9 ms·

Who cares? A union doesn't stop the fact that high budget games just kinda suck. Layoffs happen because these games bomb over and over and over and money runs o

by tekla 2y ago

Who cares? A union doesn't stop the fact that high budget games just kinda suck. Layoffs happen because these games bomb over and over and over and money runs out.

lenerdenator 2y ago
What makes you think they just kinda suck?
- tekla 2y ago
  What is the last game you can think of that has the cultural impact of the Halo 3 release?
  - Etheryte 2y ago
    This is a common phenomenon, but I forget what it's called. Everyone thinks the golden age of whatever was when they grew up with it and it's never been quite the same ever since. Doesn't make it true though.
    - tekla 2y ago
      OK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_gam... How many modern games are there on this list?
      - diggan 2y ago
        Almost half of the games on that list launched after 2010, 6 of those being after 2020. Not sure what qualifies a "modern game", but after 2010 would probably be where I personally draw the line. The most recent game on that list is from 2023, maybe it just takes time before a game end up on that list? Baldurs Gate 3 was beyond mainstream popular at one point, and surely will end up that list sooner or later, but maybe it's still too early?
        robertlagrant 2y ago
        I wouldn't call a 16 year old game particularly modern. I would probably say the OP was commenting more on Western gaming, as that's the pattern (see UbiSoft's consecutive string of failures, for example). Games like Elden Ring, Animal Crossing, and Cyberpunk came out of popular non-Western gaming. The only Western games in that list for the last 6 years are Call of Duty games and Hogwarts Legacy, which was good, although from what I remember vilified by Western media for helping enrich JK Rowling.
        johnnyanmac 2y ago
        Why are we using business expenses to argue cultural impact of games to begin with? And how does this relate to unions?
        robertlagrant 2y ago
        > Why are we using business expenses to argue cultural impact of games to begin with? I wasn't. > And how does this relate to unions? I was replying to the comment above, not a different comment.
        mrob 2y ago
        I draw the line at the 2006 release of the Horse Armor DLC for Oblivion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_The_Elder_Scrolls_IV:_Oblivion#Background_and_Horse_Armor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_The_Elder_Scrol... This is the turning point where the industry began to change from selling products to selling services. Expansion packs existed before then, but they were sold as complete experiences, essentially mini-sequels sold at a discount because they reused the same engine. The horse armor was something different and controversial at the time.
        ANewFormation 2y ago
        Think about what you're saying - the majority of those games are at least 16 years old. That itself is fairly damning but what puts it over the top is that there are wayyyy more gamers nowadays than there were 16 years ago. Modern AAA stuff is just simply pretty bad. Games made on a conveyor belt just don't work, at least beyond a point - and that point, wherever it may be, is well behind us for just about all AAA studios.
      - simonw 2y ago
        Games don't have the same effect as movies where everyone sees them within a month of release. It's hard for a game released in the past year to make it onto a top ten list full of games like GTA5 that have been consistently selling copies for over a decade.
      - Goronmon 2y ago
        Well, Halo 3 isn't on that list either. And I see a handful of games released since 2020 on that list. It also only deals with games that are sold. Whereas games like Genshin Impact have a massive worldwide audience and yet aren't going to show up on that list.
        dangisautism 2y ago
        [dead]
      - jcranmer 2y ago
        First off, video game sales are notoriously opaque, and one always has to take numbers like this with a grain of salt. (I particularly doubt the number for The Oregon Trail here, and the citation for it is extremely weak). But also, note that many of the games--especially the ones near the top--also double- and triple-count their numbers by doing rereleases and special editions and whatnot that all get to count for the "same" game. Next, note that already 10% of the list came out since the COVID-19 pandemic started--is that not modern enough for you? Finally, several of these games are continually being worked on and receiving content updates. Minecraft and The Sims 4 may be over a decade old, but they both received updates within the past several months, and their players fully expect more updates in the next several months. Does that mean they aren't modern?
    - dandellion 2y ago
      It's not that. Some of my favourite games of all time have been made in the last few years. Japanese devs, eastern European devs, Nordic devs don't seem to have any issues making absolute bangers. Meanwhile, the most recent one in my list from an American developer is... Skyrim. Over a decade old.
    - smeeger 2y ago
      and it doesnt make you any more right. i remember in 2007 i noticed that movies sucked… i was a teenager. and i was right because every industry has its ebbs and flows. if you just measure the metrics of cultural impact, halo is a high water mark. people dont even play single player games or watch movies anymore. now the big cultural impact is happening on tiktok and things like that. things are not the same regardless of how much you want to believe that
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        >i remember in 2007 i noticed that movies sucked… i was a teenager. and i was right You had an opinion, it was neiter right nor wrong. I was a teenager and watched Juno, 300, Bay's Transformers, And Pirates of the Carribean 3. I thought it was a renaissance. It's all based on personal experience. > things are not the same regardless of how much you want to believe that So how is this related to a union in 2025?
  - pmalynin 2y ago
    Most recently I think Baldurs Gate 3. People have also been enjoying Balatro a lot
    - smeeger 2y ago
      go out onto the sidewalk in your city. ask a hundred people what they think about balders gate 3 and then ask them what they think of halo… doing so might break your mind open to the truth
      - Maxatar 2y ago
        I didn't go out and ask random people, but as far as sales figures go from what I find Baldur's Gate 3 has sold more copies than Halo 3 has. Of course it's not a fair comparison since Halo 3 was released in 2007 and only on a single platform, but I would imagine if I went around and asked a random group of people they'd likely be far more familiar with Baldur's Gate 3. Halo 3 seems to also be very popular only in the U.S., while Baldur's Gate 3 is more recognized internationally.
      - daedrdev 2y ago
        Only if they are in your age group though. People older wouldn't know Halo, and Fortnite is far more popular than halo ever was both overall and with the youth.
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        break my mind that... most people on the street didn't play halo. Or any "hardcore video game". Sure.
  - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
    Just from the 2020s, Hogwarts Legacy, Animal Crossing New Horizons, and Valorant. I think you're overweighting the impact of Halo 3 - note that its sales numbers put it nowhere close to the list of best-selling games you linked below.
  - qingcharles 2y ago
    Is Halo 3 good? I honestly didn't even know there was a Halo 3 and I'm an ex-gamedev, so I'm thinking the impact of it wasn't that huge?
    - ANewFormation 2y ago
      It set the standard for online matchmaking, had exceptional (if not revolutionary) AI for an FPS, phenomenal level design, and is a definite competitor for the best game soundtrack ever. It is probably Bungie's magnum opus. So it makes perfect sense that contemporary AAA devs would have no idea it even existed.
      - silisili 2y ago
        I'd argue Halo 2 set the standard for online matchmaking. I don't think younger people understand just how popular xbox live/halo 2 were in that era. Probably how us olders underestimate just how popular stuff like Fortnite is today.
        Jach 2y ago
        I'd second this. The "advanced AI" was pioneered with Halo 2's Behavior Trees. I'd not give very high props to level design to any of the 3, partly because I so easily remember all the re-used assets and geometry and moving areas, but also because Halo was responsible for what I see as a decline in overall FPS design. From reload mechanics to limited ability to carry weapons, to the level design itself that went from more abstract and branching level design to long corridors with too much linearity. There's more creativity in things like the Metroid Prime series, just because of the need for backtracking and new areas when you get new gear. (Of course the Half-Life series also contributed, though interestingly few FPS games have tried to imitate the physics puzzles.) Later on Gears of War and other cover shooters took that to its own sort of perfection. There's good level design in all these, but it's good in their contexts, not exactly phenomenal or standout especially just looking at the FPS genre. (The multiplayer Halo maps are of course pretty good, but again while it's probably just a difference in taste, I think of them as overall steps down from what was going on in Quake/Unreal and their derivatives.) I guess I'm mostly just amused by the initial comment suggesting Halo 3 of all games as a super incredible cultural impact game. I just can't see it like that at all -- at the time it was just a capstone to what Halo 1 and 2 set up. And in modern times, Halo is so irrelevant that it's probably going to be on Sony's console.
  - xboxnolifes 2y ago
    Fortnite has had a larger impact on the newest generation of gamers.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - devnullbrain 2y ago
    I know people who called in sick on the release date of the Elden Ring DLC.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    that's highly opportunistic so what's your goal here? Some people can say Baldur's Gate 3 from less than 2 years ago. Others, Eldin Ring from 3 years. Some may even go more niche and suggest games like Undertale or Hollow Knight or go more artsy and suggest Orba Dinn. It's as subjecive as art. Closest I can get to an objective answer would be Fortnite (since you aren't really specifying the kind of cultral impact). and that's "only" 7 years old or so.
chii 2y ago
a union doesn't guarantee money, that's true. However, a union can guarantee acceptable hours worked - for example, limit overtime (without pay) to X hrs per week. Or, they ensures you're credited regardless if you left before the game shipped (because it is a form of portfolio for your career). And lastly, a union means you cannot be exploited hard, like a lot of wanabe game programmers and artists are wont to be.
- tekla 2y ago
  And cool, good for them. They can get laid off after Korean game devs working for 1/5 the pay make games that sell much better
  - munk-a 2y ago
    You're focusing on a fact of the market which is not relevant to unionization discussions - what you're presenting is a risk for everyone in the industry. Instead unionization focuses on doing what we can to ensure we're treated with common decency and respect where we do work.
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      > what you're presenting is a risk for everyone in the industry I don't think that's quite true. Unions can definitely make a company less competitive, in addition to the usual headwinds they face.
      - munk-a 2y ago
        Your statement isn't false but it isn't the norm. Unionized employees have much higher retention rates and that comes with better skill growth within an organization which generally leads to a more competitive entity. The modern market driven employment process causes massive long term inefficiencies while optimizing for short term valuation which can increase debt accessibility but generally lowers long term value. I think this is a wider discussion however and it'd be better to focus any examination of unions on the employee outcomes who are effectively the consumers of union. Whether a company prospers or fails the employees working for that company will, in nearly all circumstances, have much better quality of employment while that company lasts. I'd argue that long term company health is supported by unionization but I understand that there is a massive entrenched cultural rejection of that notion.
devnullbrain 2y ago
Insomniac faced job cuts just 4 months after releasing Spider-Man 2, a game that sold 11 million units and had a score of 97% on Opencritic at release. Epic Games also laid off staff last year. They made a game you may have heard of called 'Fortnite'. It's been rather successful. But then so has most of the industry, which has experienced growth year-on-year. A profit does not prevent layoffs and no individual can 10X themselves to safety. There is a huge power and incentive disparity between the people with the power to initiate layoffs and the people who get laid off. There's a way to shrink the gap, but it means accepting you have more in common with your colleagues than your shareholders, then communicating it collectively.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >They made a game you may have heard of called 'Fortnite'. It's been rather successful. ehh, I give it a week /s But yes, i'm surprised people still fall into this notion that the last 3 years of layoffs falls into anything close to a just world. it's been clear that these tech cuts are not merit based for a while.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
How about we make sure the workers aren't abused and then talk about improving the quality of the games? There are a few decent studios who still make unsatisfactory release >Layoffs happen because these games bomb over and over and over and money runs out. Not these days. How many layoffs have EA/Activision done now? 4 waves each?. Sony's been doing well but still laying off all the NA studios.

by tekla 2y ago

Who cares? A union doesn't stop the fact that high budget games just kinda suck. Layoffs happen because these games bomb over and over and over and money runs out.

lenerdenator 2y ago

What makes you think they just kinda suck?

tekla 2y ago
What is the last game you can think of that has the cultural impact of the Halo 3 release?
- Etheryte 2y ago
  This is a common phenomenon, but I forget what it's called. Everyone thinks the golden age of whatever was when they grew up with it and it's never been quite the same ever since. Doesn't make it true though.
  - tekla 2y ago
    OK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_gam... How many modern games are there on this list?
    - diggan 2y ago
      Almost half of the games on that list launched after 2010, 6 of those being after 2020. Not sure what qualifies a "modern game", but after 2010 would probably be where I personally draw the line. The most recent game on that list is from 2023, maybe it just takes time before a game end up on that list? Baldurs Gate 3 was beyond mainstream popular at one point, and surely will end up that list sooner or later, but maybe it's still too early?
      - robertlagrant 2y ago
        I wouldn't call a 16 year old game particularly modern. I would probably say the OP was commenting more on Western gaming, as that's the pattern (see UbiSoft's consecutive string of failures, for example). Games like Elden Ring, Animal Crossing, and Cyberpunk came out of popular non-Western gaming. The only Western games in that list for the last 6 years are Call of Duty games and Hogwarts Legacy, which was good, although from what I remember vilified by Western media for helping enrich JK Rowling.
        johnnyanmac 2y ago
        Why are we using business expenses to argue cultural impact of games to begin with? And how does this relate to unions?
        robertlagrant 2y ago
        > Why are we using business expenses to argue cultural impact of games to begin with? I wasn't. > And how does this relate to unions? I was replying to the comment above, not a different comment.
      - mrob 2y ago
        I draw the line at the 2006 release of the Horse Armor DLC for Oblivion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_The_Elder_Scrolls_IV:_Oblivion#Background_and_Horse_Armor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_The_Elder_Scrol... This is the turning point where the industry began to change from selling products to selling services. Expansion packs existed before then, but they were sold as complete experiences, essentially mini-sequels sold at a discount because they reused the same engine. The horse armor was something different and controversial at the time.
      - ANewFormation 2y ago
        Think about what you're saying - the majority of those games are at least 16 years old. That itself is fairly damning but what puts it over the top is that there are wayyyy more gamers nowadays than there were 16 years ago. Modern AAA stuff is just simply pretty bad. Games made on a conveyor belt just don't work, at least beyond a point - and that point, wherever it may be, is well behind us for just about all AAA studios.
    - simonw 2y ago
      Games don't have the same effect as movies where everyone sees them within a month of release. It's hard for a game released in the past year to make it onto a top ten list full of games like GTA5 that have been consistently selling copies for over a decade.
    - Goronmon 2y ago
      Well, Halo 3 isn't on that list either. And I see a handful of games released since 2020 on that list. It also only deals with games that are sold. Whereas games like Genshin Impact have a massive worldwide audience and yet aren't going to show up on that list.
      - dangisautism 2y ago
        [dead]
    - jcranmer 2y ago
      First off, video game sales are notoriously opaque, and one always has to take numbers like this with a grain of salt. (I particularly doubt the number for The Oregon Trail here, and the citation for it is extremely weak). But also, note that many of the games--especially the ones near the top--also double- and triple-count their numbers by doing rereleases and special editions and whatnot that all get to count for the "same" game. Next, note that already 10% of the list came out since the COVID-19 pandemic started--is that not modern enough for you? Finally, several of these games are continually being worked on and receiving content updates. Minecraft and The Sims 4 may be over a decade old, but they both received updates within the past several months, and their players fully expect more updates in the next several months. Does that mean they aren't modern?
  - dandellion 2y ago
    It's not that. Some of my favourite games of all time have been made in the last few years. Japanese devs, eastern European devs, Nordic devs don't seem to have any issues making absolute bangers. Meanwhile, the most recent one in my list from an American developer is... Skyrim. Over a decade old.
  - smeeger 2y ago
    and it doesnt make you any more right. i remember in 2007 i noticed that movies sucked… i was a teenager. and i was right because every industry has its ebbs and flows. if you just measure the metrics of cultural impact, halo is a high water mark. people dont even play single player games or watch movies anymore. now the big cultural impact is happening on tiktok and things like that. things are not the same regardless of how much you want to believe that
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      >i remember in 2007 i noticed that movies sucked… i was a teenager. and i was right You had an opinion, it was neiter right nor wrong. I was a teenager and watched Juno, 300, Bay's Transformers, And Pirates of the Carribean 3. I thought it was a renaissance. It's all based on personal experience. > things are not the same regardless of how much you want to believe that So how is this related to a union in 2025?
- pmalynin 2y ago
  Most recently I think Baldurs Gate 3. People have also been enjoying Balatro a lot
  - smeeger 2y ago
    go out onto the sidewalk in your city. ask a hundred people what they think about balders gate 3 and then ask them what they think of halo… doing so might break your mind open to the truth
    - Maxatar 2y ago
      I didn't go out and ask random people, but as far as sales figures go from what I find Baldur's Gate 3 has sold more copies than Halo 3 has. Of course it's not a fair comparison since Halo 3 was released in 2007 and only on a single platform, but I would imagine if I went around and asked a random group of people they'd likely be far more familiar with Baldur's Gate 3. Halo 3 seems to also be very popular only in the U.S., while Baldur's Gate 3 is more recognized internationally.
    - daedrdev 2y ago
      Only if they are in your age group though. People older wouldn't know Halo, and Fortnite is far more popular than halo ever was both overall and with the youth.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      break my mind that... most people on the street didn't play halo. Or any "hardcore video game". Sure.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
  Just from the 2020s, Hogwarts Legacy, Animal Crossing New Horizons, and Valorant. I think you're overweighting the impact of Halo 3 - note that its sales numbers put it nowhere close to the list of best-selling games you linked below.
- qingcharles 2y ago
  Is Halo 3 good? I honestly didn't even know there was a Halo 3 and I'm an ex-gamedev, so I'm thinking the impact of it wasn't that huge?
  - ANewFormation 2y ago
    It set the standard for online matchmaking, had exceptional (if not revolutionary) AI for an FPS, phenomenal level design, and is a definite competitor for the best game soundtrack ever. It is probably Bungie's magnum opus. So it makes perfect sense that contemporary AAA devs would have no idea it even existed.
    - silisili 2y ago
      I'd argue Halo 2 set the standard for online matchmaking. I don't think younger people understand just how popular xbox live/halo 2 were in that era. Probably how us olders underestimate just how popular stuff like Fortnite is today.
      - Jach 2y ago
        I'd second this. The "advanced AI" was pioneered with Halo 2's Behavior Trees. I'd not give very high props to level design to any of the 3, partly because I so easily remember all the re-used assets and geometry and moving areas, but also because Halo was responsible for what I see as a decline in overall FPS design. From reload mechanics to limited ability to carry weapons, to the level design itself that went from more abstract and branching level design to long corridors with too much linearity. There's more creativity in things like the Metroid Prime series, just because of the need for backtracking and new areas when you get new gear. (Of course the Half-Life series also contributed, though interestingly few FPS games have tried to imitate the physics puzzles.) Later on Gears of War and other cover shooters took that to its own sort of perfection. There's good level design in all these, but it's good in their contexts, not exactly phenomenal or standout especially just looking at the FPS genre. (The multiplayer Halo maps are of course pretty good, but again while it's probably just a difference in taste, I think of them as overall steps down from what was going on in Quake/Unreal and their derivatives.) I guess I'm mostly just amused by the initial comment suggesting Halo 3 of all games as a super incredible cultural impact game. I just can't see it like that at all -- at the time it was just a capstone to what Halo 1 and 2 set up. And in modern times, Halo is so irrelevant that it's probably going to be on Sony's console.
- xboxnolifes 2y ago
  Fortnite has had a larger impact on the newest generation of gamers.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- devnullbrain 2y ago
  I know people who called in sick on the release date of the Elden Ring DLC.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  that's highly opportunistic so what's your goal here? Some people can say Baldur's Gate 3 from less than 2 years ago. Others, Eldin Ring from 3 years. Some may even go more niche and suggest games like Undertale or Hollow Knight or go more artsy and suggest Orba Dinn. It's as subjecive as art. Closest I can get to an objective answer would be Fortnite (since you aren't really specifying the kind of cultral impact). and that's "only" 7 years old or so.

chii 2y ago

a union doesn't guarantee money, that's true. However, a union can guarantee acceptable hours worked - for example, limit overtime (without pay) to X hrs per week. Or, they ensures you're credited regardless if you left before the game shipped (because it is a form of portfolio for your career). And lastly, a union means you cannot be exploited hard, like a lot of wanabe game programmers and artists are wont to be.

tekla 2y ago
And cool, good for them. They can get laid off after Korean game devs working for 1/5 the pay make games that sell much better
- munk-a 2y ago
  You're focusing on a fact of the market which is not relevant to unionization discussions - what you're presenting is a risk for everyone in the industry. Instead unionization focuses on doing what we can to ensure we're treated with common decency and respect where we do work.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    > what you're presenting is a risk for everyone in the industry I don't think that's quite true. Unions can definitely make a company less competitive, in addition to the usual headwinds they face.
    - munk-a 2y ago
      Your statement isn't false but it isn't the norm. Unionized employees have much higher retention rates and that comes with better skill growth within an organization which generally leads to a more competitive entity. The modern market driven employment process causes massive long term inefficiencies while optimizing for short term valuation which can increase debt accessibility but generally lowers long term value. I think this is a wider discussion however and it'd be better to focus any examination of unions on the employee outcomes who are effectively the consumers of union. Whether a company prospers or fails the employees working for that company will, in nearly all circumstances, have much better quality of employment while that company lasts. I'd argue that long term company health is supported by unionization but I understand that there is a massive entrenched cultural rejection of that notion.

devnullbrain 2y ago

Insomniac faced job cuts just 4 months after releasing Spider-Man 2, a game that sold 11 million units and had a score of 97% on Opencritic at release. Epic Games also laid off staff last year. They made a game you may have heard of called 'Fortnite'. It's been rather successful. But then so has most of the industry, which has experienced growth year-on-year. A profit does not prevent layoffs and no individual can 10X themselves to safety. There is a huge power and incentive disparity between the people with the power to initiate layoffs and the people who get laid off. There's a way to shrink the gap, but it means accepting you have more in common with your colleagues than your shareholders, then communicating it collectively.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
>They made a game you may have heard of called 'Fortnite'. It's been rather successful. ehh, I give it a week /s But yes, i'm surprised people still fall into this notion that the last 3 years of layoffs falls into anything close to a just world. it's been clear that these tech cuts are not merit based for a while.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

How about we make sure the workers aren't abused and then talk about improving the quality of the games? There are a few decent studios who still make unsatisfactory release >Layoffs happen because these games bomb over and over and over and money runs out. Not these days. How many layoffs have EA/Activision done now? 4 waves each?. Sony's been doing well but still laying off all the NA studios.