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Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

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Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#591

Post by filoleg »

protocolture wrote: post #496
elektronika wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every game engine has a sort of "grain" to it where it tends to produce games with a certain look and feel There's a degree of toupee fallacy to this. It's hard to tell what engine something is on just from gameplay if the team invested in custom rendering and gamefeel.

I think it used to be more true than it is these days. I used to be able to pick graphics/physics engine by feel alone. PhysX and Havok used to feel very different. Quake 3/Half Life/Unreal used to feel very different. But that's all largely been paved over. Actually I think I can still spot Crytek tbh.

> Quake 3/Half Life/Unreal used to feel very different.

Fair on the Unreal Engine part, but Quake 3 and Half-Life are basically built on sibling engines that share one direct common ancestor (though I fully agree with you that they felt different).

Quake/Quake 2 used idTech2. idTech3 for Quake 3 was built on top of idTech2, and GoldSrc for Half-Life was built on top of idTech2 as well (it was a heavily customized and modified version of it).

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#592

Post by canelonesdeverd »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #499
willis936 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you that the fact that id tech 6 engine games look as good as they do and pump out 200+ fps is pretty novel in a way that the massive epic games and their flagship UE5 (and no painstakingly optimized case studies one may conjure) come close to matching even a decade on. The reward for lapping the entire industry? Early retirement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech_6#Games_using_id_Tech_... It may have been great, and lapped the entire industry, but it wasn't getting used very much, even internally at Microsoft. So how much value was really bringing?

"How much value can this bring?" Is the question that the incompetents at microslop needed to ask themselves before absorbing half the industry, not the smug justification for killing great tech after failing to capitalize on it. Specially when it brought great value to the industry for decades.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#593

Post by simonh »

kibwen wrote: post #433
simonh wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They still get usage stats.

Yes, and those usage stats show that the overwhelming majority are playing the game without having bought it. One can't argue that these studios should be shut down for poor sales when Microsoft themselves are sabotaging the ability for these games to sell for full price.

The whole point of gamepass is that you don't buy the games. If enough people are playing it through gamepass that shows it supports the value of gamepass, if not sure that's a problem.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#594

Post by trashface »

inigyou wrote: post #472
sailorganymede wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing that annoys me. They have the Fallout series hostage and moves like this sadden me because I can't expect the next game to particularly great when stuff like this happens.

You can make a fallout game yourself if you don't call it fallout.

Could call it "wasteland"!

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#595

Post by toast0 »

thewebguyd wrote: post #590
toast0 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The industry could have been in a better place already if the DOJ hadn't allowed Microsoft to buy up all these studios. Yes, but it's not the DOJ's job to tell Microsoft when they're lighting their money on fire. There's no unfair competition from this kind of thing. It wasn't any different when leather companies or old media would buy up studios and run themselves out of business. Microsoft buying out studios coul…

The acquisitions don't have to be successful to run afoul of antitrust laws or to be anticompetitive. Slash and burn often does violate the law. Firing thousands of people and closing studios reduces the overall capacity of the industry to produce diverse, competing games. Just because Microsoft is Microsoft and is incompetent doesn't mean the rest of the industry and consumers don't lose out on what those independen…

I could see it being anticompetitive if it benefited Microsoft products.

Ex: if Microsoft buys out office competitors or webmail competitors to shut them down, because those customers are going to be likely to buy more Microsoft stuff.

Buying games studios could be anticompetitive if Microsoft were going to keep them alive and make their output platform exclusive (but iirc they made a commitment not to do that). It could be anticompetitive if they were going to kill them and funnel consumers into their games with continuing development... It could also be anticompetitive if Microsoft were going to give these studios some uberengine secret access to Xbox/Windows that allowed them to make the best games that outside studios couldn't come close to...

But what's happened is Microsoft is killing the studios; all at once is a surprise, but death within like 3-7 years could be predicted. Most of those people will pop up again at other studios or start new studios. Some of them will realized gamedev sucks and do something else. This is the lifecycle of studios purchased by corporate overlords. When key people make enough from the purchase to allow significant but not complete creative freedom, they often make some really good games at their next venture. Too little freedom -> pump out sequels or gacha games; too much freedom -> interesting games that don't end up being much fun.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#596

Post by agar »

GloriousKoji wrote: post #481
mohamedkoubaa wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this matrix mean?

It's a relic of SAT verbal analogies section which was removed in 2005. The syntax "A:B::C:D" represents the statement "A is to B as C is to D". So on the test you'd get questions such as python:snake :: ___ : ___ a) lua:satellite b) swift:bird c) java:coffee d) pearl:gem and you might select A because python is an interpreted scripting language and a type of snake in the same way lua is a scripting language and a ty…

That was an incredible example and I'm frankly more impressed each time I read it at how well constructed it is. You really capture how sensitive the analogy section is to cultural or domain knowledge, and why the College Board eliminated the question type.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#597

Post by sleepybrett »

shoobiedoo wrote: post #206
sleepybrett wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man I miss tribes and tribes 2. Sadly the revival was garbage.

hah tribes just randomly popped into my head yesterday. it was the only fps that ever really had me hooked for long periods. such a great game

The ski-jumping spin disking was wild times.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#598

Post by anthonypasq »

GloriousKoji wrote: post #481
mohamedkoubaa wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this matrix mean?

It's a relic of SAT verbal analogies section which was removed in 2005. The syntax "A:B::C:D" represents the statement "A is to B as C is to D". So on the test you'd get questions such as python:snake :: ___ : ___ a) lua:satellite b) swift:bird c) java:coffee d) pearl:gem and you might select A because python is an interpreted scripting language and a type of snake in the same way lua is a scripting language and a ty…

huh? wouldnt the answer be D? python is a type of snake, pearl is a type of gem. neither A or B make any sense.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#599

Post by sleepybrett »

shagie wrote: post #181
sleepybrett wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man I miss tribes and tribes 2. Sadly the revival was garbage.

A nostalgia point for Tribes... There was a lan gaming place back when people had dial up... and that place had a T1 to the store that had double low double digit ping times when triple digit was common. Tribes was one of the games installed and this also had the advantage that when a few people in the store were playing it they could coordinate playing a tank much better than other players on the server. MissionForc…

My roommate at the time and I both had jobs at the same webdev/hosting/isp place (oh how i miss the late 90s) and we got a deal on a shotgunned isdn connection (256kbps woooooo) to our place (working from home before it was cool). It was magical.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#600

Post by sleepybrett »

ethbr1 wrote: post #367
sleepybrett wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they've been treated like shit for 30+ years (at least in america). I spent a few years early in my career in gaming and once I left I never looked back, it's a horror show. Crunch, constant 'there are 1000 people who want your job' pressure from management whenever you complain about crunch, low pay (even if you were working 40hours a week), terrible benefits (vacation, get real), ship a successful game probably get…

The #1 reason not to work in gaming: rampant unprofessional middle and upper management. The amount of shit-show stories about a VP or designer with a god-complex straight up abusing their staff while still thinking they're the best? And then failing upwards because of who they know? That doesn't happen nearly as pervasively in non-game industries.

To be fair the whole structure from top to bottom is unprofessional. 'Games are fun, guys who make games are fun! We don't need any structure or gasp HR...'
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