Anyone work for a game company? Activision, EA, Epic, Riot...c, etc.

Metamega said:
My friend I were just talking about how being a game developer must be miserable to wake up.

You never see gamers say “ great game”. It’s just trashing and ranting about how they think it should be.

I said to him “ I couldn’t imagine all my customers ridiculing my work every day “.
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Couldn't be because every game these days boils down to a glorified re-skinned casino slot machine designed to force you to fall into the pay-to-play mechanic to even do anything. Couldn't be because every game launch since 2013 has been half baked "beta but not really". Couldn't be because it's obvious game developers aren't the same as they were in the 90s and now they're just cowboy coding idiots who have no passion for what they do, no creativity, and no balls to push back on the suits telling them to optimize the bottom line over playability or respect for a franchise.

Game developers have no passion for their product, the executives only want money, and the people who spend it are tired of it. I haven't bought a single video game since 2011. I won't until they stop pushing microtransactions and loot boxes down our throats. Valve hasn't released a new IP in 8 years iirc. They keep shoving microtransactions and shitty reboots down our throats. EA, Valve, Activation, Blizzard, Dice, Bethesda, etc are all the same. It's all the same garbage content rehashed over and over again. Now every game get a horribly shoehorned battle royale in order to gain even more microtransactions in a desperate and pitiful attempt to clone the success of fortnite (looking at you CS:GO and MW).

Game developers should get shit. They should be ridiculed. How could you possible spend 5 years developing a game only to give me a veritable casino for $80 with everything locked behind a paywall and gambling mechanic. You have so little creativity you reskin old assets and don't update engines. They caused the eternal winter of video games. It's unfortunate I'm old enough to remember when you could tell video game companies cared about a good product instead of MBA spreadsheet optimizing their bottom line. Video games are just gambling machines now. Game developers like John Carmack are hailed as heroes because they were veritable geniuses in their craft and developed games with crazy optimizations, beautiful story lines, and amazing art. The developers today are paste eaters. They are not the same. They deserve no parade for releasing the same rehashed reboot of a series over and over.
 
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^Impressive post, but you are generalizing more than a little. It's true for some people and some games. And the cowboy coders are actually in decline as most programmers are software engineers by training now. Indeed, the closer to the top you are the greater proportion of developed games are shoehorned into what management thinks will sell versus what constitutes someone's creative imperative. It doesn't really help that people age and where the 55+ year old guy that used to design great games is now chief creative director at a company.

Steam has led to an explosion of creativity in fact since small (but fairly complex) games actually had a chance to sell on this platform, but it's still true that it's crowded like heck now. Many of my ex-colleagues are now working in the supposedly greener pastures in the VR games business, but I am not sure that's ever going to be a substitute. VR seems better for porn lol.

But basically, as a disgruntled consumer you can go and find pretty amazing games on Steam that are all about creativity. Games have a similar problem to the movie industry though - there are only so many unique concepts in the universe that can serve as a backstory/theme/plot (or in the case of games, mechanics).
 
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gaussian said:
Couldn't be because every game these days boils down to a glorified re-skinned casino slot machine designed to force you to fall into the pay-to-play mechanic to even do anything. Couldn't be because every game launch since 2013 has been half baked "beta but not really". Couldn't be because it's obvious game developers aren't the same as they were in the 90s and now they're just cowboy coding idiots who have no passion for what they do, no creativity, and no balls to push back on the suits telling them to optimize the bottom line over playability or respect for a franchise.

Game developers have no passion for their product, the executives only want money, and the people who spend it are tired of it. I haven't bought a single video game since 2011. I won't until they stop pushing microtransactions and loot boxes down our throats. Valve hasn't released a new IP in 8 years iirc. They keep shoving microtransactions and shitty reboots down our throats. EA, Valve, Activation, Blizzard, Dice, Bethesda, etc are all the same. It's all the same garbage content rehashed over and over again. Now every game get a horribly shoehorned battle royale in order to gain even more microtransactions in a desperate and pitiful attempt to clone the success of fortnite (looking at you CS:GO and MW).

Game developers should get shit. They should be ridiculed. How could you possible spend 5 years developing a game only to give me a veritable casino for $80 with everything locked behind a paywall and gambling mechanic. You have so little creativity you reskin old assets and don't update engines. They caused the eternal winter of video games. It's unfortunate I'm old enough to remember when you could tell video game companies cared about a good product instead of MBA spreadsheet optimizing their bottom line. Video games are just gambling machines now. Game developers like John Carmack are hailed as heroes because they were veritable geniuses in their craft and developed games with crazy optimizations, beautiful story lines, and amazing art. The developers today are paste eaters. They are not the same. They deserve no parade for releasing the same rehashed reboot of a series over and over.
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Well said, many games are incomplete shells designed to be frontend stores for costly DLC.

I'm a former gamer, heavy (not online). I started at day 0 playing pong, asteroids, pacman when gaming began, arcade style. I then bought and played virtually every top game that ever came out, through 2012 or so. Spent a fortune, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Being a hardcore gamer absolutely helps me be a much better daytrader.

I just dusted off my ps3 to play doa5, cod, battlefield, soul calibur, assassins creed, cod, gta5, god of war, yakuza etc

I'm glad to have played every great game produced, including many asia imports.

Kudos to unique titles like space channel 5, dragons lair and leisure suit larry. Game on!
 
KCalhoun said:
...dragons lair..
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Indeed, I know this game very well. Spent many many many hours (and quarters) on it in the arcade. I used to own the actual LaserDisc for it back then, and had managed to hook up a LD player with a Daphne emulator to play the darn thing. If you are a true connoisseur of it, you will like these deleted scenes from the making of the game. (Not all of them are deleted scenes, many of the bits are in the final product.) Even has a room or two not included on the final cut of the LaderDisc.

 
Snuskpelle said:
^Impressive post, but you are generalizing more than a little. It's true for some people and some games. And the cowboy coders are actually in decline as most programmers are software engineers by training now. Indeed, the closer to the top you are the greater proportion of developed games are shoehorned into what management thinks will sell versus what constitutes someone's creative imperative. It doesn't really help that people age and where the 55+ year old guy that used to design great games is now chief creative director at a company.

Steam has led to an explosion of creativity in fact since small (but fairly complex) games actually had a chance to sell on this platform, but it's still true that it's crowded like heck now. Many of my ex-colleagues are now working in the supposedly greener pastures in the VR games business, but I am not sure that's ever going to be a substitute. VR seems better for porn lol.

But basically, as a disgruntled consumer you can go and find pretty amazing games on Steam that are all about creativity. Games have a similar problem to the movie industry though - there are only so many unique concepts in the universe that can serve as a backstory/theme/plot (or in the case of games, mechanics).
More...

I would some day like to own my games again instead of leasing them from steam. Steam is successful because in one fell swoop Valve can take back all the games you bought. It's only a matter of time the debugging tools I use for work and pleasure flag me as a hacker and I get VAC banned. I'll lose $1500 dollars in games I've bought over the years in a single completely automatic decision by a robot. This is yet another reason I don't buy games anymore. I have sitting next to me the original disks for half life GOTY and Half life 2. Gone are the days you owned anything. In my life this extends beyond games though. I go out of my way to acquire paper copies of books I read. PDFs are a form of control as well.

I miss the days when you could trade games with friends. I used to drive to my friends house and we'd trade games all the time. I got Starcraft Brood War and Diablo 2 this way.

The game industry is corrupt. Generalizations aside 1985-2006 was probably the greatest generation for computer games. I pity the people growing up today. There is no such comparison. I would sink HOURS into doom and quake. I remember meeting friends I still have today on tribes. Battlefield 2 was mind blowing. The original World of Warcraft was a work of art. Halo was incredible. Beating Halo on legendary was something that earned you respect in my group. We'd spend weekends together trying to optimize runs on Assault on the Control Room. There is no comparison today. Everything today is vacuous. Pointless.
 
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gaussian said:
I would some day like to own my games again instead of leasing them from steam. Steam is successful because in one fell swoop Valve can take back all the games you bought. It's only a matter of time the debugging tools I use for work and pleasure flag me as a hacker and I get VAC banned. I'll lose $1500 dollars in games I've bought over the years in a single completely automatic decision by a robot. This is yet another reason I don't buy games anymore. I have sitting next to me the original disks for half life GOTY and Half life 2. Gone are the days you owned anything. In my life this extends beyond games though. I go out of my way to acquire paper copies of books I read. PDFs are a form of control as well.

I miss the days when you could trade games with friends. I used to drive to my friends house and we'd trade games all the time. I got Starcraft Brood War and Diablo 2 this way.

The game industry is corrupt. Generalizations aside 1985-2006 was probably the greatest generation for computer games. I pity the people growing up today. There is no such comparison. I would sink HOURS into doom and quake. I remember meeting friends I still have today on tribes. Battlefield 2 was mind blowing. The original World of Warcraft was a work of art. Halo was incredible. Beating Halo on legendary was something that earned you respect in my group. We'd spend weekends together trying to optimize runs on Assault on the Control Room. There is no comparison today. Everything today is vacuous. Pointless.
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The "Software as a Service" business model.
 
Metamega said:
My friend I were just talking about how being a game developer must be miserable to wake up.

You never see gamers say “ great game”. It’s just trashing and ranting about how they think it should be.

I said to him “ I couldn’t imagine all my customers ridiculing my work every day “.
More...

Haven't played anything for some years but back then, there was plenty of compliments given to good games. Cities: Skylines and the like come to mind.
 
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