bplane

Games industry core

I wrote a review of @wadjeteyegames.com's and @richardcobbett.bsky.social's /Nighthawks,/ a game that warms my cold dead heart.

it's just pretty tiring to hear endless wish fulfilment scenarios "my job will be easier" or "science will get better" when every day it feels like the exact opposite is happening, what with endless crunch and layoffs, and i'm told "but it works on my machine" as if it means anything

In my book I argue that IP fandoms are a crucial part of the economic model of the current media monopoly landscape, as fan campaigns drive down the value of creative labor via harassment and disposability, scare artists from taking risks with IP, and give execs a direct fan base all their own

This is a myth. Yes building things is *harder*, especially building them well and sustainably. But this is largely the lie of comfortable moderates. Just look at NYC under Mamdani right now, building can be fast if you're ready to build.

Ah yes, AI labels are just like the cultural revolution's struggle sessions. After you label your game "made with AI", you are dragged out in front of the Chick-fil-a and beaten to death with socks full of recalled Tesla batteries.

CHARLES ELIZABETH CHEESE???

There are 175 Democrats in the House. There are 39 Republicans pretending to be Democrats in the House.

I have so much smoke for this dullard.

Genuinely so funny that all of the "prediction" market CEO's were saying this was a scientific way of crowdsourcing truth, and then every moronic gamble looks like this

It was supposed to be called the layoff industry, but McKinsey ran a focus group and video games went +99/-1 (there was 1 CEO in the group)

This is neglect of a minor. You should, at a minimum, have to do 200 hours of state mandated family therapy and have your computer taken away if this is how you treat your kid.

Yeah, it's really free and fair when the US is abducting their president, and installing puppet dictators. Literally doing the Republicans' job for them, thanks Dick.

also why would you automate one of the most fun and invigorating phases of development?

We need to be way angrier than we are. I'm all for adopting the framing from the End Times Fascism book, namely that these people - the techbros - are traitors to the human race.

I can not think of a circle of hell lower than gig retail. The worst of all worlds.

Lol, lmao even I'm sure this will go exactly as well as Mixer

This guy would spontaneously combust if he was forced to witness Portland's naked bicycle ride.

Everyday some new horror show is unveiled that is worse than the day before, and each one makes the worst people imaginable richer.

Spike Lee? In a Meta commercial?

I’m a Texan trans kid who almost died because of Ken Paxton. The world should know what he’s done. This was very difficult for me to write, but given what's at stake, I cannot bear to stay silent about what I went through at Paxton's hands. He must not be rewarded for what he's done to trans kids.

@govpritzker.illinois.gov Is this what we should expect from Illinois LEOs?

Among other things, Yglesias is also just a giant coward, and this video is a great example of that.

I'm leaning that this was malicious compliance from the artist at the company as a (no pun intended) middle finger to management.

Yo can you slop up a fix to make your volume slider logarithmic, because why the hell is it exponential @bsky.app

Yeah he didn't "lose," because his polls were so bad in 2018 he didn't even try to run for reelection.

I mean, if I meet the founding fathers in the afterlife, I'm also about to get spit roasted by Satan, so their finger wagging is probably the least of my concerns.

GM wants your car to be your personal assistant, LG wants your fridge to function as a licensed therapist, Sony wants your PlayStation to give you a rimjob. Can we just make inanimate objects that work please?

Dare to dream bigger than "if you work hard and follow the rules, you won't fall through the cracks."

So, so many cases of executives demanding that certain revenue generating concessions be made with a game, it fucks up the game's design, makes the game perform poorly at launch, and then is used as an excuse to shutter the studio. Utterly maddening.

There is something so soul crushing about creating art that pushes the needle in the games industry, only to be thanked by using the capital gained from said art to push the ones who created it out of a job.

This thread is exactly it.

I feel obliged to once again reiterate that lay offs and closures are not a reaction to the economy, but a failure of leadership. Each wave of closures and layoffs should be looked upon as a consequence of greed and incompetence. If you can't keep your people employed, you are bad at your job.

Just merge every corporation into one uber monopoly and be done with it already. That's the end goal right, just a government made of businesses?

Every game CEO is chasing Minecraft/Fortnite/CoD level successes. Every game company is expected to just shit out 15 sequels of the same game, and make $25 billion dollars, otherwise they should be dissolved and everyone fired.

I literally don't have words for the news of EA closing Bioware. Unconscionable, incompetent, soulless decision-making. May everyone involved in these decision suffer Renegade interrupts for the rest of their lives.

The industry, as it exists, is fundamentally treating game studios acting as speculative assets for VC's and out of touch executives. There's very little investment in the AAA space for storytelling, because that's not a line item for revenue, despite that being a driver of purchases.

Money. Has. Never. Been. More. Fake.

I hate to break it to Julie, but it seems like there's quite a lot of room for hate in NYC, especially for the poor and unhoused.

If Trump/Johnson/Milei/Meloni etc. have destroyed the social contract politically, the AI companies have destroyed it economically. What faith is there to have in a system where your labor and dignity can be invalidated by the worst of humanity?

It really bothers me that a bunch of meat proxy, AI dipshits have jobs, and some of the smartest people I know do not.