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Amy Hennig: "Triple-A development an arms race that is unwinnable"

Self-Ejected

Davaris

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Idiocracy
But they didn't do that, and stayed silent while the media slandered all those gamers as misogynists and racists making the entire game industry look bad.

I knew the GG crowd were going to lose early on, as they didn't have the guts to call out the SJW for the anti-white shits they are.
 

DosBuster

Arcane
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The Real Fanboy
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Codex USB, 2014
It's not just the fact they choose to work in those environments, sell shitty, buggy games, cut off pieces of a game to sell as day one DLC and lie constantly when marketing a game.

It's also the fact that devs had a chance to turn things around with the whole GG fiasco. That's what's so ironic about it. Here you have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of gamers organizing and demanding better games journalism and supporting and promoting devs including Amy Hennig. They would have fought for the devs to have better working conditions and for journalists to report on this more often to create the necessary outrage to change the industry. But they didn't do that, and stayed silent while the media slandered all those gamers as misogynists and racists making the entire game industry look bad.

Firstly, a lot of those practices such as Day One DLC or shipping buggy games is nothing to do with your average AAA developer, those decisions come from the executives. (See: Lucasarts moving up the release date of KOTOR 2)

Secondly, exposing GamerGate to the issue was not the solution. If a AAA dev spoke out and started slandering their workplace they'd be fired quickly; even worse, it's possible that none of the major AAA publishers would hire that developer because they know there is precedent for being outspoken about internal practices. Bargaining with Executives on Union terms is another proven issue; the Voice Acting Union tried to push forward new terms, all of which were rejected and instead countered with even worse terms than the ones they currently had. (See: http://www.sagaftra.org/interactive/what-we-stand-to-lose)
 

Grimlorn

Arcane
Joined
Jun 1, 2011
Messages
10,248
It's not just the fact they choose to work in those environments, sell shitty, buggy games, cut off pieces of a game to sell as day one DLC and lie constantly when marketing a game.

It's also the fact that devs had a chance to turn things around with the whole GG fiasco. That's what's so ironic about it. Here you have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of gamers organizing and demanding better games journalism and supporting and promoting devs including Amy Hennig. They would have fought for the devs to have better working conditions and for journalists to report on this more often to create the necessary outrage to change the industry. But they didn't do that, and stayed silent while the media slandered all those gamers as misogynists and racists making the entire game industry look bad.

Firstly, a lot of those practices such as Day One DLC or shipping buggy games is nothing to do with your average AAA developer, those decisions come from the executives. (See: Lucasarts moving up the release date of KOTOR 2)

Secondly, exposing GamerGate to the issue was not the solution. If a AAA dev spoke out and started slandering their workplace they'd be fired quickly; even worse, it's possible that none of the major AAA publishers would hire that developer because they know there is precedent for being outspoken about internal practices. Bargaining with Executives on Union terms is another proven issue; the Voice Acting Union tried to push forward new terms, all of which were rejected and instead countered with even worse terms than the ones they currently had. (See: http://www.sagaftra.org/interactive/what-we-stand-to-lose)
This has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. I'm talking about if GG had been successful and journalists changed or were fired then they could have reported accurately on some of the crap going on in the industry and people on the GG hashtag would have fought for devs to be treated better. They could have their anonymity protected by journalists.

They are still complicit with publisher practices. They still produce crappy DLC and some devs do interviews for games they create and often lie and mislead consumers.
 

abija

Prophet
Joined
May 21, 2011
Messages
2,893
She was top management, it's not the AAA industry that forced those people into crunch, it's her.
 

Drakron

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
6,326
This has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. I'm talking about if GG had been successful and journalists changed or were fired then they could have reported accurately on some of the crap going on in the industry and people on the GG hashtag would have fought for devs to be treated better. They could have their anonymity protected by journalists.

They are still complicit with publisher practices. They still produce crappy DLC and some devs do interviews for games they create and often lie and mislead consumers.

Why would they do that?

Media is controlled by corporations, that would be the same as they eating their own ... they would never do that because what you see in game development is pretty much what happens more or less in journalism ... you think they had problems with replacing one with another one with a masters in English? they are entirely replaceable.

Plus the other issue is that traditional media is on decline and that extends to sites, they are very dependent on publishers not only on ad revenue but also on material ... they arent going to spit on the people that actually get then the material and in case you havent figured out, unless you have a whistle blower its not as if they can go "deep undercover" in a development team.

Its all about positions of power, right now journalists have none and gaming journalists have less.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
Status anxiety pushes people in AAA studios. And at the top, there are collateral opportunities that add even more (perhaps misplaced) status -- like the way Bioware writers used to be able to parlay that into novel writing jobs.

Basically any time someone learns I work on games, there is an exchange that goes, "Oh! Anything I would've heard of?" And they've heard of none of it, except maybe Dragon Age. If I'd said, say, Gears of War or Uncharted or Assassin's Creed, they would've heard of it. That desire, the sense that people outside the cone of nerdom care about what you spend your life doing, is a powerful motivator for people. When you can parlay it into something even more comprehensible (like, say, working on a novel -- even a fantasy novel -- or a TV show -- even some crappy foreign-made cartoon), there's yet more status to be had. At the end of the day, most people will suffer bottomless indignity within their workplace to feel dignified for the couple hours of waking free time they have outside of their workplace. If that wasn't so, people would make all sorts of different professional choices.

Another major factor is that people imagine that their work will be better with a bigger budget behind it, and there's some truth to that. For example, I'm sure Primordia's writing would've sounded better voiced by Clinton Eastwood and Jonah Hill or whatever, and the scenes would've had more pathos with Pixar-level 3D animation or whatever. I guess. And you can basically fit that allure into any discipline ("my art would look better backed up by a team," "my music would sound better performed by an orchestra," etc.). Maybe not coding, but game coders are weird, no really good coders go into gaming* AFAIK unless they are passionately obsessed with games, and that obsession is probably going to lead you to a franchise you enjoyed as a player, not to an indie project.

(* A good argument could be made that the same is true for writers, artists, composers, etc.)

So I'm not surprised that people wind up at big studios, that big studios wind up making ever-more-Hollywoodish projects, or that this process is dehumanizing. But at the end of it, would anyone at all care what Amy Hennig had to say if she hadn't worked on these AAA titles? It would be like a Jeff Vogel soapbox thread rather than Breaking News: Video Game Designer Speaks!
 

Hobo Elf

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Messages
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Platypus Planet
At the end of the day, most people will suffer bottomless indignity within their workplace to feel dignified for the couple hours of waking free time they have outside of their workplace. If that wasn't so, people would make all sorts of different professional choices.

Sounds like people are just plain awful at making career choices. Why not be a real engineer in that case? You have maximum prestige at your work place and the same prestige outside of your work place. Software "engineer" doesn't count. No one regards them with any respect. They're all just code monkeys.
 

Hobo Elf

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Software "engineer" doesn't count.
Beg to differ. Blokes make some bank in the right industries and circumstances.

So? This was about appealing to the human ego, not the money. If they want money then they can just stay and rot in the cancerous gaming industry. Everyone gets a decent salary there, that's why the majority don't openly complain. They just quietly retire at an early age after they've made their money. Normal peoople don't care or find it impressive if you're a programmer.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
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Messages
13,999
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Platypus Planet
Normal peoople don't care or find it impressive if you're a programmer.

normal people don't care about anything unless they recognize the brand (facebook, google, apple, etc). Who the fuck cares?

When you can parlay it into something even more comprehensible (like, say, working on a novel -- even a fantasy novel -- or a TV show -- even some crappy foreign-made cartoon), there's yet more status to be had. At the end of the day, most people will suffer bottomless indignity within their workplace to feel dignified for the couple hours of waking free time they have outside of their workplace. If that wasn't so, people would make all sorts of different professional choices.

Apparently many people care.
 

Thane Solus

Arcane
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Apr 29, 2012
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X-COM Base
Becaise as usual, suits, executive and investors are out of touch with everything and demand the impossible.

They are knowledgeable in business part, but severely lacking in the technical part.

In my experience they are not good on the business part either... And most of the projects they think will do well fail, and the other ones make tons of millions and they start making one each year...
 

damager

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 19, 2016
Messages
377
Might be because they were all unsocial nerds that got bullied in high school and unsocial nerds that got their work stolen in university. Now they are unsocial nerds that get their work stolen and bullied in real life.
 

Archibald

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Messages
7,869
The video games industry is weird. In other industries, like movies and music, and sports, the "stars" have much more power and can dictacte terms to a degree.
Because game development is much more technical. You can't just substitute let's say Brad Pitt, Madonna and Ronaldo with a noname person, because you can't simply replace talent. On the other hand, game developers are much more expendable, you can catch designers, programmers by the dozens. Only artists like music composers and art designers are the ones who are much harder to replace.

It doesn't help that nobody knows exactly who did what. We often get articles and posts about how old industry veterans like Molyneux seem to have lost it, but realistically speaking it is just as likely that his designs were always fucked up and turned to good and decent games only during implementation phase when some things usually have to be changed for smoother experience or can't be done the way someone intended due to some technological problems/limitations.
 

pippin

Guest
The fight for media was wrong. You don't get anything else than a change of faces when you think journalists are to blame for anything. Ethics and morality are a problem, but not in a way gamergate or sjw think. The executives don't care about the white race or feminism, they just care about business and profit, because that's their work. Removing a hair on the head won't help, you sometimes have to cut the entire head to see real changes.

How do you do this when this is just a hobby, which is still struggling to be taken seriously? Can you be taken seriously when most of the faces of gaming are grown men who still collect toys? Many people still play games as something to kill time or simply have fun. I seriously doubt someone ever changed his or her life views because of a game... You would have to be extremely gullible, being on an active search for this kind of stuff, or both.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,165
The executives don't care about the white race or feminism, they just care about business and profit

Bullshit. They DO care about race and feminism, because that's their religion. And they keep at it even as their ventures tank financially.
 

Drakron

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
6,326
Bullshit. They DO care about race and feminism, because that's their religion. And they keep at it even as their ventures tank financially.

Stop being retarded, why the fuck you think Amy Pascal no longer works at Sony, in fact just look at Sony leaks to see some of her statments about equal pay.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,165
No, you stop being a retard. How the fuck do you think Amy Pascal even got that far? If it is all about teh money, why even allow that shit?
 

pippin

Guest
The executives don't care about the white race or feminism, they just care about business and profit

Bullshit. They DO care about race and feminism, because that's their religion. And they keep at it even as their ventures tank financially.

Try having a job in a relevant position which involves management and handling of money or similar material resources. You always end up looking at numbers, not people or faces.
When "inclusive" measures are taken it's mostly in a relatively controlled place and mostly as a PR effort. Nobody would be insane enough to enforce full feminism in any company, because it won't work, but having some spaces where this is true is good for your image. It's like the environmental thing all over again.
 

Drakron

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
6,326
No, you stop being a retard. How the fuck do you think Amy Pascal even got that far? If it is all about teh money, why even allow that shit?

86/87 - Vice President of Production at 20th Century Fox.
88/94 - Columbia Pictures.
94/96 - President of Production for Turner Pictures.
96/15 - Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures.

She started as a Secretary working for Tony Garnett at Kestrel Films, Producers in LA are a dime a dozen and she worked at Columbia since 88 besides those 2 years at Turner, Sony did brought Columbia back in 89 but we can hardly call Sony Pictures a Japanese company.

She got that far because she had connections and also because she didnt fuck up until she decided to ride the wave of SJW, she is hardly alone as Disney is also going over for "diversity" but this is simply false signaling from marketing research.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,165
I didn't mean on a personal level. I mean how she got that far peddling her SJW bullshit. How can you not know there is no money on that shit? I'm not buying those people only care about money, sorry. The ideology runs rampant among the elites and the financiers.
 

Freddie

Savant
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Sep 14, 2016
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Mansion
Status anxiety pushes people in AAA studios. And at the top, there are collateral opportunities that add even more (perhaps misplaced) status -- like the way Bioware writers used to be able to parlay that into novel writing jobs.
...
Maybe not coding, but game coders are weird, no really good coders go into gaming* AFAIK unless they are passionately obsessed with games, and that obsession is probably going to lead you to a franchise you enjoyed as a player, not to an indie project.

(* A good argument could be made that the same is true for writers, artists, composers, etc.)
Back in the day I considered gaming industry because there are many sort of skills needed to get ideas to actual product. Bigger studio have more work force and opportunities to learn from people in different departments and in general, get experience about how things work and then the gear, all the toys you don't need to buy yourself. Other thing was money, big project were meant stable income for couple of years.

I'm glad I didn't went down with that route. What I was able to get to know inside of one small studio, they didn't worked at all like I expected. I'm not willing to go in too much detail but it didn't appear to worked at all like other projects. One thing I recall wondering was if there is kind of chicken and egg situation happening. Talented individuals don't get in gaming industry because they see it like it is, and then environments don't get better because there's no people with know how on that area.

Still, I wonder possibilities on certain departments like if marketing CGI is done in-house. Some videos I have seen certainly have looked like way more effort was put in them than could be expected. Either marketing budget is huge which begs the question why make it in-house to begin with, or people were trying to build their portfolio, to get foothold on some other areas like advertising agencies, perhaps films or TV?
 

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