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> This is a gigantic effort from Larian, who among all things is still updating its software instead of resting on its own laurels. What makes this story even

> This is a gigantic effort from Larian, who among all things is still updating its software instead of resting on its own laurels. What makes this story even better is how it actually came about - this wasn't initially a top-down corporate initiative, but rather a passion project from a single engineer who worked on it after hours. The fact that Larian immediately recognized the value and threw their full support behind it says everything about their culture. Swen Vincke shared the backstory: > The story of how this came to be really is one of true passion. The Steam Deck native build was initiated by a single engineer who really wanted a smoother version of the game on Steam Deck and so he started working on it after hours. When we tried it out, we were all surprised by how good it felt and so it didn't take much to convince us to put our shoulders behind it and get it released. It's this type of pure passion for their craft that makes me fall in love with my developers over and over again. Considering myself very lucky to have people like him on my team. Try it out! https://x.com/LarAtLarian/status/1970526548592623969 https://x.com/LarAtLarian/status/1970526548592623969 That combination of individual passion and company willingness to back good ideas is what makes Larian special.

andruby 1y ago
Do they name the engineer somewhere in the public messages? Super glad the company recognized the value and supported the release!
- sReinwald 1y ago
  Not that I'm aware of. I thought that was weird at first as well, but I assume it might be in a way to protect the engineer. Unfortunately, singling out any individual developer, even for praise, can attract unwanted negative attention online. By acknowledging the passion and the work without naming the person, Swen gives them full credit internally while shielding them from becoming a public target. This doesn't even necessarily have to be intentional harassment, but if this engineer is now the "SteamDeck guy" at Larian, their social media might get flooded by people who mistake their personal social media accounts for a support ticket. I'm sure the engineer has the option to self-identify if they wish, but this approach feels like a sign of good and thoughtful leadership.
  - dbspin 1y ago
    This is an interesting perspective... I'd be at a loss to think of an example of an engineer who's been publicly pilloried (having been highly regarded for great work) for the failings of their company. Perhaps you could cite and example? Seems enormously more likely to be the all to familiar story in the games industry of not providing credit to individual devs. Something that goes back to the earliest days of Atari.
    - patmorgan23 1y ago
      It would make them at least Internet famous, and most people do not know how or are not ready to handle being famous.
    - shakow 1y ago
      > I'd be at a loss to think of an example of an engineer who's been publicly pilloried (having been highly regarded for great work) for the failings of their company. Perhaps you could cite and example? Because these guys and gals are not famous enough to warrant large coverage, and because the phenomenon is unfortunately so widespread that noone is going to cover every case. https://endofaspecies.com/oped/the-harassment-of-game-developers https://endofaspecies.com/oped/the-harassment-of-game-develo... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2621gzvkdo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2621gzvkdo https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/zoe13c/passionate_userbases_death_threats_for_making_a/ https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/zoe13c/passionate_... https://www.gameshub.com/news/news/video-games-developers-gdc-survey-report-player-harassment-38735/ https://www.gameshub.com/news/news/video-games-developers-gd... https://www.xfire.com/authorities-investigating-death-threats-unity-employees/ https://www.xfire.com/authorities-investigating-death-threat... https://f1000research.com/articles/11-1518 https://f1000research.com/articles/11-1518
      - dbspin 1y ago
        Thanks, really appreciate the concrete examples. They're not quite what I was referring to (developer praised by company / media - then attacked for issues with the company beyond their purview), but they do point to a (largely invisible from outside the industry / twitter bubble) truly worrying and frightening level of animosity and aggression pointed towards devs that I wasn't sufficiently aware of.
- lwkl 1y ago
  They probably would have to get the permission of the engineer to name them publicly. With how the gaming community behaves on social media I wouldn't be surprised if the engineer doesn't want that. Because that could mean death threats for you and your family the next time a subset of the community gets upset with your employer.
  - Paratoner 1y ago
    Not sure why this is getting downvoted, you are absolutely correct. The unhinged weirdos are still a minority, but less and less ashamed of their own behavior online. No doubt that dev is better off remaining unnamed in this instance.
    - mort96 1y ago
      Reminder that all of mid/late 2010s online politics was colored by one reviewer giving a favourable game review to a game that some people disliked.
      - bregma 1y ago
        > all of mid/late 2010s online politics was colored by one reviewer giving a favourable game review to a game that some people disliked That's kind of a twisted interpretation of events. It was coloured by one incel who though he owned the developer of a game and a whole lot of incels who sympathized because they too were owed a vagina by the ones who controlled them. Now it's spread to broader issues and higher levels of politics and is still going.
        mort96 1y ago
        I remember the start of GamerGate well, it was all people screaming about "ethics in games journalism". But you're obviously right that that it wasn't really about ethics in games journalism, your description is probably a better reflection of the actual psychology of the people involved.
- jheriko 1y ago
  [dead]

andruby 1y ago

Do they name the engineer somewhere in the public messages? Super glad the company recognized the value and supported the release!

sReinwald 1y ago
Not that I'm aware of. I thought that was weird at first as well, but I assume it might be in a way to protect the engineer. Unfortunately, singling out any individual developer, even for praise, can attract unwanted negative attention online. By acknowledging the passion and the work without naming the person, Swen gives them full credit internally while shielding them from becoming a public target. This doesn't even necessarily have to be intentional harassment, but if this engineer is now the "SteamDeck guy" at Larian, their social media might get flooded by people who mistake their personal social media accounts for a support ticket. I'm sure the engineer has the option to self-identify if they wish, but this approach feels like a sign of good and thoughtful leadership.
- dbspin 1y ago
  This is an interesting perspective... I'd be at a loss to think of an example of an engineer who's been publicly pilloried (having been highly regarded for great work) for the failings of their company. Perhaps you could cite and example? Seems enormously more likely to be the all to familiar story in the games industry of not providing credit to individual devs. Something that goes back to the earliest days of Atari.
  - patmorgan23 1y ago
    It would make them at least Internet famous, and most people do not know how or are not ready to handle being famous.
  - shakow 1y ago
    > I'd be at a loss to think of an example of an engineer who's been publicly pilloried (having been highly regarded for great work) for the failings of their company. Perhaps you could cite and example? Because these guys and gals are not famous enough to warrant large coverage, and because the phenomenon is unfortunately so widespread that noone is going to cover every case. https://endofaspecies.com/oped/the-harassment-of-game-developers https://endofaspecies.com/oped/the-harassment-of-game-develo... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2621gzvkdo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2621gzvkdo https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/zoe13c/passionate_userbases_death_threats_for_making_a/ https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/zoe13c/passionate_... https://www.gameshub.com/news/news/video-games-developers-gdc-survey-report-player-harassment-38735/ https://www.gameshub.com/news/news/video-games-developers-gd... https://www.xfire.com/authorities-investigating-death-threats-unity-employees/ https://www.xfire.com/authorities-investigating-death-threat... https://f1000research.com/articles/11-1518 https://f1000research.com/articles/11-1518
    - dbspin 1y ago
      Thanks, really appreciate the concrete examples. They're not quite what I was referring to (developer praised by company / media - then attacked for issues with the company beyond their purview), but they do point to a (largely invisible from outside the industry / twitter bubble) truly worrying and frightening level of animosity and aggression pointed towards devs that I wasn't sufficiently aware of.
lwkl 1y ago
They probably would have to get the permission of the engineer to name them publicly. With how the gaming community behaves on social media I wouldn't be surprised if the engineer doesn't want that. Because that could mean death threats for you and your family the next time a subset of the community gets upset with your employer.
- Paratoner 1y ago
  Not sure why this is getting downvoted, you are absolutely correct. The unhinged weirdos are still a minority, but less and less ashamed of their own behavior online. No doubt that dev is better off remaining unnamed in this instance.
  - mort96 1y ago
    Reminder that all of mid/late 2010s online politics was colored by one reviewer giving a favourable game review to a game that some people disliked.
    - bregma 1y ago
      > all of mid/late 2010s online politics was colored by one reviewer giving a favourable game review to a game that some people disliked That's kind of a twisted interpretation of events. It was coloured by one incel who though he owned the developer of a game and a whole lot of incels who sympathized because they too were owed a vagina by the ones who controlled them. Now it's spread to broader issues and higher levels of politics and is still going.
      - mort96 1y ago
        I remember the start of GamerGate well, it was all people screaming about "ethics in games journalism". But you're obviously right that that it wasn't really about ethics in games journalism, your description is probably a better reflection of the actual psychology of the people involved.
jheriko 1y ago
[dead]