So the half-cocked product release strategy doesn't work and its time to punish labor for the mistakes of executives.
this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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"punish labor" π
They'll find new jobs. Companies have no loyalty to employees and employees have no loyalty to companies. Nobody is in it for love. They got paychecks, now they'll find someone else to give them paychecks. It's transactional.
Do you think that being laid off is a good thing?
The employees are suffering the negative consequences of the leadership's piss-poor decisionmaking, that was their point. Leadership hasn't seen any turnover or resignations, to my knowledge.
Is it so wrong in your mind to expect a little personal responsibility? Or do you find it just that leadership can fuck up consequence-free and shitcan others for their failures?
If that's how you'd run your company, I'd run the other way as both a worker and a consumer.
I've been laid off. It sucks, but you find a new job, and in the tech world that usually comes with a pay bump.
I'm not saying it's murder, or some other event people don't recover from. We both agree it's a bad thing. And we both agree it's a bad thing happening to the wrong people, based on who fucked up, right?
That's all the person you initially replied to is saying. It's an injustice, even though it's not a crime. It's a minor form of class warfare, where the wealthy fuck up and leave the working class holding the bag.
Well that's the thing, I don't really consider it injustice. I consider it as something that sucks, but things that suck happen. It's just kind of part of life. You get past it. I guess that's my view.
Like a farmer experiencing a drought. That's not injustice, it just sucks.
Layoffs aren't the laws of physics, my guy. This isn't a bird randomly shitting on your hand, this is a decision made by people to fire exclusively people who were not at fault for the reasons they needed to do layoffs to begin with.
It's a choice, that's why it's injustice.
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Isnt that like, a usual part in the game development cycle? I've seen news reports like this for over 15 years now. Developer starts with ideas for a new game, small team. Developer starts actual production of game, team grows. Developer realizes how much work there actually is to be done, team grows even further. Game is almost done and in a good state, team starts to shrink since there is no longer enough work for everyone. Part is laid off and part is reassigned to early development of DLC. Game is released, and smaller team is able to do patchwork. Developer starts with idea for new game, cycle repeats.
Perhaps the main reason we havent seen a lot of these news blurbs over the past few years is that A: CDPR is a good punchingbag. Common memory of the target audience hold the bad release of CP2077, so its easy to get back in the habit and haul in these clicks. And B: TripleA game development mas mostly conglomerated into a few big developers/publishers with several teams around the world. That means that when one project winds down, surplus personnel might be easily integrated into a different team that is just winding up. CDPR is one of the few tripleA developers not able to do this (yet).
It was the "traditional" pipeline and to be honest only good for the "publisher" and some big enough studio, but really aren't that good for those job hunting game devs(and part of the churn and burn culture, can't and won't trying to form union if your turn over is high.)
It is how you get broken games every new release cause the guys that sticks around as supervisor didn't actually code the previous games or know the actual workflow/pipeline that makes the last game(their last touching code/software might be like 10+ years ago), the middle leads etc might have burned out during last crunch and go to next company after their vacation because fuck this crunch thing I have a family, then then newbies wearing shiny shipped game under their belt move to next company for a better position/pay. So no one or very few actually knows how last time things were done and may or may not have a voice during decision making. Every game, you build the team almost ground up and thus, make similar and more mistakes with ever increasing pressure from schedule and scale.
It's not an healthy cycle, it is something that creative industry should break away from.
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Like the leadership that forced a release of an unfinished game? Doubt.
lol since when have business "leaders" ever had to face consequences of their own idiotic decisions?
Management types are often power-tripping narcissistic idiots who'll make dumb-as-fuck decisions, and when things go to shit they'll just fire the people doing the actual work and congratulate themselves on being such savvy businesspeople
Yeah, management positions are often filled by people who:
A) Want to get a higher paying job and don't care about the product or the industry necessarily (MBA-circlejerk types).
B) Are Devs/Artists/Creatives that wanted increased compensation, and the only way up was as a manager where they have less aptitude.
Executive staff needs to better integrate management as "servant leaders" within teams, and compensate EVERYONE better
And C) literal psychopaths.
Our current economic system was essentially designed to elevate the worst of humanity to the most powerful positions, which is why modern industrial society is more or less fucked. What's going on right now is sociopathic executives are bleeding the world dry as fast as they can before things collapse due to increasing social instability brought on by climate change, hoping to live out their lives in some extremely well defended compound while us plebs die in the billions. And make no mistake, they won't have any trouble recruiting bootlickers to be their armed guards.
Humanity is fucked.
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Nah. Only the hard workers.
So, about Cyberpunk 2077: Can you by now buy your own apartments? And do the NPC's have day-and-night-cycles as well as realistic AI that they give the impression of the most believable city to date?
The game will never be what people wanted (and what was - to some extent - promised). It's too flawed and unfinished to be fixable through patches.
I still thoroughly enjoyed it (I'm just about to finish my first playthrough at 100+ hours), but the game has to be approached with the understanding that it's fundamentally flawed. I have no problems with that, Fallout: New Vegas is one of my favourite games so I'm comfortable with the situation and I'm used to fixing problems myself through mods (yes, even on a first playthrough).
The best comparison I can think of is Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (though perhaps that game is now too old to be a relevant example). You can't play it expecting a finished, polished product, but it's still worthwhile and the good parts are really good.
Yeah the writing in Cyberpunk 2077 is honestly phenomenal, and the setting is really good. I was honestly shocked by how good the writing and VA in this game actually are. Maybe it's because it's more relevant to me, but it's the first time since FNV I really felt the writing in a game was gripping and interesting to me on a serious level.
It's gameplay is honestly decent enough as well. Gunplay isn't bad, and with the large amount of mobility makes the gunplay even more fun. Hacking and stealth are a bit op but fun, my biggest problem is the melee combat feels a bit weightless.
I am for sure looking forward to Phantom Liberty and the perk rework. Maybe my view of cyberpunk is tailored by the fact I never bought into the hype so I was never let down by it. I just watched Edgerunners, loved it. Played the game and was further impressed.
...it's the first time since FNV I really felt the writing in a game was gripping and interesting to me on a serious level.
Disco Elysium remains the undisputed pinnacle of videogame writing and voice acting for me, so if you haven't played it yet and are interested in a seriously moving and fascinating novel masquerading as a game I highly recommend it.
Cyberpunk has been seriously good as well, though. There are plenty of compelling characters and stories, and the evolution of the relationship between V and Johnny and the development of both of those characters has been enthralling.
It's gameplay is honestly decent enough as well...
I feel like the gameplay reminded me of Witcher 3, in a sense. It has some good ideas, and many elements and mechanics that could make it interesting and engaging are there, they just don't quite fit together properly, aren't balanced well and in the end combat ends up a little simple, flat and too easy. I have installed countless mods that affect combat, though, and now I'm at a point where it's seriously enjoyable.
I actually have played Disco Elysium and agree that it's writing is consistently higher than Cyberpunk's but I remember doing the devil ending in Cyberpunk and hearing male V express his fear of death, and the desperation to escape it at all costs felt so real to me in a way I've never seen. I've dealt with terminally ill patients and idk I've never seen someone capture the denial and bargaining as well as I felt it myself playing the character.
My favourite moment of writing in Disco Elysium was probably speaking to the boat lady who spits out some very harsh truths and for sure represents best the idea of "absords all critiques into itself" idea.
I must play Planetscape Torment because it's the other big rpg that I've heard lots tell me is the pinnacle of writing in the genre.
That's fair. Cyberpunk does have some standout moments and the immersive first person definitely makes some of them hit harder. I can imagine that ending being powerful (I haven't seen it), and if you have that personal connection then especially so.
My favourite moment of writing in Disco Elysium was probably speaking to the boat lady who spits out some very harsh truths and for sure represents best the idea of "absords all critiques into itself" idea.
Disco Elysium is chock full of great lines and "Capital has the ability to absorb all critiques into itself..." is fantastic. For me, I just keep coming back to the ending. Specifically, the final dream.
It's the absolute pinnacle of the game, in my opinion, at least if you've explored all the clues about Harry's past. I'm trying to write in a way that won't spoil too much for people who haven't played, but if you've read the letter in the ledger, made that phonecall, bought the figurine, explored the stained glass window etc it all comes together in that dream scene.
It's such a beautifully painful moment that just keeps building as you're exposing the inner core of Harry, and culminates to a point on the perfect final line.
"See you tomorrow, Harry"
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The mods to fix bloodlines turned it into a fantastic experience. Did not expect to be thinking about reinstalling that today, but here we are!
Well, the mods do some heavy lifting for sure (I mean, the game is literally unplayable without the unofficial patch), but they can only fix so much. The game was - much like Cyberpunk - shipped in an unfinished state that is to some extent beyond the scope of repair for mods. The final third of Bloodlines is not great. You can tell they ran out of time and had to cobble together an ending somehow with what they had. It devolves into a series of combat encounters in a game that is not exactly famous for its combat gameplay. Compare the last sections of the game to Santa Monica to see what I mean; imagine if they were afforded the time to give the whole game the same amount of thought and polish as they could Santa Monica.
Still, much like Cyberpunk, when it's operating at full capacity it really hits the spot. Driving through the rain at night in first person through Night City gives me sort of similar vibes as walking the rainy streets of Santa Monica, listening to Rik Schaffer's phenomenal soundtrack. Both games nail the atmosphere, at least at times.
They're actually fairly similar, carried by their characters, stories, setting and atmosphere rather than gameplay.
I also have to mention the combination of Bloodlines cartoony art direction and the facial animation rigging of Source Engine. The characters are incredibly expressive for a 2004(!) game, it really holds up well.
Did not expect to be thinking about reinstalling that today, but here we are!
In the voice of Alistair Grout: Damn it all, now I'm doing it too!
Vampire the masquerade was way ahead of it's time and underrated as a game.
Cyberpunk was absolutely way too ambitious. But they've made substantial efforts to fix the stuff that was broken or bugged. It has become a very good game.
Both games were too ambitious, really. They really are like kindred spirits. It's still unbelievable that Bloodlines is playable at all considering it was developed on an alpha version of the Source Engine held together with chopsticks and chewing gum and without any official devtools. It still bums me out we'll never get the true Bloodlines 2 that could have been. Bryan Mitsoda was the soul of Bloodlines and it won't be the same without him.
Cyberpunk was absolutely way too ambitious. But they've made substantial efforts to fix the stuff that was broken or bugged. It has become a very good game.
I genuinely love the game despite everything, and I think the experience is a worthwhile one, but I still think Cyberpunk has to be recommended with an asterisk and not as an unqualified very good game.
It's true that post-patches the game isn't the broken, buggy mess it was at launch, but I think the game has deeper running problems than that, to be honest.
The narrative CDPR wanted to tell is not suited for the open world game that their audience wanted, and the marriage between the two aspects is not natural.
The theme-park style open world is at odds with the immersion they want to sell and often undercuts your experience.
The story itself also has serious pacing issues, and some important side content is locked behind story progression in a way that makes the whole experience awkward.
I just wanted to express I'm very thankful for this comment.
It caused me to buy and play Bloodlines and it's been fantastic.
That makes me really happy to hear! It's pretty much the definition of a "flawed gem" in gaming, it's easy to see why it's become a cult classic.
Where did you buy it, GOG? You, uh... did install the unofficial patch, right?
Yes, Gog, thankfully there's a lot of hints on the internet recommending the full unofficial patch. And it's great to see how there's still updates coming in every few months.
I actually have some opinions on the Plus Patch. I want to phrase this really carefully as Wesp5 is a hero for his work and dedication through the years, but he started taking a lot of liberties the last maybe 5-7 years, and the Plus Patch now contains stuff that is more mod than patch/restoration.
It has gotten to the point where I wish there were 3 tiers of unofficial patch, not two. The vanilla patch is only bugfixes, and lots of the stuff added back in the Plus Patch was actually good but just missing due to poor code or not being completely finished but 90% there. I wish there was a patch with just the bugfixes and those most obvious content restorations.
In the Plus Patch as it exists today, though, you have a lot of stuff that was cut for a reason shoehorned in, like unused OST tracks Wesp5 has inserted according to personal taste, or areas (and a quest) that were barely started where he himself filled in the blanks. And even complete mod content that - while they could be argued to be improvements - are alterations to the game according to Wesp5's vision.
You still need the basic patch to even run the game, of course, otherwise it's literally unplayable. But these days I recommend the Plus Patch for a second playthrough. Playing as Malkavian is a good enough reason for a second playthrough, anyway.
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There's like 3 apartments but they're more or less pointless, the NPCs still suck and the AI is terrible, so generally the game is still an overhyped piece of shit but it does look quite nice. I paid less than 20β¬ for it though so I did get my money's worth out of it at least.
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The financialization and corporatization of the game industry and itβs consequences has been a disaster for the average player and game dev.
You should go to Poland and do some Johnny Silverhand type shit.
That happens literyally every time with these hackjob of a company
Just speculation here, but is this a sign that CDPR is tilting more towards mainstreaming GOG over prioritizing game development? Valve did exactly that with Steam and they very, very rarely release games they make any more.
Steam is a cash cow that literally just prints money for them. I'd imagine CDPR corpos to be salivating over that kind of low maintenance income that comes with owning a large digital distribution gaming platform.
Seems like they tried to grow the company waaaaaaaaay too fast (practically doubled their number of employees since TW3 was released).
Obviously this sucks, but it's good that they're not unceremoniously dropping people with zero notice (looking at you, Activision). Doubt we can expect an environment where gamedev layoffs suddenly disappear, but people actually getting advanced warning about this stuff would be a huge improvement on the industry's norms.
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