Hooray: ****** gamedevs being fired thread

[Tangerine]

The Canadian government will sweeten the deal to avoid having BioWare get the axe.

[Eyestabber]

I'll believe it when I see ***** heads atop a spike. Tired of these articles promissing mass layoffs in companies like EA and then it never really happens.

[Acrux]

Microsoft always has layoffs in July because that's when their fiscal year renews. There's other parts of the company in the news with similar layoff headlines. And the new pajeeta running it was pretty specific about layoffs coming soon.

[maidenhaver]

Microsoft always has layoffs in July because that's when their fiscal year renews. There's other parts of the company in the news with similar layoff headlines. And the new pajeeta running it was pretty specific about layoffs coming soon.

Maybe her not being a gamer will pay off, and she won't believe Todd's lies.

[maidenhaver]

The Canadian government will sweeten the deal to avoid having BioWare get the axe.

Bioware is a Canadian national treasure.

[Roguey]

I like David Gaider's origin story

BioWare at the time had just finished Baldur's Gate 1, and [longtime BioWare designer] James Ohlen was going around to other people at BioWare and saying, "If you know anyone who has some interest in writing and design and who has written something game-related to completion, please let us know."

I had a friend who worked at BioWare, and I hadn't even heard of BioWare. I hadn't played Baldur's Gate at that time. But I had this play-by-mail RPG running on the side, just a little thing I was doing for some friends. I had written a rule book for it to completion -- a printed book. My friend Calvin gave it to James Ohlen -- and I didn't even know he'd done it.

So I got this phone call in my office at the hotel, saying, "We'd like to interview you." I'm like, "Who are you? And why are you interviewing me? For what?"

So I went in, and it was interesting, but it was an entry-level position for half the money I was making at the hotel, and I thought the whole BioWare thing seemed a little fly-by-night. I was like, "I'm not sure I want to leave my hotel job for some game developer... I'm just going to be out of a job in six months or something, right?"

So I said, "Thanks, but no thanks." I went back to my hotel on Monday, and my boss from Mississauga was there in my office, surprisingly. He was there to inform me that the management company that ran several hotels had been taken over, and the new company had their own managers. When a hotel is bought out, normally the general manager is let go. And because I could potentially ransack my client list or whatever, they walk you off the property.

I was shocked, but as I'm walking out of the door with my little box of stuff from my desk, I'm thinking, "You know, maybe that BioWare thing isn't so bad after all."

[J1M]

Sounds exactly like how a highschool grad gets into the industry today.

[methoxetamine]

Microsoft always has layoffs in July because that's when their fiscal year renews. There's other parts of the company in the news with similar layoff headlines. And the new pajeeta running it was pretty specific about layoffs coming soon.

Maybe her not being a gamer will pay off, and she won't believe Todd's lies.

She is a gamer you bigot.

[Roguey]

A blog entry from back in April where the guy who designed Dragon Age: Origins's systems declares that the current system of western gaming is coming to an end https://this.os.isfine.org/blog/posts/t ... ark-night/

1. The Growth Is Gone.

There is no compelling answer to the question of "Why should I invest my money in games instead of other opportunities" and many answers to "Why shouldn't I", some of which are provided below.

2. Demographic Headwind

After decades of "the future is gaming", gaming is now a default and future generations are increasingly diversified in their attention spend, many preferring to watch people play or engaging with highly addictive short form video over the time investments needed to actually play games.

For a while, the cope was "people watch youtube in the background while also playing games", but short form video does not allow split attention, and it's rapidly growing.

3. Competition and Oversupply

Gaming used to be the best entertainment value for money for many years. This is no longer true: A video subscription is easily competitive with most gaming options on price.

On the root level, competition for attention involves the world's best funded and most ruthless companies who have spent decades a/b testing their platforms into digital crack cocaine.
On an industry level, many publishers are competing with each other, with countless indy games adding additional options for gamers to stretch their gaming dollars
Most devastating, the industry is competing with its own backlog, with top end titles now having a shelf-life of 10-12 years. Games like Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes, GTA 5, Skyrim and RDR now stay in storefronts for decades, often reduced to $10 or less during sales events. Skyrim, Fallout and now the barely 10 years old Assassin's Creed Blackflag keep getting re-released and remastered, competing with newer products with an unfair nostalgia advantage and low innovation risk.

In 2026, the majority of games played are six years old and older, with an increasing number of players concentrating on fewer and fewer platform titles.

4. The Pacemakers are dead.

Now, players can choose AAA-gameplay games from 10 years ago on a steam sale that look, on their HD Screens, identical to newer offerings, offerings often comparing unfavourably due to aggressive in game monetisation, DLC and investor driven value extraction more common in newer titles. Even worse, older titles from the nether realms of the 2000s are starting to come back, remastered, or upscaled, to compete with phenomenally expensive to produce new titles for gamer's attention time.

Non-technical innovation, by contrast, is harder to predict, impossible to "cost" and "plan", making it unreliable. Extremely successful games like Minecraft, Pokémon Go often stand alone as highly successful outliers as the result of a unique convergence of factors rather than repeatable blueprints for the industry, making for a terrible investment pitch.

Sure, Nintendo may come and ride to publishers' rescue again, like with the Switch, innovating where others cannot, but that's hopium with a long runway to recovery at this point.

5. AI is sucking ALL the oxygen () out of the room.

Nowhere is this dynamic more visible than at Microsoft: Just a few years after pitching investors on their massive XBOX vertical integration shopping spree, from Activision Blizzard to Bethesda, the gaming division has become a "stranded asset", slowly bled dry with talent blood sacrifices to finance the insane Copilot Bonanza. Remember kids, only CoPilot is investable entertainment in 2026.

6. AI drives commoditisation, which is not good news

There's little doubt that, one day, this new technology will give birth to new entertainment experiences and powerful new gameplay mechanics. But investors have too many better, low risk options than "one day", right now and, with copyright eroded, correctly assess that even if a company finds "the Minecraft formula" of AI, there's little stopping the competition from getting in on the game, especially at the speed of AI cloning.

7. Macro-economic headwinds

Even operationally the AI boom has been nothing but bad news for game developers. Their cost, as GPU intensive businesses, are up significantly as competition for the devices is driving up prices, while support from Nvidia, both on the ground and in terms of features, has cratered. In fact, Nvidia has done their best to alienate gamers and game developers lately, their only contribution to the industry this year being DLSS5, or "why don't you spend 10k to give all your games the same AI slop look".

8. Brutal, global headwinds

9. Dispelling Myths

"There is an indy boom"

Yes, there is an indy boom, because making games is easier than it ever has been. Steam is full of indy games, but the problem with this cope is that it confuses a supply side boom with investable business or demand.

As already discussed, attention time is the fixed limiter of the attention economy and it has, after the demise of at scale remote and hybrid work, reduced, not grown.

Indy economics on Steam are brutal, with the vast majority of games never making enough to support their creators, let alone their budget back. Finding a successful indy producing ROI has far worse odds than traditional VC, playing /r/wallstreetbets or some of the lower tiers of the state lottery. It's just not an investable proposition given the available alternatives to gamble your liquidity pool.


TL;DR

With all this in mind, the next 1-2 years look exceedingly dark, because there is not a single credible light (of growth) for the industry

Without growth, the industry is uninvestable

doubly so while changes to the macro environment are producing powerful headwinds and fog of war.

"Why should I invest, broadly, in Games", apart from the usual appeals to faith ("Games is big", "There has always been games"), does not have an answer, as far as I can see.

The AAA model looks dead, buried and not coming back, at least not without an unknown external impulse or disruption. The future of the industry to me, looks like managed decline, not unlike the Music Industry's slow disintegration and eventual absorption into the Napster Platform model.

I for one am glad to see it. I'd be more crestfallen if the developers themselves didn't shred all their goodwill over the past decade+.

[Tangerine]

Imagine blaming AI instead of having consistently released dogslop for the last 10 years.

[J1M]

The reason investors want growth is because they can't tell which pitches will result in playable games.

[J1M]

In a few years someone will write an article about how it was obvious to start a new AAA game with everyone else exiting.

[aweigh]

any article about the death of gaming that does not explicitly begin with blaming SJWs is a useless article.

[Niggler]

I wonder if game dev as an entrepreneur thing would even be worth my time. I've always wanted to be one but I've been burnt out for a long time and seeking such a career seems hopeless...

[DecadeRiptide]

I wonder if game dev as an entrepreneur thing would even be worth my time. I've always wanted to be one but I've been burnt out for a long time and seeking such a career seems hopeless...

Could do it for fun if you find it interesting, and think maybe in the future you could earn a bit of spare money, but wouldn't go all on if you're after just money. gamedev.tv is a good place for courses

[J1M]

I wonder if game dev as an entrepreneur thing would even be worth my time. I've always wanted to be one but I've been burnt out for a long time and seeking such a career seems hopeless...

Much more likely to succeed starting a lawn care company.

[Niggler]

I wonder if game dev as an entrepreneur thing would even be worth my time. I've always wanted to be one but I've been burnt out for a long time and seeking such a career seems hopeless...

Could do it for fun if you find it interesting, and think maybe in the future you could earn a bit of spare money, but wouldn't go all on if you're after just money. gamedev.tv is a good place for courses

I mean I had a lot of ambitions for what I wanted to do as a "game designer", a title that I chased that I didn't fully know the meaning of, but that all died out and Idk if I can bring that passion back. But I don't want to move on or give up...

[DecadeRiptide]

I wonder if game dev as an entrepreneur thing would even be worth my time. I've always wanted to be one but I've been burnt out for a long time and seeking such a career seems hopeless...

Much more likely to succeed starting a lawn care company.

I don't think so.
Anyone motivated enough to put in the time to make a small indie game that is decent can make a bit of money. Although it costs £100 to put your game on Steam apparently

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I wonder if game dev as an entrepreneur thing would even be worth my time. I've always wanted to be one but I've been burnt out for a long time and seeking such a career seems hopeless...

Much more likely to succeed starting a lawn care company.

I don't think so.
Anyone motivated enough to put in the time to make a small indie game that is decent can make a bit of money. Although it costs £100 to put your game on Steam apparently

It is about reward for time spent.

It is not enough to make a game. People don't buy games that they don't know exist. You have to put in time and/or money in trying to spread the word that your game exists, putting it out there in front of the right and enough people to get enough customers. Online advertising is more expensive than ever. Finding and talking to youtubers or streamers to send them keys take some time. You have time spent looking at customer reviews and complaints and then fixing bugs. Etc. Same issue with selfpublished novels where only people who can afford to throw tens of thousands of dollars at ads can get their book noticed and make a profit. Otherwise, very few people will read your book and it is not worth paying for a painted illustrated cover for it.

It's the same issue with live musicians who play at bars or restaurants or weddings. On paper, "get $500 to show up and gig for 2 hours" sounds enticing. It is not. Because you are not working for 2 hours a week to make $500. You are having to cozy up to people after you stopped playing in the hopes that you will get another gig. You are heaving to practice at home so you have enough material to play for 2 hours. You are having to drive. And so on. And you are not guaranteed that there will be a gig every week. When you tally it all up, you are actually make less than minimum wage working at company where you are guaranteed work and wages, and also get benefits. Etc.

A few indie games blow up and become black swan hits, but most do not and languish in obscurity.

Making a game on your own time might be something to do as a hobby, but I would not count on it as a way to make a living.

[wndrbr]

George Broussard of 3D Realms fame teases even more layoffs and closures. A bunch of ex-3DRealms devs work at ID, so he has insider contacts in Bethesda / Zenimax.

Seems like everyone gets the chop, not just the freeloaders like Tim Schafer. ID and Machinegames may get hit despite releasing new games on a regular basis and not getting stuck in development hell.

[Niggler]

George Broussard of 3D Realms fame teases even more layoffs and closures. A bunch of ex-3DRealms devs work at ID, so he has insider contacts in Bethesda / Zenimax.

Seems like everyone gets the chop, not just the freeloaders like Tim Schafer. ID and Machinegames may get hit despite releasing new games on a regular basis and not getting stuck in development hell.

Looks like ESO is cooked, guys

[Niggler]

Much more likely to succeed starting a lawn care company.

I don't think so.
Anyone motivated enough to put in the time to make a small indie game that is decent can make a bit of money. Although it costs £100 to put your game on Steam apparently

It is about reward for time spent.

It is not enough to make a game. People don't buy games that they don't know exist. You have to put in time and/or money in trying to spread the word that your game exists, putting it out there in front of the right and enough people to get enough customers. Online advertising is more expensive than ever. Finding and talking to youtubers or streamers to send them keys take some time. You have time spent looking at customer reviews and complaints and then fixing bugs. Etc. Same issue with selfpublished novels where only people who can afford to throw tens of thousands of dollars at ads can get their book noticed and make a profit. Otherwise, very few people will read your book and it is not worth paying for a painted illustrated cover for it.

It's the same issue with live musicians who play at bars or restaurants or weddings. On paper, "get $500 to show up and gig for 2 hours" sounds enticing. It is not. Because you are not working for 2 hours a week to make $500. You are having to cozy up to people after you stopped playing in the hopes that you will get another gig. You are heaving to practice at home so you have enough material to play for 2 hours. You are having to drive. And so on. And you are not guaranteed that there will be a gig every week. When you tally it all up, you are actually make less than minimum wage working at company where you are guaranteed work and wages, and also get benefits. Etc.

A few indie games blow up and become black swan hits, but most do not and languish in obscurity.

Making a game on your own time might be something to do as a hobby, but I would not count on it as a way to make a living.

Maybe not immediately. Obviously it would have to start as a side thing, but maybe with enough time and effort spent it would grow, like an entrepreneur thing? Not like a standard 40 hour/week goycattle job earns a living anymore anyway...

[Roguey]

Looks like ESO is cooked, guys

"Might confirm rumors from yesterday claiming anyone not working on Fallout or Elder Scrolls is out."

"Oh is that public now? That's exactly what I heard a few days ago. Guess we're about to see."

ESO is fine. It's just the losers who made a ****** Doom game and the losers who made a ****** Indiana Jones game who are out. CHOO CHOO

[wndrbr]

Tim Cain recently left retirement to go work at Obsidian again, think I mentioned it before but I assumed it was related to Obsidian releasing flop after flop.

he just ran out of material for his youtube channel.

[KnightoftheWind]

Microsoft was spending tens of billions buying companies and keeping terrible devs afloat since Phil Spencer first took the reins, even keeping 343 going despite tanking one of the most popular franchises of the 2000s. Cuts won't be enough, they'd actually need to make good games that sell on a regular basis.

[Manny V]

Close Bethesda

They will after Elder Scrolls VI.

I feel like the only reason Bethesda clings to life is because of the promise of Elder Scrolls 6. Moment they release it, and it's ****, they're done for. It's probably why they're putting it off indefinitely. Fear.

[DecadeRiptide]

Much more likely to succeed starting a lawn care company.

I don't think so.
Anyone motivated enough to put in the time to make a small indie game that is decent can make a bit of money. Although it costs £100 to put your game on Steam apparently

It is about reward for time spent.

It is not enough to make a game. People don't buy games that they don't know exist. You have to put in time and/or money in trying to spread the word that your game exists, putting it out there in front of the right and enough people to get enough customers. Online advertising is more expensive than ever. Finding and talking to youtubers or streamers to send them keys take some time. You have time spent looking at customer reviews and complaints and then fixing bugs. Etc. Same issue with selfpublished novels where only people who can afford to throw tens of thousands of dollars at ads can get their book noticed and make a profit. Otherwise, very few people will read your book and it is not worth paying for a painted illustrated cover for it.

It's the same issue with live musicians who play at bars or restaurants or weddings. On paper, "get $500 to show up and gig for 2 hours" sounds enticing. It is not. Because you are not working for 2 hours a week to make $500. You are having to cozy up to people after you stopped playing in the hopes that you will get another gig. You are heaving to practice at home so you have enough material to play for 2 hours. You are having to drive. And so on. And you are not guaranteed that there will be a gig every week. When you tally it all up, you are actually make less than minimum wage working at company where you are guaranteed work and wages, and also get benefits. Etc.

A few indie games blow up and become black swan hits, but most do not and languish in obscurity.

Making a game on your own time might be something to do as a hobby, but I would not count on it as a way to make a living.

I think you're just being negative and are framing it as being a lot more complex and difficult than it really is.

It's definitely easier than starting a lawn care company. Who pays people do to their lawn else days? This isn't the 1980s anymore.

[DecadeRiptide]

I don't think so.
Anyone motivated enough to put in the time to make a small indie game that is decent can make a bit of money. Although it costs £100 to put your game on Steam apparently

It is about reward for time spent.

It is not enough to make a game. People don't buy games that they don't know exist. You have to put in time and/or money in trying to spread the word that your game exists, putting it out there in front of the right and enough people to get enough customers. Online advertising is more expensive than ever. Finding and talking to youtubers or streamers to send them keys take some time. You have time spent looking at customer reviews and complaints and then fixing bugs. Etc. Same issue with selfpublished novels where only people who can afford to throw tens of thousands of dollars at ads can get their book noticed and make a profit. Otherwise, very few people will read your book and it is not worth paying for a painted illustrated cover for it.

It's the same issue with live musicians who play at bars or restaurants or weddings. On paper, "get $500 to show up and gig for 2 hours" sounds enticing. It is not. Because you are not working for 2 hours a week to make $500. You are having to cozy up to people after you stopped playing in the hopes that you will get another gig. You are heaving to practice at home so you have enough material to play for 2 hours. You are having to drive. And so on. And you are not guaranteed that there will be a gig every week. When you tally it all up, you are actually make less than minimum wage working at company where you are guaranteed work and wages, and also get benefits. Etc.

A few indie games blow up and become black swan hits, but most do not and languish in obscurity.

Making a game on your own time might be something to do as a hobby, but I would not count on it as a way to make a living.

Maybe not immediately. Obviously it would have to start as a side thing, but maybe with enough time and effort spent it would grow, like an entrepreneur thing? Not like a standard 40 hour/week goycattle job earns a living anymore anyway...

Exactly.
Don't listen to negative replies, they only serve to deter you.

Most people who are successful start on their own thing because they enjoy it, and later on the money naturally finds its way to them. It's not that deep.



Anyway, not like you asked, but if you are really interested in getting back into it, I really recommend Unity Engine, but I've also heard really good things about Godot.

If you're going 3D but don't want to make all your own assets, Synty Studios is a really good place for a cartoony look.There's some free stuff but the good stuff costs a lot of money, and there's also a monthly pass for everything. There's some really cool stuff on there though. You could literally make a low poly Vermintide 2, Skyrim, diablo, or dark souls clone with these. Once you got your assets it's essentially just drag and drop.

POLYGON Dark Fortress (Trailer) 3D Art for Games by #SyntyStudios

If you want to make your own assets then blender is free, but also there's 3ds max and zbrush but they are both really expensive. For textures you can get Adobe substance painter off steam on sale for cheap, and there's also 3d coat.

World machine, Gaea, world creator, are all good for realistic terrain generation. There's also some really awesome tools by jangafx for VFX generation

C++ or C# is needed depending on the engine you choose. I don't have any good resources for those yet tho, all the C++ books are a mess and I'm still figuring it out. Game dev.tv goes over a lot of stuff in their courses

Sebastian Greaves is a good resource if you want to learn about networking ffunctionality. He really underrated and has a massive multiplayer dark souls Dev series.

HOW TO CREATE ELDEN RING in UNITY [MULTIPLAYER]

Hardest part is learning how to develop shaders imho. You need to be open to learning some physics and maths along the way, but u don't need this for your first projects

[Nemesis]

Close Bethesda

They will after Elder Scrolls VI.

I feel like the only reason Bethesda clings to life is because of the promise of Elder Scrolls 6. Moment they release it, and it's ****, they're done for. It's probably why they're putting it off indefinitely. Fear.

Management is waiting for the right time to cash out with ES6.

[Roguey]

Schreier says some devs are fuming because they "did what they were told."

"Make great games, take risks, try to win awards. It's okay if a game isn't a huge hit because it can still be useful to Xbox as part of this broad strategy to get games on Game Pass."
...
The messaging was not "You must hit X amount of profitability." The messaging was "Make good games, help us fill out Game Pass, try to win awards. Of course, don't lose money, break even. This is not a profit play. This is kind of 'Game Pass is the north star.'"

Yeah, well you didn't break even, did you?