Support NeoGAF

[Yoboman]

Now, let's remember the team that made the biggest wake in the industry :

I hate going there, like i love women, i have 2 daughters that i would give everything to.
Maybe we just don't think the same? Spatial orientation being a key aspect of 3D game design?

Also maybe if managers would not ask the male devs to step aside for a women exclusive photo for their PR, you would focus more on making your game, shut your mouth and let the sales speak for themselves? Maybe stop putting diversity on the front page of all your identity as a studio? Was a lot of those female devs hired for quota filling rather than talent?

Nothing wrong with hiring women. They just need to hire women with talent and get rid of those who don't have it. I'm not sure if that's the case

Most men don't have that level of talent either. As long as the right people get promoted there is nothing wrong with hiring more women.

Any Henig is a legend. Keelee Santiago (Journey). Kim Swift (Portal, Left4Dead). Hayami Kojima (Castlevania artist).

 

[March Climber]

ITT:

 

[Buggy Loop]

Nothing wrong with hiring women. They just need to hire women with talent and get rid of those who don't have it. I'm not sure if that's the case

Most men don't have that level of talent either. As long as the right people get promoted there is nothing wrong with hiring more women.

Any Henig is a legend. Keelee Santiago (Journey). Kim Swift (Portal, Left4Dead). Hayami Kojima (Castlevania artist).

For sure there's talent

But the TSUNAMI of them, for sure there's quota filling

 

[Ozzie666]

Shareholders and suits who want immediate returns on investments who don't consider long term impacts. Because the Suits have no clue about gaming.

They think they can use risk analysts to predict if they can make profits on a piece of shit release. They honestly don't care about the long-term company reputation. Customers have been so socially engineered into accepting crap, they get away with it.

 

[Trogdor1123]

I hate how people act like making a game is easy in any way shape or form. It is incredibly difficult to do, let alone manage it. The costs are astronomical which further messes stuff up.

I suspect complexity is the real number one issue

 

[Yoboman]

For sure there's talent

But the TSUNAMI of them, for sure there's quota filling

Lots of girls grew up playing games in the PS2, PS3 era and wanted it for a career. But it was definitely a boys club for a bit

Maybe some quota filling. But it's a legitimate career for either sex now, and it'll be at the point where quotas don't need to be filled because the candidate pool has plenty from both sexes. Talent will win out

 

[Hayabusa83]

Some of the best games ever made, evolutionary even, were developed under strict and focused timelines. It also helped that those developers had passion for the projects they were creating. It is astounding to me how less complex level development is now in comparison to the 90s and early 2000s. I find games like Jedi Outcast and Ace Combat 0 to be more enjoyable than their current generation counterparts. Project Wingman, in my opinion, was significantly better than Ace Combat 7 (which I still loved), even though it was developed by essentially two people that obviously had significantly less resources than the team at Namco.

 

[Krathoon]

It's corporate greed.

Absolutely nothing else.

Executives want a maximum personal profit for minimum outlay. They've got used to an audience that will hoover any old shit up, and have seen that they can put broken games out that make millions, with little effort on their part.

I totally agree. They want a environment where they can half ass it and make tons of money. That is why they are pushing subscriptions.

 

[Hayabusa83]

So in other words you are blaming hr...for hiring minorities.

Like I said, this is actually a common diversion tactic by the rich and government and people fall for it hook line and sinker. Literally just blame everything on minorities.

It's nonsense. Most of the minority hires in video games arent even on the systems or technical side. Which is why blaming them or hr is stupid. These are fields where they struggle to get enough people period. And you look at any credits, it's full of white or asian males. It's rather silly to blame "woke" culture on the current state of video games. Like I already said, games are in the state they are in today because companies control the technical aspects (releasing games unfinished and updating them later) and the creative side (only accepting pitches with clear monetization/engagement potential). And pretty much every bad decision or bad game can be traced to those things

Pass me whatever you are smoking.

 

[Celcius]

Don't you start blaming work from home, OP. It's the best thing since sliced bread.

 

[Crayon]

Playing and following the good games, instead of crying about how Big Corp™ putting out ultra-marketed generic dumbed down game number 1247 is making too much dumbed down and generic games.

 

[hlm666]

I wonder how much of it is the old guard moving on and the new younger people just can't fill their shoes. The young guns who could fill those shoes are smart enough to know they can get paid better for possibly less working hours in other segments. Dice and Embark kinda provides and example of this. The people who took over at Dice struggled with the last iteration while the guys who left have gone and made the finals which is in a better state in the beta than release versions of alot of new games. Crytek and iD is possibly another example where Crytek seemed to lose it's technical proficiency when their top gun programmer went to iD.

There's probably other factors causing a bigger impact but this does seem to be a reason at least to some degree.

 

[Kacho]

It's a whole bunch of issues.

Rising costs.

Exceptionally long dev cycles.

Corporate greed from suits who couldn't care less about passion or innovation, they just want everything to be an always online, never-ending money sink.

Famous studios lost most of the talent that made them legendary. They've been replaced with ideologues who care more about pushing an agenda in their games and crying on social media rather than releasing quality products.

The list goes on. There are exceptions of course. Studios that consistently go above and beyond like From and Capcom. But when you look at the state of the industry as whole, it's clear the golden years are behind us.

 

[Brigandier]

A lot of Devs (not all) today are in their jobs because it's a job, Not because they're gamers and love games and want to improve and push game design and technology to the next level... It's just a pay cheque.

From what I see a lot of studio's are infested with blue haired assassin's and purple haired social justice twitter warriors who couldn't even tell you what platform any game older than 10 years was on because they're not gamers they're just using the industry to push their agendas.

It doesn't help when publishers clearly push an employment quota to recruit LGBTQA+ who've never picked up a controller or mouse in their lives over people who are most suitable for a position due to box ticking, Let's not forget having to include a certain amount of gay characters and people of colour in every game now to tick some extra boxes... Virtue signalling clowns.

Far too many managers in the publisher side who don't know anything about gaming or development who meddle and interfere and think they know best which lowers morale of the development studios.

This will trigger many but many young people in the western world these days are soft as shit and can't handle hard work and being told off or told no by anyone let alone a manager, These kinda people spend more time writing complaints and sat in HR's office or off sick with stress rather than working and the US and UK is full of these types.

 

[Kamina]

- Laziness or lack of talent
- Catering to the wrong audiences
- sticking to a release date due to greed, even though the game needs more time

 

[Krathoon]

You need some crusty, old programmers to whip the young ones into shape.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I dont know how important in-person meetings are to game making. Maybe it's super important, maybe not. Maybe it's the kind of projects everyone can do it at home and it combines nicely.

All I know is that since covid happened in 2020, even my office has seen a drop in performance and communication. Things just fall through the cracks more since it's so heavily relied upon for people to keep up with emails or type in an MS Teams chat hoping for replies assuming your coworker is there and not grocery shopping at 2pm. If you miss or forget about messages, you just dont have the office atmosphere to keep you engaged and in the know when you interact with people talking and breathing it beside you.

It is so much easier, fun and efficient to be sitting with your close team and talking business, ideas, having fun or even quick stuff which makes things so much easier like "Oh shit, I forget.... who sent that email with the deadlines??".... "Ya, I'll forward it to you.... I think the deadline is May 19".

You cant do this kind of stuff fast and efficient with everyone at home.

 

[ADiTAR]

It could be partly the quota filled thing, but if you take a closer look it's mostly American devs.

I've said it before in this forum, having been a foreigner who worked for American companies, there's a hierarchy and structure that stifle creativity. I was a creative myself and was shot down because my ideas were "too out there". I could literally say "Banana" and no one would listen, and then 2 min later a higher up would say "Banana" and everyone is like "YES!!! Banana, omg Jim you're so smart". But they never went for the Banana, it eventually died because it was risky.

Basically, there's always a higher-up who will cut the legs off anything creative, keep it safe, boring, something they've done before. And no one will object to them even if it's a bad idea because of the structure. It's almost not allowed to question your boss. And then he has a boss that will cut that down and make it even worse, and no one will say anything. And goes on and on.

That's why you see a lot of people become Indie, and prob foster a collab environment.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

It could be partly the quota filled thing, but if you take a closer look it's mostly American devs.

I've said it before in this forum, having been a foreigner who worked for American companies, there's a hierarchy and structure that stifle creativity. I was a creative myself and was shot down because my ideas were "too out there". I could literally say "Banana" and no one would listen, and then 2 min later a higher up would say "Banana" and everyone is like "YES!!! Banana, omg Jim you're so smart". But they never went for the Banana, it eventually died because it was risky.

Basically, there's always a higher-up who will cut the legs off anything creative, keep it safe, boring, something they've done before. And no one will object to them even if it's a bad idea because of the structure. It's almost not allowed to question your boss. And then he has a boss that will cut that down and make it even worse, and no one will say anything. And goes on and on.

That's why you see a lot of people become Indie, and prob foster a collab environment.

That's because even though American culture is supposed to be this capitalistic, freedom, I can do what I want attitude, it's exactly the opposite. Not only are there a million laws put in place, but it's a culture where people will sue for anything, publicly complain, and a place where if a cuss word or boob is shown during prime time TV, all hell breaks loose.

In Europe, nude beaches are everywhere. If a US city wanted to allow a nude beach to open, the first things that would happen are protests and fear of perverts raping.

So you can see why American business culture has to be conservative.

As a Canadian, we can be too, but not that bad. You can see it when our teams join each other's annual meetings. The American employees seem to on tippy toes making sure not to say anything bad for fear of insults. They even act so cautious amongst themselves as if they barely know each other. We're all like "guys, come over and sit with us and shoot the shit".

One time, we were all shown awesome hilarious Australian TV ads. Whats the point? Turns out US and Canada bailed on using them because they were "too rique". LOL. Well, the Aussies are showing this shit on their local TV already. Nope, we had to pass.

 

[ADiTAR]

That's because even though American culture is supposed to be this capitalistic, freedom, I can do what I want attitude, it's exactly the opposite. Not only are there a million laws put in place, but it's a culture where people will sue for anything, publicly complain, and a place where if a cuss word or boob is shown during prime time TV, all hell breaks loose.

In Europe, nude beaches are everywhere. If a US city wanted to allow a nude beach to open, the first things that would happen are protests and fear of perverts raping.

So you can see why American business culture has to be conservative.

As a Canadian, we can be too, but not that bad. You can see it when our teams join each other's annual meetings. The American employees seem to on tippy toes making sure not to say anything bad for fear of insults. They even act so cautious amongst themselves as if they barely know each other. We're all like "guys, come over and sit with us and shoot the shit".

One time, we were all shown awesome hilarious Australian TV ads. Whats the point? Turns out US and Canada bailed on using them because they were "too rique". LOL. Well, the Aussies are showing this shit on their local TV already. Nope, we had to pass.

Yep. And add to that the woke stuff and basically you can't say or do anything, you're basically nodding a long and hoping for a paycheck.

 

[Krathoon]

...the lannnnd of the freee... ...and the home... ...of the... ...brave.
Oh, the irony.

 

[Stooky]

Woke fricken agenda, no crunch, when those dev studios hire according to diversity quota instead of actual talent u go tons of really bad products being made, on top again- woke agenda from ppl deciding about priorities of the game, its not quality anymore but more often than not sticking it to those evil white men ;X

 

[Stooky]

It's budgets and tight deadlines. Anything other than that is your imaginary 'woke' ghost Chasper touching your inner thigh. There are nothing but nerds making these games you love and hate. You don't get in this business unless you love it. The work is too challenging to have it any other way.

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

Lately? It's been like this since well before Covid. The ability to easily patch a game has been the greatest contributor. You used to have to bug test and actually finish a game. Now it hardly matters. You don't even have to label it early access anymore, people will still buy it day one, complain a bit online, and then forget about all the bad stuff after a patch or two.

 

[Krathoon]

Yeah. They want money now, even if the game is unfinished. It is madness. They even pull that early access crap where you essentially buy the game to beta test it.
Imagine if they did that with movies.

 

[mxbison]

Woke fricken agenda, no crunch, when those dev studios hire according to diversity quota instead of actual talent u go tons of really bad products being made, on top again- woke agenda from ppl deciding about priorities of the game, its not quality anymore but more often than not sticking it to those evil white men ;X

Also woke 30fps, woke mtx & dlc, and woke GaaS design.

 

[MatrixReloaded101]

Woke fricken agenda, no crunch, when those dev studios hire according to diversity quota instead of actual talent u go tons of really bad products being made, on top again- woke agenda from ppl deciding about priorities of the game, its not quality anymore but more often than not sticking it to those evil white men ;X

This is nonsense^

Cyberpunk 2077 was one of the worst AAA video game launches of all time but what no one talks about is the game already sold over 8 million copies in pre-orders. The game basically made a ton of profit before anyone played it.

Publishers realized that they can make tons of money off hype before actually delivering a quality and complete game so they started taking advantage of that, it's really that simple.

As long as people continue to preorder and buy into subscriptions services years in advance the issue of publishers releasing broken new games will never change because they know they have people by the balls and they are not going to do shit about it. Your going to pay full price for an unfinished game and wait months for patches/updates, that's how these publishers view the situation and that's actually how the situation has played out for years now.

AAA Video games are expensive and time consuming to make but publishers want the money as quickly as possible so they cut corners and consumers have allowed this practice to continue.

 

[Represent.]

• Low standards from gamers. Easily satisfied with trash, as long as its 60fps.
• Pussified gaming media afraid to give a game lower than a 6/10 or call out devs for shitty games.
• Lack of friendly competition between developers.
• The "we can patch it later" mentality.
• There are a lot of devs out there who are... young. Still growing into their talents. There is a lack of real, experienced talent out there right now. A lot of these devs are kids straight out of school, working on their first game.

 

[Krathoon]

They take advantage of getting that money early and screw you out of a quality game. They still deliver a game, but it is not worth the money you pay for it.
You are better off to just play the waiting game and wait for it to drop in price.

 

[PeteBull]

Nothing wrong with hiring women. They just need to hire women with talent and get rid of those who don't have it. I'm not sure if that's the case

Most men don't have that level of talent either. As long as the right people get promoted there is nothing wrong with hiring more women.

Any Henig is a legend. Keelee Santiago (Journey). Kim Swift (Portal, Left4Dead). Hayami Kojima (Castlevania artist).

All im gonna say is this- if u are in highly competetive enviroment, like game dev, aka ur future carrier/product u make depends on ur talent and devotion(aka long hours, often crunch, putting ur work way infront of ur family/social life/anything else) men got huge advantage there.

Woke media/woke bubble ppl keep saying its not the case, but any rationally thinking person can imagine what working in such an enviroment (which is by definition hostile/rat race)would be for ur avg non competive woman who just wants normal job, have family and enjoy her life while making some cash- in gaming industry its not like it is on goverment job where everything is the same every day.

In game dev all kinds of diseasters happen on a daily basis, fireman squad who puts those fires down has to be some srsly dedicated bunch of mofos(and when woman is one of them she usually is 100% carrier devoted, aka no family, meaning her priority is not 50/50 work/life healthy balance but 100% the job, most ppl will not want to make such sacrifices at all and its ok- just dont give them those jobs then or u will have to bear consequences of such actions.

Same way u got enourmous inequality/preference in favour for women in many kinds of jobs same way there are some jobs, and one of them is game dev overall( and im not talking here- being community manager/twitter manager/ im talking here being coder/designer), in those cases u need both talent and extreme devotion and willingness to sacrifice, so no avg person can do them.

All im saying is till we arent back to recruiting/rewarding ppl based on the merits, and not their sex/skin colour, it is expected we will fail vs ppl who do it legit way.

Just so ppl dont take it the wrong way- i have nothing against recruiting women/minorities or any1 really, just hire/pay ppl based on their skill/talent/actual performance, that will be incentive for them to make even more effort. Basically hire talented and very hardworking ppl- if they happen to be women/minority/aliens from another planet- more power to them
We live in capitalism, where good product/good work is rewarded, gotta take it into account.

 

[shaddam]

Forced diversity and profit maxing

 

[Krathoon]

The game industry has become very crooked over the years. It is like a step up from gambling.

 

[Krathoon]

Then you got all that bull crap with the consoles charging you for multiplayer. You don't have any of that on pc.

 

[OuterLimits]

Games like Xenoblade 3 and upcoming FFXVI and Armored Core VI have smooth development.

Developers like Monolith Soft are super efficient and don't have the bad habit of announcing their games too soon.

Let's not forget that Square certainly didn't have smooth development cycles not terribly long ago in regards to Final Fantasy. Good to see that is no longer the case it seems.

 

[DirtyBast8rd]

You guys are really blaming the "woke" agenda for publishers releasing games too early and forcing everyone to put engagement/financial incentives into games and genres they don't belong in?

Lol. Embarrassing. This is how companies and governments always get away with things. Do yall not know history? You really don't see how absurd and common it is for people to blame "minorities".

The problem starts when not separating the woke agenda and the 'minorities' as two different things. Most minorities aren't tied to the woke agenda activists and don't ask for that crap either.

 

[Team Andromeda]

WOKE. No Crunch and working from the home load of crap.

 

[Yoboman]

All im gonna say is this- if u are in highly competetive enviroment, like game dev, aka ur future carrier/product u make depends on ur talent and devotion(aka long hours, often crunch, putting ur work way infront of ur family/social life/anything else) men got huge advantage there.

Woke media/woke bubble ppl keep saying its not the case, but any rationally thinking person can imagine what working in such an enviroment (which is by definition hostile/rat race)would be for ur avg non competive woman who just wants normal job, have family and enjoy her life while making some cash- in gaming industry its not like it is on goverment job where everything is the same every day.

In game dev all kinds of diseasters happen on a daily basis, fireman squad who puts those fires down has to be some srsly dedicated bunch of mofos(and when woman is one of them she usually is 100% carrier devoted, aka no family, meaning her priority is not 50/50 work/life healthy balance but 100% the job, most ppl will not want to make such sacrifices at all and its ok- just dont give them those jobs then or u will have to bear consequences of such actions.

Same way u got enourmous inequality/preference in favour for women in many kinds of jobs same way there are some jobs, and one of them is game dev overall( and im not talking here- being community manager/twitter manager/ im talking here being coder/designer), in those cases u need both talent and extreme devotion and willingness to sacrifice, so no avg person can do them.

All im saying is till we arent back to recruiting/rewarding ppl based on the merits, and not their sex/skin colour, it is expected we will fail vs ppl who do it legit way.

Just so ppl dont take it the wrong way- i have nothing against recruiting women/minorities or any1 really, just hire/pay ppl based on their skill/talent/actual performance, that will be incentive for them to make even more effort. Basically hire talented and very hardworking ppl- if they happen to be women/minority/aliens from another planet- more power to them
We live in capitalism, where good product/good work is rewarded, gotta take it into account.

A lot of women will do that though, some work harder than the guys. It's all on the individual

 

[Krathoon]

They might as well release games in episodic format.

 

[Danjin44]

Let's not forget that Square certainly didn't have smooth development cycles not terribly long ago in regards to Final Fantasy. Good to see that is no longer the case it seems.

Yoshi-p and team where able to be more efficient know properly mange a project in order finish in time, they actually learned from their mistake with FFXIV 1.0.

I enjoyed Nomura's games but his suck at managing projects and still doing same mistake with KH4 by announcing it way too soon when only thing they have to show is concept trailer.

 

[mxbison]

Everything eventually turns to shit when there is enough money involved.

People making the big decisions in the AAA industry don't know shit about games and don't care, they just want maximum profit.

 

[GamesDontSuck]

I remember completing Halo Infinite and the credits just kept going and going. Had to have been a couple of thousand people. It was crazy.

To quote Jerry Seinfeld (yeah, Seinfeld of all people ha) but he said making his show was akin to an egg and spoon race but you're dashing full speed hoping the egg doesn't break. That was a show in the 90s. Nothing compared to a 200 million AAA budget game today.

Personally I fear games are too complex these days. Companies also want a return on their investment and sign deals to deliver by a specific date.

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

That's because even though American culture is supposed to be this capitalistic, freedom, I can do what I want attitude, it's exactly the opposite. Not only are there a million laws put in place, but it's a culture where people will sue for anything, publicly complain, and a place where if a cuss word or boob is shown during prime time TV, all hell breaks loose.

In Europe, nude beaches are everywhere. If a US city wanted to allow a nude beach to open, the first things that would happen are protests and fear of perverts raping.

So you can see why American business culture has to be conservative.

As a Canadian, we can be too, but not that bad. You can see it when our teams join each other's annual meetings. The American employees seem to on tippy toes making sure not to say anything bad for fear of insults. They even act so cautious amongst themselves as if they barely know each other. We're all like "guys, come over and sit with us and shoot the shit".

One time, we were all shown awesome hilarious Australian TV ads. Whats the point? Turns out US and Canada bailed on using them because they were "too rique". LOL. Well, the Aussies are showing this shit on their local TV already. Nope, we had to pass.

I'm Australian working in a creative industry and have noticed this as well when working with American clients. There's real fear around being 'outside the norm' as well as a culture of client / management knows best when it comes to creative that ends up meaning things become bland or derivative for fear of standing out too much.

 

[PeteBull]

A lot of women will do that though, some work harder than the guys. It's all on the individual

Its true, thats why i hope western companies go back to proven method on hiring them, but for the right reasons, aka not coz they are women, but simply hardworking/talented workers, recently we got another proof what wokeism in games journalism/big site leads to, and its nothing good https://www.neogaf.com/threads/waypoint-shutting-down-all-staff-laid-off.1655945/

 

[PeteBull]

Everything eventually turns to shit when there is enough money involved.

People making the big decisions in the AAA industry don't know shit about games and don't care, they just want maximum profit.

As true as it might be, there were clear signs of future miscrosoft failure look at the priorities there, then tell me no agenda is there.

 

[Stare-Bear]

There's a massive shortage of staff. The same goes for the VFX industry. There's your answer.

 

[Krathoon]

As true as it might be, there were clear signs of future miscrosoft failure look at the priorities there, then tell me no agenda is there.

Wow. Microsoft is drinking the Kool-Aid. That is nuts.

 

[Salmon]

Wokeness

 

[Hugare]

Let me show you how it has always been like this

Note: all games that I'll mention below has a MC score higher than 90

Rockstar alone:

- GTA 4 had many performance issues and ran at 640p on the PS3. Sits at 98 MC.
- Red Dead Redemption also had many performance issues and ran at 640p. Sits at a 95 MC.
- GTA V was a total clusterfuck on both consoles, running worse than GTA 4 or RDR, with terrible pop in and running at sub 20 FPS at times. Sits at a 97 MC score.

Skyrim was literally unplayable on PS3 due to a bug that bloated savefiles, making the game run lower than 10 FPS



Guess the MC score. 92 MC.

The Witcher 3 also had many performance problems that were solved many months after the original launch.

I could go on and on.

My point is, people are now more critical about this shit. Hell, some people cant even play at 30 FPS anymore.

PS3/360 to PS4/XONE was a huge jump, and now with the 60 FPS on newer consoles, people expect even more in terms of performance/IQ and etc.

And games are getting more and more complex in terms of tech. Most devs are suffering like hell to keep up. So things will get worse.

 

[Hypereides]

I feel you on the real nerds. I fucking hate what Reddit did to the perception of nerds, and thus formed a negative feedback loop that gave us our current batch of nerds, a group who, historically, moved our culture forward. Now they buy funk pops and cry over Star Wars trailers. Where are the alpha nerds at?

I suspect those "nerds" have long since fled the nest of the gaming industry. There is far more interesting tech happening out there than game dev that's drawing those "alpha nerds". Game dev and design has been nailed down to a Tee and the process has been streamlined.

Its not as experimental as it once was with its roots in the demoscene.

 

[PeteBull]

And games are getting more and more complex in terms of tech. Most devs are suffering like hell to keep up. So things will get worse.

If u got devteam where only 10-15% of devs are guys who carry whole team, ofc those teams gonna be not on shedule and suffering, its normal, its like in team sports- u are always as strong as ur weakest link.