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Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software
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Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software
#292On the same day they release the new Dark Ages DLC. The game industry continues to be brutal.
DOOM was always intended to be brutal, but not like this
Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
That example only says 3% margin is better than 2% margin, not whether the hypothetical process yields better results than a bond paying 4% (or whatever). If the said process takes exactly 1 year to complete, and requires all the inputs to be provided upfront, then its margins can be directly compared to bond yields, but businesses are rarely that simple.
It's not hypothetical. Xbox's margin last year was 3%.
See:
>If the said process takes exactly 1 year to complete, and requires all the inputs to be provided upfront, then its margins can be directly compared to bond yields, but businesses are rarely that simple.
Something tells me the xbox division isn't some sort of machine that takes in $x in costs at the start of the year and spits out $1.03x in revenue at end. Capital costs could be higher (eg. game takes 4 years to develop before you can sell it), or lower (eg. you pay foxconn $400 to make an xbox then immediately turn around and sell it to best buy for $450).
Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software
#294q3dm17 for life.
I was thinking, is that the space hopping map? Because I didn’t play much MP back in the day but that map was a blast.
Checked online and indeed that’s the one! I wonder what is the biggest online community nowadays that I can play MP with.
Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of this is true and has been true for decades in the game industry. The other side of this seesaw is: Games are fundamentally in the novelty business. Players like some amount of familiarity, but they want new experiences. Every game engine has a sort of "grain" to it where it tends to produce games with a certain look and feel. The flat-ish shading and floaty physics of Unity is a particularly visible example of…
> Every game engine has a sort of "grain" to it where it tends to produce games with a certain look and feel. I think this is a bit of a myth. Unreal gets this criticism a lot, but it's usually because many studios choose to stick close to the rendering defaults, which does lead to a certain look. To that point, it's probably a lot cheaper to configure Unreal or Unity into a unique "grain" than it is to develop your…
Also, studios with their own engine may release one or two fresh-feeling games, but across repeated releases, a custom engine is going to become strangling and repetitive way faster than any off-the-shelf option.
Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software
#296One could have anticipated XBox getting slowly destroyed by appointing a young clueless outsider as its boss.
Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of this is true and has been true for decades in the game industry. The other side of this seesaw is: Games are fundamentally in the novelty business. Players like some amount of familiarity, but they want new experiences. Every game engine has a sort of "grain" to it where it tends to produce games with a certain look and feel. The flat-ish shading and floaty physics of Unity is a particularly visible example of…
> Every game engine has a sort of "grain" to it where it tends to produce games with a certain look and feel. I think this is a bit of a myth. Unreal gets this criticism a lot, but it's usually because many studios choose to stick close to the rendering defaults, which does lead to a certain look. To that point, it's probably a lot cheaper to configure Unreal or Unity into a unique "grain" than it is to develop your…
So it’s a myth but there’s a good reason to believe it happens?
Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unions have 33% voting power in Volkswagen board. Germany has very strong labor protecting laws. Replacing line engineers and operators is very difficult. Volkswagen is firing 100k employees in Germany none the less. The idea that you can successfully unionize in software..in US..Where you could simply retain a small number of staff key members pay them very well and put them on a mission of outsourcing and milking t…
It's almost as if... laborers in every field (the proletariat) have to unionize as a class against the ownership class (the bourgeoisie), seize the means of production, and reorganize society to their own benefit because the bourgeoisie surely will not!
I don't think "the means of production" hits the mark. Most of us programmers have the means of production: a 20-year-old laptop with a new battery is sufficient for most serious webdev and appdev work. What we lack is permission to labour. If I do what I think needs to be done, instead of what my employer tells me to do, then I don't get paid by my now-former employer (which is fair), and then I don't eat (less fair) or keep my house (truly baffling). This despite the fact that the work I would choose to do is much more valuable to society at large than most of the work I can get paid for.
I've seen this idea discussed by others, but I don't know any pithy slogans for it. (Unfortunately, it's the ideologies with the catchiest sound-bites which tend to dominate in the "marketplace of ideas".)
Gamedev is different, since even games from 20 years ago (e.g. Half-Life 2) require a higher-spec computer to develop than to target. The games you can make on a 20-year-old potato are limited: for those, I can see how the "means of production" idea might be more applicable.
Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software
#299They are moving most of their development to India, where it's pretty easy to find bottom-dollar UE5 dev shops.
Do they make good games though? Idk if game dev is like corporate software where it's already uncreative crap no one really is thrilled about.
The rebooted Doom trilogy is more or less the only FPS games I've ever particularly enjoyed