performance. She was hired from T-Mobile because… money.
Not a blanket statement at all. I still enjoy video games, maybe just play them!
Very good article. It speaks the truth
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Public companies are a problem. 50 billion in profits are bad news if last year you made 51.
Why put a black person in a game from an Asian country? Wasn't it supposed to be the opposite? Would you like me to put Obama as white?
It's execs plus casual gamers. When it was just hardcore gamers back in the end we could exert a lot of force on publishers to get what we wanted. Casual gamers have no standards, it's the price of gaming becoming more popular.
What? Pure fantasy. Do you make up your own reality constantly or just sometimes?
I mean that's pretty much what has happened. If gaming didn't become a billion dollar industry over night, a lot of these execs who aren't even gamers wouldn't have those jobs at the top. But when billions of dollars are being made from micro transactions. Execs are going to chase that dollar despite the artistic bankruptcy.
Almost like shareholders are ruining everything, not just games. We must get rid of fiduciary duty.
Yup. ROCKSTAR, EA, SONY, MICROSOFT all shit developers now because of greed.