RPGHQ

Interesting read.
https://nothings.org/gamedev/thief_rendering.html

Imagine if these guys had the tech we had today to work with

By MIT students for MIT students, if you can sneak in thief you can apply for big brain math jobs.

CPUs are so advanced now, you could probably render a lot of PS3/360-era looking games entirely in software. If not better. These old 90s renders only took advantage of a single core, yet were mighty impressive at the time regardless.

Nammu Archag wrote: ↑ February 10th, 2024, 20:58

Imagine if these guys had the tech we had today to work with

There's plenty of devs who are still in the industry and have the tech. They don't make anything good.

It does make me wonder though, what's the IQ cutoff for various genres?

Element wrote: ↑ February 11th, 2024, 17:59

Nammu Archag wrote: ↑ February 10th, 2024, 20:58

Imagine if these guys had the tech we had today to work with

There's plenty of devs who are still in the industry and have the tech. They don't make anything good.

These guys in their 60s are barely the same devs tbf

Western devs rarely had any direct, supreme control over the games they worked on. Games in the west are supposedly a collaborative effort, and often change on the whims of managers and executives. You can't really point to a western equivalent of Kojima or Miyazaki, someone who has direct oversight and veto control. So the games that we think are spearheaded by one or two guys, actually aren't.

On their own, they probably couldn't make anything nearly as good.

kojima's games are ass

KnightoftheWind wrote: ↑ February 11th, 2024, 20:05

Western devs rarely had any direct, supreme control over the games they worked on. Games in the west are supposedly a collaborative effort, and often change on the whims of managers and executives. You can't really point to a western equivalent of Kojima or Miyazaki, someone who has direct oversight and veto control. So the games that we think are spearheaded by one or two guys, actually aren't.

On their own, they probably couldn't make anything nearly as good.

I am 90% sure Kojima doesn't even know how to code and that most of the brains behind his early games was his 2nd in command.

Not saying he's talented or that his games are good, I'm saying he had much more control over the games he was a part of than any western developer. Japanese corporations have rigid hierarchy, Burgerland does not.

KnightoftheWind wrote: ↑ February 11th, 2024, 20:16

Not saying he's talented or that his games are good, I'm saying he had much more control over the games he was a part of than any western developer. Japanese corporations have rigid hierarchy, Burgerland does not.

The same applied to Western game companies at the time when his name was still on decent games. At Konami he didn't really have that much control, he wasn't even there for the early phase of the development of MGS 1. The only games he has tons of control over are the later ones, largely due to his reputation. BTW, Todd Howard had total control over Starfields development, which was just last year, so idk if that's really the case. Anything added or diverging would ultimately have to go through him. I think Kojima is essentially just the Japanese version of Todd at this point.

Jap corporate game dev isn't really something people should want to emulate, it is just a more extreme version of what we have right now, except without the same ESG pressures and nig society

Nammu Archag wrote: ↑ February 11th, 2024, 20:09

KnightoftheWind wrote: ↑ February 11th, 2024, 20:05

Western devs rarely had any direct, supreme control over the games they worked on. Games in the west are supposedly a collaborative effort, and often change on the whims of managers and executives. You can't really point to a western equivalent of Kojima or Miyazaki, someone who has direct oversight and veto control. So the games that we think are spearheaded by one or two guys, actually aren't.

On their own, they probably couldn't make anything nearly as good.

I am 90% sure Kojima doesn't even know how to code and that most of the brains behind his early games was his 2nd in command.

He had a knack for finding talented people to give his games a unique flair, Shinkawa being a good example. But his own contributions, outside of inserting Plissken into a capeshit universe, are paltry. His writing was horrid and overwrought to the point of absurdity.

I'm glad Death Stranding finally demolished his reputation.