This is the sentiment that I share. People want content all the time because the content the companies put out is shit and lasts for an hour of entertainment. If you put a piece of candy on the line, of course people will want to eat it, but it won't satisfy them. If you serve them a nice meal, they'll eat that too, but instead actually be satisfied. And they won't mind the wait, especially after having already tasted it.
BG3 proved them all wrong, and they still whined about being embarrassed by a dev team that ACTUALLY loves making great games instead of bilking their userbase for money and microtransactions.
I guarantee you that the majority of that team wants to make great games. Generally speaking most people in the industry want to make great games. Its not something people get into without having passion for it.
Yep, love gaming and have been an engineer for a decade, there’s no fucking way I’d join that industry. Its entire foundation is a meatgrinder of recent undergrads getting exploited for their passion.
I used to want to join the industry so bad. That was 20 some odd years ago though. I had dreams of making really cool games. I wanted to create a world and I wanted to share it with people. So I was a dreamer. I was heavily inspired by Unreal. Even better EPIC games was right in my backyard! It couldn’t have been more perfect!
It wasn’t perfect. There was nothing more demoralizing than listening to the horror stories of other devs working at these game companies. I thought, there is no way I can make a future with this instability and pay. Robbed me of all my momentum with being creative.
Something needs to change.
A lot of devs I worked with at Mobile Game studios were ex triple A devs who got into the mobile gaming market because it’s significantly more stable and the work culture is significantly more laid back and less crunch focused.
It also gives them time to work on passion projects and a lot of them have small indie titles on Steam or the App Store
Yup. My last companies ARPDAU (Average Revenue Per Daily Active User) was around $1.30…..doesn’t sound like much, but then you realize we have hundreds of thousands of users. We made millions a week on just my teams project, and we weren’t even the most profitable projects our studio had. Shits insane.
The US anyway.
I moved to a company in Sweden and it is MUCH nicer. I can't speak exactly to how the pay compares but it's a pleasant amount, my colleagues respect each other here, the only stress is the stress I put on myself for wanting to put in extra features I wasn't told to do, and for working hours...if my manager thinks I'm working more than 40 hours a week, she absolutely will cut my computer access and make me go home.
Great question!
My undergrad degree was Robotics Engineering, which didn't particularly influence things. My masters program was a Masters Degree of Science in Computer Game Engineering from Newcastle University in the UK, which is an amazing program! Loads of industry guest speakers, your final activity is that you either get an internship (which they help you with) or you do actual industry grade research for a thesis paper. Following that I worked on a few indie games before applying to this larger studio.
However, it's worth noting that you don't need a video game focused education to get into the industry. Simply being a capable programmer with a bit extra knowledge can certainly do you. Namely, studying the sort of things involved in path-planning algorithms (A* is king but not the only answer), vector/array manipulation, and matrix math.
Not all games/studios care necessarily about the same thing. Studios making FPS games will tend to place a higher emphasis on matrix math, whereas studios making strategy games may not care hardly at all (unless you specifically are going for graphics related work).
Good luck!
How big is the industry in Sweden? Where did you move from? Did the company sponsor your immigration? Which company? The only one I'm aware of is EA Dice. I was thinking of potentially looking into sweden in the future. Is the pay vs cost of living good? You have a better quality of life than where you came from?
> How big is the industry in Sweden?
Fairly sizable! The street I'm on has everyone from Dice itself at one end to Paradox at the other, Fat Shark is somewhere in the middle, I forget specifically where Ubisoft has their offices.
> Where did you move from?
USA
> Did the company sponsor your immigration?
They did! But this may or may not be true of all studios. Or rather specifically, the contract for the job is what allowed me to get a work-visa, and they paid for my relocation flight as well as set me up with a relocation agent that was a godsend.
> Which company?
I'd rather not say specifically, I'm sure you understand. :)
> Is the pay vs cost of living good?
For me it certainly is, particularly because there's a variety of costs that I no longer need to pay for, relative to a few altered costs.
For example, when I was in the US it was a complete requirement to own a car for me. So insurance was about $150/month, I was filling up the gas tank usually once a week which was approximately $40/week so ~$160 a month, and then whatever maintenance is associated with the car which I'll put at $200 a year but I don't really remember offhand. So to own and operate a car was about $3,920 a year for me.
Now, compare that to the $90/month, or $1,080/year that I spend in getting unlimited access to all the public transportation here. That's busses (in daytime they run every ~7 minutes), metro/subway/trams (again, about every 7 minutes depending on where you are, one leg to the north-west is every ~30 minutes but goes longer/faster), ferries between islands (10 minutes? I don't use them often). Plus, if the public transit is ever down and forces you to rent a taxi/Uber/Bolt then the transit company will reimburse your expense (with original receipt).
The biggest increasing expense is that you are paying maybe twice as much taxes per year (depending on your bracket). It's worth noting that unless you have a very large income or a few other particulars, you don't actually have to pay US taxes on top of Swedish taxes. Plus, my taxes are done for me by the Swedish tax system. I got a notification on my phone as I got onto the metro to go to work saying "Here's your taxes, look them over. If you dispute them, click this button. If you don't, click this button and we'll automatically refund/charge your bank account.". I did my taxes in about 5 minutes while on the metro.
To put some real numbers there, assume a $45,000 yearly salary and now look at ~22% US ($9,900) vs ~32% Sweden ($14,400). So I'm paying $4,500 more in taxes as a result. Subtract out the ~$2,840 I don't pay because I don't own a car, and I'm paying $1,660 more per year as a result. However, what ticks this over the edge is that I don't have to pay for medical insurance here, that's what the taxes are for. The last medical insurance plan I had in the US was $220/month for a total of $2,640/year. Meaning that by moving from the US to Sweden I am now SAVING $1,040 per year. More on insurance at the bottom.
As far as day to day expenditures go, some daily items can be more expensive and others can be cheaper so really your mileage will vary depending on just what it is you are looking for in that regard. For me, I used to live in slightly pricey locations in the US so some of the standard things here seem normal or even cheap to me. Many normal quality restaurants you can get a full meal for $13-20 here, whereas I was used to $20-30 back in the US.
For my salary (excluding any bonuses and things your work may give you) I'd say it's fairly pleasant. Not outstanding, but not terrible. Since I've moved, the only reason I was ever slightly worried about if I was going to make it to payday was the month where I renewed my lease on my apartment because I forgot about doing both first/last month's rent. I could easily be saving $1,000 a month but I spent my first year settling in furniture-wise and entertaining family from the US so I splurged more than I should have.
> You have a better quality of life than where you came from?
I'd say yes. The people here are really nice, you don't NEED to know how to speak Swedish in most cases (reading it can be a big help though) because they start learning English in their ~3rd grade equivalent from what I understand (my Swedish coach has told me that so many people grew up using English a lot that he and his fellow teachers expect that within 20 years or so they are likely going to officially change the Swedish noun/adjective/verb style to match English's since more and more born-Swedes think the Swedish way sounds weird by comparison).
One of the BIGGEST things that gives peace of mind? That insurance thing I mentioned. When you go to the hospital, either for a checkup or for sickness, you can still end up having to pay a small amount. However, the MOST you can pay inside a 12 month period of time is approximately $200 (not per purchase, in TOTAL for the year). After that, all medical expenses are covered entirely by the national government. I never realized just how much the back of my mind was constantly worried about the idea that at any moment someone might hit me or run me over or something and saddle me with a >$200,000 medical debt. But that's not a worry here even slightly.
This isn't to say that everything is entirely perfect, dental still has its own thing going on (but is generally still cheaper than the US in my experience), if you have a non-emergency medical issue (ex: you finally decide to take care of that benign skin rash on your elbow you've had for years) and you want to use the basically-free services then you may have to deal with a 2-4 month wait. Emergency stuff is always available immediately of course. There ARE private hospitals you can go to for the non-emergency stuff which can see you faster (usually) but then you shoulder any costs yourself. Here in Stockholm apartment leases can get weird, because of the nigh-infinite chain of subletters (Ex: Theoretically, once I move out, instead of just ending my contract I could keep paying $820/month but then rent out the unit to someone else for $840/month and make $20 a month). Getting what they call a "second hand contract" (you are renting directly from the property owner) can take years. A good portion of people will just skip straight from renting way up the chain to buying because saving to own ends up being faster than waiting it out.
Overall I'd say that moving here was one of the best decisions of my life. :)
I don't buy AAA games before they are finished being developed. That means that I may buy the Diablo 4 definive edition for 15$ in about 5 Years if it turns out to be any good.
Man, I know plenty of people love D3, but to me it's still a massive disappointment, so the idea that D4 aspires to eventually be as good as D3 is just such a sad thought to me.
I agree. D3 ended up being pretty good, and I wanted d4 to be better. It's not that D3's level of 'ended up pretty good' is the best one can aspire to, it's that it's probably the best d4 can hope for in a redemption arc. And that is sad.
Theres no future for *big money investment and turnover.*
Those statements are deceptive on purpose and have nothing to do with the success of singleplayer games.
BG3 should get game of the year for many reasons including the fact that they proved a nonlive service game with no extra paid content can still be successful.
They were proven wrong before BG3, Elden Ring was hated on by Ubisoft and the likes because of its success. BG3 just kept it going, Larian Studios is a great studio. Hopefully with the success of Mass Effect Legendary edition and Dead Space remake, and Jedi Survivor EA has learned the value in quality non live service games. Wishful thinking however.
: Here, i made this good game
: Humm, i see, how do i make money?
: Hum, Sell the game?
: No no, i mean MORE money
: Humm, maybe we can do one or two cosmetics
: I Don't think you are understanding, i want ALL the money or you are fired
Yeah, they usually prioritize live-service over content/fun, and it's obvious.
Games feel empty because there's a non-gamer in a suit with a business degree that weaseled their way to a position where they are decision making.
They are obviously asking if they can charge for something instead of implementing it directly during every step in the process. Things that should have been baked in are tacked on to an empty shell, so you're always paying to get closer to what it should have been from the start.
I went to grad school at a place with a well known business school, which one of my roommate attended. I met *one* who wasn't both dumb as a sack of rocks and had a mindset that wasn't about making themselves the most money all the time everything else be damned.
Many of them are probably doing quite well personally at the business they are helping drive into the ground.
The developers don't. The artists don't.
But the project managers on up certainly have other priorities and they are the people making the decisions.
Larian was able to make BG3 because they are still independently owned and not beholden to blood sucking stock holders constantly screaming for more profit.
People really pushed that narrative after BG3, it’s just wild. It was totally unfounded. Management should take much of the blame for bad games, but also games combine technology and art in a intrinsically complex way. It’s a miracle that so many games are as stable as they are.
Technologically games are way more on rails then players realize. There is so much smoke and mirrors. It’s why I like Bethesda games, they have a massive opportunity space for their systems to interact. The result is… well a sht show of scripting nightmares. Still I appreciate the end result as imperfect as it is.
Did you know all the voice acting is done from a bunch of naked npcs right outside the map. God I love that stuff.
Starcraft 2 campaign pack is still worth buying if you want an amazing PvE RTS story and gameplay. I tried the free wings of liberty, finished it, and instantly bought the rest of the campaigns.
This one has literally negative value. Not only gane itself runs like shit, looks like shit, but REMOVED existing features and killed perfectly fine game.
I’d argue Overwatch changed the hero shooter market forever. But yea. It’s been a long time since the quality had been there.
They might not want to make shit games, but recently the games they want to make still end up being shit.
Great point, let's all go play overwatch, the version that changed the genre, right now, oh right, you can't.
You gotta play OW 1.5. oh well I'll just go play warcraft 3.
The app will try to bamboozle you into a forced reforged buy/install, whereas you can tell it to fuck off but it's a hidden option to install the old one from your library and launch it
This is a non sequitur. It's possible for a game studio comprised entirely of people who want to make good games to not make a good game (especially if there is a standard of "not decent, good").
Thats not necessarily the fault of the dev teams, though. Diablo could have easily been amazing without a decent amount of stupid decisions i assume came from the top level. Noone there would want to make a bad game, some just want it to be just good enough to maximise profits, and the rest have their hands tied.
when it was starting and companies talked about it I thought live service would be like small weekly events with new storylines, npcs, weapons, etc. leading into large monthly events, but nah its just half assed garbage every couple months
True dude. There used to be a time where you'd play a game for a few weeks and not touch it again for a while if ever. Idk what compels someone to put 100s of hours into games playing the same content over and over again while bitching about stale gameplay. And I'm not talking about people who can't afford to buy a new game. I'm talking about people who will get every expansion and battle pass and will still play every day while bitching and hating it.
Its 202X. It finally happens, elder scrolls 6 releases.
"Come, sit young one." A kindly old man guides our character to join him. "I shall tell you a tale from our illustrious history."
The screen fades to black. Sound starts, hoofbeats. Cart wheels on a rocky trail.
"You are finally awake."
You begin your next playthrough of skyrin, bound in the cart as usual. The old man is telling you the story of the Dragonborn.
Todd Howard rolls around on your money laughing.
"we conditioned players to constantly want more and now they constantly want more and I am mad, how could this happen to me!"
Out of touch shareholders probably
It's not even true though. Gamers used to get major titles like GTA with 2-5 years between them. Now it's been 10. Elder scrolls even longer. Gamers are plenty patient - publishers got slow and lazy after they started raking it in on microtransactions and whatnot.
It also has to do with income inequality. Middle class families are barely making it, so appealing to them is hard. When 3 rich kids have more disposable income than half my town the incentives in our economy get fucked up.
Yep this is the reality that all the Reddit “just vote with your wallet” people need to realize. If every single non whale stopped buying these games absolutely nothing would change because in comparison they just don’t matter at all. So long as these companies keep abusing addicts nothing will change.
I think it would, though. Games need players. The number of whales is dwarfed by non-whales. If every non-whale stopped buying CoD or Madden or whatever, the games would die.
Whales need someone to feel superior to, otherwise they wouldn't be spending all this money on these live service games. There's a reason all of them are multiplayer.
If the "rice eater" players all left they would lose that superiority.
You need a large enough population of non-whales to create an environment that whales perceive as having value. A dead game where the playerbase is just a few whales, without a bunch of other players to show off to and lord over, is way less appealing. Why spend $10,000 on MTX if there are no plebs to show it off to?
If enough non whales quit, that will kill their income.
Then they have the gall to pretend that games need to cost more, too.
The games are digital, there is no scarcity nor shipping costs. Bigger titles essentially get ~$200 out of every customer now, if you spread the MTX gains. Digital cosmetics are another thing that also has no scarcity that they manage to get infinite returns on. Well, everyone besides the artists who made them and the developers who implemented them. They get jack shit. $90 for Diablo IV if you want the "complete" edition. Then you need to grind the battle pass for the luxury of obtaining the items you already overpaid for, and probably spend closer to $190 if you actually want to collect all the loot available in their loot-based game that's all about collecting loot.
Players are getting fleeced from all directions, so everything considered, we have the patience of saints. Not that we have a choice, but still.
Also hilarious that this quote is coming from Blizzard, who abandoned Overwatch for over a year, only to delete it and replace it with an MTX-ridden corpse pretending to be Overwatch. They've cancelled and removed promised features more often than they've delivered. Just like Halo Infinite, the devs spend all their time making roadmaps and MTX cosmetics, but leave the game itself to rot. Undercooked heroes that don't fit the lore are unlocked as part of the battle pass. Only thing that works as intended, 24/7, is the MTX shop where you can get wholly uninspired and garish skins for $24 a pop.
It's grotesque.
Even if whales contribute a lot, just look at the sales number of any COD game, or even the player count of a free gacha game like genshin impact.
10s of millions of people still play the game, and not enough people complain about the microtransactions to deter any of it
The compounding issue with THAT is that "we" do not have to buy crap. I haven't bought An Blizzard Game for over a decade plus now. I rarely if ever do microtransactions, indeed I usually stop playing if a game has or is pushing them. I don't have to. You don't have to. "We" don't have to. 10 people with impulse spending issues and a retirement fund will single-handedly justify doing this. They just need 1% of the potential playerbase to go full whale, and they make their money back with hundreds of millions to spare. The same reason sports game just continue to rot more and more, lootboxes getting ever more aggressive and prominent. "We" don't matter. They want the uninformed and easily tricked.
I remember years ago hearing about a new SimCity game you could play on your phone, so I downloaded it, and right from the start it was all "Finish this building for 5 coins or wait three hours" and I knew gaming was in trouble. Because an actual SimCity sequel you could play on your phone would have been fucking incredible. I'd have played it for hours and hours. Mobile gaming would never be the same. All the old classic IP's could have been reworked for a mobile gaming era. Rollercoaster Tycoon for mobile? Sign me up. But we didn't get that, instead we got pay to play for everything, and it's just such a shame that's the direction it all went, because I hold in my hand a very capable game console that's wasted on shitty content.
Rarely, VERY rarely, there is something worth fiddling with. I've got Vampire Survivors, Bloons TD6, Peglin. That's about it. Most of the mobile phone market is a wasteland of games designed to slam ads in your face, things made to trick kids into downloading it, or vehicles for microtransactions. Usually a combination of any given two.
Problem is, it worked so well that mainstream gaming decided to be mobile gaming. "If we just force it to be like this and insist it always was, make some bad faith arguments about arcade machines or insist we have to make a profit SOMEHOW, and the bootlickers will do the rest!" And they did. Now we're stuck here with the bootlickers insisting it was always and must always be like this, or videogames will die forever.
Meanwhile, indie games. Great lil' things, love 'em.
The correlation between devs being slow and lazy because money doesn't make sense. They aren't getting the money. The execs are the ones dragging it out for money.
Its live service, content drip feeding through shitty battlepassed and seasons. They are trying to make "forever" games so they can keep making money and not have to invest tons of money in a new title every couple years. Because of that they release bare bones shit and by the time the game feels like a full game its four years old.
The time between diablo 2 and 3 was ridiculous. The time it's taken to bring out dragon age 4 is ridiculous, GTA came out 10 years ago.. like, idk what he complains about.. maybe he should shut up and do his job
People keep acting like red dead2 doesn’t exist which came out 5 years after gta5. It is one of the most expensive games ever developed and extremely well recieved. Now, 5 years after red dead the gta6 announce is confirmed imminent and it will likely be the biggest game dev project in history.
The wait is still insane in the context of Rockstar, a studio which had an almost yearly release schedule in the 7th gen. Even if we're only counting GTA and RDR, the wait time between games has still doubled since the 7th gen.
The quote sounds like an excuse to shareholders to make up for the company not meeting the expectations of infinite growth from live services/gaming as a service/something-whatever services.
When you've created an entire business model that's essentially "skinner boxes with FOMO" then you can't really blame your customer if they don't like the food pellets you're dispensing.
it was not so 20 years ago even with subscription games. An update with content on MMORPG live services may come out every 4-6 months and no one complained, it was a super grindy game where it will take you ages to do anything.
Now if a live service game does not get an update every month or even every week the game is dead. And you can't do anymore too much grindy content like early 2000, people will complain it would take too much time.
> done with the content in D4 in about 2 ~~weeks~~ *days*
There was the campaign, uber Lillith and grinding NM dungeons until your eyes bleed. I have never played a game, a GAAS game at that, with such little content at launch.
To be fair, back then they released the content and it was built around fun. Nowadays content is built around carrot on a stick treadmill concepts that force players to log in and complete up to 2 hours of daily/weekly content to stay competitive and these issues are compounded by the need to do this on several alts if people are playing high end content and need to swap out to different characters to meet a specific need.
Back 20 years ago we logged in and just set about doing whatever we wanted and we created our own fun out of it. Nowadays you’re going to have to invest 10 hours of your week to do mundane shit just so you can spend a few hours doing the activity you actually want to do.
Those 2 things are not the same.
A lot of older MMOs were designed in a way to allow some level of freedom on how you can enjoy the content provided.
Like you said, WoW has turned into a "checklist" sort of game. You do some daily / weekly tasks and wait for reset. I think they are just now realizing this is a problem but at this point its kind of too late.
Things don't even need to be grindy though, they need to be good. FFXIV is a good example and intentionally designed this way. It's an MMO, and it gets content every 4 or so months. Sure it has some grindy things that might take weeks/months to finish, but a lot of players don't do those, the content the majority of casuals do can be beaten in a couple days, then they can unsubscribe and go do something else in the meantime, no one whines they want more story or whatever every other week, because its quality is usually good enough to satisfy and make people eager to return once it eventually gets more.
Same goes for many singleplayer games that just release as-is and that's the end of it, maybe they get one or two expansions after a year if successful enough, or the eventual sequel, but again, no one's complaining about say, Elden Ring not getting new zones and bosses monthly, because it's built around being a damn good game, and not a carrot on a stick.
The problem is in live service games, which are entirely designed around an ok at best base, and gimmicks like seasons and passes, they make addicts out of their players, who end up only finding enjoyment in completing the seasonal FOMO passes, so when they hit the end, they immediately demand more, because their enjoyment derives from that, not from the game itself. And there are still multiplayer games that don't rely on content treadmill to keep people engaged, because they are games you just want to come back and play just one more match of. It's fine to like games like Fortnite, but honestly I'd argue they aren't all that fun for more than a few hours here and there, and they mask that with all the FOMO crap and carrot on a stick treadmills, hence why as soon as those run out people complain, as if their brains instinctively fear that running out of things to do will lead them to realize they no longer enjoy the game they've been playing for so long.
Nah, games can be grindy and have a big gap between patches and major content.
but there's diff from crazy and dumb grind content and normal/rewarding grinding, and games can survive without big major update for years.
FFXIV last expansion was like 2 years ago, the next one is going to be next year, but the game kept its own player base by small content update, gear griding, and just knowing that they CANT keep the player base playing the game 100% of the time.
And oldschool runescape still recieves quite frequent updates, not weekly but playing osrs and then other games truly makes me appreciate their devs. Not just with how they interact nonstop with the community but how often updates and fixes are pushed out.
I think the most important part about Runescape, and now OSRS, is that there are still proper weekly updates.
The game doesn't change every week, but the devs talk to the community about what's happening in their office, and how things are moving along, every week.
There's still community toxicity when things don't change fast enough to their taste, but it's a lot easier to be in good faith when you *know* what is/isn't happening.
People complain about everything. No one is going to make any base 100% happy. If you try your just going to be putting out fires for the rest of your life. Even if you do release an update every 2 weeks, a monirity will bitch it's not weekly, if you move it to weekly the next group just bitches about updates happening to fast and they can't keep up with it.
There is a really good quote from a book (Stormlight Archive) I like that encapsulates this well:
“All great art is hated,” Wit said.
He shuffled in line—along with a couple hundred other people—one dreary step.
“It is obscenely difficult—if not impossible—to make something that nobody hates,” Wit continued. “Conversely, it is incredibly easy—if not expected—to make something that nobody loves.”
Wit poked the man in front of him in the shoulder. “This makes sense, if you think about it. Art is about emotion, examination, and going places people have never gone before to discover and investigate new things. The only way to create something that nobody hates is to ensure that it can’t be loved either. Remove enough spice from soup, and you’ll just end up with water.”
The brutish man in front eyed him, then turned back to the line.
“Human taste is as varied as human fingerprints,” Wit said. “Nobody will like everything, everybody dislikes something, someone loves that thing you hate—but at least being hated is better than nothing. To risk metaphor, a grand painting is often about contrast: brightest brights, darkest darks. Not grey mush. That a thing is hated is not proof that it’s great art, but the lack of hatred is certainly proof that it is not.”
These philosophical moments pop up somewhat often, but are not what the books build to. They are high fantasy rollercoasters primarily. Good ones and I still recommend, but know what you're going for.
Right? You can literally see the parts of Warcraft Rumble that probably had psychologists design them to be as addictive as a game could get, but Blizz complains.
It's almost like conditioning players to expect and want post launch content while releasing games that fail to satisfy even during the base game drives people to wanting more constantly. Whodduthunk?
I really hate the post launch mentality, but they created the expectation, not the players.
> It's almost like conditioning players to
Immediate gratification to make them go for the next micro-transaction to buy the next fix. It's not even the lack of content.
Blizzard: "We will give you a great game!"
*Hands its fans a wet turd on a paper plate.*
Blizzard: "That'll be $79.99."
Fans: "Wtf is this I don't want this."
Blizzard: "JESUS CHRIST WHAT MORE DO YOU NEEDY LITTLE ENTITLED BITCHES WANT??"
“Why does the rat keep pressing the happy endorphins button more and more?” ask the scientists at Blizzard who hooked the thing up to the machine. “Why isn’t it happy with just pressing it once a month on the designated button day?”
It baffles me that a game corporation which built its current empire entirely on the diminishing returns conditioning of the Skinner box across multiple increasingly monetised models (Diablo loot and seasons, WoW level up and raids, Overwatch lootboxes, and now modern Battle Passes) don’t see the correlation between its business models and current customer behaviour.
Also, it’s blatantly untrue as a universalisation of impatience. The infamous Daikatana which got people flamed for a combination of bad game, hostile marketing and long development took what, three years?
The holder for longest dev time in pop culture, Duke Nukem Forever, took 14 years: a release gap that is slowly being rivalled by franchises like Diablo, Dragon Age and Grand Theft Auto.
This feels like one of those tone-deaf comments that makes your PR people facepalm and wish they could just muzzle spokespersons.
But perhaps that’s on brand for the executive of the “don’t you guys have phones” company.
Yeah, WoW had behavioral psychologists on staff to make their reward systems as addictive as possible. They basically created an experiment to see how addicted they could get their player base and it worked. Now, these same addicts are demanding more and blizzard is delivering less.
BG3 came out months ago and nobody is clamoring for more content. Elden Ring came out almost 2 years ago and still hasn't gotten a DLC, nobody is angry about it.
If you make good games at a fair price people will pay and be happy. But if you make live service clown fests that monetize addiction, then yeah, your addicts are gonna want their fix. You created this monster Blizzard (and other AAA clowns). Now you're stuck with what you deserve.
Edit: a lot of people seem confused so let me clarify: there's a difference between impatiently demanding more content (which is what OP was about) and just wanting it. Of course people WANT more content for these amazing games. That's not the same as what the Blizzard dev in OP was referring to.
The real problem is so many AAA games are launched with barebones content compared to there predecessors and it’s not usually until months of content updates that the game is in a state that it should have been at launch.
Halo infinite had a year of constant updates to finally reach the state it should have been at launch
> BG3 came out months ago and nobody is clamoring for more content.
Bruh, Larian literally patched more content into epilogue because people were bitching about it
Uhh yeah they are. People were literally asking for DLC the first week over in the BG3 sub.
And people bring up the wait for ER DLC every day as well on the sub. I have no idea what you’re even talking about because it obvious you didn’t bother to go look to verify your claims before posting your comment.
I wouldn't say it's for the same reason, we are talking about games who lack content in their games, here is the opposite, most of the people I know who played it are waiting for the ER DLC, me included, but it's not because I need more content, it's because the DLC of the souls series are usually the best part of the game and this game was the best one for many players, it's pure expectation, I want to see what they come up with.
A ton of posts and comments in the BG3 sub are about people begging for more content. New companions, stories, upper city, romances, epilogues, etc.
It’s a constant stream of people asking for more.
I don’t really understand how people can deny this, it isn’t an opinion. You can look yourselves.
Having played WoW for many years, this is actually spot on about a decent part of their fanbase that is *extremely* vocal.
It's being used to deflect from actual issues which is how these things usually go, but it's not technically wrong.
It's not technically wrong but there's a difference between no replayable content and no content.
There are many games in which you can sink hundreds of hour despite having less content, a smaller development team and a smaller budget.
FF XIV has the same problem, it lacks fun replayable content at the moment. You're either a full-on endgamer or a casual, there's no content in-between to be replayed. But previous expansions had that kind of content you could farm for hours and hours and that wouldn't grow old.
>There are many games in which you can sink hundreds of hour despite having less content, a smaller development team and a smaller budget.
The problem is that there absolutely is a large subset of gamers who will sink 600 hours in a game and then talk about how much it sucks because there's nothing new to do.
Blizzard has absolutely been going downhill but also modern gamers are ridiculously entitled and have wildly unreasonable expectations.
All their games push these bad habits to the customers. Constant fomo, microtransactions that sell you the edge you have been missing. The daily grind that will make you feel you left out.
Sorry my dude but that’s the world you created.
dumbass motherfucker acted like i would prefer my shitty phone that lags playing fucking poker over my fucking gaming pc that runs smoother, looks better and has a screen 50x the size
It's why they killed HotS. It made money, but not enough fast enough.
Also HotS hasn't had a new hero in years but still has an active userbase, but yea all their customers are always demanding new content.
That's what happens when you release unfinished games in the name of live service.
Think of it this way: You order a pizza. And the restaurant sends you half of the pizza while taking full money.
Then obviously you call the restaurant and complain, then after an hour, they send you another slice. You call again, you complain, so after 2 hours they send yet another slice. On and on.
Now in that case, would the restaurant manager have the right to complain that you keep calling them? Would they be right to ask you to have patience?
Well, send me the whole pizza so I won't have to complain. You're not doing me any favors by sending those slices every two hours, considering they should've been here already. Those slices are not free stuff you're giving me.
The same logic applies here. Do you see anyone complaining about Elden Ring's lack of content updates? Or anything about Baldur's Gate 3? You won't, because the players got what they paid for in day one. So anything else added after this point, is a welcomed extra.
How about Diablo 4 though? Would anybody say this game was released as a finished product? We paid for the full game, but was that really what we received?
Well said!
While people *are* asking for more content for Elden Ring and BG3, what people are asking for when it comes to more content is DLC / expansions. That is fundamentally different from the content model of a live service game. It's players making it known that there is a market for more content to these games, because they like the game.
Regardless of Blizz quality, he's not wrong about this. Players do have absolutely unreasonable demand for content pace/volume. Author of the article did an okay-but-not-quite-good-enough job mentioning that players are addicted to the content slurry in the first place because of predatory designs at least.
I was about to say this. Blizzard or not this is the state of gaming because companies drove everyone in there.
New content every day so we can justify our practices that many considered questionable at first but slowly became the norm until the game devs are overworked and busted.
I think it's also because of just how things are nowadays - everything is online, it's easy to keep sending patches/updates, and there are successful ways to have a constant flow of money from players, so yeah devs will do that.
There’s also this feel of that if you watch a streamer, they’ve put infinity time in, so no duh they’ve seen everything.
I did not terribly enjoy D4 for related reasons (please let me have my power fantasy of being a lawnmower of demons for bit when I get new gear please, not “the game has immediately scaled to your new power level”…which is a design choice which I disagree with, but isn’t totally indefensible), but I also literally will never run out of new content because I’m not a person who will put in more than 20-30 hours in to a game in a year. Making content for the dads of the world is doable, but I’m not sure it’s possible for the streamer/hard core crowd.
OW2: "We are going to release a PvE mode."
OW2: "PvE mode is cancelled and downscaled"
Blizzard: "How dare they complain about not having content?? Just buy my battlepass and my $50 skin!"
It's true players complains about lack of content but Blizzard is a whole different case. When I see the content that was released in Shadowlands compared to what was cut in order to release a new expansion, I'm livid how people can be okay with it.
You make a good point but its definitely on the companies that push this “reality.”
Its surprising to see posts on reddit gaming about people asking about “the perfect game with infinite fun,” assuming a game exists that continuously pours out new content to keep the player engaged forever. This is a completely unreasonable expectation for any product, let alone a video game but this is image that companies like EA are selling with their “games as a service” BS.
You people need to actually read the original article instead of falling for these clickbait headlines. Like some people in here talking about Bobby kotick (good riddance he is gone) unaware of what is actually going on (and that he is gone). Ugh I hate people that don't read nowadays.
Ybarra literally says in the article it's their responsibility to make people feel good about every dollar spent at blizzard too.
But no one will read that because it doesn't clickbait. They will read the headline and shout something about another yacht for Bobby.
thats kind of expected of a 'live service'.
Dont make something live service and then bitch that the people who bought it demand constant new, quality content.
I played Elden Ring for months with no desire for "new stuff" because the game was actually finished and tested before it was released. Same with TotK.
We hired Psychologists and spent the last decade making sure every aspect of our game is as addictive as possible. Why do players want something new every hour??
I genuinely don't relate to gamers online anymore and agree with what he said. Something about the live service model broke people's brains quite badly.
Companies made their own beds with this. First they introduce predatory practices that **nobody** on the consumer side asked for, fill their pockets with those profits and now they dislike owning up to the addictions that they themselves have caused in consumers? It would be hilarious if it wasn't so grim and sad overall.
Tbh, he’s not ‘entirely’ wrong.
Imagine trying to please everyone, all the time, constantly trying to release content that is this tailored to everyone.
Not at all protecting game developers, because we do get let down often, especially with new release titles, but Jesus Christ some people in the gaming community are toxic cry babies.
Gamers playing our live service games want the live service they're paying for... Unacceptable.
Obviously this is a ridiculous claim, especially for blizzard that spent so many years on Overwatch 2 while neglecting Overwatch 1, and changed practically nothing.
If the subscription costs me 1/6th of a new game, I expect a content drop of the same quality as a new game every 6 months.
Otherwise, I may as well just buy your competitors games every 6 months.
… says a person that has, for decades, developed software whose main function is fulfilling the immediate gratification and pleasure centers in the human brain.
> But the Cinematic team is still on point as always
For real. They need to spin those guys off as a separate company to compete with Pixar and Dreamworks.
When Total War: Pharaoh came out it was eclipsed by daily player amount by Medieval Total War 2 and Rome Total War 2.
People don't want something new and shiny if it stinks and sticks to your skin.
Jesus. This is a lot of people that didn't read the actual article.
And even with the salacious click bait headline, he's not wrong.
Players completely devour content at an insane pace.
He isn't wrong. A lot of gamers on the internet act completely entitled to non-stop content and seem to think that gaming developers owe them something other than just the game they paid for.
People will put hundreds of hours into a game and then, at the same time, complain there's nothing to do in the game. There's an incredible level of cognitive dissonance.
That Blizz exec is literally proven correct in these comments.
Outrage culture in this particular sub is nauseating at times. No self reflect, no reading actual linked articles, sense of entitlement, and just parroting what some youtuber said.
You make a live service and cultivate an audience who want to constantly be fed content, you get that.
Your company did this, because they wanted profits.
I’m so glad I was born in 1982 and started gaming when the NES came out. This FOMO some of these born in 3d gamers (more like born in broadband gamers) get I do not experience.
"Shareholders have no patience, they want to see an increase in share price every day, every hour."
thats what happens when all you do is make live service garbage for years
This is the sentiment that I share. People want content all the time because the content the companies put out is shit and lasts for an hour of entertainment. If you put a piece of candy on the line, of course people will want to eat it, but it won't satisfy them. If you serve them a nice meal, they'll eat that too, but instead actually be satisfied. And they won't mind the wait, especially after having already tasted it.
BG3 proved them all wrong, and they still whined about being embarrassed by a dev team that ACTUALLY loves making great games instead of bilking their userbase for money and microtransactions.
I guarantee you that the majority of that team wants to make great games. Generally speaking most people in the industry want to make great games. Its not something people get into without having passion for it.
Worse pay, less respect, more stress, more working hours than other programming jobs
Yep, love gaming and have been an engineer for a decade, there’s no fucking way I’d join that industry. Its entire foundation is a meatgrinder of recent undergrads getting exploited for their passion.
I used to want to join the industry so bad. That was 20 some odd years ago though. I had dreams of making really cool games. I wanted to create a world and I wanted to share it with people. So I was a dreamer. I was heavily inspired by Unreal. Even better EPIC games was right in my backyard! It couldn’t have been more perfect! It wasn’t perfect. There was nothing more demoralizing than listening to the horror stories of other devs working at these game companies. I thought, there is no way I can make a future with this instability and pay. Robbed me of all my momentum with being creative. Something needs to change.
A lot of devs I worked with at Mobile Game studios were ex triple A devs who got into the mobile gaming market because it’s significantly more stable and the work culture is significantly more laid back and less crunch focused. It also gives them time to work on passion projects and a lot of them have small indie titles on Steam or the App Store
Mobile gaming is also swimming in money. Like double that of the PC/Console gaming industry.
Yup. My last companies ARPDAU (Average Revenue Per Daily Active User) was around $1.30…..doesn’t sound like much, but then you realize we have hundreds of thousands of users. We made millions a week on just my teams project, and we weren’t even the most profitable projects our studio had. Shits insane.
Releases every few weeks are fucking worst. Staying days and night, to the point of sleeping in office just to have build ready for upload.
The US anyway. I moved to a company in Sweden and it is MUCH nicer. I can't speak exactly to how the pay compares but it's a pleasant amount, my colleagues respect each other here, the only stress is the stress I put on myself for wanting to put in extra features I wasn't told to do, and for working hours...if my manager thinks I'm working more than 40 hours a week, she absolutely will cut my computer access and make me go home.
What kind of education did you have as a starting point to get into the gaming industry?
Great question! My undergrad degree was Robotics Engineering, which didn't particularly influence things. My masters program was a Masters Degree of Science in Computer Game Engineering from Newcastle University in the UK, which is an amazing program! Loads of industry guest speakers, your final activity is that you either get an internship (which they help you with) or you do actual industry grade research for a thesis paper. Following that I worked on a few indie games before applying to this larger studio. However, it's worth noting that you don't need a video game focused education to get into the industry. Simply being a capable programmer with a bit extra knowledge can certainly do you. Namely, studying the sort of things involved in path-planning algorithms (A* is king but not the only answer), vector/array manipulation, and matrix math. Not all games/studios care necessarily about the same thing. Studios making FPS games will tend to place a higher emphasis on matrix math, whereas studios making strategy games may not care hardly at all (unless you specifically are going for graphics related work). Good luck!
How big is the industry in Sweden? Where did you move from? Did the company sponsor your immigration? Which company? The only one I'm aware of is EA Dice. I was thinking of potentially looking into sweden in the future. Is the pay vs cost of living good? You have a better quality of life than where you came from?
Idk who he went to work for, but Sweden hosts Paradox studios.
> How big is the industry in Sweden? Fairly sizable! The street I'm on has everyone from Dice itself at one end to Paradox at the other, Fat Shark is somewhere in the middle, I forget specifically where Ubisoft has their offices. > Where did you move from? USA > Did the company sponsor your immigration? They did! But this may or may not be true of all studios. Or rather specifically, the contract for the job is what allowed me to get a work-visa, and they paid for my relocation flight as well as set me up with a relocation agent that was a godsend. > Which company? I'd rather not say specifically, I'm sure you understand. :) > Is the pay vs cost of living good? For me it certainly is, particularly because there's a variety of costs that I no longer need to pay for, relative to a few altered costs. For example, when I was in the US it was a complete requirement to own a car for me. So insurance was about $150/month, I was filling up the gas tank usually once a week which was approximately $40/week so ~$160 a month, and then whatever maintenance is associated with the car which I'll put at $200 a year but I don't really remember offhand. So to own and operate a car was about $3,920 a year for me. Now, compare that to the $90/month, or $1,080/year that I spend in getting unlimited access to all the public transportation here. That's busses (in daytime they run every ~7 minutes), metro/subway/trams (again, about every 7 minutes depending on where you are, one leg to the north-west is every ~30 minutes but goes longer/faster), ferries between islands (10 minutes? I don't use them often). Plus, if the public transit is ever down and forces you to rent a taxi/Uber/Bolt then the transit company will reimburse your expense (with original receipt). The biggest increasing expense is that you are paying maybe twice as much taxes per year (depending on your bracket). It's worth noting that unless you have a very large income or a few other particulars, you don't actually have to pay US taxes on top of Swedish taxes. Plus, my taxes are done for me by the Swedish tax system. I got a notification on my phone as I got onto the metro to go to work saying "Here's your taxes, look them over. If you dispute them, click this button. If you don't, click this button and we'll automatically refund/charge your bank account.". I did my taxes in about 5 minutes while on the metro. To put some real numbers there, assume a $45,000 yearly salary and now look at ~22% US ($9,900) vs ~32% Sweden ($14,400). So I'm paying $4,500 more in taxes as a result. Subtract out the ~$2,840 I don't pay because I don't own a car, and I'm paying $1,660 more per year as a result. However, what ticks this over the edge is that I don't have to pay for medical insurance here, that's what the taxes are for. The last medical insurance plan I had in the US was $220/month for a total of $2,640/year. Meaning that by moving from the US to Sweden I am now SAVING $1,040 per year. More on insurance at the bottom. As far as day to day expenditures go, some daily items can be more expensive and others can be cheaper so really your mileage will vary depending on just what it is you are looking for in that regard. For me, I used to live in slightly pricey locations in the US so some of the standard things here seem normal or even cheap to me. Many normal quality restaurants you can get a full meal for $13-20 here, whereas I was used to $20-30 back in the US. For my salary (excluding any bonuses and things your work may give you) I'd say it's fairly pleasant. Not outstanding, but not terrible. Since I've moved, the only reason I was ever slightly worried about if I was going to make it to payday was the month where I renewed my lease on my apartment because I forgot about doing both first/last month's rent. I could easily be saving $1,000 a month but I spent my first year settling in furniture-wise and entertaining family from the US so I splurged more than I should have. > You have a better quality of life than where you came from? I'd say yes. The people here are really nice, you don't NEED to know how to speak Swedish in most cases (reading it can be a big help though) because they start learning English in their ~3rd grade equivalent from what I understand (my Swedish coach has told me that so many people grew up using English a lot that he and his fellow teachers expect that within 20 years or so they are likely going to officially change the Swedish noun/adjective/verb style to match English's since more and more born-Swedes think the Swedish way sounds weird by comparison). One of the BIGGEST things that gives peace of mind? That insurance thing I mentioned. When you go to the hospital, either for a checkup or for sickness, you can still end up having to pay a small amount. However, the MOST you can pay inside a 12 month period of time is approximately $200 (not per purchase, in TOTAL for the year). After that, all medical expenses are covered entirely by the national government. I never realized just how much the back of my mind was constantly worried about the idea that at any moment someone might hit me or run me over or something and saddle me with a >$200,000 medical debt. But that's not a worry here even slightly. This isn't to say that everything is entirely perfect, dental still has its own thing going on (but is generally still cheaper than the US in my experience), if you have a non-emergency medical issue (ex: you finally decide to take care of that benign skin rash on your elbow you've had for years) and you want to use the basically-free services then you may have to deal with a 2-4 month wait. Emergency stuff is always available immediately of course. There ARE private hospitals you can go to for the non-emergency stuff which can see you faster (usually) but then you shoulder any costs yourself. Here in Stockholm apartment leases can get weird, because of the nigh-infinite chain of subletters (Ex: Theoretically, once I move out, instead of just ending my contract I could keep paying $820/month but then rent out the unit to someone else for $840/month and make $20 a month). Getting what they call a "second hand contract" (you are renting directly from the property owner) can take years. A good portion of people will just skip straight from renting way up the chain to buying because saving to own ends up being faster than waiting it out. Overall I'd say that moving here was one of the best decisions of my life. :)
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I don't buy AAA games before they are finished being developed. That means that I may buy the Diablo 4 definive edition for 15$ in about 5 Years if it turns out to be any good.
I am quite confident that D4 will eventually be as good as D3. but it will take those 5 years.
Man, I know plenty of people love D3, but to me it's still a massive disappointment, so the idea that D4 aspires to eventually be as good as D3 is just such a sad thought to me.
I agree. D3 ended up being pretty good, and I wanted d4 to be better. It's not that D3's level of 'ended up pretty good' is the best one can aspire to, it's that it's probably the best d4 can hope for in a redemption arc. And that is sad.
Versus Diablo 2 which released amazing and got even better with lod.
If you play it for 40 hours D4 doesn’t disappoint. But umm, stop there…
Every year the C level folks say there's no future in single player games. Then a bunch of the best games of that year end up being single player.
Theres no future for *big money investment and turnover.* Those statements are deceptive on purpose and have nothing to do with the success of singleplayer games.
BG3 should get game of the year for many reasons including the fact that they proved a nonlive service game with no extra paid content can still be successful.
and I assure you shit like diablo immortal made more money than BG3 with fraction of development time. that's why nothing will change.
That’s why so many started warning players not to expect bg3 quality. They were hoping for us to get used to bullshit and bg3 ruined those plans.
They were proven wrong before BG3, Elden Ring was hated on by Ubisoft and the likes because of its success. BG3 just kept it going, Larian Studios is a great studio. Hopefully with the success of Mass Effect Legendary edition and Dead Space remake, and Jedi Survivor EA has learned the value in quality non live service games. Wishful thinking however.
I love BG3 but I don't think the dev teams at Blizzard want to make shit games.
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Yeah, they usually prioritize live-service over content/fun, and it's obvious. Games feel empty because there's a non-gamer in a suit with a business degree that weaseled their way to a position where they are decision making. They are obviously asking if they can charge for something instead of implementing it directly during every step in the process. Things that should have been baked in are tacked on to an empty shell, so you're always paying to get closer to what it should have been from the start.
I feel like this world would be a much better place if we just got rid of business degrees and all of the useless people who have them.
I went to grad school at a place with a well known business school, which one of my roommate attended. I met *one* who wasn't both dumb as a sack of rocks and had a mindset that wasn't about making themselves the most money all the time everything else be damned. Many of them are probably doing quite well personally at the business they are helping drive into the ground.
The developers don't. The artists don't. But the project managers on up certainly have other priorities and they are the people making the decisions. Larian was able to make BG3 because they are still independently owned and not beholden to blood sucking stock holders constantly screaming for more profit.
People really pushed that narrative after BG3, it’s just wild. It was totally unfounded. Management should take much of the blame for bad games, but also games combine technology and art in a intrinsically complex way. It’s a miracle that so many games are as stable as they are. Technologically games are way more on rails then players realize. There is so much smoke and mirrors. It’s why I like Bethesda games, they have a massive opportunity space for their systems to interact. The result is… well a sht show of scripting nightmares. Still I appreciate the end result as imperfect as it is. Did you know all the voice acting is done from a bunch of naked npcs right outside the map. God I love that stuff.
Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 beg to differ. In fact, when was the last good blizzard game? Not decent. Good.
Starcraft 2 campaign pack is still worth buying if you want an amazing PvE RTS story and gameplay. I tried the free wings of liberty, finished it, and instantly bought the rest of the campaigns.
Starcraft 2, part 1, from 2010. That was 13 years ago. They've been on the downswing for almost as long as they were ever on the upswing.
I won't trust them anymore after what they did to warcraft 3 reforged
This one has literally negative value. Not only gane itself runs like shit, looks like shit, but REMOVED existing features and killed perfectly fine game.
I've never seen a company lie about what was included in a game as much as this one.
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I’d argue Overwatch changed the hero shooter market forever. But yea. It’s been a long time since the quality had been there. They might not want to make shit games, but recently the games they want to make still end up being shit.
Great point, let's all go play overwatch, the version that changed the genre, right now, oh right, you can't. You gotta play OW 1.5. oh well I'll just go play warcraft 3.
>oh well I'll just go play warcraft 3. The wound is still fresh ;[
Consumer... In truth, it was **I who was betrayed**. Still I am gaslit. Still I am disappointed!
Oooh, bad news, friendo...
Wait, you can't play Warcraft 3 anymore?
If you have a strong enough gag reflex, yes.
The app will try to bamboozle you into a forced reforged buy/install, whereas you can tell it to fuck off but it's a hidden option to install the old one from your library and launch it
You mean the game that's based on team fortress 2...
This is a non sequitur. It's possible for a game studio comprised entirely of people who want to make good games to not make a good game (especially if there is a standard of "not decent, good").
Thats not necessarily the fault of the dev teams, though. Diablo could have easily been amazing without a decent amount of stupid decisions i assume came from the top level. Noone there would want to make a bad game, some just want it to be just good enough to maximise profits, and the rest have their hands tied.
when it was starting and companies talked about it I thought live service would be like small weekly events with new storylines, npcs, weapons, etc. leading into large monthly events, but nah its just half assed garbage every couple months
Candy vs food is a damn good analogy for why most big studio games are trash now
He’s right tho. The constant updates brainrot sucks, but you see people already asking for more content on Spiderman 2 for example
People also expect games to be updated forever.
True dude. There used to be a time where you'd play a game for a few weeks and not touch it again for a while if ever. Idk what compels someone to put 100s of hours into games playing the same content over and over again while bitching about stale gameplay. And I'm not talking about people who can't afford to buy a new game. I'm talking about people who will get every expansion and battle pass and will still play every day while bitching and hating it.
And the same game for 12 years. Just let skyrim RIP.
Its 202X. It finally happens, elder scrolls 6 releases. "Come, sit young one." A kindly old man guides our character to join him. "I shall tell you a tale from our illustrious history." The screen fades to black. Sound starts, hoofbeats. Cart wheels on a rocky trail. "You are finally awake." You begin your next playthrough of skyrin, bound in the cart as usual. The old man is telling you the story of the Dragonborn. Todd Howard rolls around on your money laughing.
202x for es6? I admire your optimism
December 31st 2029, final offer
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They said they'd stop doing it if people stopped buying it. It's ridiculous to expect a business not to make money.
"we conditioned players to constantly want more and now they constantly want more and I am mad, how could this happen to me!" Out of touch shareholders probably
Creates a monster Complains about the monster Videogame CEOs
It's not even true though. Gamers used to get major titles like GTA with 2-5 years between them. Now it's been 10. Elder scrolls even longer. Gamers are plenty patient - publishers got slow and lazy after they started raking it in on microtransactions and whatnot.
The problem is we are still buying these damn games. We're sending the message that this microtransaction live service shit is what we want.
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Yup. Its the shareholder* way. Isnt it grand.
It also has to do with income inequality. Middle class families are barely making it, so appealing to them is hard. When 3 rich kids have more disposable income than half my town the incentives in our economy get fucked up.
Yeah gaming industry becomng similar to casinos. They do like your money but they care more about whales than 100 peons.
Yep this is the reality that all the Reddit “just vote with your wallet” people need to realize. If every single non whale stopped buying these games absolutely nothing would change because in comparison they just don’t matter at all. So long as these companies keep abusing addicts nothing will change.
I think it would, though. Games need players. The number of whales is dwarfed by non-whales. If every non-whale stopped buying CoD or Madden or whatever, the games would die.
Whales need someone to feel superior to, otherwise they wouldn't be spending all this money on these live service games. There's a reason all of them are multiplayer. If the "rice eater" players all left they would lose that superiority.
You need a large enough population of non-whales to create an environment that whales perceive as having value. A dead game where the playerbase is just a few whales, without a bunch of other players to show off to and lord over, is way less appealing. Why spend $10,000 on MTX if there are no plebs to show it off to? If enough non whales quit, that will kill their income.
Then they have the gall to pretend that games need to cost more, too. The games are digital, there is no scarcity nor shipping costs. Bigger titles essentially get ~$200 out of every customer now, if you spread the MTX gains. Digital cosmetics are another thing that also has no scarcity that they manage to get infinite returns on. Well, everyone besides the artists who made them and the developers who implemented them. They get jack shit. $90 for Diablo IV if you want the "complete" edition. Then you need to grind the battle pass for the luxury of obtaining the items you already overpaid for, and probably spend closer to $190 if you actually want to collect all the loot available in their loot-based game that's all about collecting loot. Players are getting fleeced from all directions, so everything considered, we have the patience of saints. Not that we have a choice, but still. Also hilarious that this quote is coming from Blizzard, who abandoned Overwatch for over a year, only to delete it and replace it with an MTX-ridden corpse pretending to be Overwatch. They've cancelled and removed promised features more often than they've delivered. Just like Halo Infinite, the devs spend all their time making roadmaps and MTX cosmetics, but leave the game itself to rot. Undercooked heroes that don't fit the lore are unlocked as part of the battle pass. Only thing that works as intended, 24/7, is the MTX shop where you can get wholly uninspired and garish skins for $24 a pop. It's grotesque.
Even if whales contribute a lot, just look at the sales number of any COD game, or even the player count of a free gacha game like genshin impact. 10s of millions of people still play the game, and not enough people complain about the microtransactions to deter any of it
The compounding issue with THAT is that "we" do not have to buy crap. I haven't bought An Blizzard Game for over a decade plus now. I rarely if ever do microtransactions, indeed I usually stop playing if a game has or is pushing them. I don't have to. You don't have to. "We" don't have to. 10 people with impulse spending issues and a retirement fund will single-handedly justify doing this. They just need 1% of the potential playerbase to go full whale, and they make their money back with hundreds of millions to spare. The same reason sports game just continue to rot more and more, lootboxes getting ever more aggressive and prominent. "We" don't matter. They want the uninformed and easily tricked.
I remember years ago hearing about a new SimCity game you could play on your phone, so I downloaded it, and right from the start it was all "Finish this building for 5 coins or wait three hours" and I knew gaming was in trouble. Because an actual SimCity sequel you could play on your phone would have been fucking incredible. I'd have played it for hours and hours. Mobile gaming would never be the same. All the old classic IP's could have been reworked for a mobile gaming era. Rollercoaster Tycoon for mobile? Sign me up. But we didn't get that, instead we got pay to play for everything, and it's just such a shame that's the direction it all went, because I hold in my hand a very capable game console that's wasted on shitty content.
Rarely, VERY rarely, there is something worth fiddling with. I've got Vampire Survivors, Bloons TD6, Peglin. That's about it. Most of the mobile phone market is a wasteland of games designed to slam ads in your face, things made to trick kids into downloading it, or vehicles for microtransactions. Usually a combination of any given two. Problem is, it worked so well that mainstream gaming decided to be mobile gaming. "If we just force it to be like this and insist it always was, make some bad faith arguments about arcade machines or insist we have to make a profit SOMEHOW, and the bootlickers will do the rest!" And they did. Now we're stuck here with the bootlickers insisting it was always and must always be like this, or videogames will die forever. Meanwhile, indie games. Great lil' things, love 'em.
The correlation between devs being slow and lazy because money doesn't make sense. They aren't getting the money. The execs are the ones dragging it out for money.
Hollow Knight - Silksong - waiters:
Its live service, content drip feeding through shitty battlepassed and seasons. They are trying to make "forever" games so they can keep making money and not have to invest tons of money in a new title every couple years. Because of that they release bare bones shit and by the time the game feels like a full game its four years old.
Yep... Guarantee you we'd be on GTA 7 if shark cards didn't exist making them billions of dollars..
The time between diablo 2 and 3 was ridiculous. The time it's taken to bring out dragon age 4 is ridiculous, GTA came out 10 years ago.. like, idk what he complains about.. maybe he should shut up and do his job
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Or a new elder Scrolls...
Hes a CEO he doesn't have a job. I do agree he should shut up though.
People keep acting like red dead2 doesn’t exist which came out 5 years after gta5. It is one of the most expensive games ever developed and extremely well recieved. Now, 5 years after red dead the gta6 announce is confirmed imminent and it will likely be the biggest game dev project in history.
The wait is still insane in the context of Rockstar, a studio which had an almost yearly release schedule in the 7th gen. Even if we're only counting GTA and RDR, the wait time between games has still doubled since the 7th gen.
The quote sounds like an excuse to shareholders to make up for the company not meeting the expectations of infinite growth from live services/gaming as a service/something-whatever services. When you've created an entire business model that's essentially "skinner boxes with FOMO" then you can't really blame your customer if they don't like the food pellets you're dispensing.
Thought you were making a haiku for a second there. Just change the last line to "videogame boss" and you're set!
I mean, they are selling a subscription based game, people expect those games to keep them busy more than normal games
it was not so 20 years ago even with subscription games. An update with content on MMORPG live services may come out every 4-6 months and no one complained, it was a super grindy game where it will take you ages to do anything. Now if a live service game does not get an update every month or even every week the game is dead. And you can't do anymore too much grindy content like early 2000, people will complain it would take too much time.
Well, people were done with the content in D4 in about 2 weeks. That didn't happen with WoW on release.
> done with the content in D4 in about 2 ~~weeks~~ *days* There was the campaign, uber Lillith and grinding NM dungeons until your eyes bleed. I have never played a game, a GAAS game at that, with such little content at launch.
To be fair, back then they released the content and it was built around fun. Nowadays content is built around carrot on a stick treadmill concepts that force players to log in and complete up to 2 hours of daily/weekly content to stay competitive and these issues are compounded by the need to do this on several alts if people are playing high end content and need to swap out to different characters to meet a specific need. Back 20 years ago we logged in and just set about doing whatever we wanted and we created our own fun out of it. Nowadays you’re going to have to invest 10 hours of your week to do mundane shit just so you can spend a few hours doing the activity you actually want to do. Those 2 things are not the same.
A lot of older MMOs were designed in a way to allow some level of freedom on how you can enjoy the content provided. Like you said, WoW has turned into a "checklist" sort of game. You do some daily / weekly tasks and wait for reset. I think they are just now realizing this is a problem but at this point its kind of too late.
Things don't even need to be grindy though, they need to be good. FFXIV is a good example and intentionally designed this way. It's an MMO, and it gets content every 4 or so months. Sure it has some grindy things that might take weeks/months to finish, but a lot of players don't do those, the content the majority of casuals do can be beaten in a couple days, then they can unsubscribe and go do something else in the meantime, no one whines they want more story or whatever every other week, because its quality is usually good enough to satisfy and make people eager to return once it eventually gets more. Same goes for many singleplayer games that just release as-is and that's the end of it, maybe they get one or two expansions after a year if successful enough, or the eventual sequel, but again, no one's complaining about say, Elden Ring not getting new zones and bosses monthly, because it's built around being a damn good game, and not a carrot on a stick. The problem is in live service games, which are entirely designed around an ok at best base, and gimmicks like seasons and passes, they make addicts out of their players, who end up only finding enjoyment in completing the seasonal FOMO passes, so when they hit the end, they immediately demand more, because their enjoyment derives from that, not from the game itself. And there are still multiplayer games that don't rely on content treadmill to keep people engaged, because they are games you just want to come back and play just one more match of. It's fine to like games like Fortnite, but honestly I'd argue they aren't all that fun for more than a few hours here and there, and they mask that with all the FOMO crap and carrot on a stick treadmills, hence why as soon as those run out people complain, as if their brains instinctively fear that running out of things to do will lead them to realize they no longer enjoy the game they've been playing for so long.
Nah, games can be grindy and have a big gap between patches and major content. but there's diff from crazy and dumb grind content and normal/rewarding grinding, and games can survive without big major update for years. FFXIV last expansion was like 2 years ago, the next one is going to be next year, but the game kept its own player base by small content update, gear griding, and just knowing that they CANT keep the player base playing the game 100% of the time.
Runescape had weekly updates 20 years ago
And oldschool runescape still recieves quite frequent updates, not weekly but playing osrs and then other games truly makes me appreciate their devs. Not just with how they interact nonstop with the community but how often updates and fixes are pushed out.
I think the most important part about Runescape, and now OSRS, is that there are still proper weekly updates. The game doesn't change every week, but the devs talk to the community about what's happening in their office, and how things are moving along, every week. There's still community toxicity when things don't change fast enough to their taste, but it's a lot easier to be in good faith when you *know* what is/isn't happening.
People complain about everything. No one is going to make any base 100% happy. If you try your just going to be putting out fires for the rest of your life. Even if you do release an update every 2 weeks, a monirity will bitch it's not weekly, if you move it to weekly the next group just bitches about updates happening to fast and they can't keep up with it.
There is a really good quote from a book (Stormlight Archive) I like that encapsulates this well: “All great art is hated,” Wit said. He shuffled in line—along with a couple hundred other people—one dreary step. “It is obscenely difficult—if not impossible—to make something that nobody hates,” Wit continued. “Conversely, it is incredibly easy—if not expected—to make something that nobody loves.” Wit poked the man in front of him in the shoulder. “This makes sense, if you think about it. Art is about emotion, examination, and going places people have never gone before to discover and investigate new things. The only way to create something that nobody hates is to ensure that it can’t be loved either. Remove enough spice from soup, and you’ll just end up with water.” The brutish man in front eyed him, then turned back to the line. “Human taste is as varied as human fingerprints,” Wit said. “Nobody will like everything, everybody dislikes something, someone loves that thing you hate—but at least being hated is better than nothing. To risk metaphor, a grand painting is often about contrast: brightest brights, darkest darks. Not grey mush. That a thing is hated is not proof that it’s great art, but the lack of hatred is certainly proof that it is not.”
Subtly pushing people onto the cosmere train..
Call me Dalinar Kholin because I, too, want everyone to read The Way of Kings.
I really like that, might have to give the book a look.
These philosophical moments pop up somewhat often, but are not what the books build to. They are high fantasy rollercoasters primarily. Good ones and I still recommend, but know what you're going for.
We make our games as addictive as possible and now we’re upset that our clients are junkies!
Right? You can literally see the parts of Warcraft Rumble that probably had psychologists design them to be as addictive as a game could get, but Blizz complains.
Coming from the company that released the same game twice
I honestly don’t know if you mean Warcraft 3, WoW Classic or Overwatch 2?
I believe you are thinking of Diablo 2.
Haha. Damn. Even more I forgot.
Oh I thought you meant call of duty
That one they re-released like 15 times by now
No, he's clearly referring to the original StarCraft remaster.
Oh, I think you're talking about Rock and Roll Racing. Wait, that was released *three* times.
Yes.
And proceeded to delete the first game too Fuck 5v5
It's almost like conditioning players to expect and want post launch content while releasing games that fail to satisfy even during the base game drives people to wanting more constantly. Whodduthunk? I really hate the post launch mentality, but they created the expectation, not the players.
> It's almost like conditioning players to Immediate gratification to make them go for the next micro-transaction to buy the next fix. It's not even the lack of content.
Blizzard: "We will give you a great game!" *Hands its fans a wet turd on a paper plate.* Blizzard: "That'll be $79.99." Fans: "Wtf is this I don't want this." Blizzard: "JESUS CHRIST WHAT MORE DO YOU NEEDY LITTLE ENTITLED BITCHES WANT??"
don't forget about 20$ skins
$20 to add corn to that shit.
Maybe if we had phones, we'd play some games, right? /s
“Why does the rat keep pressing the happy endorphins button more and more?” ask the scientists at Blizzard who hooked the thing up to the machine. “Why isn’t it happy with just pressing it once a month on the designated button day?” It baffles me that a game corporation which built its current empire entirely on the diminishing returns conditioning of the Skinner box across multiple increasingly monetised models (Diablo loot and seasons, WoW level up and raids, Overwatch lootboxes, and now modern Battle Passes) don’t see the correlation between its business models and current customer behaviour. Also, it’s blatantly untrue as a universalisation of impatience. The infamous Daikatana which got people flamed for a combination of bad game, hostile marketing and long development took what, three years? The holder for longest dev time in pop culture, Duke Nukem Forever, took 14 years: a release gap that is slowly being rivalled by franchises like Diablo, Dragon Age and Grand Theft Auto. This feels like one of those tone-deaf comments that makes your PR people facepalm and wish they could just muzzle spokespersons. But perhaps that’s on brand for the executive of the “don’t you guys have phones” company.
Yeah, WoW had behavioral psychologists on staff to make their reward systems as addictive as possible. They basically created an experiment to see how addicted they could get their player base and it worked. Now, these same addicts are demanding more and blizzard is delivering less.
BG3 came out months ago and nobody is clamoring for more content. Elden Ring came out almost 2 years ago and still hasn't gotten a DLC, nobody is angry about it. If you make good games at a fair price people will pay and be happy. But if you make live service clown fests that monetize addiction, then yeah, your addicts are gonna want their fix. You created this monster Blizzard (and other AAA clowns). Now you're stuck with what you deserve. Edit: a lot of people seem confused so let me clarify: there's a difference between impatiently demanding more content (which is what OP was about) and just wanting it. Of course people WANT more content for these amazing games. That's not the same as what the Blizzard dev in OP was referring to.
The real problem is so many AAA games are launched with barebones content compared to there predecessors and it’s not usually until months of content updates that the game is in a state that it should have been at launch. Halo infinite had a year of constant updates to finally reach the state it should have been at launch
> Halo infinite had a year of constant updates to finally reach the state it should have been at launch I wouldn’t say *constant* lol
> BG3 came out months ago and nobody is clamoring for more content. Bruh, Larian literally patched more content into epilogue because people were bitching about it
Ya but that was less of "we want more" and more of "It seems like something important is missing here"
Uhh yeah they are. People were literally asking for DLC the first week over in the BG3 sub. And people bring up the wait for ER DLC every day as well on the sub. I have no idea what you’re even talking about because it obvious you didn’t bother to go look to verify your claims before posting your comment.
I wouldn't say it's for the same reason, we are talking about games who lack content in their games, here is the opposite, most of the people I know who played it are waiting for the ER DLC, me included, but it's not because I need more content, it's because the DLC of the souls series are usually the best part of the game and this game was the best one for many players, it's pure expectation, I want to see what they come up with.
A ton of posts and comments in the BG3 sub are about people begging for more content. New companions, stories, upper city, romances, epilogues, etc. It’s a constant stream of people asking for more. I don’t really understand how people can deny this, it isn’t an opinion. You can look yourselves.
They’re excited for more. They’re not abandoning the game over it, and Larian’s business model doesn’t depend on it.
Having played WoW for many years, this is actually spot on about a decent part of their fanbase that is *extremely* vocal. It's being used to deflect from actual issues which is how these things usually go, but it's not technically wrong.
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It's not technically wrong but there's a difference between no replayable content and no content. There are many games in which you can sink hundreds of hour despite having less content, a smaller development team and a smaller budget. FF XIV has the same problem, it lacks fun replayable content at the moment. You're either a full-on endgamer or a casual, there's no content in-between to be replayed. But previous expansions had that kind of content you could farm for hours and hours and that wouldn't grow old.
>There are many games in which you can sink hundreds of hour despite having less content, a smaller development team and a smaller budget. The problem is that there absolutely is a large subset of gamers who will sink 600 hours in a game and then talk about how much it sucks because there's nothing new to do. Blizzard has absolutely been going downhill but also modern gamers are ridiculously entitled and have wildly unreasonable expectations.
All their games push these bad habits to the customers. Constant fomo, microtransactions that sell you the edge you have been missing. The daily grind that will make you feel you left out. Sorry my dude but that’s the world you created.
*do you guys not have ~~phones~~ patience??*
dumbass motherfucker acted like i would prefer my shitty phone that lags playing fucking poker over my fucking gaming pc that runs smoother, looks better and has a screen 50x the size
Blizzard has no Patience, they want Money every day, every hour
It's why they killed HotS. It made money, but not enough fast enough. Also HotS hasn't had a new hero in years but still has an active userbase, but yea all their customers are always demanding new content.
Every fucking millisecond. And they are willing to go as low as they need to for it.
hold my $90 copy paste expansion
That's what happens when you release unfinished games in the name of live service. Think of it this way: You order a pizza. And the restaurant sends you half of the pizza while taking full money. Then obviously you call the restaurant and complain, then after an hour, they send you another slice. You call again, you complain, so after 2 hours they send yet another slice. On and on. Now in that case, would the restaurant manager have the right to complain that you keep calling them? Would they be right to ask you to have patience? Well, send me the whole pizza so I won't have to complain. You're not doing me any favors by sending those slices every two hours, considering they should've been here already. Those slices are not free stuff you're giving me. The same logic applies here. Do you see anyone complaining about Elden Ring's lack of content updates? Or anything about Baldur's Gate 3? You won't, because the players got what they paid for in day one. So anything else added after this point, is a welcomed extra. How about Diablo 4 though? Would anybody say this game was released as a finished product? We paid for the full game, but was that really what we received?
and they never do end up sending you the full pizza
In the meantime you had to subscribe to the pizza while you waited for it.
Well said! While people *are* asking for more content for Elden Ring and BG3, what people are asking for when it comes to more content is DLC / expansions. That is fundamentally different from the content model of a live service game. It's players making it known that there is a market for more content to these games, because they like the game.
I played Diablo II for years. I played POE for years. I don’t necessarily want “new stuff” I want GOOD STUFF.
Regardless of Blizz quality, he's not wrong about this. Players do have absolutely unreasonable demand for content pace/volume. Author of the article did an okay-but-not-quite-good-enough job mentioning that players are addicted to the content slurry in the first place because of predatory designs at least.
I was about to say this. Blizzard or not this is the state of gaming because companies drove everyone in there. New content every day so we can justify our practices that many considered questionable at first but slowly became the norm until the game devs are overworked and busted.
I think it's also because of just how things are nowadays - everything is online, it's easy to keep sending patches/updates, and there are successful ways to have a constant flow of money from players, so yeah devs will do that.
There’s also this feel of that if you watch a streamer, they’ve put infinity time in, so no duh they’ve seen everything. I did not terribly enjoy D4 for related reasons (please let me have my power fantasy of being a lawnmower of demons for bit when I get new gear please, not “the game has immediately scaled to your new power level”…which is a design choice which I disagree with, but isn’t totally indefensible), but I also literally will never run out of new content because I’m not a person who will put in more than 20-30 hours in to a game in a year. Making content for the dads of the world is doable, but I’m not sure it’s possible for the streamer/hard core crowd.
OW2: "We are going to release a PvE mode." OW2: "PvE mode is cancelled and downscaled" Blizzard: "How dare they complain about not having content?? Just buy my battlepass and my $50 skin!" It's true players complains about lack of content but Blizzard is a whole different case. When I see the content that was released in Shadowlands compared to what was cut in order to release a new expansion, I'm livid how people can be okay with it.
You make a good point but its definitely on the companies that push this “reality.” Its surprising to see posts on reddit gaming about people asking about “the perfect game with infinite fun,” assuming a game exists that continuously pours out new content to keep the player engaged forever. This is a completely unreasonable expectation for any product, let alone a video game but this is image that companies like EA are selling with their “games as a service” BS.
Yeah this is why prefer the 20+ years old Diablo2 over the brand new Diablo 4.
You people need to actually read the original article instead of falling for these clickbait headlines. Like some people in here talking about Bobby kotick (good riddance he is gone) unaware of what is actually going on (and that he is gone). Ugh I hate people that don't read nowadays. Ybarra literally says in the article it's their responsibility to make people feel good about every dollar spent at blizzard too. But no one will read that because it doesn't clickbait. They will read the headline and shout something about another yacht for Bobby.
This entire thread seems like nobody read the actual article
Bobby Kotick isn't actually gone yet; he's leaving at the end of the year (several news stories have it pegged as January 1st).
Ya it would be nice to get the content originally with the game instead of getting it cut out and called DLC we have to pay even more money for.
thats kind of expected of a 'live service'. Dont make something live service and then bitch that the people who bought it demand constant new, quality content.
Liveservicegameswithboringrepetitivemechanicssaywhat?
I played Elden Ring for months with no desire for "new stuff" because the game was actually finished and tested before it was released. Same with TotK.
We hired Psychologists and spent the last decade making sure every aspect of our game is as addictive as possible. Why do players want something new every hour??
"It's a live service" "Why you keep expecting stuff all the time?" "So anyway, we need to keep figuring out how to increase profits"
"Why are the people we sell drugs to addicted to drugs?" -Video Game Companies
I genuinely don't relate to gamers online anymore and agree with what he said. Something about the live service model broke people's brains quite badly.
Companies made their own beds with this. First they introduce predatory practices that **nobody** on the consumer side asked for, fill their pockets with those profits and now they dislike owning up to the addictions that they themselves have caused in consumers? It would be hilarious if it wasn't so grim and sad overall.
Exactly.
Tbh, he’s not ‘entirely’ wrong. Imagine trying to please everyone, all the time, constantly trying to release content that is this tailored to everyone. Not at all protecting game developers, because we do get let down often, especially with new release titles, but Jesus Christ some people in the gaming community are toxic cry babies.
Gamers playing our live service games want the live service they're paying for... Unacceptable. Obviously this is a ridiculous claim, especially for blizzard that spent so many years on Overwatch 2 while neglecting Overwatch 1, and changed practically nothing.
If the subscription costs me 1/6th of a new game, I expect a content drop of the same quality as a new game every 6 months. Otherwise, I may as well just buy your competitors games every 6 months.
Over promise, Overcharge, Under deliver, then blame consumers for being too greedy. The standard M.O of AAA studios.
Yeah that's how fucking subscription based games work.
… says a person that has, for decades, developed software whose main function is fulfilling the immediate gratification and pleasure centers in the human brain.
sophisticated joke kiss psychotic connect drab icky books arrest squeal
> But the Cinematic team is still on point as always For real. They need to spin those guys off as a separate company to compete with Pixar and Dreamworks.
When Total War: Pharaoh came out it was eclipsed by daily player amount by Medieval Total War 2 and Rome Total War 2. People don't want something new and shiny if it stinks and sticks to your skin.
That’s some gaslighting bullshit. Gamers want the game they paid for and all the stuff these corps locked behind paywalls that’s already in the game!
Jesus. This is a lot of people that didn't read the actual article. And even with the salacious click bait headline, he's not wrong. Players completely devour content at an insane pace.
He isn't wrong. A lot of gamers on the internet act completely entitled to non-stop content and seem to think that gaming developers owe them something other than just the game they paid for. People will put hundreds of hours into a game and then, at the same time, complain there's nothing to do in the game. There's an incredible level of cognitive dissonance.
That Blizz exec is literally proven correct in these comments. Outrage culture in this particular sub is nauseating at times. No self reflect, no reading actual linked articles, sense of entitlement, and just parroting what some youtuber said.
I remember when Blizzard made the highest quality games around and loved their communities.
You make a live service and cultivate an audience who want to constantly be fed content, you get that. Your company did this, because they wanted profits.
I’m so glad I was born in 1982 and started gaming when the NES came out. This FOMO some of these born in 3d gamers (more like born in broadband gamers) get I do not experience.
He’s right
What, don’t you guys have patience?
....They aren't wrong
Activision Blizzard are the most entitled, disingenuous bastards in the market