Game News 2.0

quokula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121671428#Comment_121671428

Can't see this going anywhere. The game's been known about and been putting out marketing material for over a year without Nintendo taking any action (something that they're normally very quickly to jump to), and Microsoft also chose to put it on Gamepass which would surely have involved running it past their lawyers first.

Don't get me wrong, the game is creatively bankrupt but that doesn't necessarily mean it broke any laws.

MikeRyan87

Not surprising news at all. MS (and a lot of other companies) need a serious strategy rethink.

Terrible for everyone involved.

Cordell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121671548#Comment_121671548

Yeah, our planning and project management framework was something like "it needs to be beta by this date and gold by this later date". Otherwise we were relaxing in the beginning, experimenting and doing cool stuff, and leaving at sunrise towards the end.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121671663#Comment_121671663

Scrum worked well for us as the project managers and team completely over promised to the stakeholders. I was brought on as the other coders said the game AI code was impossible in the time frame and I told them I could to it easily (big mistake, the AI code was very simple pathfinding but a bitch to code). Scrum let us show the stakeholders what we could deliver in the time frame and let us drop features until we had something we could deliver on time. I don't think anything would have gotten made if we had a mess around until a game starts to come together approach!

sniper_samurai

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121671613#Comment_121671613

Tbf they've done enough to be legally distinct from Pokemon as an IP. This investigation is wrt them using Pokémon 3d model assets in the creation of some of their creatures. This is the kind of thing that can't be accounted for prior to release and being able to check the assets used.

Cordell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121671742#Comment_121671742

For us it was chaos, but it was some sort of self organizing chaos as we almost always delivered on time...

Anyway, I hope that the laid off employees find other opportunities soon, at least the ones that are good and passionate about making games. We need more passion and less corporate bean counting in this industry. And less duds and missed opportunities like Redfall and Starfield.

CatInABox

https://twitter.com/JezCorden/status/1750590022842278391

Looks like MS is all in on going to digital asap. Don't think that Sony are all that far behind. Grim.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121672306#Comment_121672306

Nintendo as well. Apparently they aren't reprinting a lot of their games.

CatInABox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121672373#Comment_121672373

I'd heard that alright, but someone suggested that they might be waiting until they announce the new switch before restocking, as the cases could then show the backwards/forwards compatibility.

At least, that's what I'm hoping for, even though I'm totally digital myself. Still don't want physical to die off for everyone else.

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121672471#Comment_121672471

Nintendo first party digital prices are ridiculous though. Even on their sales, it's cheaper to get physical.

Hopefully Nintendo are just rebranding for backwards compatibility or even brining out a Nintendo budget "selects" line, like they did for previous consoles to the switch.

EoinMcLovin

6 years down the drain

https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1750620667660100066?t=ZPSkICFLWDQYrNTqN5V_nA&s=19

But in recent years, the company made a big investment in Odyssey, building up a team of more than 100 people to develop it. The game, set in a new universe, was in development for more than six years and outlasted many other Blizzard incubation projects. Now, the future of such efforts outside of existing franchises is uncertain.

Odyssey started in 2017 as a pitch from Craig Amai, a Blizzard veteran who worked on World of Warcraft. It was conceived as a survival game, like Minecraft and Rust, but with more polish and fewer bugs. In subsequent years, the team working on the game expanded, and it was announced publicly in 2022 as the company began hiring more staff.Despite the additional resources, the project struggled largely due to technical issues surrounding the engine, or the suite of tools and technology that developers use to construct a game, according to people familiar with the process. Odyssey was originally prototyped on the popular Unreal Engine, from Epic Games Inc., but Blizzard executives decided to switch, in part, because it wouldn't support their ambitions for vast maps supporting up to 100 players at once.

Blizzard instead directed the Odyssey team to use Synapse, an internal engine that the company had originally developed for mobile games and envisioned as something that would be shared across many of its projects. But that led to significant problems as the technology was slow to coalesce, and Odyssey's artists instead spent time prototyping content in the Unreal Engine that they knew would have to be discarded later, said the people.

When the Microsoft acquisition was finalized, some Blizzard staff were hopeful that they might be able to switch back to Unreal Engine rather than trying to finish the game on Synapse. In an interview at BlizzCon in November, Ybarra said that their new parent company would offer them the freedom to use the technology of their choice without having to go through the board of directors as in the past.

Despite the challenges, Odyssey appeared to be making progress. People who played early versions of the game enjoyed it and thought there was a lot of potential in the market for a survival game that hit Blizzard's bar for quality. Still, Odyssey was years away from completion. At one point, Blizzard was looking to expand the team to hundreds of people in hopes of targeting a 2026 release, but even that seemed overly optimistic to some developers.

Instead, the project was canceled as the company concluded that Synapse was not ready for production

J. Marston

With all the layoffs recently I wonder if the head honchos secretly know there is breakthroughs coming in AI dev stuff down the road. Or they know you can make megabucks from cheap tat like Palworld.

(Haven't played it but it just looks cheap).

CatInABox

Apple have had to open up their stores a little, should be good for streaming apps like game pass.

https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status/1750579460527538234?s=20

EoinMcLovin

https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status/1750644558172688580?t=XQshPbPqdaLaxbBbjNOL6w&s=19

____

Mr Crispy

Sickening really. The industry is in the ****.

Retr0gamer

This is just insane

https://twitter.com/shinobi602/status/1750631788861399494?t=zdKRS00zEWvwK3SufMpxhA&s=19

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121673029#Comment_121673029

These are the dickwads that backed crypto to the hilt. Even in my profession where crypto has no right to be in it the execs were having a massive circle jerk over it. I even got in trouble when I pointed out the security flaws of it during a meeting. 2 years later it's not mentioned. They're morons just out for a quick buck and don't care who they hurt or the lives they ruin to get there. It's a game to them.

I'd just love to know when record profits are being recorded what is reasoning behind all these lay offs. It's obviously a market thing. Is it some paper that some dumbass economist wrote where you can increase profits with no short term loss by firing half your staff?

CastorTroy

Hey, you can't make all that money by paying people so have to lay people off. See it in the wrestling news as well at times, layoffs announced the same time they announce record profits.

Similar in my workplace. No layoffs but promotion freezes for the last few years yet announcing record profits for what is a big company that is very profitable normally. All this while watching experienced talent walking out the door as they don't want to pay market rate and replacing with inexperienced offshore resources or graduates.

Anyway, back to this, the big problem with major layoffs like this is that's a lot looking for work at the same time, with likely less experienced competing with those with a lot of experience.

Also in the US layoffs can be instantaneous so they don't even have time to try and get things in order.

And as someone was saying about AI above, I remember us being told about working on AI to do some of the repetitive work to free us up for other work. I'm pretty sure that's the same thing that was said about machines automating factory work before people were laid off there.

Ok, ramble/rant over.

johnny_ultimate

I forget where exactly, but I heard one discussion point recently that the wave of layoffs is seen as giving other companies 'permission' to wade into the fray - in the sense that if everyone's laying people off, well then the negative PR cycle from an individual batch of layoffs will be limited due to people becoming numb due to it all becoming 'normalised'. Best to do it now while everyone's doing it, even if it's just to adjust some balance sheet columns before the financial year ends. Hence the cycle is perpetuated. There's much more to it than that obviously, but definitely feels like that's the case at the moment.

While I'm sure some smaller companies are probably feeling a genuine pinch at the moment, there are no doubt job losses at the likes of Microsoft are a more calculated move to maximise profits and are coming as a direct consequence of chasing endless growth via acquisitions. As said, we're seeing Microsoft hit valuations rarely seen before in the world and executives constantly boasting about the profitability of GamePass and the like. Hard not to be disgusted seeing the likes of Bobby Kotick golden parachute their way to retirement while nearly 2,000 regular staffers get shoved out the door with a couple of months health insurance. Always worth remembering how much more damaging a layoff is in the US, where the basic unemployment protections are much more limited.

CatInABox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121674397#Comment_121674397

Yeah, it's all a smoke and mirrors show at this stage. The job cuts were originally kicked off when the economy had a bit of a wobble, with people saying a deep recession was about to occur in the US. Everyone started to announce job cuts, blaming the recession, but then the economy recovered almost immediately, with inflation numbers back to target. The job losses have continued though, although they're no longer blaming the economy, it is, as you say, just about how everyone else is doing it now.

Disgusting.

Grumpypants

There is definitely a sense of burying the news going on. Mass layoffs not only in Video games but across tech and media in general. The numbers get so big they stop having the impact/negative reaction.

Unfortunately, we are well past the times of cheap money that likes investing in tech and video games. And are dealing with the impact of the high interest rates.

It is much safer to avoid all the uncertainty of investing and just stick your money in a bank account getting 4% a year. In the good times when it was costing you 1% a year to keep it in the bank it made more sense to invest it and put it to work. Now not so much.

And that is pretty much it, companies are very nervous now since they no longer have easy access to cheap money, and there are too many games being released fighting with all the other attention grabbers for eyeballs. Publishers are pulling back on the number of games they are looking to release.

We are probably looking at 2 years of this with news of studios cutting or even shutting every few weeks.

pixelburp

Oh undoubtedly there's a strategy here to hide within the avalanche of bad news so one company doesn't get it in the neck.

I see the news and despair: we already got automation reducing the "unskilled" workforce, now AI will severely reduce "white collar" labour - yet our population balloons, causing more strain on vocations and the public purses / resources. The more we go on, the more I think Thanos might be right. 🤣

Retr0gamer

Just put ChatGPT in place instead of the executives. Saves loads of money.

I mean what's the worst that could happen there. I'm currently playing System Shock remake and SHODAN might be bad but at least she makes it quick instead of prolonging the suffering.

PixelPlayer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121674943#Comment_121674943

A bot that confidently and arrogantly gives you the wrong information while very convincingly making it sound like fact? It's actually a perfect fit for CEO.

Retr0gamer

This makes it worse again:

https://twitter.com/Em1liath/status/1750723160238870792?t=YoGuWSneer5ro70z5jLsxw&s=19

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121675806#Comment_121675806

Good lord. Part of me almost admires the chicanery on show.

Just to be clear, that's an exact plot point in the Amazon dystopian show The Consultant; where the mysterious and blatantly evil new CEO tells all Remote workers on a call that they had 'til 11am to get into the office or they were fired.

In fact, did Musk pull something similar with his own US offices, when he took over Twitter?

sniper_samurai

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121676018#Comment_121676018

He did, iirc no one turned up.

Cordell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121676018#Comment_121676018

I don't think there's any evil (and I don't think that The Consultant is evil either), but that's just the cold corporate world: someone decides WFH is over, someone else (usually much higher up) decides that layoffs are in order. It's not the first time I have seen personally how corporate overlords dismantle things that were just built, with a single swoop laying off a whole segment leaving everyone including customers and business partners hanging.

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121673776#Comment_121673776

Most tech companies overextended during the pandemic and grew employee count by 50-100%, post pandemic, there just hasn't been the work or demand for all those positions in the company. There are a lot of recent grads who were being headhunted 2 years ago that are now finding it difficult to move company or get a role if their position was laid off. Revenue has been going up, but so has the cost of delivering the services/products, reducing the cost of delivering (less R&D, less headcount) is what drives the profit which drives the stock price (on top of frothiness around AI sales).

You'll also see companies downsize one division and let go of staff while recruiting in another where a lot of the skills (even for engineers) aren't that transferable.

In this regard, the games industry has always been a mess anyway and times like this make it messier.

And just to add, remote working becomes an easy target, productivity here hasn't really been borne out or proven on any scale and a lot of remote workers haven't adapted that well during remote work (personal productivity is high but their contribution to the team is low making it difficult for them to get promoted or take on more responsibility).

Retr0gamer

There's just no regard for the human cost and I really think that corporate execs are so far removed that they don't care.

Everyone on twitter is showing a meme of how Satoru iwata and shigeru Miyamoto took pay cuts along with Nintendo execs to avoid lay offs but they miss one important fact, Japan out laws these kinds of mass lay offs unless bankruptcy is on the cards.

Since Reagan the US and by osmosis the rest of the west has had worked rights eroded and what the Nintendo example shows isn't the humility of iwata and Miyamoto but the importance of governance over these companies so they don't ride rough shod over their workers on a blind quest to maximise profits. People's lives are at stake and it's people the government should support not nebulous corporate entities.