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Whenever I hear of a studio that has “grown 50%” since their last successful release, I get worried. So many companies grow way too fast. On the other hand you see small teams staying small, and doing great work for decades. A successful game can keep you afloat for ages if you stay small.

So I am glad to see more smaller studios using external development to keep a tight core of people with them for a longer time. Not only does it keep the knowledge in the company, it's also great for the stability of people's lives.

I feel like the takes are pretty self explanatory Outsourcing studios in other parts of the entertainment industry are often pretty bad places to work at, with no guarantee of any job being "long term", and unionizing won't prevent the companies hiring your outsourcing studio from dropping you

Absolutely some companies are bad to work for, either directly or as exdev. So we'd rather they were all hired directly and then immediately laid off instead? What is this reasoning?

it's cost center profit center bs from general motors era management thought, instead of relying on necessarily exploitative external deveopment they should be selling a product that the "core team" can make themselves

No we'd rather they were all hired directly and then actually got a chance at unionizing so they can better protect themselves from actual layoffs, than be hired indirectly and have no protection from the companies hiring them whether or not they're unionized. There's more than 2 options there

We want people who work externally to get credit, and they literally name a company in the article! It's not revolutionary, and they don't pretend it is! They literally mention how it's better for those in employment, and it retains knowledge. It's a win-win! They're honest! Wtf do you want??

There was another threaded discussion yesterday, and a conclusion out of that was that there may be a huge co-dev experience difference between the US and the EU. Perhaps US folks have it way worse, and EU folks have it much better: bsky.app/profile/ryst...

Yes I am still talking about this, because I still see nobody actually writing out an apology for their incredibly destructive takes that pushed loads of people to think that somehow 'codev is a toxic bad thing' for the game industry. You are literally making things worse by pushing that narrative.