What's influencing bad game development right now? Is it still Covid or is it work from home? Or something else?

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
So when a game is released in an unplayable state and gets substantially improved by patches only a few weeks post launch, it's because they fired the development team and replaced them with competent (white) people?
 
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.
Any quota means discrimination and you're not in HR so you don't know what kind of discrimination they perform.

You think all these women suddenly decided they want to work in a male dominated field? Performance loss will come soon enough do not worry.
 
Lack of talent? Everyone talks about how hard it is to work in the gaming industry. Those who want to earn more in better conditions have moved to other jobs and I think such a situation has arisen.
 
Yup, look at something like the recent redfall disaster. They wanted to purposefully make a woke 'metaphor' of a game about capitalism and trump, but they forgot to actually have the talent and make a good video game along the way.

By the way that not me saying this, the director said this himself :

https://www.thegamer.com/redfall-commentary-capitalism-creators-disservice/
https://www.gamesradar.com/redfall-is-not-a-horde-shooter-and-the-vampires-are-a-metaphor-actually/
Didn't know this. Now I don't feel bad for them… at all. Will not give that garbage a second chance.
 
Any quota means discrimination and you're not in HR so you don't know what kind of discrimination they perform.

You think all these women suddenly decided they want to work in a male dominated field? Performance loss will come soon enough do not worry.
Okay, so part our target was to have 40% of management positions held by men. Do you truly believe that the only way to hire men is through discrimination?

I'm pretty sure you can hire talented people without discrimination. My team hired several peole, and at no point did HR tell me to hire someone because they were a man, or because they were a woman.
 
Lack of talent? Everyone talks about how hard it is to work in the gaming industry. Those who want to earn more in better conditions have moved to other jobs and I think such a situation has arisen.
Sounds right, but the allure of the dream job making video games probably forces some people to live with whatever crap situations are at work.

Its not video games, but you can be a graphics designer working for big companies or from third party advertising or marketing companies who have these people to do work for their clients. If you're a programmer or coder, Im sure they got the talent to program all the IT and ERP stuff the office staff uses.

Pay is fine, hours are fine, it'll be a more stable FT job and you wont have to worry about social media meltdowns because a lot of that stuff seems skewed to techie companies. And I am 100% confident that if you do a decent job they'll get a lot more kudos from people and a lot less critique or trolling from the general public. In fact, a good chance of zero negativity from the public.
 
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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.
Im afraid to ask but who gets to fill the final 20% of managment then?
 
Would you mind sharing what those targets are and how there achieved?
It was that we wanted at lesst 40% of management positions to be held by women and at lesst 40% held by men.

So some of the things we did were:
  • Ensuing we included women in our promotional and recruitment materials
  • Taking part in International Women's Day campaigns
  • Equalising paternity and maternity leave.
  • Making sure that maternity leave was not a barrier to development or promotion
  • Having open conversations about the types of ways people can be discriminated against and how to address it (this wasn't just for gender though).
Im afraid to ask but who gets to fill the final 20% of managment then?
Either. But basically the gender balance will naturally shift all the time. So it just means that, whether the split is 55/45 in favour of men, 50/50, or 55/45 in favor of women, we still hit our target.
 
Jeez, so many armchair developers in this thread. As others have stated it's been a thing for a long time now. (articles from 2014)

 
How is capitalism the problem? Let me guess, you go to work for free right.
Dude...game creation at its root is an artistic/creative endeavor. Idealistically, capitalistic practices that have the sole purpose of making MORE profit, is the antithesis of that. But attaining profit...is the meaning of capitalism...

Thus tainting doing things purely for the creative process; you start having "investors" suggest release dates, and "direction" that may be more profitable rather than artistically risky or interesting.

Nintendo didnt make the decision to stop being ambitious with their hardware for artistic reasons...they did it to be in a better position to increase profit. The more priority a company with supposedly artistic endeavors gives to capitalistic gains, the more purity it loses.

Im deeply depressed someone has to explain this to you, because this isnt an opinion. Or a republican or democrat thing. Its a fucking fact.
 
Dude...game creation at its root is an artistic/creative endeavor. Idealistically, capitalistic practices that have the sole purpose of making MORE profit, is the antithesis of that. But attaining profit...is the meaning of capitalism...

Thus tainting doing things purely for the creative process; you start having "investors" suggest release dates, and "direction" that may be more profitable rather than artistically risky or interesting.

Nintendo didnt make the decision to stop being ambitious with their hardware for artistic reasons...they did it to be in a better position to increase profit. The more priority a company with supposedly artistic endeavors gives to capitalistic gains, the more purity it loses.

Im deeply depressed someone has to explain this to you, because this isnt an opinion. Or a republican or democrat thing. Its a fucking fact.
can you find me the time when game development was not a capitalist endeavor? like was atari some sort of commune?
 
The majority of the games industry is white men. I don't know where some you are this bs diversity, gender hire quota from. There aren't enough diverse, gender, minority, women etc seeking game jobs to even make this an issue.
 
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can you find me the time when game development was not a capitalist endeavor? like was atari some sort of commune?

Sure dude, but things become less and less about artistic integrity as popularity arises. Happens with everything really...

As gaming grew in popularity, the more examples of "success" arose, thus more models of how money could be made.

Plus the more expensive (especially adjusted for inflation) gaming became the more profit becomes a priority, thus you get assassins creed 15 and less newer titles, and longer breaks between titles from the big AAA devs.

Are we not seeing eye to eye on how priority of profit can inhibit artistic expression in consumerism?

This is just logic, i feel like some of you identify with a specific party or something and anything negative about capitalism you hear sounds like it goes against talking points you generally follow. But this is just simple logic.

Things become more capitalistic the more money it makes. Thats why it progressively got worse.
 
Sure dude, but things become less and less about artistic integrity as popularity arises. Happens with everything really...

As gaming grew in popularity, the more examples of "success" arose, thus more models of how money could be made.

Plus the more expensive (especially adjusted for inflation) gaming became the more profit becomes a priority, thus you get assassins creed 15 and less newer titles, and longer breaks between titles from the big AAA devs.

Are we not seeing eye to eye on how priority of profit can inhibit artistic expression in consumerism?

This is just logic, i feel like some of you identify with a specific party or something and anything negative about capitalism you hear sounds like it goes against talking points you generally follow. But this is just simple logic.

Things become more capitalistic the more money it makes. Thats why it progressively got worse.
Most things in life gravitate to mainstream stuff and an affordable price. The extremes are for the people who like extremes/niche products.

If Assassin's Creed 15 sells 10M copies, it simply means there's tons of people who like AC. And like any company, theyll make money satisfying that itch of open world exploration and killing mobs of enemies.

Creativity is great, but not really needed all the time. It's just for variety sake. Sometimes people just like predictable games, food, movies, Toyota Camrys etc... They know they are getting something reliable at a good price, so thats why it succeeds. And companies will do incremental improvements over time rather than reinventing the wheel. And in gaming, the biggest gripe I'd say most gamers or critics have isn't even creativity. But crap gameplay, bugs, MP lobbies crashing, sketchy frame rate etc... I dont think there's too many people saying a well playing polished game is crap because it's sequel rehash #8. And I dont think there's many gamers who will give a game a 9/10 for a cleverly creative game, but combined with shitty gameplay, lacking MP modes and long loading times. That game would probably get a 5/10 where the final summary is "great idea, but terrible execution, not a good game"

I'm sure there would be a lot more people trying new IPs and quirky games if they had refunds. But gaming as a whole is pretty anti-consumer for refunds unless you go through hoops and do it, and do it in time. So gamers stick to game franchises they love.
 
Listening to dumb input from internet form / social posters 🤣 it will probably kill you as a company . This and going after trends .
 
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I will say, it's clear to me that COVID, lockdowns and working from home have had an impact on gaming corps and many other industries. It's hard to think of many sectors that are doing better now, compared to before COVID, unless you're the Redbull F1 team
 
Dude...game creation at its root is an artistic/creative endeavor. Idealistically, capitalistic practices that have the sole purpose of making MORE profit, is the antithesis of that. But attaining profit...is the meaning of capitalism...

Thus tainting doing things purely for the creative process; you start having "investors" suggest release dates, and "direction" that may be more profitable rather than artistically risky or interesting.

Nintendo didnt make the decision to stop being ambitious with their hardware for artistic reasons...they did it to be in a better position to increase profit. The more priority a company with supposedly artistic endeavors gives to capitalistic gains, the more purity it loses.

Im deeply depressed someone has to explain this to you, because this isnt an opinion. Or a republican or democrat thing. Its a fucking fact.
You're not deeply depressed you're just condescending.
Companies exist to provide goods or services. End of story. There is no purity etc.

Any product made has to produce a profit or the company will cease to exist and then zero products will be made. It's that simple.
And if you don't like the product they produce then don't buy it. If enough people do this then said company will have to adapt or it will cease to exist.
 
Worrying more about agendas and politics over quality gaming. Instead of actually introducing new features that are potentially game changing, they worry about the filling out checklists. Why the first thing we hear about with the next Tomb Raider game is Lara's possible love interest? Remember the TLOU2 first trailer?

Less talented developers. Diversity over talent. Many people are not qualified for the job, but fit in certain categories for the company.

Deadlines more important than quality. Ship now, fix later even if it's broken and bad. They'll buy it anyway, right?

Huge focus on GAAS/live service and multiplayer. Imo, the GAAS/live service structure is destroying gaming as well. Sure, when it's successful, it's usually a cash cow, but to my knowledge most of these live service games fail.

Developers or companies are making games way too large and lengthy and simply cannot handle the workload and lack the ability to handle the insurmountable tasks of making sure the game meets the promises made. That's one reason games usually take forever to come out now. It's a double edge sword though because most gamers want games that last hundreds of hours.

Demands for games is ridiculously high so it puts more pressure on developers and they are rarely able to meet the demands of gamers.
 
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You want to know the main reason? Multiple reasons combined actually.The notion that EVERYTHING has to be over 15 hours long,be open world or have multiplayer or whatever shit that makes Devs need 10 years to "finish" a game and the NO CRUNCH policies nowadays.

You cant meet deadlines while sticking to normal schedules when the aspirations for every project are so high and deadlines have to be met.You need time and good management for that and 90% of the gaming publishers and companies lack one or both in spades.

They used the corona excluse for as long as they could but this industry isnt heading in some bright direction as far as i can tell.Projects will still get bigger, development will get longer,failures will make bigger splashes,and publishers will keep in turning to GAAS projects to fuel their money pits.The indie scene will be the one that thrives in all this as we can see already.Cuz they aren't forced by deadlines or corporate ideas.
 
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I wouldn't call it a case of "bad-game development right now".....you can go back as far as 2017/2018 with the debacle that was Mass Effect Andromeda it took the recent trilogy to set things straight with that franchise...so its been happening for a while.....another example Metal Gear 5 even when it was released Kojima still felt it was unfinished and then you wonder what did they actually do in all the years it was being developed and when it did come out it had next to no story...
 
So when a game is released in an unplayable state and gets substantially improved by patches only a few weeks post launch, it's because they fired the development team and replaced them with competent (white) people?
That happens to many games and is very common practice, even to BOTW who got amazing review scores/praise from fans and sold total 29m copies- and since its nintendo u know they were full price too, not some 10-20$ copies sold at bomba-discount prices.

Im not saying its great but thats reality nowadays, day 0/1 and later patches are very common, cp2077 got that treatment too, and sold well too.

Im talking about games that are simply bad games, so, to use recently launched product- not newest SW Jedi Survivor- thats great game with bad performance, it will/should get fixed eventually, and who knows, might even get some midgen consoles patch when it runs well and looks good at the same time :)
Think of games like Battlefield V, Anthem, Saints Row, Redfall, Gotham Knights, and in future- yes u can guarantee it- Suicide Squad, when game is bad at its core even fixing bugs/imrpoving performance wont help much unfortunately.
 
More complexity and people required with an already limited talent pool.

We'll be amazed soon at how good AI can be for a lot of the heavy lifting.
 
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Sure dude, but things become less and less about artistic integrity as popularity arises. Happens with everything really...

As gaming grew in popularity, the more examples of "success" arose, thus more models of how money could be made.

Plus the more expensive (especially adjusted for inflation) gaming became the more profit becomes a priority, thus you get assassins creed 15 and less newer titles, and longer breaks between titles from the big AAA devs.

Are we not seeing eye to eye on how priority of profit can inhibit artistic expression in consumerism?

This is just logic, i feel like some of you identify with a specific party or something and anything negative about capitalism you hear sounds like it goes against talking points you generally follow. But this is just simple logic.

Things become more capitalistic the more money it makes. Thats why it progressively got worse.
you should read about the early days of the industry. It was just as cutthroat as it is now. In fact maybe more, because its relatively small size and ease of access attracted more and hungrier people, including bloodthirsty capitalists, without the layers of bureaucracy and barriers to entry that exist today. The game industry and gaming, after SpaceWar!, was never not a capitalist enterprise.
 
It's probably a lot of these reasons mentioned above. My personal take is that games are getting too big and complex. That just leads to problems.
 
You're not deeply depressed you're just condescending.
Companies exist to provide goods or services. End of story. There is no purity etc.

Any product made has to produce a profit or the company will cease to exist and then zero products will be made. It's that simple.
And if you don't like the product they produce then don't buy it. If enough people do this then said company will have to adapt or it will cease to exist.

if that were purely the case...and there were no artistic element to this. Then every game would be a fortnite. Or a GTA 5 with an online model afterwards, ( and some companies are trying to have this happen)

It gets progessively worse, depending on circumstances, growth, and mass consumption, etc. thats the point.

The more money something makes, the more capitalistic it becomes.

It used to just be: devs want to make something, and they need the means to market it. But as the medium grew, new monetization practices arose, new audiences arose, expenses increased. Etc

Im not even sure what were disagreeing on...it's pretty obvious that money/risk...is a major factor as to why were not seeing the same level of rapid releases and new ideas we once saw in the industry, and the main reason why rockstar for example, went from releasing 6 titles a gen to 1. Or why Valve still hasnt made a half life, or why E3 doesnt exist. Its all about...profit to risk ratio
 
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you should read about the early days of the industry. It was just as cutthroat as it is now. In fact maybe more, because its relatively small size and ease of access attracted more and hungrier people, including bloodthirsty capitalists, without the layers of bureaucracy and barriers to entry that exist today. The game industry and gaming, after SpaceWar!, was never not a capitalist enterprise.

Well, they've simply gotten better at it. More proficient. Thats my point, before they naively thought "oh whoever makes the best game wins!" So they released ambitious new things or tried to improve upon old ideas like madmen. And we all benefited, thats the good side of capitalism for consumers.

But now...as it grew, with more hands in the pot, and newer tech and online systems... they've simply gotten much more proficent at making money. They discovered they no longer needed to release a ton of games, just have online monetization practices (fortnite) , make a online system where the company makes percentage off of everything sold (valve)

And then increase the life span of a title instead of releasing more titles, and monetize it (GTA online)

They found out how to make more profit, while doing less work. Which is what capitilism is all about, except this time...we dont benefit...they do. Thats the bad side of capitalism.

But in the eyes of the system...its working as its supposed to. Because profit, is king.
 
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I am kind of annoyed that they made Aloy a lesbian. God forbid you have a strong hetero woman.
The problem isn't her sexuality, the problem she is most boring "strong female".

Emil in Nier Replicant/Gestalt is gay but I absolulty adore that character.

Edit: bigger problem is with most western devs is they think by just making already bad character "gay" it make him/her more Interesting.
 
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It is not because of covid or working from home, the games just get pushed out unfinished because there is basically no consequences, people still buy enough of the games and the games media mostly is too scared to call the publisher or developer out and say people should not buy the game and give it a zero review score because it's not finished.

No other industry gets away with treating it's customers with such contempt, when was the last time you went to a cinema, streamed a film or purchased the bluray and found there was half the music missing and some effects were missing, because they didn't have time to get it sorted before release date? I know this is a rather extreme example, but the principle is the same.
 
I am kind of annoyed that they made Aloy a lesbian. God forbid you have a strong hetero woman.
You had a choice in the game, if you made a certain one then yes you decided that Aloy was a lesbian.
*I am not sure what this has to do with this thread topic, I apologise for going off-topic.
 
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You had a choice in the game, if you made a certain one then yes you decided that Aloy was a lesbian.
*I am not sure what this has to do with this thread topic, I apologise for going off-topic.
Ah. That is good. So, it is like Mass Effect. Okay. That is better.
 
You had a choice in the game, if you made a certain one then yes you decided that Aloy was a lesbian.
*I am not sure what this has to do with this thread topic, I apologise for going off-topic.

You can't make her straight. Your only options are either to make her lesbian or to remain willfully ignorant of her actual sexuality.
 
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Lack of personal gain. I think it all comes down to this.

Game developing, became a big, super long production involving hundreds of people and probably thousands if other organizations involved as people demand more high end graphics, movie like cinematic cut scenes and all. It's all good and all - but it's making any one person in the group being just a "cog" of the whole wheel - just like any other big corporation jobs.

Select few directors from old days are known. Actors who play the motion capture or voice actors get's noticed more than programmer, designer and all. Just like many collective works tend to become - it loses its identity because it needs to please everyone... and by saying so, it pleases nobody.

If your own reputation is on the line in public release - one (at least responsible ones) tends to make sure everything's in order in a small group setting. Kinda hard to do in big collaboration work - that each of their units probably just say "I did my part" and move on - when everything else is all broken and non-functioning like some shoddy games or late. Simply, devs don't seem to care of their collective work and result.

And even if you were involved in a big game, it's just another notch but nobody will remember you. It's just one of the hundreds and thousands of names in the credit list. Some head hunters and industry insiders may notice you - but the days of superstardom of fame is very rare and... almost impossible to get there.

So one starts asking "why am I in game making business". They know their work is shit. It doesn't inspire them because it's just a job... especially when it's drawn out many many years out of their lives.. and many jump to indy scene. Then again, they have very little exposure and resources - so compared to mainstream AAA or even AA titles.. many just simply gets forgotten.
 
can you find me the time when game development was not a capitalist endeavor? like was atari some sort of commune?
That cause of the fact that when it was nicher and the budgets where less risk adverse gaming clear as day was balanced way more between artistic intergrity and profitability. Game leads had way way more say on the structure of the games being produced and where actually long time hard core gamers themselves. Now adays shits a corporate assemebly line with most marketing department gaslighting on the back end to draw attention away from that obvious fact.
 
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while.....another example Metal Gear 5
Im mostly a Kojima Stan and I would argue that Kojima purposely tanked that game and made sure to gut most of all the cutscenes so he could finally put MGS to bed and avoid any further death threats. Would Kojima do such an asshole thing to his fans.....looks at MGS2....yes I think he would.
 
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They found out how to make more profit, while doing less work. Which is what capitilism is all about, except this time...we dont benefit...they do. Thats the bad side of capitalism.

Yep.
Its all about getting as much money as possible and giving consumers as little as possible in return.

Thats Corporate Religious Doctrine full stop.
 
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