Support NeoGAF

[icecold1983]

He has one good point. There is no need to go harass developers in their personal lives. I can't say I agree with anything else though. You aren't entitled to a job just because you exist. Bioware has put out nothing but absolute crap for a decade now. Layoffs are hugely well deserved at a minimum. Studio closure is probably more warranted at this point.

 

[HoodWinked]

Nah fuck that noise, these freaks are the reason the western games industry is in the state that it is in. Their failure has essentially allowed China to capture a sizable market share.

 

[Gonzito]

People are celebrating this because we are finally getting rid of activists pretending to be game developers and making games

The industry needs to get rid of these people, they dont belong in this industry

 

[Hudo]

* former Kotaku bitch and current cam whore

She has Onlyfans?

 

[KimDongHwan]

People are celebrating this because we are finally getting rid of activists pretending to be game developers and making games

The industry needs to get rid of these people, they dont belong in this industry

Whenever someone makes a video like this, I would love for it to be like a Q&A type of section where he needs to ack and reply to the responses of people countering his points because else I get the feeling he will just bunker again thinking he is right and no-one else thought that the reason might be another.

 

[DeepEnigma]

To really blow your mind I know of a true Hall of Famer that has visited these very forums as he used to be a massive Call of Duty fan but haven't seen him on in awhile

The KID was in fact a Demigod with the bat

And one of the most beautiful swings in history!

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

And one of the most beautiful swings in history!

Someone got it

 

[jason10mm]

Devs should just delete all social media. It is a useless waste of time and makes them worse at their jobs, and encourages the hiring of talentless people just because they have a social media profile.

Very true. A community manager exists for a reason. But I think a lot of devs suddenly thought they could be Cliffy B and went out to socials on their own mining for them virtue signals and -to the surprise of no one- catering to one crowd while dunking on another usually ends badly when its your core audience being dunked on.

 

[BbMajor7th]

His general thrust is reasonable, but:

- His tone and delivery here will put people immediately on the defensive.
- He repeatedly references 'cruel' behaviour, which he doesn't define and which is a broadly subjective and relative term.
- He draws a consistent line between critique and attack, but we live in an age where the two are often conflated (especially around subjects of gender representation).
- He uses emotional language to describe those critical of the game: "It's fine to be angry". It's possible to be unimpressed, dissatisfied, alienated, and unconvinced by something without being angry. By using 'anger' repeatedly he delegitimizes the critique, attributing it to emotional excess rather than meaningful analysis. It's a little disingenuous.

 

[peek]

Dude interchangeably uses the term "harm" to describe people being mean on the internet with actual harm.

Opinion disregarded. This the type of dude that says shit like silence is violence, words are violence, etc. xD

 

[fart town usa]

These people actively call for my entire industry to be illegal (private health insurance). So no, F off clownshoes.

 

[samoilaaa]

i still cant believe that this game is real

what a time to be alive

 

[samoilaaa]

these type of devs are ok with minors having surgeries to transition

fuck em

if you dont want these kind of consequences then keep your political views out of social media and especially gaming

 

[Malcolm9]

The funny thing about it is that Dragon Age Veilguard is actually pretty decent.

 

[Redneckerz]

I went in here excepting GAF having a field day because most game veterans's takes usually get rescinded because its too far detached from reality.

This take right here isn't. Its a fully serviceable take - And one i obviously agree with. This kind of rationale works across multiple media - For instance, the new Marvel movie looks pretty bad from a visual POV, but why is that?

I think the underlying issue is that we, the audience expect games to evolve ever more in the gameplay and visual department. But the software and tech needed for that improvement gets more expansive, more expensive and more complex to create and maintain. Budgets keep rising, but games need a certain fixed point or consumer buy-rate will decline.

So what to do?

What every developer (naturally) does is to get the job done in the same amount of time, with still a fixed amount of money. Because of the points raised above, the quality of games decreases, simply because developers cannot make such a big jump forward any more.

Its a perpetual cycle, a balancing act of the extremes. We see great examples of lower budget games done right (Robocop: Rogue City) and we see A-class titles with ditto budgets get the shoe (The aforementioned Veilguard).

I think a lot more effort needs to be invested in efficiency. Not just in the development stage, but in every aspect of a game. Maybe we should be happy where we are gameplay wise and visually speaking. Unreal Engine 5 gets a lot of stutter flack because it wants to present the next visual leap forward. But there are dozens of UE4 titles that look amazing on a fraction a budget. Heck, even the aforementioned Rogue City looks amazing and that's on UE5.

The way forward shouldn't be more complex, more grand, more everything - it should be more efficient.

The games people get amazed at the most are also done by the most incredible studios - Naughty Dog, Shinen, you name it. Why is that, beyond talent?

Exactly. Time, and efficiency.

 

[Killer8]

There's a veneer of reasonability in his words but the part about 'climbing into someone's personal social media' has more nuance than he lets on. Obviously don't attack people. But when you see what some of them represent and some of the bile they are responsible for throwing people's way, it's difficult to really give a shit if they lose their job.

 

[Nickolaidas]

i still cant believe that this game is real

what a time to be alive

When you were young, games were telling you that you are the hero and that you must save the woman of your dreams from an evil overlord.

Now games are either telling you that you are a victim, or a piece of shit - depending on your skin color and your sexuality.

Fucking scumbags.

 

[Nostalgic Nightmare]

The people who have infected most western studios like the very same mind-virus they harbor,
these same people who have ruined every facet of media with their crusade of identity politics and perpetual victimhood,
these same people who have stepped on the backs of real victims and real talent to get to where they are,
these same people who stalked, doxxed, cancelled and ruined livelihoods of anyone who disagreed with their fart in the wind worldview of the week, and celebrated it
these same people who said the game "isn't for you, dont buy it" who then cry "you *ists didn't buy it!"

Now want you to pretend all of that didn't happen, continue to believe they have some moral high-ground and want to emotionally brow-beat you as if it's your fault.
I don't know this person, he may not have done any of the above - and I know there are studios all over the west that have people who just want to work and put out a good product - for these people I feel terrible and I hope we are reaching a point where people can feel free to disagree with these narcissistic infants without fear of retribution because as you all know - it don't fucking matter - you're going down with ship as there is no "modern audience" and people are beyond tired of this slop.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

At this point I will celebrate when the whole studio gets shut down. If they have real talent they'll find work elsewhere.

 

[Durin]

I agree with some points, but overall a pretty useless video because he talks to much in the abstract without defining terms or using concrete examples.

What is "cruel" to him, and what is the line before something goes from criticism to cruelty? He makes all these excuses for how people can't know during the development process why something turned out bad, removing accountability, and saying the only person to complain to is the company in abstract or the director of the game.

He also doesn't mention that developers themselves on social media throw out disparaging remarks, community managers that flip out like power-trippy reddit mods...or that games increasingly come out broken.

Many of these studios that release a broken game with performance issues will go long stretches of time before even mentioning when/if a fix is coming, while taking your $70.

 

[Umbral]

They were warned for years and in their arrogance chose not to listen and instead mock and provoke. Zero sympathy.

 

[Last Hearth]

It's a free country, I can celebrate what I want to celebrate, don't need permission from him or anyone else. I don't even need to have paid for the game.

 

[Herbspiceguy]

Start taking some accountability instead of deflecting and making cry videos.

 

[grvg]

People should really just figure out how discourse on the internet works.

I suppose that one gets jobs in these companies through "having connections" but... getting shit talked on the internet is inevitable if you have any kind of personality footprint online.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

Personally attacking someone on social media is going too far.

Gamers have been personally attacked for decades. New terms invented each time to insult us every decade. No one ever suggested that gamers needed to be defended because it seems, everyone agreed that Gamers deserve to be insulted by everyone.

F that. If you are willing to call us names, we are calling you names back and also laugh at you when you lose your job.

 

[BigBeauford]

Someone, somewhere, said something and now this idiot feels he has the moral authority to lecture an audience. It's about as useful as an HR video new hires have to watch.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

That is because when we see a dev getting fired, we don't see Michael McAllister losing his job, despite making good assets for *insert AAA slop title here*. We see a supporter of woke gaming culture experiencing the consequences of his actions, and we hope that other companies and publishers will realize they need to change their tactics.

I don't get any satisfaction from anyone losing their jobs - even queersexuawhatever freaks.

I get satisfaction from the thought that Western gaming may understand they need to change their ways.

No one would give a single fuck if it was revealed that the writers and combat designers of an AAA game are trans, or have pronouns in their bio or whatever as long as the game runs well, looks cool, has gorgeous looking characters and has good, traditional values the average man and woman can aspire to and resonate with. Seriously, NO ONE.

THIS which is why this woke developer crying victim is bs and just another attempt at a developer trying to hoodwink the casual gamer into thinking one side is extreme and filled with hateful losers.

It's his own little contribution to the culture war that is raging in gaming and deliberately ignores that the people he's referring to represent maybe 1% of all the people complaining about wokeness and how it's ruining games.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Devs should just delete all social media. It is a useless waste of time and makes them worse at their jobs, and encourages the hiring of talentless people just because they have a social media profile.

Agreed.

Creative types sure have a knack for being loud attention whores. Even Mark Darrah in the video who barely works anymore (claimed in 2021 he retired on his own free will, took a couple years off but now back to consulting according to his Linkedin profile) still tries to get attention on his puny YT channel.

But funny how out of all the other types of roles at any big company like EA/Bioware notice how hardly any sales, marketing, finance, supply chain guy, inventory/demand planner or any other role seem to be really loud and annoying?

At least good to see game devs not work at food companies. If the company has a recall crisis, the company will immediately take back food, refund customers, solve the issue, and issue out notices. The CEO might even do a public apology.

A game making team would hope the problem exists as long as possible praying nobody complains, then blame the customer, not issue refunds for bad product, and whomever is the studio figurehead will do a tweet saying gamers dont understand. There's nothing wrong with our deli meat because only 1% of people have got sick with listeria.

Of course, I'm exaggerating to make a point (though probably not far off), but the attitude that comes from media (including game makers of course) is on a crazy level of weirdness, attention whoring, entitlement, and they think they are all Einsteins compared to every other industry or office job. It's a baffling but also hilarious phenomena. And they wonder why gamers call them out.

 

[shoplifter]

Probably lived near you at one point

I was right

thanks for signing that ball for me in like 1990, your secret is safe with me

 

[StreetsofBeige]

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

I was right

thanks for signing that ball for me in like 1990, your secret is safe with me

Those signing sessions we had was such a full circle moment for me as my dad was a huge Reds fan and he took me to the 1975 and 76 home games World Series.

After one of the WS wins The Big Red Machine had a singing session at a mall and I could not wait to meet my favorite player Dave Concepcion and he was so amazing taking time to listen to me how I said I wanted to be like him.

Flash forward 15 years and here I was the one doing the signing and made sure I took the time to talk to any kid that wanted extra time.

Side note when my dad took me to the signing session I brought along a baseball and everyone signed but Pete Rose as he said he would only sign his baseball card that he was selling and it couldn’t have anyone else’s signature on it.

After the session was over Pete was parked next to my dads car and we met him again as we both were leaving and he asked then if he could sign the baseball as he couldn’t do it in front of some rep that was there.

The baseball was on my night stand for years until one of our dogs found it and destroyed it

 

[Knucklepux]

I’m not saying that he’s entirely wrong

But….. it seems like EVERY time a game bombs and it’s on the heels of controversy revolving around DEI or just flat out trash writing, these devs and dev adjacent always do their best to change the narrative and make themselves the victims.

It’s fucking exhausting. We know people are gonna say and do dumb shit. But you also sucked at your job. 2 things can be true at the same time.

Just take it on the chin and shut the fuck up. I celebrate when a shitty player gets cut from the Broncos, or when a shit co worker gets fired. I’ll celebrate when a shitty dev team gets fired too.

I don’t care about the “well the executives made these decisions..”

If I choose to work at a shit company, then I am just at fault

 

[kiphalfton]

You need to do better. Don't use AI and instead use the real thing.

The irony is when people who don't work / work limited hours say this shit, and there wasn't even really a catalyst that pushed them to that decision.

Then when you consider that they usually have several roommates or live with their parents (which neither of those things are inherently wrong, IF you pull your weight), their whole argument falls apart.

The thing I noticed about super liberal people, is they want to shirk all responsibility and yet be given extra care and consideration (i.e. special treatment). All the while they act like complete assholes and contribute nothing to society.

 

[Wishmaster92]

Idc. This game was pushing an agenda, it’s ugly as fuck

 

[jason10mm]

The baseball was on my night stand for years until one of our dogs found it and destroyed it

This your dog?

 

[Jinxed]

Anyone being happy at the loss of jobs are horrible human beings... But so were the ones doxing, cancelling and having employers fire people for having different opinions than theirs.

I guess generalizing is only fine when it fits your bill

 

[Nickolaidas]

Anyone being happy at the loss of jobs are horrible human beings...

Being happy when a person who deliberately wants to destroy something I love loses their job doesn't make me a horrible human being, fuck off.