Not a good day to be working on games in Austin…

By Matt | August 11, 2008

 

I noticed this on Giant Realm earlier today:

First up, we have Midway Austin. What are they known for? Nada. So it comes as no surprise that they’re about to lay off at least 50 people.

Next up is Vigil. That’s all. More later. Consider this a warning shot for the people thinking of applying there.

Finally, and possibly the biggest blow to Austin’s development scene, NCsoft is about to axe the vast majority of their staff. About 150 NCsoft Austin folks are on the chopping block. Ironically, Tabula Rasa’s crew is being given a chance to turn this around. So, while the first round of layoffs will consist of 20-30 unlucky souls, I’m confident enough to say that it’s only a matter of time. Mostly because Tabula Rasa is not a good game. I’m sure a lot of these folks are wondering if what they’re hearing is Richard Garriott laughing. Unfortunately, you can’t hear people laugh in space.

Ouch. My condolences go out to everyone now looking for a gaming job in Austin. That’s going to be a harsh market. Might be time to consider that move to California or NC or the Seattle area you’ve been considering. I hope everything works out for everyone involved.

 

So yeah, that sucks…but then I read this:

Ok this is basically a blog post to announce that I won’t be continuing in videogames.

[...]

I thought the videogame industry was different, but no it’s actually harder and worse than any other one, I still wonder why people hate Dennis Dylack for no reason and Uwe Boll, I don’t think if people realize the psychological things it can do to people.

People love to hate for no reason, and well I’ve got enough problems in my personal life to do another game after Eternity’s Child.

Turns out, he felt kind of silly about the original post (I found the full text in the google cache) and then cut it down to this:

I wrote something here and then realised everyone has posted a news about it, and right now I am slapping my head, wondering like what the fuck have I done again, so basically if you’re here you already know what I wrote :D fucking shit

And yes I AM STILL SUPPORTING EC PC AND I WILL BE DOING THAT FOR A LONNGGGG TIME, AND EC WIIWARE IS STILL COMING OUT

Just no more future games that’s all.

Phew god, what have I done or said again, I am quite embarrassed right now, especially i never knew big sites would report this

Have a little drama with your day.

So 200+ people are losing their job all pretty much at once and this guy is complaining it’s too hard to be in the game industry because people are critical.

I don’t mean to belittle your situation, Luc, but when you use Dyack and Boll to try to prop up your claim of how the media destroys people in the gaming industry it starts to ring a bit hollow. I mean really really hollow. If you don’t like working in games, great. But if you’re leaving because you have a thin skin and can’t take criticism…it starts to seem pretty silly in the face of hundreds of people being forced out of their jobs doesn’t it.
 

What Would Matt Do: Were I one Luc Bernard, I’d probably refrain from posting drunk first and foremost. Then maybe I’d grow some balls… Well, maybe that’s kind of mean, but his original post isn’t a post about how hard the game industry, it’s a post about how mean people can be. Well no shit, welcome to life, good sir.

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Will we next ask people why they rob stores?

By Matt | August 10, 2008

 

It seems a useless maneuver to me, but not to one Cliff Harris, an indie game developer.

Assuming that developers are missing out on potential sales from disgruntled pirates, Cliff wants to hear specifically from people who have pirated his games. Not to criticize or lecture them, but to answer a simple question. Why?

I’m sure I could come up with a host of reasons as to why, the easiest being because it’s free and pretty easy. I don’t know why you’d ask though. Yeah, you want to understand the other side, but nothing they say will get you any closer to them buying your game. Pirates aren’t potential customers for the most part. It’s not similar to the recording industry in that many PC games come with demos already. Sure, some of the ‘pirates’ could be in it for the see if I like it experience, but most are just in it because it’s easy and free. And a fair amount are in it because they can get things faster that way.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for knowing the mind of the enemy, but I think we already know it. *shrugs* To each their own, but this seems an effort in futility to me at best and a way to attract the wrong kind of attention at worst.

He does do one thing right though, his approach is pretty much gathering information, or he says it is, instead of just asking a question into thin air with no forethought on how it will work out.

I will read every single one, and keep an open mind. I will listen to what you have to say, and how I can use that to make games that sell more, sell more copies of what I have, convert more people to become buyers, and generally make everyone happy

I will post a summary of the emails I got, without identifying anyone.

I will give genuine thought to what I could or should change about my business, me, my games, everything, in order to address the issues raised.

 

 

What Would Matt Do: Concentrate more on knowing the customers and the pirates in the markets I make games in, work on not having my game out there before it’s for sale (Ubisoft style), make the game easy to purchase (Steam like system) and have at least some rudimentary system to slow down piracy (like no patches unless it’s a legitimately registered copy, etc). None of it is going to stop piracy, but with any luck, it will slow down enough to help your game out.

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Ubisoft makes duplicators fear them…doubly so!

By Matt | August 7, 2008

 

According to this gamespot article, Ubisoft decided to get smart and do what they could do the fight piracy at the root of the problem, the duplicators:

Ubisoft says it included a bug in the pre-release Assassin’s Creed for security reasons that would cause the game to crash partway through. The bug was supposedly removed from the retail edition, but a mix of negative reviews of the leaked and bug-equipped pirated version of the game and legitimate reviews of the retail edition created customer confusion and caused "irreparable harm" to its reputation, Ubisoft said.

Reading up some more on it on qt3, it sounds like the sequence of events went something like this:

  1. Ubisoft knew their game was going to get pirated, but instead of resorting to some draconian method of copy protection, they released an early build (as is the normal QA process) to duplicators with a watermark/bug/landmine in it (not a normal QA process).
  2. Then, the duplicator did as Ubisoft expected and didn’t follow the requested and contracted security requirements and an employee at their company put the game on the internet.
  3. You can guess what happened next. The person and the company were tracked down since they could easily track what version came from where and how.
  4. The result is that Ubisoft is suing the compay for both the leaked copy AND the reputation hit they took when pirates and the like spread the word that Assassin’s Creed was broken because of the watermark/bug/landmine they purposely put in the code.

Long story short, Ubi is suing the duplicator, er dumbasses, not only for letting their early build get out in the open and having the code reach the internet a full six weeks early, but also for extra damage done to the perception of Ubi and the game when it crashed unexpectedly (well, unexpectedly to everyone but Ubi).

My question is this, since IANAL, can Ubisoft put something in the code that damages their reputation if it released into the wild (as they expect it to be, or they wouldn’t have put it there) and then, when it’s released (obviously putting the duplicator in breach of contract), blame the duplicator doubly so?

That seems iffy to me. Maybe it’s perfectly normal in legal land, could be so. Hell, if it is that’s a doubly good move by Ubi. They not only got the duplicator on breach of contract, they got them extra because they added a land mine in that you only found if you didn’t do your job right.

 

What Would Matt Do: Were I duplicator, I’d be shitting in my pants right now. At the very least, they are going to be out for the original breach of contract, at the worst, they are going to get charged double because of it. Were I Ubisoft, I’d be patting myself on the back. As myself, I’m giving a hearty "fuck yeah!" to Ubisoft. Way to take care of business good sirs.

Posted in Drivel, Gaming, Links, PC | 3 Comments

Is this a good thing?

By Matt | August 5, 2008

 

I can’t remember the last time I saw an established developer, arguably the most successful developer in the world, point by point destroying fan whinings:

Jay Wilson, Designer of “Diablo III”: The key thing to remember here is that this has been Photoshopped. This isn’t created by the engine. Though it looks really cool, it’s almost impossible to do in a 3D engine because you can’t have lighting that smart and run on systems that are reasonable. If we could do that, we probably would in a few of the dungeons.

Now in terms of the actual texturing, this texturing, where they grayed out everything and it’s very flat and the monsters are all kind of a similar tone — that does not play well. It’s very boring to run through more than a couple of times, and it’s very difficult to tell creatures apart and pop them out of the environment. So those things don’t really work for us. A lot of the lighting stuff I think is very cool, but it’s also not very doable for us.

After that he goes into even more detail about each picture some random fans released and how bad they would be in reality.

Why? Why is Blizzard bothering to respond to photoshopped screen shots? Why are they arguing with fans, why are they bothering to stoop the level of some guy that saw the engine run and decided that just isn’t Diablo enough?

It’s silly for sure and maybe a really bad trend to start. Where do you draw the line? When people start critiquing your features on your product, you come out and defend them and say, "lrn 2 design, asshat!"?

Is this a symptom of their WoWness? Are they so used to having to defend themselves in the MMO forums that they are just following that pattern for everything? Can I start telling them how much Starcraft 2 is going to suck and get response back? Will it be, "n00b!"?

 

What Would Matt Do: I’m wondering what Blizzard would do. Well, what they will do next. Hopefully they will go back to ignoring ignoramuses that aren’t involved in actually making the product. Think of Bethesda all of a sudden started taking the NMA guys seriously… wtf.

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Sony’s one good game creator says the PSN will be awesome!

By Matt | July 31, 2008

 

Color me a bit skeptical, but haven’t we been hearing forever and a day from Sony and their ilk how awesome their stuff will be.

Speaking with IGN, the Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (PS3) lead developer said that the PlayStation 3’s trophies build off of groundwork laid by the Xbox 360’s Achievements, adding that the social aspects offered by the system could "become the norm across all gaming systems."

"I like the fact that you can pull them up and look at them in-game anywhere you are on the PS3 interface," Lemarchand continued. "I think there’s going to be other things coming down the pipe that’s going to give PSN as a whole a competitive edge."

Lemarchard declined to offer specific details on the upcoming additions, but stated that he was excited by the internet connectivity and user-oriented content systems offered in Sony’s forthcoming lineup.

So basically, trophies are achievements and the details of the features are too much to share because they will blow your mind. Pretty much exactly what Sony has been saying forever now. Color me not excited by the hype.

Also, when they do release features, it’s not exactly what they claim.

These kind of things make me think of that PA comic. Sony keeps promising, keeps telling us how awesome it will be. But months and months later, they still haven’t managed it.

Sony, please do me a huge favor. Give me a good reason to buy your system. Uncharted sounds fun, for instance, but is it a system seller? I’m not feeling it. Or, shutup and just get the shit done. Quite hyping things years in advance. It makes me believe less and less.

 

What Would Matt Do: Someone at Sony call me up, I’ll set you straight on how to market to us, the internet savvy users who don’t believe your bullshit. It will probably involve something along the lines of putting up or shutting up. Or maybe even getting some really good games on the system so I don’t feel like I’m just buying a Blu Ray player, something I don’t really need.

Posted in Bullshit, Consoles, Drivel, Gaming, Links, PS3 | Leave a comment