Chronicling the inability of gamedevs to make video games

[KnightoftheWind]

The amount of assets needed for a modern game is massive. The work needed to produce these assets has actually been going down for years as tools & pipelines have matured.
Somewhere, at some point, someone has gotta make the rusted barrels(or insert whatever crap your game has laying around.) It's not a particularly hard job, but it is a time consuming one.

It's precisely why I'm anti-graphics, because when developers have to contend with ultra-high fidelity assets that means less time can be dedicated to making the game good, less buggy, etc. There's not much you can do when your 3D models are being outsourced to some guy's basement in Malaysia. Even without diversity hires, dev times would be 3-4 years minimum. As you say, somebody has to model all the little details. and with diversity hires you get a situation like Soyfield and so many other AAA games. Games taking a decade to make was unthinkable, now it's almost expected, and the game STILL doesn't turn out 100% playable.

But again, refer back to Ubisoft. Games taking a long time isn't linked to this, Ubisoft games arguably require more assets than pretty much any other game on the market by their nature of being open world collectathons.
They seem to average 2-3 major franchise releases + a handful of minor releases a year, 2021 excepted for obvious reasons.

I don't think it's a coincidence that some of the publishers who have been releasing an outsized share of games lately are French: Focus Home Interactive & Nacon.

Games taking a long time to make is just developers being lazy + management allowing it.

Ubisoft is the sole exception, and not only that but we all know their releases borrow a ton of assets and code from prior games. It's not like they're starting from scratch with a new engine, they've built up a vast library of models and animations they reuse time and again. There's a reason the "Ubisoft Open World" is a term people use. And I mentioned this before, but each release is developed in tandem with a dozen other Ubisoft developers across the world. It's hardly a one team effort. For every release Ubisoft has, 1000+ diversity hires worked on it. You give them far too much credit.

[Emphyrio]

Ubisoft is the sole exception, and not only that but we all know their releases borrow a ton of assets and code from prior games. It's not like they're starting from scratch with a new engine, they've built up a vast library of models and animations they reuse time and again. There's a reason the "Ubisoft Open World" is a term people use. And I mentioned this before, but each release is developed in tandem with a dozen other Ubisoft developers across the world. It's hardly a one team effort. For every release Ubisoft has, 1000+ diversity hires worked on it. You give them far too much credit.

so?

beth reuses code and assets but they haven't released a flagship game in 8 years.

[KnightoftheWind]

Ubisoft is the sole exception, and not only that but we all know their releases borrow a ton of assets and code from prior games. It's not like they're starting from scratch with a new engine, they've built up a vast library of models and animations they reuse time and again. There's a reason the "Ubisoft Open World" is a term people use. And I mentioned this before, but each release is developed in tandem with a dozen other Ubisoft developers across the world. It's hardly a one team effort. For every release Ubisoft has, 1000+ diversity hires worked on it. You give them far too much credit.

so?

beth reuses code and assets but they haven't released a flagship game in 8 years.

Bethesda doesn't have a dozen other satellite studios staffed with Pajeets working around the clock.

[Segata]

This is not a PS3 title. This is a PS5 game running at sub 720P resolution underneath. And it's cutting edge.

[Roguey]

This is not a PS3 title. This is a PS5 game running at sub 720P resolution underneath. And it's cutting edge.

Looks fine to me. What Squeenix title are you comparing it to?

[Segata]

Looks fine to me. What Squeenix title are you comparing it to?

FF13 looks better unironically.

[wndrbr]

Lighting is all fucked up, makes the high quality assets look flat as if it was some old game with mods.

[KnightoftheWind]

Looks fine to me. What Squeenix title are you comparing it to?

FF13 looks better unironically.

I think you might be right. It just goes to show how important aesthetics and art direction is, rather than polygons and textures and fancy effects. These corpos are spending tens of millions and staffing hundreds of code monkeys just to produce something that looks 1/3rd as good as what came before.

[Segata]

PS5 users are reporting overheating issues when playing FF16.

[rusty_shackleford]

Nu-devs can't even remake old games, too difficult

I have never understood the point of investor calls if the CEO can answer this way.

To prevent having to do this when you underperform:

https://embracer.com/releases/embracer- ... mentation/

Embracer Group announces comprehensive restructuring program with immediate implementation

INSIDE INFORMATION: Embracer Group AB (“Embracer Group”) today announces a comprehensive restructuring program for FY 2023/24, running until the end of March 2024 that includes:

Operational and financial measures to increase cash conversion, improve efficiency and reduce capex, reaching a financial net debt below SEK 10 billion by the end of FY 2023/24.
Reducing capex by at least SEK 2.9 billion by FY 2024/25 compared to the run-rate of SEK 7.9 billion in Q4 FY 2022/23.
Reducing overhead costs by at least 10%, or at least SEK 0.8 billion on a yearly basis, compared to the Q4 FY 2022/23 run-rate.
Reiterating the previously communicated forecast of SEK 7-9 billion Adjusted EBIT in FY 2023/24.
Measures will be implemented immediately and reach full run-rate from FY 2024/25.
Matthew Karch appointed interim Chief Operating Officer, and Phil Rogers appointed interim Chief Strategy Officer, will co-lead the program planning and implementation.

“Today we announce a comprehensive restructuring program that will enable us to realize untapped potential in Embracer Group and better optimize the use of our resources. Across the group, we are now initiating multiple actions to strengthen our cash flow generation and leverage our portfolio of IPs to become a stronger company and setting out on a stable future to build even greater games to the benefit of gamers and fans across the globe ”, says Lars Wingefors, CEO and co-founder of Embracer.

This wouldn't have happened if he played Yakuza: Like a Dragon!

[pickmeister]

As a graphics whore myself, I'd honestly appreciate them allocating resources to better endeavours than graphics unless they start making it actually good.

I remember being blown away when the first Assassin's Creed came out and wondered, how better it's going to get in just a few years. The game wasn't great but as a tech demo, it was solid.

15+ years later and all we got in terms of graphics is a step up in world clutter and less repeating models. There's almost no step in graphical fidelity. Instead we got the cartoony cancer that is plaguing the industry now, making every character look like a shitty wax sculpture.

Yes, Ubisoft does keep releasing games. But those games aren't anything to write home about. I was trying to play the nu-AC games in last two weeks (Origins, Odyssey, Valhalla) and the only thing I can say about them is they're huge. Graphically, it's a mixed bag. Looks great in screenshots but playing it, it's kinda meh.
What did impress me however is that they're jankier than their predecessors. Character attacking enemies behind camera (instead of those I'm directly looking at), grabbing ledges I don't want him to, getting stuck climbing, refusing to climb altogether, and so on).
I redownloaded Assassin's Creed 2 just to check if I'm remembering it right and that game feels much more solid than the new ones.

Speaking of Ubisoft, let's not forget Skull & Bones which is apparently in development for over a decade now.

[rusty_shackleford]

Ark remaster delayed by a month
https://www.gameshub.com/news/news/ark- ... y-2622875/
RUSTY PRO TIP: one month has never saved a game. Anything worth delaying a game's release over cannot be fixed in a month. Avoid!

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown delayed to 2024
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/new ... d-to-2024/

Game with markov chain generated title, Flintlock: Siege of Dawn, unsurprisingly using an ugly negress main character, has been delayed to 2024
https://videogames.si.com/news/flintloc ... dawn-delay
This game is going to be a massive failure either way, they should just release it.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The sheer difficulty of programming is understated. There are so many moving parts that a programmer can't understand it all. Today game programmers rely on premade game engines like Unreal and other tools like Havok to do a lot of the work for them. Different programmers work on different parts of the game and they try to connect each other's code, with no one having a whole understanding of everything. This really hurts bad when a project goes on for a long time and programmers go in and out of the project and don't understand the code. Programmers can't even understand code they wrote two weeks prior.

On the managerial side, once teams get larger than 20 or 30 people, you need to create a bureaucracy to manage it all, and that is where inefficiency starts becoming a thing.

A lot of AAA games have various different parts of the game subcontracted out to other companies. One company might make character models, another creature models. One company might program a certain game system. Another company might program the netcode. And so on. So again you're having to manage all of these different connections, and problems are introduced when devs try hooking up different parts together.

The reason why Nihon Falcom and Ubisoft are able to release samey games every year is because they are reusing the same code, only adding one or two new systems with each installment, rather than having to program an entire game from scratch each time.

[wndrbr]

Lazy devs are pre-emptively trying to warn gamers that the upcoming Baldur's Gate 3 won't set the new standard for roleplaying games.

- If Swen managed to make something like this, then why can't you???
- ugh... it's just a fluke... future games won't be like that... don't blame us... Larian had the advantage...

Like a lot of people, I'm deeply excited about what the lovely folks at Larian accomplished with Baldur's Gate 3, but I want to gently, pre-emptively push back against players taking that excitement and using it to apply criticism or a "raised standard" to RPGs going forward.

► Show Spoiler

You can't separate a game from the process used to build it, so let's look at what Larian is taking into the development and final version of this game:
1) Dev cycle stretching back to ~2017
1) Two massive games--and their Definitive editions--worth of tech and institutional knowledge to draw from
3) Super successful Early Access period lasting 3 years, providing crucial community feedback, bug hunting, and cash flow
4) Over 400 developers in 7 different offices around the world [not including outsourcing partners]
5) The license, brand, and world of one of the largest entertainment IPs in the world (D&D), at the apex of its popularity with the rise of the actual play movement, and a movie

This is a small, incomplete list.

Larian is coming into this game SWINGING, with a gigantic weight of expectation to deal with--but they're also doing it with an *immense* amount of wind (direct experience + resources + specialty tooling +++ etc.) at their backs.

As a TL;DR:
In an era of megagames, Baldur's Gate 3 is one of the largest attempted, built by a specialized group of people using mature tech specially built to make *this specific game*, reinforced by invaluable mass player feedback AND market validation ahead of its launch.

This is not a new baseline for RPGs--this is an anomaly. Trying to do the same thing in the same way, especially without the same advantages, could kill an entire GROUP of studios. If they go as big or bigger with their next title, Larian themselves could die! That's the risk and reward of the megagame.

We are an industry dangling elephants over cliffs, pointing at the ones that don't collapse under their own weight as indictments to the ones that do.

So please, celebrate the achievement represented by Baldur's Gate 3. It looks like a massive amount of effort is about to pay off in a big way, for one of the brightest voices in the medium... but if you shout that "EVERY RPG SHOULD BE LIKE THIS GOING FORWARD, YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE--"

You've not just missed the point, you've created the expectations and conditions to ensure your favorite creators may never be able to give you the thing you love ever again.

The conditions under which BG3 was made are atypical. This is in no way a slight against the game or the people working on it, who are clearly passionate and talented.

Having the foundation set and the funding to build things on your own terms is invaluable.

you're absolutely right. even if you look at one of Vincke's touchstones, Ultima 7, that's a game that had 12 years of prior games feeding into it. if we were to look at this as a new benchmark we would need to then focus on creating conditions, just like with TotK. but people too often only look at the fruits of labour and not the labour itself. same as it ever was, I guess. same deal with people wondering why there are so few artists painting like renaissance masters

This is a great thread about why using a singular game to set expectations for everyone developing titles in a genre isn't useful and is instead foolhardy.

[rusty_shackleford]

Larian spent most of their existence being a month away from shutting down. The idea that they just somehow lucked into their position is bullshit.
Swen worked hard and created a company to develop his vision, he put everything he had on the line, repeatedly. He spent years working with the greediest publishers just to barely be able to afford to pay his employees.

If you aren't willing to work as hard as Swen worked, and make the sacrifices and gambles Swen made, you will never create the games Swen created. If you aren't willing to sleep on the floor of your cramped office and shower in the restroom, you probably aren't cut out for this. Someone needs to tell these people the truth already before they waste decades of their life creating mediocrity.
Regardless of your opinion of Larian's games, their two most recent titles are some of the highest rated & best selling CRPGs of all time, and BG3 might even challenge action-based games like twitcher 3 or re-re-re-re-re-released Skyrim for the crown despite being in a subgenre that was at one point thought to be a relic of the past.

Michelangelo is thought to have put up to 16 hours a day of work into the Sistine Chapel, 6 days a week. If you show up and give your 8 hours and go home, you are getting what you put in, the bare minimum. I'm not suggesting you put 16 hours a day in for some corporation that doesn't acknowledge your existence, but I am suggesting that if you want to create something great you first have to show greatness.

Swen used to maintain a blog until he could no longer find the time to update it, you can find it on archive.org, it's well worth the read:
https://web.archive.org/web/20131126063 ... 80/page/3/

[J1M]

"Creating a second game built on existing technology is an unreplicatable advantage!"
-Professional game devs working on sequels

[2factorauth]

"Creating a second game built on existing technology is an unreplicatable advantage!"
-Professional game devs working on sequels

In a world of fully functioning engines too, multiple of em... Its hilarious.

[maidenhaver]

Lazy devs are pre-emptively trying to warn gamers that the upcoming Baldur's Gate 3 won't set the new standard for roleplaying games.

- If Swen managed to make something like this, then why can't you???
- ugh... it's just a fluke... future games won't be like that... don't blame us... Larian had the advantage...

Like a lot of people, I'm deeply excited about what the lovely folks at Larian accomplished with Baldur's Gate 3, but I want to gently, pre-emptively push back against players taking that excitement and using it to apply criticism or a "raised standard" to RPGs going forward.

► Show Spoiler

You can't separate a game from the process used to build it, so let's look at what Larian is taking into the development and final version of this game:
1) Dev cycle stretching back to ~2017
1) Two massive games--and their Definitive editions--worth of tech and institutional knowledge to draw from
3) Super successful Early Access period lasting 3 years, providing crucial community feedback, bug hunting, and cash flow
4) Over 400 developers in 7 different offices around the world [not including outsourcing partners]
5) The license, brand, and world of one of the largest entertainment IPs in the world (D&D), at the apex of its popularity with the rise of the actual play movement, and a movie

This is a small, incomplete list.

Larian is coming into this game SWINGING, with a gigantic weight of expectation to deal with--but they're also doing it with an *immense* amount of wind (direct experience + resources + specialty tooling +++ etc.) at their backs.

As a TL;DR:
In an era of megagames, Baldur's Gate 3 is one of the largest attempted, built by a specialized group of people using mature tech specially built to make *this specific game*, reinforced by invaluable mass player feedback AND market validation ahead of its launch.

This is not a new baseline for RPGs--this is an anomaly. Trying to do the same thing in the same way, especially without the same advantages, could kill an entire GROUP of studios. If they go as big or bigger with their next title, Larian themselves could die! That's the risk and reward of the megagame.

We are an industry dangling elephants over cliffs, pointing at the ones that don't collapse under their own weight as indictments to the ones that do.

So please, celebrate the achievement represented by Baldur's Gate 3. It looks like a massive amount of effort is about to pay off in a big way, for one of the brightest voices in the medium... but if you shout that "EVERY RPG SHOULD BE LIKE THIS GOING FORWARD, YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE--"

You've not just missed the point, you've created the expectations and conditions to ensure your favorite creators may never be able to give you the thing you love ever again.

The conditions under which BG3 was made are atypical. This is in no way a slight against the game or the people working on it, who are clearly passionate and talented.

Having the foundation set and the funding to build things on your own terms is invaluable.

you're absolutely right. even if you look at one of Vincke's touchstones, Ultima 7, that's a game that had 12 years of prior games feeding into it. if we were to look at this as a new benchmark we would need to then focus on creating conditions, just like with TotK. but people too often only look at the fruits of labour and not the labour itself. same as it ever was, I guess. same deal with people wondering why there are so few artists painting like renaissance masters

This is a great thread about why using a singular game to set expectations for everyone developing titles in a genre isn't useful and is instead foolhardy.

They are trash people. Lazy, stupid, twitter preachers who gather stupid, nostalgic fangirls around them. Nothing pisses me off more than a journo than a hasbeen game dev riding on their association to old franchises, making excuses for their puke games.

[Klerik]

Chronicling?

OK.

Write this down.

Captains log 13:22

Not a single game has interested me enough lately to care about installing, and modding it towards a 60% representation of what was promised in alpha.

I will continue with standard shitposting protocol until relieved.

Sparky out.

[rusty_shackleford]

(Diablo IV)

[Fedora Master]

Creative Assembly claimed that making a single unit, the Jabberslythe, would be as expensive as making an entire DLC for them as a reason it wasn't included in the Beastmen roster. They were soundly mocked for such a claim.

[J1M]

12 years between releases.

[Humbaba]

The sheer difficulty of programming is understated. There are so many moving parts that a programmer can't understand it all. Today game programmers rely on premade game engines like Unreal and other tools like Havok to do a lot of the work for them. Different programmers work on different parts of the game and they try to connect each other's code, with no one having a whole understanding of everything. This really hurts bad when a project goes on for a long time and programmers go in and out of the project and don't understand the code. Programmers can't even understand code they wrote two weeks prior.

Why isn't there a coding standard? Why can't a company just mandate a standardised coding etiquette?

[J1M]

The sheer difficulty of programming is understated. There are so many moving parts that a programmer can't understand it all. Today game programmers rely on premade game engines like Unreal and other tools like Havok to do a lot of the work for them. Different programmers work on different parts of the game and they try to connect each other's code, with no one having a whole understanding of everything. This really hurts bad when a project goes on for a long time and programmers go in and out of the project and don't understand the code. Programmers can't even understand code they wrote two weeks prior.

Why isn't there a coding standard? Why can't a company just mandate a standardised coding etiquette?

The attempts to put forth such standards are always spearheaded by charlatan consultants with limited expertise. Also, the underlying assumptions shift over time as hardware and software evolve. For example, a lot of conventional wisdom will go out the window if storage access becomes as fast as memory.

[wndrbr]

Rockstar as finally announced a re-release of Red Dead Redemption. Yay?

- it's an outsource job, just like GTA trilogy...
- won't be available for PC...
- won't feature multiplayer, either because it's too difficult for them to restore or because rockstar don't want it to compete against RDR2 online...
- won't have even the basic improvements such as higher resolutions or 60fps support.

And a cherry on the shit pie - it will cost $50. 10 bucks more expensive than the original was back in the day.

[wndrbr]

Konami's Metal Gear Solid Master collection will run at 720p on all consoles

[KnightoftheWind]

Konami's Metal Gear Solid Master collection will run at 720p on all consoles

Is that worse than the old HD Collection on the 360/PS3?. It would be pretty sad if Konami was outdone by a 10 year old+ port on far weaker hardware. Even if this new collection is strictly emulation, it's inexcusable.

[wndrbr]

Konami's Metal Gear Solid Master collection will run at 720p on all consoles

Is that worse than the old HD Collection on the 360/PS3?. It would be pretty sad if Konami was outdone by a 10 year old+ port on far weaker hardware. Even if this new collection is strictly emulation, it's inexcusable.

this is actually a port of those HD Collection titles. Except they were running at 60 fps, while the new ones are apparently locked at 30.

edit. Konami refuted the 720@30 and now claims the new versions work at 1080p and 60 fps (switch version works at 720p and 30 fps).

[Segata]

(switch version works at 720p and 30 fps).

MGS 2 ran at 60fps... on the fucking PS2.

[Vlajdimir Ermenović]

(switch version works at 720p and 30 fps).

MGS 2 ran at 60fps... on the fucking PS2.

Normalization of 30fps on consoles was unforgivable.