The state of the industry does not look good, especially in the AAA world.
Gearbox started firing people as soon as it was bought by Embracer
Nintendo restructures it's testing department
Skull and Bones is slashed by $25 after three weeks on sail
Relic entertainment sold by SEGA
_B: EA Losses
EA drops star wars games and fires 650
EA is looking away from licensed games
_B: Saber Sold
Embracer sells Saber interactive along with other companies. This includes Metro series and new Warhammer 40k Space marine game
Space Marine is still being made
It's being delayed though
They don't seem to care either.
Valve created an orb for video making using steam decks they had lying around. Half Life 3 is still not released.
Activision QA has a large union now
_B: Warner Bros keeps on losing path
Warner Bros Gaming would rather commit suicide squad than make another successful Harry Potter game.
They really want that Fortnite style money
This has made them lean into the DEI money like Sweet Baby Inc
How Sweet Baby Inc ruined a game called Flintlock
Interview with women who work at Mojang. Buzzfeed article says diversity will help us all.
It also means companies leaning into milking the existing player base Instead of trying to grow it.
A lawsuit is coming for game makers that accuses them of making addictive practices to make more money. The response has been, “you can't sue us for making good games”.
Why I stopped being a framerate snob… advert for Steam deck
A business model designed to milk small amounts of players, rather than selling well overall. Comparison to the Cable channel model.
This has meant the Game Developer Conference has some awkwardness.
_GDC: AAA and Creativity
It costs too much to be creative in the AAA field.
Maybe AAA deserves to die. Corporations are greedy! Become an indie!
_GDC: Scream
A group go together to start
Screaming in a park
Meanwhile Monopoly Go has a huge publicity budget.
Monopoly Go had a nearly half a billion promotional budget.
And Toys for Bob is finally making their own game
Toys for Bob is making their own game. They usually make them by assignment, and have been very successful at it. The NFC toy games were started by them, and they created Tony Hawk Downhill Jam.
Also, Capcom has raised the pay of their employees.
Capcom raises salaries in tough times
So there is a silver lining.
I need to learn Python. It's used in AI a lot, and seems like fun.
It's shocking how much is available for making games for old consoles. Id Software still let's people use Doom and Quake code openly to make their own stuff. I just posted the classic indie scene list, and there are people porting full movies to the Atari 2600.
I will add your link to my list. There's actually an assembly online emulator I've used to make a few games. It even let you 'port' them to an Atari emulator.
The old hardware with tile-based graphics just fun to program for and fairly simple still. Even something as advanced as assembly you'd be shocked how it's not all that complicated to get some graphics in and move them around, because that's all built into the hardware.
I really need to try the Doom or Quake code out. I've had my hands in about everything except native 3D consoles and that, and Doom was far and away my favorite game as a kid. I'd made entire games worth of replacement maps that have sadly all been lost to time.
Look up Julian Sanglard. I misspelled his name I'm sure. He writes books based on the code for games like Wolfenstein, Doom, and the CPS2. The Black book of Doom is an awesome read.
I found it, Fabien Sanglard. Definitely something I'm going to look in to.