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[IDKFA]

The fact you put all that in past tense speaks volumes... and backs up my point. Thanks!

I was providing examples of their important contribution to the video game industry.

They still play a very important role in the industry today. Without corporations there are no video game consoles. The Switch and PlayStation doesn't exist.

Without publishers physical games aren't being released. Some studios might even struggle to get funding for development without a publisher to financially back them up.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

I don’t hate them.

What I hate is the hypocrisy and double speak like Microsoft is doing. Emphasizing their smaller studio and praising Tango before shutting them down while publicly stating that HiFi Rush “exceeded all expectations”. They are either lying to the public, to their employees or both.

People shit on Bobby Kotick but the guy was always super transparent - we make CoD and we make fuckton of money. You didn’t see him going on the circuit speaking how he values developers and creatives, I guess he had enough self awareness to know nobody would believe him and I like to think he didn’t like to pretend he is someone he is not (unlike Phil Spencer and the rest of Xbox leadership).

It’s the same in other industries - in France L’Oreal is considered hell of a company, the stories you hear are something. However EVERYONE wants to hire people from there because if you survive you know how to get shit done.

 

[FunkMiller]

I was providing examples of their important contribution to the video game industry.

They still play a very important role in the industry today. Without corporations there are no video game consoles. The Switch and PlayStation doesn't exist.

Without publishers physical games aren't being released. Some studios might even struggle to get funding for development without a publisher to financially back them up.

The point I was trying to make is that all the foundational stuff you're talking about was done a long time ago. The current crop of people in charge of gaming are - by definition and evidence - by and large a bunch of talentless hacks, who are only concerned about stock price, bonuses, pleasing investment companies, and bleeding every penny out. Everything currently happening in the industry proves this time and time again.

 

[Wildebeest]

The way investment is done these days seems bizarre and not based on facts and numbers at all, but in the end, everything has to be about the people who play the games and generate revenue. Otherwise, what is the point.

 

[Ozriel]

Consumers aren’t going to crowdfund 7 or 8 figure budgets.

 

[MacReady13]

Gaming died a long time ago. It’s not run by people who love games or gamers anymore. It’s not the hobbie I grew up with. I’m happy playing SNES/Mega Drive/NES games. Nothing beats the older classics. That was when games meant something. They were made with passion and not to please shareholders. Fuck these asshole in the gaming industry today.

 

[RJMacready73]

As much as I hate multi national corps constantly chasing growth at the expense of humanity all to buy a bigger boat, AAA games these days cost millions to make, that's a massive risk, AAA studios have hundreds of not thousands of staff all over the world, that's a huge costly resource, unfortunately you can't have one without the other

 

[Lord Panda]

No they didn’t.

The people who did do all that left the industry a long time ago.

Now, much like the entertainment industry, video gaming is full of tech bros, middle management cunts, and people from other sectors like banking and investment, who have only come in because they smell a short term personal profit. None of them have a creative fucking bone in their cancerous, bonus chasing bodies.

You forgot to mention the insidious DEI cunts oozing into the sector as well.

 

[FunkMiller]

You forgot to mention the insidious DEI cunts oozing into the sector as well.

Those people are given power by all the waste of space executives at the game companies. The one doesn't come without the other.

 

[BbMajor7th]

Those people are given power by all the waste of space executives at the game companies. The one doesn't come without the other.

All part of the colonisation process - they want to invade your space, take your shit and preach to you about the good word of their particular lord and savior. When you argue back they tell you that you're the problem and that once they've purged your space of people like you, it'll be 'safe' for everyone, by which they mean, safe for other people like them.

 

[Kiya's Guard]

Yeah but sadly without them gaming (as we know) wouldn't exist, it's a necessary evil.

Want to get back to the early 80s when people coded games in their house and sold the floppies to their neighbours and local stores?

 

[StereoVsn]

That's the point. They won't need to get hired. AI could be rocket fuel to indies. Think about how much more powerful small art departments got already. Once that spreads to other areas, visionary devs won't have to work for publishers to make a game that meets their vision. You could make an RPG with Skyrim levels of dialog without a massive VA budget.

So you just fired bunch of artists, coders and VAs. Congrats! Guess who is going to use all this shit first? Major corpos.

If you want indies, there is a metric ton of them being released on Steam every day of the week. Most of them won’t sell. A lot of those they won’t are actually pretty good games. Thinking that all the people who just got fired from the industry due to AI are going to fire up, make a ton of indie games and have all of they be successful is beyond being unrealistic.

Again, AI is going to cause loss of many jobs, not be any sort of a panacea. Yeah, it will let small studios or individuals do more, but you are going to only have a few breakouts. For most people this is going to cause loss of employment.

 

[Bojji]

dont be hateful. thats bad.

Fuck them.

I'm with OP on this.

 

[ahtlas7]

Sadly people think what we have now is free market capitalism. That so few control so much speaks to the reverse of free market.

 

[Little Mac]

Through broad market ETFs like VTI and VXUS, I’m a shareholder in everything.

 

[64bitmodels]

I hate consumers, not corporations. Corps only do what they ought to do. Which is to get money. Sure, there are "good" ways to go about that and "bad" ways. Bad ways are often easier, which is how Paradox Interactive, for example, can even exist. And that's how EA are also still a thing; they're getting hard carried by the EA Sports games and their monetary extraction schemes.
But consumers will really buy and pay for anything end even associate their personality with the brands. So it's not surprising that corps are doing what they're doing; they're just exploiting people who want and like to be exploited.

Consumers supported hi fi rush and yet tango game works still shut down. Its not just consumers

 

[AJUMP23]

I just got calls from all these companies, they have seen your post 64bitmodels they are not fans.....not fans at all.

 

[The Infectious Paradox]

Is supporting more indies the answer?

Always support more indies

 

[The Infectious Paradox]

Gaming sucks now I have more fun with Indy games then AAA games…

No it doesn't. BIG gaming sucks. Indies are amazing. Going to PC recently was one of the best decisions I ever made. It's an indie paradise.

 

[Dr_Ifto]

Let's take a step back to before the Bethesda acquisition. It was already rumored that Bethesda was shopping for a buyer, and it was very happy to have Sony buy exclusivity on games. They were desperate for cash. These studios were probably already on their way out, and MS just finally pulled the plug. It sucks, it really does. But with current Xbox leadership, they cannot save any studio, just prolong the inevitable.

Consolidation is never the answer and should never be championed. I got mocked and ridiculed for saying this during the ABK merger thread, saying MS was going to save the industry. Especially on Reeeeesetera. Made me leave and never go back. I don't want any publisher buying any other studio. If they need more studios, then build one from the ground up, or split it out of a current studio.

Now, MS is going to shutter more studios in the next 18 months because they are just too large. XBOX leadership needs to change.

 

[CuteFaceJay]

It's been like this for at least 2 decades.

 

[tommyleelynn]

I hate gamers.

 

[MatrixReloaded101]

layoffs, studio closures, forced account creations, lawsuits over dumb shit. These past 5 months have exposed how disgusting corporations are. They are the single biggest thing ruining the fucking hobby. I sincerely wish they'd all crumble into massive piles of dust and all those higherups to lose all their fucking money.

Best case scenario, you get to publish your product with compromises and splotches mandated by the greedy publisher, and they keep the rights to your IP to do whatever with it they wish.
Worst case scenario, You can make a transcendental masterpiece that's gaming's equivalent to the godfather, the great gatsby, Star Wars, and Shakespeare and they will throw it, you and your team in the dumpster because it didn't sell enough units or make enough money. And that's assuming they didn't handicap the potential revenue your product could generate by strapping it to some bung subscription service- if they did you may as well already kick the bucket.

They serve hardly any purpose, the studios do all the work, and even then they get spat on and stomped on, and we suffer as players too due to less games being made.

Stop pre-ordering, stop hyping up all these marketing events/showcases/state of play, stop feeding so much into gaming news.

Just buy games when they are complete and polished and if the new games don't peak your interest go back and play the older games you missed out on, get a PC so you can add mods and play older games with better performance/ new features.

The "old gaming industry" and old way things use to be is over and there is no going back so no point in stressing about that.

The layoffs in gaming/tech will have a major benefit to the indie market IMO and I think we will see a lot of very cool things be created by those talented workers who got laid off and start to make there own stuff.

 

[simpatico]

So you just fired bunch of artists, coders and VAs. Congrats! Guess who is going to use all this shit first? Major corpos.

If you want indies, there is a metric ton of them being released on Steam every day of the week. Most of them won’t sell. A lot of those they won’t are actually pretty good games. Thinking that all the people who just got fired from the industry due to AI are going to fire up, make a ton of indie games and have all of they be successful is beyond being unrealistic.

Again, AI is going to cause loss of many jobs, not be any sort of a panacea. Yeah, it will let small studios or individuals do more, but you are going to only have a few breakouts. For most people this is going to cause loss of employment.

That's a real loser mentality. "Look at all these great new tools for my chosen craft. Instead of me learning to use them and making myself wealthy with this knowledge, I'm just going to mope about big mean corpos using them. I don't want to build a studio, I just want a stable 40hr a week job at a company who's games I played as a kid."

 

[StereoVsn]

That's a real loser mentality. "Look at all these great new tools for my chosen craft. Instead of me learning to use them and making myself wealthy with this knowledge, I'm just going to mope about big mean corpos using them. I don't want to build a studio, I just want a stable 40hr a week job at a company who's games I played as a kid."

No, you are looking at completely unreasonable scenario. I am seeing first hand slower hiring due to AI tools. Large companies and even startups are slowing hiring or firing folks due to AI already.

You think that the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people are going to all start creating their own games or software, selling that and being successful due to AI? That’s not going to happen.

Most folks do want a regular 40 hour stable job. There will certainly be a few people who break out here and there, but overall vast majority will fail. You can see it with Steam right now and how “well” vast majority of indie games sell.

 

[simpatico]

No, you are looking at completely unreasonable scenario. I am seeing first hand slower hiring due to AI tools. Large companies and even startups are slowing hiring or firing folks due to AI already.

You think that the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people are going to all start creating their own games or software, selling that and being successful due to AI? That’s not going to happen.

Most folks do want a regular 40 hour stable job. There will certainly be a few people who break out here and there, but overall vast majority will fail. You can see it with Steam right now and how “well” vast majority of indie games sell.

I mean it's not going to happen over night. There will be a lot of personal pain between now and then for AAA rank and file devs. Eventually I see a landscape where these 1-5 man teams who are making awesome stuff now, will be able to take those projects to a near AAA level of scope. AI is the best shot we have at limiting billion dollar publishers from putting their content filter on games.

 

[StereoVsn]

I mean it's not going to happen over night. There will be a lot of personal pain between now and then for AAA rank and file devs. Eventually I see a landscape where these 1-5 man teams who are making awesome stuff now, will be able to take those projects to a near AAA level of scope. AI is the best shot we have at limiting billion dollar publishers from putting their content filter on games.

The issue with your scenario is that Corpos will do that anyway and will just use AI to cut staff. The people who got let go can’t all start creating their own games. Even if they do there is an overflow of content right now.

So what’s going to happen (and I think it will happen) a lot of people will lose jobs. Most folks who try to go indie will be unsuccessful and there will be some big breakouts for a few small teams.

The latter is going to be no consolation to tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people who will lose work. Not to mention millions of outside gaming. Unlike before, there are no factories or white collar work that will pick up those people. It’s going to be a shit show and I am extremely pessimistic on the future of work for a lot of folks.

 

[AeonGaidenRaiden]

Gaming has been run by suits since day one, what you on about? Its not college kids putting out consoles. You forgot all the deals Nintendo made third party jump around to be able to get games on their platform and im talking all the way back to NES days. Only difference today is you got a forum and reddit to spread this news further.

 

[AeonGaidenRaiden]

The issue with your scenario is that Corpos will do that anyway and will just use AI to cut staff. The people who got let go can’t all start creating their own games. Even if they do there is an overflow of content right now.

So what’s going to happen (and I think it will happen) a lot of people will lose jobs. Most folks who try to go indie will be unsuccessful and there will be some big breakouts for a few small teams.

The latter is going to be no consolation to tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people who will lose work. Not to mention millions of outside gaming. Unlike before, there are no factories or white collar work that will pick up those people. It’s going to be a shit show and I am extremely pessimistic on the future of work for a lot of folks.

Lets be real, if you were a business owner you would do the same. You get nothing from being a good guy when you are bleeding money. We all knew AI was going to change everything and it is finally reaching a point of where its very usable instead of paying a human being. Dont blame the corpos, blame the guys who made this awesome AI. In 5 years a lot more jobs will be gone when a single AI can replace 100 people.

 

[StereoVsn]

Lets be real, if you were a business owner you would do the same. You get nothing from being a good guy when you are bleeding money. We all knew AI was going to change everything and it is finally reaching a point of where its very usable instead of paying a human being. Dont blame the corpos, blame the guys who made this awesome AI. In 5 years a lot more jobs will be gone when a single AI can replace 100 people.

I don’t care about being “real”. We are barreling toward the future with tens of millions of people losing their jobs and livelihoods over next 20 years. And nobody gives a flying fuck about that.

So when people are cheerleading AI as the savior of games industry i find it inappropriate. At the end governments need to impose regulations, control and help because otherwise shit is really going to hit the fan.

 

[Majima Everywhere System]

Suits were fine when they were making toys and had to embrace what sells: muscled he-men, guns, mechs, ponies, Barbie, mutants.

Now: they want to make us cry and give us culture. No thanks to these people.

 

[IDKFA]

The point I was trying to make is that all the foundational stuff you're talking about was done a long time ago. The current crop of people in charge of gaming are - by definition and evidence - by and large a bunch of talentless hacks, who are only concerned about stock price, bonuses, pleasing investment companies, and bleeding every penny out. Everything currently happening in the industry proves this time and time again.

I understand the general frustration with the gaming industry. Look at Microsoft recently. Completely fucked it. They said they learned lessons from Lionhead and wouldn't make the same mistake, yet here we are again. The gaming division is poorly run by clowns who are detached from reality.

The point I was trying to make is that we can't tarnish all with the same brush, especially when corporations and publishers are responsible for the gaming industry and still play a vital role.

For example, I wouldn't say Nintendo are talentless hacks and want to screw custom out of every penny. Yet, they are still a giant corporation with shareholders.

 

[AeonGaidenRaiden]

I don’t care about being “real”. We are barreling toward the future with tens of millions of people losing their jobs and livelihoods over next 20 years. And nobody gives a flying fuck about that.

So when people are cheerleading AI as the savior of games industry i find it inappropriate. At the end governments need to impose regulations, control and help because otherwise shit is really going to hit the fan.

Because you cant do anything about it, its too late for that, AI has clawed its way into many fields and runs perfectly in most cases. Its just going to get worse. On the other side, now a really good game wont require so many people and we could be getting great smaller games by a much smaller studio of 5-10 people like bakc in the day. If you work for massive corporations I mean, what do you expect. Mark my words, Valve is next. Especially with their policy of come when you want, work when you want, yeah they will clean house soon too.

 

[RoboCain]

I stopped buying games from their store. Future backlog goes to Steam. They fucked their regional prices, overpriced accessories, and now they are not coming forward with their strategy for your existing content if they go third party.

Edit: Same goes for Sony, they nerfed the sales on the store, games are on Steam, half assed back catalog emulation... what's the point?

 

[Topher]

Thing is that most of the people that talk like the OP - if you suggest indie games they will just say they aren't interested in that indie shit.

I think a lot of folks really want these big AAA games that these corporations can make, but they don't like supporting douchebag corporations. I think as indies continue to evolve into studios that can make the big games, such as Larian has done, then the dependence on corporate gaming will decrease. At least on the PC side anyway. Much slower when it comes to consoles.

 

[simpatico]

I don’t care about being “real”. We are barreling toward the future with tens of millions of people losing their jobs and livelihoods over next 20 years. And nobody gives a flying fuck about that.

So when people are cheerleading AI as the savior of games industry i find it inappropriate. At the end governments need to impose regulations, control and help because otherwise shit is really going to hit the fan.

lol. You want the gov to stifle technological innovation? "You guys aren't allowed to use the good tools, just the old crappy ones". That makes zero sense unless the only goal is make the US fall behind other countries in the tech sector. AI isn't the first innovation that cost thousands of jobs. It's just the first one that the effected group had such a large voice on social media. Assembly line workers, retail workers, cab drivers, hospitality, service industry and tradesmen are still living. They didn't make as big of a fuss about it, but life goes on. Maybe a few guys won't get to live out their life long dream of having a comfy job drawing pictures for Blizzard while wearing a T shirt, but in the long run it's all gonna be ok. This is also the only job killing tech that actually offers a lot of tools for the effected. Assembly line workers could not get their own robots and create a 5 man factory that compete with GMC or Honeywell, but devs can use AI to aid a small indie studio compete with the big guys. Palworld just smoked Suicide Squad. The sky is the limit .

 

[StereoVsn]

lol. You want the gov to stifle technological innovation? "You guys aren't allowed to use the good tools, just the old crappy ones". That makes zero sense unless the only goal is make the US fall behind other countries in the tech sector. AI isn't the first innovation that cost thousands of jobs. It's just the first one that the effected group had such a large voice on social media. Assembly line workers, retail workers, cab drivers, hospitality, service industry and tradesmen are still living. They didn't make as big of a fuss about it, but life goes on. Maybe a few guys won't get to live out their life long dream of having a comfy job drawing pictures for Blizzard while wearing a T shirt, but in the long run it's all gonna be ok. This is also the only job killing tech that actually offers a lot of tools for the effected. Assembly line workers could not get their own robots and create a 5 man factory that compete with GMC or Honeywell, but devs can use AI to aid a small indie studio compete with the big guys. Palworld just smoked Suicide Squad. The sky is the limit .

Yes, I would rather governments stifle these innovations vs allowing corporations to run wild and do what the fuck they want, killing jobs for tens of millions of people.

Especially in US there is no safety net that can protect against upcoming shit storm, and European safety nets don’t have nearly the funding to support people.

I am saying this as I am literally working with AI assists for scripting, document creation, and more, as well as supporting a large training and inference infrastructure for a multinational corpo.

I am against unfettered proliferation of AI, because I am seeing first hand the effect this is producing in hiring, and my company isn’t nearly as deep into the AI field as many others.

I also work with a lot of MS folks (Enterprise Azure side) and vast majority of them are apprehensive of Generative AI’s effect on jobs.

 

[Krathoon]

One thing I get tired of is that they really don't care about the customers.

You see that with Redfall. They did not care enough to fix the game up and add the two extra characters.

But they did care enough to take your money for the season pass.

 

[simpatico]

Yes, I would rather governments stifle these innovations vs allowing corporations to run wild and do what the fuck they want, killing jobs for tens of millions of people.

Especially in US there is no safety net that can protect against upcoming shit storm, and European safety nets don’t have nearly the funding to support people.

I am saying this as I am literally working with AI assists for scripting, document creation, and more, as well as supporting a large training and inference infrastructure for a multinational corpo.

I am against unfettered proliferation of AI, because I am seeing first hand the effect this is producing in hiring, and my company isn’t nearly as deep into the AI field as many others.

I also work with a lot of MS folks (Enterprise Azure side) and vast majority of them are apprehensive of Generative AI’s effect on jobs.

If we kneecap our tech companies by withholding the best tools, they're going to go out of business. Unless you can police that at the global level, it just makes our country fall behind the ones that do embrace it. We've seen this movie before with the professions I mentioned. Game devs will find new ways to make ends meet as well. We don't have to sacrifice the entire economy to make sure they're ok. "geez we're in a depression now, but at least you guys didn't lose your jobs a couple years ago". This is literally the natural tech to job cycle that's being going on since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Be glad it's only now hitting your sector. But trust me, the job market you knew is over. Many companies are still running on that 20th century inertia, but it is indeed over.

 

[Krathoon]

They make the game to make the money but they don't care about making a good game.

They want a money machine.

 

[deeptech]

I like that some people seem to get it. Like if a company from top down isn't sharing interest, passion, vision, goals, etc. them creating a good game in the end seems like a random fluke or crazy luck or studio just being so well organized.
A successful game making company has to be sort of unified, integrated in its approach I'd say or else... But I get that perhaps that did sometime happen, and devs did have much creative freedom but still did a failed product, something that simply sucked, not every creative endeavor will be seen a masterpiece. Back then, when iD was making Doom, money wasn't too big of deal I think, games weren't as expensive, so creative was more allowed, devs more at the helm, now not so much. You can't have an American movie star in your games, looking lifelike, and then risk some crazy shit (if you're not Kojima) and do well. Idk, in the end, if you're bummed, make your own game maybe?

 

[Hudo]

Consumers aren’t going to crowdfund 7 or 8 figure budgets.

What about Star Citizen?

 

[VideoGameEnjoyer]

gaming corporations, gaming publishers, shareholders and CEOs It's always been about love and hate, now let me say I'm the biggest hater I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress I hate the way that you sneak diss, if I catch flight, it's gon' be direct We hate the bitches you fuck 'cause they confuse themself with real women

 

[Griffon]

It's always been like this.

Back in the day arcades were scummy as fuck, trying to extract every penny they can.

And on consoles/PC, publishers have always been run by douchebags in suits.
Nothing changed.

 

[HoodWinked]

Corporation are necessary to make GTA, RDR, WoW calibur games.

You give an indie that kind of a budget you get Star Citizen.

 

[IAmRei]

That's the point. They won't need to get hired. AI could be rocket fuel to indies. Think about how much more powerful small art departments got already. Once that spreads to other areas, visionary devs won't have to work for publishers to make a game that meets their vision. You could make an RPG with Skyrim levels of dialog without a massive VA budget.

And with souless AI art? Eww

 

[Last Hearth]

What about Star Citizen?

Not just Star Citizen, they essentially funded BG3 as well. Early Access is basically like crowdfunding.
It's used to be that developer would develop a game on their own to an Alpha or even pre-alpha demo, shop it to the publishers, who decide to pick it up and fund it to completion. The early access system is basically doing that, you develop a game to a playable condition, allow people to fund it with early access. on steam.

 

[Vexed Dad]

lol this is hilarious and kinda touches on this very topic. Lyrics are kind spot on too... Tony Hawk, early 2000s vibes!

 

[Felessan]

The point I was trying to make is that all the foundational stuff you're talking about was done a long time ago. The current crop of people in charge of gaming are - by definition and evidence - by and large a bunch of talentless hacks, who are only concerned about stock price, bonuses, pleasing investment companies, and bleeding every penny out. Everything currently happening in the industry proves this time and time again.

It's their job - to be efficient and earn money. And it's not like they force all those glorious devs to sell themselves to corpos - devs to it themselves.
This mentality "give me money and go away, don't interfere" is a root for toxic stuff like DEI, sweet baby etc because it's use public blackmail to breach simple economic rule that normally most corps operate - "value for money" - we give you money, you provide us back value that we can sell. And stuff like give us money so we can create AAA Barrel simulator that no one wants and no question where is the profit allowed - it's toxic in the long run.

Sadly people think what we have now is free market capitalism. That so few control so much speaks to the reverse of free market.

You don't understand how "free market capitalism" works. Completely free market capitalism tends to go to monopoly or oligopoly because things like "economy of scale" and "power of money" exists, and once one company got advantage, it tries to buy out or drive out of business by undercutting other companies (see how MS do things in a free economy).

I mean it's not going to happen over night. There will be a lot of personal pain between now and then for AAA rank and file devs. Eventually I see a landscape where these 1-5 man teams who are making awesome stuff now, will be able to take those projects to a near AAA level of scope. AI is the best shot we have at limiting billion dollar publishers from putting their content filter on games.

It's delusion.
Not everything can be replaced with AI. Simple amount of testing AAA require put it out of scope of 1-5 man team. And AI in it's present form require a lot of QA by itself.

I don’t care about being “real”. We are barreling toward the future with tens of millions of people losing their jobs and livelihoods over next 20 years. And nobody gives a flying fuck about that.
So when people are cheerleading AI as the savior of games industry i find it inappropriate. At the end governments need to impose regulations, control and help because otherwise shit is really going to hit the fan.

You can't stop the progress.
People will have to relearn, maybe downshift if they are unlucky, but it's inevitable once progress out of the box. Millions horse cabin riders lost their job with advancement of cars, it's a cost of progress.
You can try to impede progress but it will make you non-competive and will drive out of business, because not all companies and not all nations will follow the suit and they will have advantage of progress.

 

[Laptop1991]

Yeah, me too, and they all hate great games as well, it;s a match made in hell for gamer's.