RollinThundr wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 16:30:

Beamer wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 14:41:

ASeven wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 09:48:

Beamer wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 09:17:
Captain negative. Companies never let people go unless something is wrong!

For one, Jason wasn't the head of steam, he was the head of business development. Yes, this put Steam deals on his plate. It also put engine licensing on his plate.
If you're looking for an issue, Steam isn't signing companies up very quickly these days. They're somewhat saturated, and larger companies are trending towards leaving and opening their own store.
Then there was the WarZ failure.
And how successful has engine licensing been?

There are reasons you can find other than "OMG VALVE IS FALLING APART!"

Captain apologist. Go back to basic school and learn how to read!

I said something is very wrong, I didn't say Valve is falling apart. Go back to basic school and learn to read a message before you reply to it.

And yes, there's a lot of reasons for Jason to be fired, still news of firing at Valve are relatively unheard of. There may be something wrong at Valve, there may be not, however Valve is far from falling apart.

Yes, I'm mocking you. You've been trumpeting the industry collapse for like 3 years.
So I'm mocking "very wrong." It's very early to say this is a sign of things being "very wrong." We know Valve is valued at over a billion dollars. If they actually accepted a buyout, especially at less than that, things would be "very wrong."

Go back to school and understand being made fun of. Well, my guess is that happened to you plenty at school, so you probably do understand.

But my point was that it's so ridiculously premature to sit here and say "clearly something is very wrong." It isn't clear at all. In fact, there's plenty of discussion in this very thread about how it may not imply things being even kind of wrong, let alone very wrong.


Tell me, though, what the hell am I apologizing for that you call me an apologist? Especially weird that you call me a corporate apologist and backing you is RollinThundr, who calls me a bleeding heart liberal. Those two are diametrically opposite, so you two should get some kind of conference and decide which I am.

You're a game publisher apologist, doesn't mean you still can't be a bleeding heart lib.

Mr. Tact wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 15:11:
Let me guess, because you would have to be brain dead to pay a subscription to use Office 2013 when the best Office ever made was '97? Still use it at work and at home.

D_K_night wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 14:52:

avianflu wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 13:06:
Multiple firings like that dont happen unless there was some area of notable and chronic dysfunction.

We'll never know the whole story.

And plus Valve ain't exactly some company with many thousands of staff.

Didn't they say they were small, and intended to always remain small?

25 people out of a few hundred is not some trivial number.

ASeven wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 09:48:

Beamer wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 09:17:
Captain negative. Companies never let people go unless something is wrong!

For one, Jason wasn't the head of steam, he was the head of business development. Yes, this put Steam deals on his plate. It also put engine licensing on his plate.
If you're looking for an issue, Steam isn't signing companies up very quickly these days. They're somewhat saturated, and larger companies are trending towards leaving and opening their own store.
Then there was the WarZ failure.
And how successful has engine licensing been?

There are reasons you can find other than "OMG VALVE IS FALLING APART!"

Captain apologist. Go back to basic school and learn how to read!

I said something is very wrong, I didn't say Valve is falling apart. Go back to basic school and learn to read a message before you reply to it.

And yes, there's a lot of reasons for Jason to be fired, still news of firing at Valve are relatively unheard of. There may be something wrong at Valve, there may be not, however Valve is far from falling apart.

Dev wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 13:19:

Beamer wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 07:29:
But man oh man, I cannot wait for Kickstarter games to start coming out. I can't wait for people to realize that the aspirational graphics they saw are not nearly what they got. Can't wait for them to see that the features they were promised weren't there, or the stretch goals are there but totally unrealized.
Because this is going to happen. Not for the big ones, FTL was pretty much done, Wasteland looks awesome, but for some of the smaller ones? The early ones we backed because it seemed awesome and we were less critical then than we are now? We're going to get burned so much worse than anyone did here. I also think people are fairly aware of this now and much smarter about what they Kickstart.

Some small ones have already come out and I don't see that kinda tidal wave of kickstarter criticism. Such as Guns of Icarus online (which is now avail on steam).
The problems seem more to be that some of the smaller ones ran out of money and may not be released in a timely manner (or at all?). Such as one I backed announced a year delay.

Even if that kinda does happen, why would you be gleeful and anticipatory about it? Is having your personal beliefs validated worth destroying an entire system of alternative game funding to you?

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 10:17:
If anyone hasn't seen this comparison video then you really need to. The original preview footage is why I was initially looking forward to the game; the actual gameplay footage is a disgrace. Bait and switch.

Verno wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 09:37:
So..gambling basically? Weird.

eRe4s3r wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 09:03:
They had the money to waste 6 years on this though. And DX10 features would at least have made it a really pretty .. bad shooter.. on pc at least ;p

Still I think you are right, except I don't think Gearbox was money starved, they just didn't give a damn about the PC version, like always.

ASeven wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 08:18:

Dev wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 04:27:

ASeven wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 04:05:
Well, guess Valve's work environment is no longer as good as it was painted. You don't fire these many people without a damn good reason, like finacial overstreching.

Makes you wonder doesn't it? Especially since Gabe is "obsessed" with employee health, and generally to get hired at valve someone has to be somewhat of a generalist, so people can move their desks somewhat freely.

If they are having money problems they have to be spending it like NUTS though. They are bringing in such a huge amount, and no real visible things they are spending tons on. They certainly don't spend it on the steam GUI. They aren't pumping out tons of money losing games. In one interview they talked about spending a million on a hardware lab, but that's not all that much compared to the billions they bring in. I find it hard to believe that they are running out, but like I said this makes me wonder.

Apparently the head of Steam was also let go. Also, if no projects were canceled as Gabe says then why fire people? It doesn't add up and firing the guy that made Steam a powerhouse indicates something is very wrong withing Valve.

Dev wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 04:29:
Maybe, but he decided not to fund psychonauts 2 after learning it would be more than a couple million.

Creston wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 01:15:

Beamer wrote on Feb 13, 2013, 23:26:
It's not a Windows machine. It's not even x86. It's running a custom IBM PowerPC chip based off of some of the innovations IBM put into the Cell.

Yeah, I thought it was a normal 3 core chip they'd put in, but I guess not. So much for (likely) backwards compatibility...

Speaking of PS2 emulators, can someone recommend a good one? Been thinking about playing some of my old FF games, and my PS2 bought the bucket a year or so ago. Do those emulators allow any form of saving at all?

Creston

eRe4s3r wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 01:15:
Indeed, they would never make animations that they don't need but they definitely make some that they don't use...

Though there is no excuse for removing actual graphic features again. If they are in the tech demo, the shaders were done, the maps made so that these features work right.

Removing them is completely absurd, especially if you could make them extra features for PC...

netnerd85 wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 00:00:

Beamer wrote on Feb 13, 2013, 23:19:

netnerd85 wrote on Feb 13, 2013, 21:24:

Beamer wrote on Feb 13, 2013, 19:50:

netnerd85 wrote on Feb 13, 2013, 19:09:

Beamer wrote on Feb 13, 2013, 17:59:
Demo footage often looks better. The guys in that video are wrong to say otherwise. Part of optimizing a game is often cutting back on level of detail.

But this is insane.

What a complete load of shit.

Really?
Most games look better at E3 than they do when released. It depends on how close to release, but games demoed at E3 are often shown when not much is put in. It's easier to have higher polygon counts or higher textures when you haven't fully put the physics or scripting in. Or when you haven't optimized for a wider range of systems.

No one ever wants to reduce texture size or poly count. That's done throughout the process. You make a game, you figure out that you can't get it to run at the right frame rate, you reduce polygons.

Call it bullshit, but it's standard.


However, it being done to the degree shown here is insane. And, I don't know, but I assume that footage is all pretty recent. Not 2 E3s out but more like 6 months out, to the point that you have trouble figuring out how they rebuilt those levels in time...

So you think they make everything high detail and then butcher it for performance increases? lol, oh dear. Mate. No.

Show me some of the magical E3 games that are better. They (the E3 videos) may look better nowadays due to FALSE marketing but that's not how games are made.

This is why HD texture packs come out after the game is released.

You need to aim for a level of detail and keep performance in mind while developing, most of the time it's the Xbox 360. They aren't going to go beyond that by much. Why spend ALL the hours developing something high quality if it's 1) not support by the tech and 2) not going to be shipped.

What?
No, that IS how games are made.

Seriously?
This is how games are made:
1) A very low poly version is made. We're talking rectangular cubes on top of each other. This is placeholder just to get a feel for where things go
2) This is used to make an extremely poly model
3) That model is pared down to a low-mid poly model

Step 2 is hard and time consuming. Step 3 is less so, because you're basing it on Step 2. But it's typically easier to go from a model that's too high a poly count than to increase the poly count of a lower poly model. And, since you want your game to look as good as possible, when you're running through the pre-alpha and alpha stages you often are using higher poly models than you end up with. No optimization has been done, so it's what you're hoping you use. If you can't get the frame rate where you want it, you reduce. Occasionally you have overhead, and you increase, but most companies prefer to reduce, not increase, because most artists find it less time consuming to reduce polygons from models than increase.

Go to any 3d modelers desk and you'll likely see models for in-game assets that are exponentially higher in quality. Helps for bump/normal mapping, too.

Poly count in 3d models doesn't really matter these days (for detail or look of detail, obviously we aren't talking quake style models). Animations/textures/lighting is what it's all about. See the Alien videos. The models are pretty much the same.

Again, why make hi-res textures and animations just to remove them later? They don't.

ViRGE wrote on Feb 13, 2013, 23:22:

mag wrote on Feb 13, 2013, 21:55:

xXBatmanXx wrote on Feb 13, 2013, 21:39:
? If nothing is impacted, then why fire 25 people? Might as well have said nothing. My ASSUMPTION is that the mobile and hardware sections aren't doing as projected and they cut a lot of fat from those projects.....

Maybe 25 people are fired exactly because nothing is impacted. They were unnecessary. Superfluous. Excess.

If things are good, then your business is growing and you need more people. Which means if any individual position is necessary, you will typically cross-train them for where you do need them. Booming businesses don't have superfluous people.

Cutter wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 06:22:
Legal repercussions? Bait and switch? Class action suit to come?!