#industry developments

[devsgames]

Just this week in games:

- EA laid off 700 workers

- Sony laid of 900 workers

- Rockstar announces in-person work mandates for all employees (a 'soft layoff' that will force some staff to quit, which likely means that actual layoffs are forthcoming)

In 2023 6,000 games workers were laid off. Now in 2024 over 10,000 workers have been laid off, and there's still 10 months to go.

Not to be hyperbolic, but I think this is perhaps the worst year for video games ever if we're measuring by number of layoffs.

#gamedev #game development #game dev #gamedevelopment #game industry #games industry #sony #playstation #rockstar #rockstar games #ea #ea games

[harshitasoni]

Forecast for the US Sensors and Actuators Market up to 2028

#Market Trends #Market Size #Market Share #Market Growth #Industry Developments #Companies Revenue #Market Outlook #Industry Size #Market Analysis #Market Forecast #Future Projections #Market Insight #Competition Analysis #Sales Growth #Market Segmentation #Market CAGR #Sector Growth #Future Analysis #Industry Outlook #Import Export Scenario Company Profiles #Customer preference #Competitive Landscape

[koboldfactory]

It’s tragic to me that the video games industry could be unfathomably successful and provide so many jobs if CEOs took a pay cut and executives stopped pushing for multimillion dollar budgeted hyper realistic 400 gameplay-hour 10 year dev cycle games. No devs ever need to be fired for a higher ups mistakes. Devs need to start unionizing or do something else to execs that if I said would probably get me banned.

It’s very clear that the AAA industry is in a death spiral, and as much as I would love to say “this means devs can find success in the indie space!” That just isn’t gonna happen on a large scale because indie companies cannot afford to give jobs to the mass swathes of AAA devs being laid off. And those AAA devs in general do not make enough money to just go found their own studio and take a risk developing a game with no income for years.

#koboldthoughts #game dev #video game industry #game development

[theabigailthorn]

I just read a pilot for a TV show that two incredible people are trying to get made and HOO HOO! OH HOH! I can't tell you who either of them are or what the show is about but DAMN! I hope this gets made! I hope I get to be in it! HAHA, EXCITING! SICK, EVEN!

#one of the cool things about being in the acting industry is getting to see all the cool stuff that people *want* to make #before it gets all its edges sanded off in development to make it more commercially appealing #I get to read some raw uncut scripts #And be like OOOOOO oh my gosh imagine if this actually got MADE #before all the cis gatekeepers say “Hm but does the trans villain need to be quite so aggressively trans? Is this alienating people?” #YES IT IS AND IT RULES

[xannador]

[TURN SOUND ON]

In Chai’s own words; What a fight!

I mean, if your game doesn’t let me fight a giant mecha werewolf with a guitar inside Scrooge McDuck’s vault, then honestly what’s even the point?

#Sometimes I remember I'm supposed to be a game developer and can make stuff that's industry standard #then I laugh and go right back to shitposting #hi fi rush #hi-fi rush robot #hi-fi rush fanart #hi fi rush fanart #hi fi rush roquefort #hi fi rush chai #hi-fi rush chai #hi-fi rush comic #hi fi rush 808 #hi fi rush cat #speedpaint #animated speedpaint #animation #spine animation #2Dspine #werewolf #mecha #DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG THIS TOOK TO MAKE

[foolishmortal]

tfw you fix a weird engineering bug

#programming #software engineering #meme #doesn't matter how long you've worked in the industry this shit is evergreen #r&d #product development #benoit blanc #knives out

[yusuke-of-valla]

Oh my fucking god, in most cases a demo counts as a download too what the fuck

#industry bullshit #Unity #unity game engine #unity game development #game devs

[dr-alex-mr-panda]

That smile (2022)

#landscape #black and white #industrial #film photography #analog #photographers on tumblr #original photographers #120 film #pentax 67 #ilford hp5 #la vallée industrielle de la meuse #home developed film

[videogamepoc]

by Michael McWhertor and Nicole Carpenter Workers at Sega of America voted Tuesday to ratify their first collectively-bargained contract with the U.S. arm of the video game company, granting new protections and raises for about 150 full-time and temporary employees. Workers in the union, known as Allied Employees Guild Improving Sega (AEGIS), won important concessions from Sega of America as part of the contract, including base-building raises for all employees, layoff protections, and a commitment to crediting people on games they’ve worked on, including early QA testers. It also affords employees in the union other protections, including letting workers pursue creative work in addition to their work at Sega and a guaranteed continuation of hybrid work. Workers will also receive just cause protections, joining Tender Claws workers in being the only ones in the North American video game industry to have them, organizers said. In the state of California, where Sega of America’s offices are located, workers are employed at will — meaning employers can terminate employees for almost any reason, provided that reason is not unlawful. These protections mean employers must follow a series of strict guidelines before getting rid of a worker, whether through firing or other means. Organizers for the union say contact negotiations between AEGIS-CWA and Sega of America spanned six months. [...] Workers at the games studio and publisher announced their intent to unionize in April 2023. The union partnered with the Communications Workers of America and voted to officially form a union the following July. AEGIS-CWA now represents employees across multiple departments at Sega of America’s headquarters in Burbank and its Irvine campus. Union employees work in a variety of roles, including brand marketing, localization, marketing services, product development, sales, and quality assurance.

#video game industry #labor rights #sega #labor unions #video game development

[awkward-teabag]

Love (cannot emphasis how much sarcasm there is in that word) that an official Canadian government response to high cellphone rates is to switch carriers.

Switch it to what? We basically have three companies since one was allowed to eat the forth (with the government saying it wasn't anti-competition and the company eating the other pinky promising they wouldn't jack rates up). Even the smaller companies have to rent infrastructure from the Big Three so there's only so much they can do if that rent costs an arm and a leg.

And that's not touching on how many "small companies" are actually just subsidiaries of the Big Three. You may save $5 but you're still with Telus/Rogers/Bell.

Or that the actual small companies tend to have shit coverage because they don't have the infrastructure available to them and are prevented from getting it. Or their traffic is throttled in favour of the Big Three's customers. Or both.

Or that they're extremely regional thus aren't an option for a huge chunk of Canada's population.

We have no true options and the government has shown time and again that they're fine with monopolies, in multiple industries, and don't care when said monopolies jack up prices to make shareholders and the c-suite more money at the expense of everyone else. At most there will be a verbal slap on the wrist and a giftcard for $25 that people have to register for, for a decade and a half of price gouging.

It's not talked a whole lot about outside the country from what I've seen and heard but Canada is a country of monopolies. A handful of companies own nearly everything, every province has a family or two that owns a hell of a lot (Nova Scotia is basically owned by one family at this point), and our government ignores it. Even the branch that is supposed to be against monopolies is fine with mergers and takeovers in most cases.

Because, you know, the company said it totally wouldn't use consumers' lack of options to increase prices.

#canada #so much of our infrastructure and critical construction such as housing #has been pawned off for decades to private companies #and i forgot to mention one (1) family owns the bridge that is a major international corridor between canada and the us #which is apparently fine even though they fought tooth and nail to stop a bridge they don't own from being built #like our housing crisis can be traced back to the government deciding to stop building public housing in the 90s #because they figured private developers would pick up the slack #affordable apartments don't bring in much money so we got decades of cheap-ass 'luxury condos' instead #and once airbnb became a thing we got entire buildings with units <300sqft #and of course when the party in charge rotates between conservatives and neolibs nothing changes and that can gets kicked down the road #and keeps getting kicked until something collapses and they see the chance to fully privatize an industry #something similar is happening to our healthcare system too #it has been left to languish for years/decades with funding freezes and cuts #and private companies are quick to jump in and get the government stamp of approval to do [thing] that the public system clearly can't do #when [thing] would absolutely be possible if it was actually funded and/or staffed #so many communities were cut off when greyhound closed up shop because there's no government inter-city transportation #we lost internet/banking/cell service/etc nation-wide because one of the big three decided to push an update to live without redundancies #and it bugged and took the entire company's network down #even the government agency that demands major companies have a backup on a different network was taken down because they ignored that #and they got a deal if they kept their backup with rogers while their main network was also rogers #so they couldn't even make an emergency statement or anything about it #half my province also lost all digital infrastructure because it's a private company and making a redundancy line would mean smaller bonuse #it's just so bad #joke all you want about how canada is nice and friendly #but you are wrong and it's hell if you actually live here #the only reason canada is seen as nice is because it's hard to not seem like the better option when the us is your neighbour #and because of decades of pr work to make canada seem friendly and nice and not at all problematic #in some countries you actually have to try to hide you're canadian because of how much we colonize and the damage we do to other countries #yes these tags have derailed from the post but ugh #i take major issue with people who insist canada is nice and has never done anything wrong

[retrocgads]

USA 1997

#USA1997 #SEGA #SEGASOFT #SYROX DEVELOPMENTS LTD. #ACTION #IBM #SEGA SATURN #SCUD INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION #SCUD THE DISPOSABLE ASSASSIN

[devsgames]

I'm sorry but for people who cheer on mass game industry layoffs because they think it's some kind of upheaval that is going to "topple the AAA industry" or "teach them a lesson": I hate to break it to you but AAA studios have a metric shitload of money and despite what their press releases say, they really aren't hurting as much as they'd have you think right now. Thousands of jobs lost is a temporary setback to them; if it was actually a last resort move they wouldn't have all simultaneously put themselves in a position where they had to do it in the first place. These studios have been around for decades and will continue to be around, and they will continue to operate just as they have for the last thirty years because they have huge vaults and no morals. They aren't learning a lesson from this because most of them saw it coming but would never admit that.

Know who is being permanently impacted by games layoffs?

It's the indie studio making sick ass games you'll never get to play because they laid everyone off when a publisher tried to save money by pulling all their funding. The hundreds of workers who woke up one morning and found out they suddenly have no job to put food on the table for their children. The international workers who were let go from the job that supplies their visa that helps them stay in the country. The thousands of students who now have to compete over a pool of a dozen job openings, who will work in studios where all the senior staff and leadership who would normally be there to help mentor them into their roles were fired. The disabled workers who now no longer have health or insurance coverage for their survival. The workers who didn't get laid off but survived to see all their friends and coworkers lose their livelihoods for completely arbitrary reasons and whose morale has all but been completely obliterated. The workers in the Global South working for outsourcing companies who were relying on cancelled projects from AAA studios to put food on their tables.

So whenever you're inclined to assume that the suffering of workers is somehow teaching rich people a lesson, remember that no, it doesn't actually and almost never will. All it does is teach thousands of talented workers in the video game industry that games were never - and will never - be worth it.

#anyway organize your workplace #some of y'all simply do not understand how these things work and it shows #gamedev #game development #game dev #gamedevelopment #game industry #games industry #layoffs #video games #blog #thoughts

[fjordfolk]

people really be out there like “I wonder what this breed called a Shetland sheepdog was used for historically? alas it’s impossible to tell, we may never know” 🤦‍♀️

There is, believe it or not, some actual controversy regarding the breed origins and most of it (imo) stems from many people's mental image of a working sheepdog is a border collie, and not quite grasping that border collies are freaks and the way that we now work border collies didn't exist prior to the development of the border collie, and in some parts the way we keep SHEEP didn't exist prior to the border collie. There's also been some debate around old letters written by non-shetlanders after visiting the isles or talking to locals and having mmm interesting ideas of how people handled sheep over there. This leads to statements like:

Sheltie legs are too short to outrun sheep

They're also too small to grab the sheep and hold it (don't get me started)

A sheltie could never take sheep through a- (name specific type of herding trial)

Maybe they were actually placed with flocks on peripheral islands to keep watch for birds??

Shelties never existed and were made up in the late 1800s just for shetlanders to make money off of selling cute puppies to gullible tourists

There was an original sheepdog on Shetland but it was a much bigger dog (see reasons above) and the current sheltie was made up in the late 1800s, by breeding cavaliers to pomeranians and maybe a collie, just for shetlanders to sell puppies to tourists

...and so, clearly, they can't have been sheepdogs and we have No Clue what they were actually for (except scamming foreigners)

Meanwhile we know that traditional shepherding on Shetland relied on roaming sheep, keeping them off the property rather than on it (because that's where your crops are) and you'd only be rounding up your sheep a couple of times a year, and that island-bred shelties were smaller and spitzier type than even the current UK type.

#life is full of mysteries #and like. i know i have a particular interest in this because I'm interested in the historical development of Norwegian agriculture #and how that has been shaped by industry and politics because that is very much an ongoing issue #and that we have a similar climate and heritage breeds with similar traits and origins #and i grew up in this. and how we live and how we have lived and the animals involved in that is yknow. part of our cultural identity #and it MATTERS. #and so i have pegs to hang it on #and it baffles me #how short our memory is and how little imagination we have for how things have been done in the past

[once-delight]

i just made the discovery that in Baldurs Gate 3, if you cast any flame related spell/item unto candles/chandeliers/torches, etc. they will light up. If you hit them with a water spell, they will be put out.

It sounds so obvious, but as a game designer, I can tell you, this is the stuff we put on the "nice to have" side of the whiteboard and never gets to implement because there's a thousand things more important just for basic functionality. It's not because game devs don't think about stuff like this, we really really want the opportunity, but don't get to because of time limits.

The fact that they have been so thorough is really a testament to the value of long dev times, zero crunch and extensive beta testing, and it must be so satisfying to the game devs that they got to implement this.

Look at the game designers. They're thriving

#Baldurs gate 3 #Bg3 #Baldurs gate #Game design #game development #Gamedev #game industry #Developer's foresight #Game dev gasm

[cerastes]

LOVE the PS5, with such compelling originals such as Demon’s Souls, Resident Evil 4, and Silent Hill 2!

#80% of the game industry is fucking dead to me #it's all remakes and sequels #indie devs and like 2 major developers are the only ones I trust

[dougielombax]

Halo fans: Why don’t 343 Industries do THIS!

343 Industries: Okay then. *does EXACTLY what the fans want for the content update*

Halo fans: Disgraceful! 343 industries has gone TOO far! Halo is dead! (What, again?) Unbravo Vince! Unvrabo Bince! Hire fans! Fire Hans! DISGRACEFUL! The series has been RUINED!

Like I said.

Unpleasable.

#dougie rambles #personal stuff #gaming #vent post #fandom #halo #microsoft #343 industries #bravo Vince #vrabo bince #ungrateful #unpleasable #fuck’s sake #fucking hell #shitpost #sort of #game development #updates #development hell