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Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

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Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They worked on the reboot games which are considered widely successful relative to other games released around the same time.

Sure, the tweet was about their releases since 2016 when I assume this particular dev was involved, not the original release. To be clear, I'm not saying their games aren't good or even that they didn't have some success. 20 million in sales for their entire franchise isn't bad, it isn't the 500 million in sales we see from CoD or Battlefield, but it isn't bad. I actually liked the games, but claiming they are the "B…

If numbers suggest quality than I guess McDonald’s makes the worlds best hamburger.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A software company with less than 500 employees and more than 100 MUSD in annual revenue and you're asking me to please think of the vulture capitalists that gutted it?

If every employee makes 100k (let's say that's an average. Some make more, some make less). That 50m in salary alone, not including benefits like 401k or health insurance. And that's just people costs. Doom dark ages sold somewhere between 800k-1m is the estimate. At 70$ a copy they might not have broken even if the lower end of the sales target is what was hit if you take into account benefits and people buying the…

Valve is a similar size to id tech. They have two tricks: be in a business other than games and be privately owned. The former gives them the ability to weather storms and the latter keeps the dagger away. This would not have happened if id were privately owned.

Notably MS is in a business other than games, so another way to frame this is "MS is losing and Valve is winning".

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Radioactive Dust 5" doesn't have quite the same ring to it though

Alternative trademarks never do. Every company gets started anyway. I'm sure International Business Machines felt they sounded like a low budget knock-off of National Cash Register. Radioactive Dust is quite uninspired though, how about Super Nuclear Apocalypse Bros DX

What about "wasteland" ?

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should never have been allowed to make those acquisitions. Especially after they misled the FTC about Activision/Blizzard remaining independent and easily spun off again, and then immediately fired 1900 people afterwards forcing them to integrate more tightly into Microsoft gaming.

The FTC isn't there to stop corporations from making mistakes. Subsequent events show concerns of monopolization were misplaced.

> The FTC isn't there to stop corporations from making mistakes.

That's not the point parent is trying to make either, but FTC was supposed to prevent detrimental anti-competitive and monopolistic behaviors, which that very much was.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#557
post #19

I think we'll see stuff like this continue to happen over time. As a game company, having your own engine means that you have to be able to cultivate internal expertise in your tooling. Your employees will know this and could do bad things like ask for more money because they know that replacing them would significantly hurt productivity. Meanwhile, laying off your whole engine team and switching to UE5 means that yo…

I don't know if heresay, but there's post on reddit alleging Id reluncant to share engine tech with other divisions at Xbox, if true, probably doesn't help, not just for MS gaming studios. I imagine every big software conglomerate wants their own inhouse engine for digital twinning / industry etc.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Craft > sales. Great craftsmanship always sells, That is exactly how I perceived the game industry to be before I worked in it. Now I know that there are many objectively excellent or even innovative or influential games that do not sell, or also do not sell well enough to support their development costs.

Could you give an example of something excellent and either innovative or influential that did not sell well? It’s a question I have sought to answer myself. Especially if you can find one that doesn’t take development costs into account. So I’m looking for an “objectively” (figuratively) excellent game, that has not sold many copies at all. A game on steam that should be popular but isn’t. Do you have any examples?

To cite one, Okami, innovative gameplay, striking art very poor sales, they made most of their sales after the fact after the studio closed and the game got ported to other systems than the PS2.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#559
post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes yes absolutely. Netflix shows often have a "house look" to them, because they enforce specific camera requirements and have a standardized / commonly-reused lighting setup - https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/360... https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a61878509/netflix-s... --- Marvel movies often reuse a particular pattern of color grading, that can give them a sort of 'similar g…

I think they mean the use of UE5 in movies.

I thought they meant 'can you pick out a Creation Engine game when it appears in a movie or show', though on second thought your idea seems more likely.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#560

I wonder how much a blow this will be for Vulkan on Windows. idTech was always known for strongly preferring the Khronos 3D APIs over Direct3D and the fewer native Vulkan games are released on Windows the less pressure there is on the GPU vendors to fix and optimize their Windows Vulkan drivers.

Windows is pretty much speed running into gaming irrelevance. Valve is gaining momentum as days pass and Microsoft doesn't care enough.
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