this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2025
136 points (100.0% liked)

Games

42172 readers
1438 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Rules

1. Submissions have to be related to games

Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.

This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.

2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.

We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.

3. No excessive self-promotion

Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.

This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.

4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you're submitting before posting to see if it's already been posted.

We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.

5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.

No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.

6. No linking to piracy

Don't share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.

We don't want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.

Authorized Regular Threads

Related communities

PM a mod to add your own

Video games

Generic

Help and suggestions

By platform

By type

By games

Language specific

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Xbox is canceling Contraband, announced in 2021 from Avalanche Studios (Just Cause), after four years of radio silence, sources tell Bloomberg News. This news arrives weeks after a mass layoff in which Xbox canceled several other big titles. - Jason Schreier

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world -3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It shouldn't take 6 years to demo a basic gameplay loop. If you don't have a demonstrable gameplay loop after 6 years, yes, that's a management problem, but it's also a dev problem.

All we got to saw of Everwild was pretty, but it was never clear what the game actually was and the developer wasn't clear either.

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

It doesn't take "6 years to demo a basic gameplay loop". They are pushing vertical slices, proofs of concepts, etc internally near constantly. The issue is when you get told "no, not like that. We want it to be more... you know?" and so much of that work gets scrapped. ESPECIALLY as time moves on and those vertical slices are also being done alongside levels, weapons, cutscenes, etc all while never knowing what the gameplay even will be.

Is there an issue at multiple levels of management? Yeah. But when you have a single "boss" you tend to actually have something. It might not be great but you have a vision you can work towards and release. Rather than five new visions every time you get a new contact at HQ.

But hey, keep on leaping to defend the mega corporations.


Another "great" example is the bad CGI in most modern Marvel-Disney movies. And that is because the VFX studios don't even get the actual full scene until VERY late in the cycle. And they might not even get the final costumes until literally days before it is due (because "leaks"). When you are completely redoing the entire scene because now Cap shoulder tackles the helicopter instead of dodges around it AND don't even know what colors he is wearing it is REALLY hard to get the lighting and dust to look right. And your team is completely over-stretched because you are not just doing one scene: You are doing five. Even though you agreed to four.

And you can bet countless clowns are out there talking about how the VFX studios suck and blah blah blah/

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm not defending anyone, I'm attacking shitty game development.

When the first teaser came out, people went "Well, that's pretty, but what's the game?"

https://youtu.be/jWpcUH-tKEU

Then, reportedly, the whole thing was rebooted in 2021 and we still weren't able to see what the game mechanic was.

https://youtu.be/DKDt057dhR0

I get it, it LOOKED great, but as a potential player I need to know what the actual fuck I'm doing. What's the goal? What am I supposed to do? What are the tools I have to do that?

Everwild Devs: 🤷‍♂️

If the suits were screwing around and changing things, we STILL should have seen what the actual game was before and after the changes. We never did. Never will.

That's not a corporate problem, it's a development problem.

Compare that to a teaser for a game that actually released:

https://youtu.be/OxzWlIbnp3U

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

You DO realize that you aren't their bosses, right? That was Microsoft. Microsoft almost assuredly saw a LOT of internal content. It just didn't get packaged up into sizzle reels to be shown at the keighleys for 50k for a few seconds in between kojima appearances.

At the end of the day, game development is a business. You only see what is deemed worth publishing. Take Night Dive for example. They have a ridiculously solid portfolio and, outside of System Shock (which was kickstarted?), don't talk about ANYTHING until it is ready to release. Does that mean they are in a constant state of doing nothing and deserving to get fired up until that brief window where we all see Hexen and Heretic being pulled from store shelves a few hours before a (funny enough) Microsoft press conference?

... Actually I could very much see Microsoft take that route if they owned Night Dive. "They haven't uploaded anything to youtube. Let's fire their asses. Oh, shit. Danny O'Dwyer just skeeted that he is driving up to Washington again. Okay, give them a week and we'll probably get a few million bucks out of them"

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

No, I have just been working in software development for 13 years.

If I spent six years on a project and could not demonstrate core functionality after all that time, I'd be fired too.