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[Salty Pickle]

No QC.

With a proper quality control between the sprints and before launch all of this could be avoided.

 

[ungalo]

I think the industry has some issues we are all aware of at this point. It's not just one thing.

Besides that, a generational transition with Covid in the middle certainly didn't help. There is a great deal of inertia in this industry, we often face the consequences for things happening several years ago. If the industry at some point stop moving forward because of a period of uncertainty, it affects projects that will come out 3 years after that.

Personally i already really disliked the transition from PS3 to PS4. It was a really poor period for gaming and i remember wanting to quit gaming entirely. Had to wait for games like TW3 to reignite the flame. So that's not a surprise this one is even worst, when the problem we all raised about gaming were never solved + Covid happened.

 

[kuncol02]

We used to get plenty of those in the past as well. The reason it seems like things are bad today is either because of social media exposure, or because we only remember the great titles from the past. Maybe both.

Jus try searching for worst games of 200X year and you'll get plenty of names, big ones included.

It's different this time. AAA gaming is collapsing. For almost a decade only games that are viable economically are GaaS titles filled with microstransactions. Almost nothing else brings enough money justify modern AAA development costs. Even Sony admited to CMA that they can only afford to produce games they make due to money from CoD microtransactions. No one else has that money and even if someone had it then there is infinite number of ways to spend it than making game that will earn less than it costed to make. That's why basically almost every developer went GaaS. Warner Bross with Suicide Squad and Gotham Knights, Bethesda with basically everything they made after fail of Doom, Wolfenstein, Prey and Dishonored 2, Epic wit Fortnite, Rockstar with GTA5, EA with Fifa and basically everything else they make, Ubisoft with AC, Square and Crystal Dynamics with Avengers and that list can go on.

 

[ADiTAR]

Well you can atleast explain to me how the "woke agenda" is causing games to be bad now.(again ignoring the PS360 generation.)
From what I can tell, its not the art departments that are killing game development, and on the techart and programming side, if you dont pull your weight no amount of quota filling will save you, best case scenario is you are place in non-critical roles concepting games/projects that never see the light of day.
So how exactly is the so called woke agenda influencing bad game development.

Thats the whole point of the this discussion is it not?

That video someone gave you is one thing, the other is DEI training that you need to go through. I was a manager and had to go through DEI training to be inclusive, where we would start the call introducing ourselves and our pronouns. Think about this, there was no training for being a good manager, how to get the max out of your employees, just training on how not to offend anyone. And it gets in your head, you censore yourself a lot, and everyone does, creating an environment of silence of the lambs.

 

[gaming_again]

The whole anti-crunch crusade from a few years ago was truly weird to me. Nobody cries about it in other businesses - and everybody going into these businesses knows it's going to happen.

 

[gaming_again]

That video someone gave you is one thing, the other is DEI training that you need to go through. I was a manager and had to go through DEI training to be inclusive, where we would start the call introducing ourselves and our pronouns. Think about this, there was no training for being a good manager, how to get the max out of your employees, just training on how not to offend anyone. And it gets in your head, you censore yourself a lot, and everyone does, creating an environment of silence of the lambs.

Some of the things I've witnessed in just the last year - when it has truly ramped up in UK corp world - have been staggering.

 

[PeteBull]

For that post u quoted i got neogaf achievement https://gyazo.com/3100dbcefa90218745ed349d18bf95ec , so i guess tons ppl agreed with me after all.

Ofc some like u didnt, and its ok, bro.
Im not some insecure teenage girl that seeks validation from every1 around, its fine, go get that redfall for 70$ and enjoy ur game, together with saints row reboot fortnite edition, or gotham knights, and in future u are free to buy suicide squad too, i got no saying in how u wanna spend ur hard earned cash/which games u wanna support, all power and good luck to u .

About my opionions tho- luckily we arent at resetera, i never even tried to make account there coz i was 100% sure i would be perma banned if i didnt follow their policies of praising this whole woke BS instead of somewhat sane aproach, calling spade a spade =D

 

[StueyDuck]

SplinterCell Double Agent literally never hit 30fps.
Battlefield 3......mate.
Fallout New Vegas...could struggle to hit frikken 20fps!
Mass Effect 2......and 3.
Shadow of Mordor......barely playable.
Enslaved....this game would literally just straight up skip frames cuz fuck it.

And I could keep going and going, the PS360 generation was rough people just forgot how rough it was.

But clearly its the woke agenda thats causing these much more complicated to make games to be technical messes now.

I mean, the N64 and PS1 era were even worse in performance if we were going down that route.

I would argue however that it's not an apples to apples comparison you would be making there.

both current gen and prior began to work within a x86 architecture which was theoretically meant to help and ease the development process across all systems. working with the Cell processor was no easy feat and many many developers struggled with it, PS1/N64 was the first time we had ever had true 3D game development so it is obvious why development struggles existed then, they just simply don't have an excuse now, these developers all go to university to learn to develop in the same way the entire industry currently develops, with such unification our games should be popping out at perfect optimization and framerate, especially with how little the gaming industry has progressed in terms of game design itself, Redfall existed on PS3, it was called Borderlands. how have we not progressed...

the answer ends up being nothing to do with the hardware since again... it's never been easier to develop for a platform.

 

[Makoto-Yuki]

Why bother worrying about how good your product is when you have idiots pre-ordering games? Once they've got your money then they don't give a fuck and you have to take their word that they'll fix it. They very well might fix the game but they don't need to! Once it's good enough and the backlash has died down then they'll move onto the next game.

People who pre-order are giving these studios/publishers easy money. Stop doing it or keep doing it but don't dare cry if a game releases in a broken unfinished mess. You lost that right by pre-ordering it.

It's money. They want your money for doing a half assed job! They could take the time to make high quality games but that cost money too. Don't believe their excuses! The accountants have decided that it's better to release a broken game, deal with the negativity, rake in the lettuce, promise fixes instead of spending the money to take more time working on the game, hiring competent developers, restricting what platforms you release on, or what engine the game runs on.

 

[ungalo]

It's different this time. AAA gaming is collapsing. For almost a decade only games that are viable economically are GaaS titles filled with microstransactions. Almost nothing else brings enough money justify modern AAA development costs. Even Sony admited to CMA that they can only afford to produce games they make due to money from CoD microtransactions. No one else has that money and even if someone had it then there is infinite number of ways to spend it than making game that will earn less than it costed to make. That's why basically almost every developer went GaaS. Warner Bross with Suicide Squad and Gotham Knights, Bethesda with basically everything they made after fail of Doom, Wolfenstein, Prey and Dishonored 2, Epic wit Fortnite, Rockstar with GTA5, EA with Fifa and basically everything else they make, Ubisoft with AC, Square and Crystal Dynamics with Avengers and that list can go on.

I don't really disagree but i think you tend to exagerate. What Sony said is not completely honest and was for the purpose of contesting the acquisition.

GAAS have a tremendous potential in profit, doesn't mean solo games are not sustainable, and Sony are precisely a fantastic example of that. Publishers are just drawn to what make the most money. If you look at the industry, almost every major publisher is in a better position than what they were during the 360 generation. Profits are going through the roof.

It's actually incredible to see people freaking out about Ubisoft when they don't even loose money. In 2010 it was very common for publishers like EA to have notable loss, now they are all breaking records of profits.

They can perfectly be more focused on their output and finance a few big AAA, if they had a decent management and some ideas, i think we also saw those last years tremendous success with traditional propositions such as RE4, Hogwarts or Elden Ring. On the opposite, GAAS is a field with a lot of competition and failing hard is also frequent.

 

[Facism]

The PS2 game lineup in 2000-2001 exceeds an entire generation these days. It is not in our head.

what a time to be alive.

Bought my PS2 off a mate with 2 memory cards, 2 pads, DMC, FF10, MGS2 and SH2 for £50 because he was fiending for weed funds and didn't use the console.

 

[ReBurn]

For that post u quoted i got neogaf achievement https://gyazo.com/3100dbcefa90218745ed349d18bf95ec , so i guess tons ppl agreed with me after all.

Ofc some like u didnt, and its ok, bro.
Im not some insecure teenage girl that seeks validation from every1 around, its fine, go get that redfall for 70$ and enjoy ur game, together with saints row reboot fortnite edition, or gotham knights, and in future u are free to buy suicide squad too, i got no saying in how u wanna spend ur hard earned cash/which games u wanna support, all power and good luck to u .

About my opionions tho- luckily we arent at resetera, i never even tried to make account there coz i was 100% sure i would be perma banned if i didnt follow their policies of praising this whole woke BS instead of somewhat sane aproach, calling spade a spade =D

All I'm saying is that when you create your own bogeyman you tend to see it everywhere. And that people who aren't white men are as capable (or incapable) of doing things as people who are white men. Game quality hasn't decreased because they let women have jobs.

 

[kuncol02]

I don't really disagree but i think you tend to exagerate. What Sony said is not completely honest and was for the purpose of contesting the acquisition.

GAAS have a tremendous potential in profit, doesn't mean solo games are not sustainable, and Sony are precisely a fantastic example of that. Publishers are just drawn to what make the most money. If you look at the industry, almost every major publisher is in a better position than what they were during the 360 generation. Profits are going through the roof.

It's actually incredible to see people freaking out about Ubisoft when they don't even loose money. In 2010 it was very common for publishers like EA to have notable loss, now they are all breaking records of profits.

They can perfectly be more focused on their output and finance a few big AAA, if they had a decent management and some ideas, i think we also saw those last years tremendous success with traditional propositions such as RE4, Hogwarts or Elden Ring. On the opposite, GAAS is a field with a lot of competition and failing hard is also frequent.

Sony games are only sustainable as way to get people into ecosystem for Sony to get 30% tax on every purchase they will make. And even that is not sustainable in long term. What Sony is doing is creating expectations that other companies will pour as much resources into games as they are. But other companies cannot do that. Studios like Techland or Remedy simply don't have that resources.

what a time to be alive.

Bought my PS2 off a mate with 2 memory cards, 2 pads, DMC, FF10, MGS2 and SH2 for £50 because he was fiending for weed funds and didn't use the console.

Half of that list in terms of how complicated they are how little resources they actually required to make would end as indie (and not good one). Whole map in GTA 3 had probably less detail that one room in modern AAA game, it also was extremely tiny. Almost all PS2 games aged like milk. I tried to replay GoW2 last year and couldn't believe how badly it played. It's actually mindblowig how far we went from that. Early bioware 3d games (Neverwinter, Jade Empire, Kotor) are on technical level of some really low budget indie RPG like Age of Decadence if not worse.

 

[Eotheod]

The boners for "woke" hate is fucking hilarious, people spend waaay too much time on these social movements that it almost pales in comparison with the actual social movements themselves. I *highly* doubt it is the so called woke boogeyman, because then your big success like GoW Ragnarok, Spludgeman and really any Sony title in the last three years were all successful because of their diverse teams. Diversity doesn't stop productivity, that's like saying only white people should work because any other colours could mean baaaad things.

It's: development costs; technology advancements that are both positive and negative (more tool sets but those tool sets are buggier due to depth); AAA consumer expectations to a point (though mainly from an enthusiast POV); COVID after effects; and, budget timelines that get stuck with concepts that worked then but not now.

It's really this. A cancer to any profit driven business organization. You can't eat your ESG score. Hire based only on merit and crunch when the work needs to get done. Every industry has periods of intense overtime. Game makers aren't some special species who should be exempt from it.

You certainly can eat your ESG score when it impacts your literal loan options, grants, accessibility margins, procurement availability and overall functional capacity. Economic social governance isn't one "thing" that influences, it's a range of categories that influence the functionality and opportunity provided to the company. I should know, I'm a fucking EDO in a Council who is trying to actually bring the entire concept into existence because we are so bloody backwards being an outback Australian shire.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Half of that list in terms of how complicated they are how little resources they actually required to make would end as indie (and not good one). Whole map in GTA 3 had probably less detail that one room in modern AAA game, it also was extremely tiny. Almost all PS2 games aged like milk. I tried to replay GoW2 last year and couldn't believe how badly it played. It's actually mindblowig how far we went from that. Early bioware 3d games (Neverwinter, Jade Empire, Kotor) are on technical level of some really low budget indie RPG like Age of Decadence if not worse.

If that bothers you, better get another hobby then because budgets are likely to get lower to levels from that time. Especially among single player titles.

 

[Guileless]

Not "diversity" or "wokeness" per se. Those are symptoms of the HR-ification of all aspects of corporate culture, which is inimical to creativity and art.

 

[cash_longfellow]

Probably a lot of people in the industry(in the US)who aren't qualified enough for the jobs.....but have the correct pronouns or skin colour.

This….this is exactly what it is. I'm all for diversity in any job realm, but you still have to hire the most qualified people, regardless.

 

[TheDreadLord]

Games are getting more complex and you don't have enough qualified professionals. Probably many os these companies are already hiring whatever show at their doors. Also there is a huge detachment between management and actual development. Sometimes, it feels that they don't have any clue about what they are managing.

 

[Krathoon]

Why bother worrying about how good your product is when you have idiots pre-ordering games? Once they've got your money then they don't give a fuck and you have to take their word that they'll fix it. They very well might fix the game but they don't need to! Once it's good enough and the backlash has died down then they'll move onto the next game.

People who pre-order are giving these studios/publishers easy money. Stop doing it or keep doing it but don't dare cry if a game releases in a broken unfinished mess. You lost that right by pre-ordering it.

It's money. They want your money for doing a half assed job! They could take the time to make high quality games but that cost money too. Don't believe their excuses! The accountants have decided that it's better to release a broken game, deal with the negativity, rake in the lettuce, promise fixes instead of spending the money to take more time working on the game, hiring competent developers, restricting what platforms you release on, or what engine the game runs on.

Yeah. People need to stop buying pre-orders and special editions. It is a racket.

 

[kuncol02]

If that bothers you, better get another hobby then because budgets are likely to get lower to levels from that time. Especially among single player titles.

It don't bother me. I'm more than ok with that. Maybe not with going back to PS2 game design, PC was years ahead at that time. If that's what need to happen to devs to go back to be creative and take risk in trying new things then It would be best thing to happen to gaming in last 10, maybe even more years. I'm more worried about whole crowd of people who only play high budget AAA games, they will have rude awakening. What actually bothers me is amunt of people who dismiss any game that is not big budget AAA with new shiny graphics.

Didnt u see what microsoft's priorities became in that pronouns video? isnt it enough proof ?
Here some more proof https://www.eurogamer.net/harvey-sm...-undead-were-born-from-real-life-bloodsuckers that was priority there at redfall team

How to say "I don't know Harvey Smith work" without saying "I don't know Harvey Smith work". He is political since ever and world building is best part of Redfall (and is wasted in that game, it could be base for amazing immersive sim).

 

[DemonGamerTTT]

This thread went from Op making super retarded statements to a bunch of people making retard statements like blaming bad games at people's colors/sex.

Bunch or morons are you really that dense?

What has really changed IS EXACTLY THE SAME THING THAT AFFECTS ALL PRODUCTS TYPES not only gamming and IT'S THE CUSTOMERS.

Gamming is going to shit BECAUSE OF YOU as customers, you vote with your wallet and what publisher's are seeing is that YOU GUYS ARE INTO THIS SHIT.

You goys, love pay to win(claiming there's nothing wrong with it after a long day of work), love repetitive to death games like Fifa, Madden and NBA, love paying for the game even before it is launched(pre ordering a digital good is simply one the most retard thing a human being can do), you guys love every single shit gamming have now days.

Complaining here on GAF won't do nothing if you guys keep buying every single piece of shit developmers/publisher's push out the door.

 

[Woopah]

Two words, one name: Kamala Harris.

You are very lucky then. And perhaps you live in an ethnically diverse area. My issues with this are that a) true diversity goes beyond physical characteristics and b) lots of people live and work in ethnically homogenous areas.

A great example of point a) is a report I read yesterday on how in America, the red and blue states have different approaches to ESG investing. The report talked about the pros and cons of this for investors. Many places I've worked at would have wanted a report slamming the red states and their staff would have been only too happy to oblige. This was diversity of thought producing value for the firm's clients.

Re point B) There is a McKinsey (I think) stat that I see EVERYWHERE stating that more ethnically diverse firms are more profitable than ethnically homogenous firms. What this report fails to mention is that more ethnically diverse firms tend to operate in cities, which benefit from the network effect their location provides. AKA the McKinsey stat is a sham that governments and big institutions use to justify practices that serve their agenda.

In the UK our regulator wants to punish firms of a certain size for not ticking the boxes for its staffing and board members. This will slowly creep down to smaller and smaller firms. England is 81% white, with ethnic minorities highly concentrated in certain areas of the country. You can't hire for both talent and (ethnic) diversity outside of these places.

And how much energy do you think is being spent coming up with all of this?

Well my company is a global one, and obviously the world is a very ethnically diverse place. And yes diversity comes in many forms (age is one that too often gets forgotten) and the most important part is diversity of thought. Completely agree with you on that.

I'm in the UK not US so never been in any discussion at work about "red vs. blue", so can't comment on point a. (We do create a Gender Gap Report).

As for point b, your argument could have been possible if it was only ethnic diversity. But that McKinsey report shows an increase in performance for gender performance too, which obviously wouldn't be majorly different in a city than elsewhere.

This is insane . How can you have a goal of attracting women and not be quota filling?. If you hired based on meritocracy you wouldnt have any goals of attracting any gender, only talent.

Well we had a quota that we wanted at least 40% of people in Manager positions to be women and 40% to be men.

We have traditionally been a male dominated industry, so we started doing more PR and recruitment activities to attract women. This led to more women applying for jobs with us.

And we still give the job to the best person.

More women wanting to work for us = a higher chance the best person for the job is a woman

Its not insane. Its entirely logical.

 

[Guileless]

Well my company is a global one, and obviously the world is a very ethnically diverse place. And yes diversity comes in many forms (age is one that too often gets forgotten) and the most important part is diversity of thought. Completely agree with you on that.

I'm in the UK not US so never been in any discussion at work about "red vs. blue", so can't comment on point a. (We do create a Gender Gap Report).

As for point b, your argument could have been possible if it was only ethnic diversity. But that McKinsey report shows an increase in performance for gender performance too, which obviously wouldn't be majorly different in a city than elsewhere.


Well we had a quota that we wanted at least 40% of people in Manager positions to be women and 40% to be men.

We have traditionally been a male dominated industry, so we started doing more PR and recruitment activities to attract women. This led to more women applying for jobs with us.

And we still give the job to the best person.

More women wanting to work for us = a higher chance the best person for the job is a woman

Its not insane. Its entirely logical.

Sure it's theoretically logical for your company in isolation. But if the whole industry is hiring under quotas, it's inevitable that meritocractic principles will be deemphasized.

 

[TheBROgamer]

It's NOT 'women and minorities'. Nobody in the thread said that. It's a hiring process that is pushing for equality of outcome in staff breakdown directly effecting the meritocracy.

Stop with this twisted takes, if you hire on any other factor than ability then you are causing this regression in quality in teams. Now you will say show me that companies are quota hiring, well it's illegal and thus extremely difficult to prove but if you have or are working in any large company you will see this push happening, it's blatant and open. Look at the studio group shots of all the women together with unnaturally dyed hair being paraded in front of social media for some points scoring. Look at Jason Schreirs (don't know how to spell his name and don't really care) comments on that newly formed team that happened to be all white, how he derided them as not being progressive without playing or seeing a single frame of a game.

In the 80's when anyone who played games lest made games was seen as a social outcast, a nerd, a virgin, a geek, the only people who made games were die hard gamers who loved the medium. Absolutely lived for it. Now fast forward to today where gaming is 'cool' and everyone wants a piece of the pie.

This is correct.

 

[F0rneus]

Oh come on, if this is just about Redfall being ass, that's just one failed game. Elden Ring didn't suck. Hogswarts didn't suck. Jedi Survivor didn't suck. RE8 and RE4 didn't suck. Metroid Prime remake didn't suck. Tears of the Kingdom won't suck either. Hell I highly doubt Starfield will suck.

Just one ass game people, come on. I know there are other shit games out but I feel like Redfall has become the embodiment of a failed industry when it's just ONE bad game.

 

[Woopah]

Sure it's theoretically logical for your company in isolation. But if the whole industry is hiring under quotas, it's inevitable that meritocractic principles will be deemphasized.

I think its important to differentiate between a target and a quota.

If we start looking like we won't hit the target, we start taking action to attract/develop more women. The answer is never "give jobs to untalented people".

 

[PillsOff]

Culture.

I know it is a buzzword, but all this woke shit affecting the way teams are formed for the past 10 years n often prioritizing anything but competence has only one result - bad games with long dev cycle

 

[Spyxos]

Oh come on, if this is just about Redfall being ass, that's just one failed game. Elden Ring didn't suck. Hogswarts didn't suck. Jedi Survivor didn't suck. RE8 and RE4 didn't suck. Metroid Prime remake didn't suck. Tears of the Kingdom won't suck either. Hell I highly doubt Starfield will suck.

Just one ass game people, come on. I know there are other shit games out but I feel like Redfall has become the embodiment of a failed industry when it's just ONE bad game.

This is not just about Redfall. It's just one of the unfinished games.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Why bother worrying about how good your product is when you have idiots pre-ordering games? Once they've got your money then they don't give a fuck and you have to take their word that they'll fix it. They very well might fix the game but they don't need to! Once it's good enough and the backlash has died down then they'll move onto the next game.

People who pre-order are giving these studios/publishers easy money. Stop doing it or keep doing it but don't dare cry if a game releases in a broken unfinished mess. You lost that right by pre-ordering it.

It's money. They want your money for doing a half assed job! They could take the time to make high quality games but that cost money too. Don't believe their excuses! The accountants have decided that it's better to release a broken game, deal with the negativity, rake in the lettuce, promise fixes instead of spending the money to take more time working on the game, hiring competent developers, restricting what platforms you release on, or what engine the game runs on.

It makes zero sense in the internet era too.

I can understand long time ago when gamers would be amped up on a game, discs or cartridges might be in tight supply pending how many copies your local game store ordered, and reviews came from buying magazines where not every game was reviewed in every mag or even on time. The old ass games could have reviews a couple months later.

Now, you got day one reviews, day one YT videos, endless supply of digital copies (the only people who have to worry are collectors buying $150 editions which perhaps they only made a small number of), and places like MC compile all the reviews!

The reviews come out so quick, they come out before anyone even has a chance to play the game since they are at school or work all day.

So in theory, you'd think people would take a chill pill, wait, read reviews, and then make a decision to buy the game over the next 24 hours. Nope, you got people won over by marketing and Gamestop clerks egging them on "would you like to pre-order Sniper Elite Corps vs Zombies X?". And it seems to be working as even bad games somehow can sell millions of copies.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Fighting over diversity and culture decision is hurting many industries.

 

[ahtlas7]

I don't know but they sure convinced everyone To accept and in some cases defend $10-20 price increases for the half assed development.

 

[DosGamer]

I think several factors are at play to be honest.

1) the fight for exclusives (is it really the best way to see games) I dont really think so as much as I used to.
2) The cost of production creates a issue with smaller devs. Having to get more creative with less.... sounds great on paper, but maybe not so good in reality.
3) development timelines... games just take too long to build/ create. Devs are putting years of their lives into games only for it to leak and be spoiled or be beaten with a speed run within a week of release.
4) public demand has created this console life cycle that we all feel is important. is it really? I dont feel like the PS5 or the Xbox X have really shown me that they were worth the purchase. This has been happening more and more with every generation release
5) Where is the creativity? Most games just seem like clones, remakes or copies of others ideas. Cant be easy to find passion when everything is soooo similar.

 

[darrylgorn]

A little from column

A) We only have so many ideas and they become fewer as time goes on

B) More people are willing to buy subpar products

C) Companies know they can get away with it because of A and B

 

[JackSparr0w]

Well my company is a global one, and obviously the world is a very ethnically diverse place. And yes diversity comes in many forms (age is one that too often gets forgotten) and the most important part is diversity of thought. Completely agree with you on that.

I'm in the UK not US so never been in any discussion at work about "red vs. blue", so can't comment on point a. (We do create a Gender Gap Report).

As for point b, your argument could have been possible if it was only ethnic diversity. But that McKinsey report shows an increase in performance for gender performance too, which obviously wouldn't be majorly different in a city than elsewhere.


Well we had a quota that we wanted at least 40% of people in Manager positions to be women and 40% to be men.

We have traditionally been a male dominated industry, so we started doing more PR and recruitment activities to attract women. This led to more women applying for jobs with us.

And we still give the job to the best person.

More women wanting to work for us = a higher chance the best person for the job is a woman

Its not insane. Its entirely logical.

So you had a quota but you don't any more? Are you in HR?

Industries that are dominated by a gender are dominated for a reason. You can't change that unless you bring quotas which will harm your company's performance in the long term. They're also pure discrimination.

 

[PeteBull]

Oh come on, if this is just about Redfall being ass, that's just one failed game. Elden Ring didn't suck. Hogswarts didn't suck. Jedi Survivor didn't suck. RE8 and RE4 didn't suck. Metroid Prime remake didn't suck. Tears of the Kingdom won't suck either. Hell I highly doubt Starfield will suck.

Just one ass game people, come on. I know there are other shit games out but I feel like Redfall has become the embodiment of a failed industry when it's just ONE bad game.

All the good games u described didnt give a damn about being woke tho(altho there was some cuts from RE4 remake that prove once again- woke agenda infiltrated even capcom- changing Ada's Wong clothes/voice to be nonsexy, cutting out famous "ballistic" comment from well known cutscene ;p), jedi survivor got good reviews but still needs massive performance upgrades/fixes btw- nonetheless there is hope for it, just proves the point about- if for any reason quality of the game isnt put as a top priority- no chance for it to even be somewhat decent.

Redfall is just newest release, microsofts first party- so ofc it makes stuff very obvious how bad it got, but there were many games that sucked badly, u can see them on gaf from time to time.

How about battlefield V ?, remember that dev saying to his customers to not buy their product, and defending wokeness like there is no tomorrow https://www.vg247.com/ea-dont-like-women-battlefield-5-dont-buy
Ofc like any sane person would predict-it ended so badly, and ofc game was shit quality, and sold terribly too https://www.gamespot.com/articles/battlefield-5-fails-to-meet-sales-targets-and-ea-e/1100-6464832/

But that showed hope, aka bad product gets properly rewarded- bombs hard- all kinds of studio closing/firing etc.

With redfall, since its on gamepass its bit different/tricky- ofc it reviewed terribly, gonna sell terribly obviously too, but it was never meant to sell decently, aka devs were allowed to pour shit into it knowing full well customers/us will get bad product, and every1 from microsofts higher ups was ok with it- they dont need to emphasise quality coz already got ur subscription money ^^

Personally im not ok with it, and many players arent either, what we can do is simply vote with our wallets, like we always did- reward good products with our money, dont reward bad product with our money- luckily most games arent on gamepass so still consumers hold tremendous power

Hogwarts Legacy is another example of voting with ur wallet, did get decent reviews and humongous sales despite woke crowd cancelation/ban and all that shit(most unprofessional was -male didlo reviewer being put in charge of game review and giving it 1/10, there is gaf threat about it ofc https://www.neogaf.com/threads/wired-has-given-hogwarts-legacy-a-1-10-review-score.1652125/ ;p), thats coz woke bubble is super tight and small place in grand shame of things

 

[supernova8]

I don't think we should underestimate the impact of "good" programmers/software engineers/mechanic, level, map designers.

Back when I worked at a software company (I was in sales but was up in the engineering office every day talking to the developers and seeing what they were doing, status updates etc), even as a layman (relatively) you could easily tell the senior engineers from the junior ones. Big lesson learned was that in software engineering (games are just software) you're rarely able to just "throw resources at a problem".

I remember one time we had a client with a very specific bug they couldn't fix it. They had a team of like 30 engineers (based in India) who were absolutely fucking useless. We allocated 5 of our best guys and they managed to fix the problem in just over 2 months, despite the aforementioned army of Indian engineers struggling for 6 months.

I think it's pretty obvious that there are not as many uber elite game design/software dudes out there anymore. Or, if there are, they are now able to make indie games without necessarily needing massive publisher deals.

 

[SuperSaiyanWithDreads]

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

Not the developers fault at all but u gasing that up. It's nobody fault but the management and them black suit men who only see that $ instead of quality.

 

[PeteBull]

Not the developers fault at all but u gasing that up. It's nobody fault but the management and them black suit men who only see that $ instead of quality.

In capitalism making money means u gotta have quality product to sell, otherwise customers, so in this case, gamers, like us- wont buy it, thats why u dont get AAA games from china, north korea, venezuela, and all other countries where making $ aka embracing human greed is considered a nono- it simply kills creativity and demotivates(and its just play pretend, u cant change human nature).

There is a reason all those GAAS shitty games fail/bomb/bring tremendous losses- they are bad products no1 wants, ofc devs/pubs still chase that fortnite/pubg cash, same way like back in the days they chased WoW cash or moba cash, they never learn, or actually some do learn, and those who dont are destinet to fail, and thats ok too

 

[CartesianMan]

As always the reasons of having less creative games is complex:

1. Work from home. This is great for the people but bad for the team spirit. It's definitely hurting the communication. You are not feeling like part of the team but more like a person who executes the task in the best possible ways.
2. The cost of the game development - with the marketing, a new IP AAA game cost between $300-400 million. This is a huge risk for investors. So they prefer to invest in known established IPs.
3. The games are more complex than ever - even the simpler in terms of game design games are complex. All the online features, photo mode, accessibility options, more sophisticated worlds and graphics come with a cost of long development cycles. Naughty Dog released two(+ something like expansion) games for PS4, and zero games for PS5.
4. The talented developers quit the AAA companies - they do prefer to work in smaller companies wot have more creative freedom. Or to create their own company. Or quit the game development altogether. And this is a really big hit to the video game industry.

5. Digital Distribution and Game Pass-alike - you and I know very well that if you wait long enough you will get the game 70% off or something. Or soon or later it will appear on Game Plus Pass. So the big money is only for the big dogs that will make you pay for the game at the release at full price. And they are very few. This makes other good games that not trigger "impulse buy" DOA financially. And IMO 70$ for considering the cost, effort and the end product volume and quality of the product.

 

[sumdumfuk]

Diversity hires

 

[NightmareFarm]

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

Ah yes, blame "woke" agenda for everything even when it doesn't make sense

 

[NightmareFarm]

During COVID, developers could just use the pandemic as a scapegoat to delay or release half baked games.

Despite the pandemic becoming irrelevant, this same habit remained with many developers as they realise they can get away with doing less without being challenged for it.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

Woke culture and diversity, which captured sections of the games industry and tech industry well before it spread into wider organisations.

It's a move away from a meritocracy, where before people used to be hired based on merits such as level of skill, experience, track record and strength of character.....

Where as now people are more likely to be hired based on ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation and politics (aka being more liberal). Along with this, these ideas seep there way into art design too, particularly in Western made games.

I am an ethnic minority in the UK and used to work for an ultra woke section at a University and left because of how much this ideology had captured the entire place. It became an awful and terribly inefficient work environment. My colleagues assumed I was along for the ride just because of my skin colour, but they were wrong.

 

[Wishmaster92]

Talent

 

[Woopah]

So you had a quota but you don't any more? Are you in HR?

Industries that are dominated by a gender are dominated for a reason. You can't change that unless you bring quotas which will harm your company's performance in the long term. They're also pure discrimination.

No I'm not in HR.

The company had a target that 40% or more of management positions would be held by women and 40% or more would be held by men.

The company hit that target without any need for discrimination or loss of performance.

 

[simpatico]

loan

My brother in Christ, I'm not sure you understand eating.

 

[BabyfaceRe]

2 decades of price increases in conjunction with quality decline. It's literally just a mind trick. The general public has been convinced to buy sub-par products that cost more due to aggressive advertising, deceitful language from management, shitty celebrity influencers and a general decline in intelligence. Look at PRIME, an absolute dogshit hydration drink by every possible metric, torn to pieces by professional and scientific breakdowns proving it doesnt do anything that it claims - meanwhile its doing absolute gangbusters and even just acquired a UFC sponsorship.

For every single person who defended the latest gaming price hike, I hope you're happy. Now you get the privilege of paying more for less. The extra 30% you're paying for all those "next-gen improvements", where has it gone? QA testers are getting fired left and right so it didn't go there. There's no marked improvement in games since the price got jacked up, so it didn't go to the games budget. Games havn't got better, in fact since the price hike, game releases have been the worst they have ever been!

I hate to say it and I know it comes with a shit ton of baggage, but this industry is in desperate need of regulation. Games like Redfall should not be allowed out the door in that state. There must have been 10s if not 100s of people who saw the state of that game before it launched and just thought "fuck it". That is conscious and calculated deceit to garner profit, thats called fraud people. Devs have completely lost the privilege of deciding when their own games have "gone gold", they have proven undoubtedly that they cannot be trusted to do so with any sincerity.

But don't worry, somehow it will be the player's fault - for not having the right rig, or not playing the right way, or not "getting it", or being too toxic. Gaming has become this slimy gross little industry that lurks in the shadows, hiding from regulation, avoiding politicians who are too old to understand wtf a game is, ripping off adults with broken games and destroying children through obscene gambling mtx.

I dont think any industry thinks less of it's customers than the gaming industry. (Maybe except Star Wars, they really seem to hate their fans lol)

 

[Madflavor]

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

It's been damaging the film/tv industry as well.

 

[AGRacing]

The top of the studios are loaded with "unfireables" and "unaccountables". You have to fuck up for something like 5 straight years to finally get laterally moved out of a position where you're doing the most damage. 343 was all the proof anyone ever needed.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

As always the reasons of having less creative games is complex:

1. Work from home. This is great for the people but bad for the team spirit. It's definitely hurting the communication. You are not feeling like part of the team but more like a person who executes the task in the best possible ways.

During covid our company had a lot of people quit, a few got fired, and many new hires.

Our company is back to office. But how many times you go in depends on your job and simply if you want to come in. I come in 2-3 times a week, so I know most of the new people who show up too.

For people who come in 0-1 times per week (those 0's only come in when they are pressured to join in Town Hall meetings or they always seem to magically show up during free BBQ day), just about all of them have come up to me at some point asking who this or that person is sitting there. Well maybe if you got off your ass and showed up you'd talk to people and know who they are. The guy or gal has only been working here for the past 6 months.

But also the hiring bosses sometimes skip the canned memo saying a new hire is joining, and also there's so few people around they dont even bother doing the merry go round introduction of him/her around the office like precovid. There's people hired for roles but other people dont know that person is there available to help.