Align with Palpatine, you get Lord Vaders saber in the end, just like the Trade Federation. The good this is, all the money spent on the cancelled projects went to pay devs working on ultimately cancelled projects.
Disney killed the franchise a while ago… I think they’re just about done with successful Star Wars games too. It’s not hopeful 1998 anymore. It’s reality 2024. That franchise was used and abused too much for most of us normal people to care about it.
Appreciated Rich's point regarding simple kindness around the layoffs. The picture of them celebrating the retirement of an executive aware of the firings is just horrible, I would look back on that photo and feel so disrespected if I had experienced that :(
Not to mention, Jim Ryan got a golden parachute, millions of dollars in his retirement fund, and he really ran PlayStation into the mud with some seriously bad moves, and a lot of other people got fired for the stupid things that he did.
microsoft lays off 2000 people the week that phil was on stage at blozzcon yucking it up with people xbox fired days later and npt a peep form digital foundry..
micrsft lays off two thousand the week that phil was at blizcon all smiling on stage with those he would fire days later and not a peep from digitalfoundry, hmm very unbiased channel they're running here...
It wasn't simply "unkind". It was psychopathic. He went to celebrate with those people, without caring about them at all. He was only interested in them celebrating him.
Remember that 505 games also had large layoffs in Europe. This was mentioned after they sold the Control IP to Remedy. 505 is from Italy, really interesting.
Sony had that diversity and decided to get rid of it and close a bunch of studios a few years ago. And I've really felt it. I miss all the smaller unique titles, those were some of my favorites.
For me, Media Molecule's Dreams is a perfect example. A creative sandbox in a kind of live service, which Sony wanted for a long time. It reasonably successful and liked by the community. So much potential, a PC version would be a massive hit that could rival Roblox on the long term, and Sony is simply letting it fade away.
I think John got tripped up on the 'refund' part of it, but it's not really any different than the cashier telling you there's currently a coupon or promotion going on for an item they're ringing up.
I think is more like: this dude is going to return it after he finds out, might as well do it now and I keep the sale. Handling refunds is annoying, back when I was in sales we didn’t sale brands or specific devices, unless there was a specific spiff on something (usually some LG phone). If the customer refunds you lose the sale, if I suspected the customer was likely to return something I would get the right item in his or her hands the first time, because next time could be a refund and not an exchange. Besides, nobody wants to process a refund or exchange when you could be helping a different customer with a new sale.
Surprised John’s been in Europe for years and hasn’t come across this attitude from store employees before. Also, the employee must of thought John was a massive noob for not taking him up on the offer 😂
I personally work for a large corporation, and they got rid of a bunch of positions that were supposably unnecessary. After a few months productivity went down, and people started to quit because of how much their workload multiply. After that the company went on a hiring spree that hasn't stop. Laying off people doesn't fix anything, it makes things worse for a company as a whole.
This same conversation will happen when AI comes in fully for game development. They'll use it to help with development at first, then use it to replace people as their profits have capped.
Dont know why but theres something humorous about the idea of Mark and John hanging out in that room until the early hours playing games and letting the beard grow...
"Let's check in with Mark. How's Starfox coming along?" "Just beat it. Let's check in with John. How's the beard coming along?" "Just beat the stubble.🧔♂️"
beard john spitting facts.. punishing those top tier studios like that is crazy.. i mean i get making cuts on studios that dont deliver but.. those guys? really?
Only thing I can think of why Insomniac got hit with layoffs is due to them not doing very well with keeping the budget to Spider-Man 2 from ballooning. Sony COO Hitori Totoki pretty much spelled out that these studios need to do a better job in managing their budget and development time better. Not sure how cutting workforce will keep development time down or budget from rising but finance people sometimes don't see things the way creatives do.
"i mean i get making cuts on studios that dont deliver" With the way this generation has been going, Insomniac should have been untouched, maybe even given more budget. Naughty Dog, on the other hand, I'm surprised they just got layoffs and not closed entirely. They haven't put out a single new game this generation. They've wasted loads of time and money on a live service The Last of Us multiplayer only to cancel it after realizing how much work ongoing support would be. If they were under EA or Embracer Group they would definitely be closed right now. EDIT: Just to be super clear, I don't _want_ Naughty Dog to be closed. I'm just surprised that they haven't been, because a lot of other publishers would have closed a developer with their recent lack of success.
@@mjc0961 I don't think giving Insomniac more money will fix the problem. It could exacerbate the budget increasing exponentially for a game that plays out to 10-15 hours, at best. Sony needs to set concrete guidelines on budgeting and to listen to their studios if they can meet those guidelines based on the budget allocated. IF they said they can't then they have to explain. This is the same with any industry where a group is given a budget. Is it too much or too little and if it is then it's up to the group leads to explain why that is. Why the video game industry do not follow this simple concept of accountability I have no idea. I'm all for creatives getting the freedom to make what they want, but letting creatives handle the finances of their projects gets us to where the industry is now.
That's how I felt about the Epic layoffs in January. If they're cutting even though they're still making ton of money from fortnite then no company is safe from layoffs in this current Era.
One of the reasons why I think there have been so many layoffs is because I think all of these big companies underestimated the amount of time and effort it takes to make a good game. Games take years to develop. Having hundreds of people would make you think that it would speed up game production right? Wrong! When you have a huge amount of employees, simple things like communication becomes extremely difficult and ends up having the opposite effect of what you'd think. They've bloated their studios thinking that they can pump more games out at good quality, but have now realized that you run into more hurdles and it's not sustainable. Add to that that a lot of the people in charge aren't passionate about video games or don't know how to actually MANAGE a team, and you have a huge mess on your hands. The entire gaming industry has become oversaturated because people have realized it's a huge money maker. In my opinion, it would be better to have a studio with around 100 people, a handful of them being veteran developers, have each one run/manage a team of 10 or so and then have someone oversee all teams specifically to make sure everyone is communicating directly and are on track. This will also help with the budget issue, more employees means more salaries to pay. The average wage for a game dev is $82,000. If you have 300 employees you are spending over 100 million throughout the games development SOLEY on wages. This doesn't include things like insurance and other benefits. Decreasing the amount with employees would have a huge effect on the games overall budget.
_"They’re about meeting budgets and shareholder expectations. That’s it."_ You have no idea if that is true or not, nobody really does. For all you know these could be dozens of sub-par employees that were warned more than once about their performance. You just don't know and are making generalizations about the businesses without any facts and only one sensationalized side of the story.
@@davidandrew6855 you don’t magically have 900 employees that are suddenly bad at their jobs. Mass layoffs are a cost cutting measure. It’s not rocket science. I might not personally know the cow that gave the milk in the gallon I bought from the store but I don’t need an expert to explain me where it came from.
@@lipsontajgordongrunk4328 So you agree you don't know what you are talking about as nobody has the full story. Got it. I'm also not saying layoffs are good, but blanket assumptions that it was done just for shareholders and budget doesn't ring totally true. The flip side is how many people get to keep their jobs because of this unfortunate layoff? Nobody ever thinks about that, and just assumes that management is evil and don't care. That is not always the case.
They're about shedding responsibility from piss poor leadership onto a percentage of the workforce. Egregious strategies, budgets and moronic stubbornness -- look no further than the leadership. There's nuance to some of it, but the major beats boils down to horrendous leadership.
@@davidandrew6855 Yeah I got it. It was done for financial reasons. Purely. Source: you'd have to be utterly redonkulously willfully blind or Stockholmed to say otherwise.
Nintendo's attack on emulation is nothing new but the implications of this legal procedure for FOSS development, progress in engineering and game preservation the worst. I hope Yuzu wins!
It's a case of people taking a good thing too far and ruining it for everyone. The pirated downloads are excessive for a console that's still in service, and no, "the console is underpowered e-waste" is not a legal defense.
@@KhalidTheSequelit doesn't matter how many people use Yuzu for piracy, that doesn't justify or excuse Nintendo abusing the legal system for nefarious purposes.
@@RubyRose23328 Always fun to see which company, according to you weirdo console warriors, Digital Foundry is supposedly biased against. It seems like you people can't make up your mind whether DF are Sony or Microsoft fanboys, cause it changes from week to week.
Microsoft is the most valuable company in the world, in front of Apple, Nvidia and Saudi Arabian Oil Co. They could buy Sony 20 times and still have a trillion left.
@@eSKAone- the difference is that Nvidia has grown organically due to gaming and ai. Microsoft is dependent on buying companies such as activision blizzard and they already started laying people off. The ABK acquisition is going to going be a huge flop, anyone that knows anything about how these companies are ran knows that blizzard is just a name, none of the talent that made it famous even works there anymore.
We all want our 100 hour games at $$60. This is what we deserve. My grandpa was telling me that Strider on SEGA Genesis cost him $50 at launch ($120 in 1989 money) and only took 30 mins to beat!! Imagine having these consumer unfriendly practices nowadays!!
I don't actually agree with much of the sentiment shared here. It was only a short while ago that we were all (including DF quite vocally) bemoaning Sony's LACK of commitment to their single player narrative driven games in their search for the live service golden goose. It was all anyone could talk about, in fact, during Jim Ryan's era; how Sony were abandoning their core player base by focusing too heavily on live services, taking studios like Naughty Dog and chaining them to their live service Factions thing instead of letting them do what they do best. We were all literally having this conversation a few months ago! Now suddenly it's Sony's commitment to single player narrative games that is its own undoing? Come on, DF. You have longer memories than this. What I personally think has happened with Sony is that they've seen the live service bubble bursting after they've already committed so many studios and resources into it, and are now having to axe much of their plans and pivot away, back to their original status quo of making single player games, and a lot of jobs are being lost as a result. And then there is the overhiring during the pandemic which is now being course corrected as many have pointed out, then you've got just straight up greedy 'line-goes-up' shareholder BS on top of all of that. But to say the current state of Sony is just down to their commitment to single player narrative AAA titles is disingenuous when you guys were lamenting Sony's lack of commitment to that very thing just a few short months ago.
Is Naughty dog baffling? They haven’t had any truly significant releases in 5 years. I don’t consider Part 1 to be akin to Demon’s Souls since it was already ported to PS4
@@DVD013009 Well, yeah..That one I can understand more, but doesn't Sony have some say in what these studios should make? I don't know the details, but since they are the publisher, they "contract" their studios to do a job, no? So it's up to them to say what their studios should do and if it isn't done right, it's the developer's accountability.. But if it isn't even greenlit, isn't that the publisher's accountability? Maybe I don't understand it right, but this is how I see it now.
With Helldivers I think a key aspect there is that while it is live service, there is a dev acting as a DM and driving the story. So like there's a reason for it to be live service. It's like the point rather than it being an afterthought to juice money.
They're pretty screwed. Like they took money for one then they developed a patch for an unreleased game and only released it by channel of the monetary path. Directly financially benefiting from piracy. There was no other way to get ToTK at the time of the patch. Same really applies to Mario.
If Yuzu win, it will accelerate all console makers to stream only games,, it will also be good evidence to their shareholders that the law won't protect them, so it's better they give up and just go back to the arcade days where gamers don't own the games anymore and pay to play(freemium games have kinda started this trend a while ago).
With these layoffs, we’re going to see a rise in smaller new teams doing maybe indie to double A works, which may be for the better where they’ll have more creative control and less crunch. Me and many others im sure are here and ready to help support their work.
I think the moves Xbox has made in the past few weeks demonstrate the shifting landscape of exclusives being able to sustain the massive video games industry. Microsoft is a multi decade looking forward company and so I really hope with less money being restricted to individual platforms that these developers will be able to feel confident and comfortable in their jobs. It sucks all around :/ was there bloat with the pandemic bubble? Absolutely. But these are people’s lives.
The moves Xbox has made demonstrate how badly the current executives have been running things. Did Nintendo lay anyone off? Nope. Is Nintendo talking about going multiplatform? Nope. Is Nintendo the richest company in Japan? Yup. So, Nintendo executives have been running their business well, better than Microsoft even in terms of forward thinking.
@@G360LIVE Where do you get your insight and illogic? Also Nintendo is not the richest company in Japan, not by a long shot, that would be Toyota with a market cap about 4x that of Nintendo. If you don't understand the layoffs, and you don't by your posting, then why comment at all on them. Nobody has any real knowledge of what is going on in Sony or Microsoft or any company that has to do these layoffs, we don't have the whole story.
It amazes me that Sony seem completely unwilling to make more than one type of game. That’s just asking for trouble. Part of Nintendo’s continuing success is that they are constantly making AA and even A games as well as giant AAA epics.
The only reason Microsoft hasn't been completely wiped out of the industry is because they at least have some interesting variety as well. I don't know if Sony or the Playstation brand is going to do well long term.
I believe that no matter how successful games could be, these companies will find a way to cut costs and maximize profits. Unfortunately they have dehumanized these layoffs and they’re only numbers at this point. So many companies have reported record profits and followed that up with layoffs. The money funnels up and then disappears.
@@Chill_Mode_JD Americanised English is watered down rubbish from what real English is. They don't even have their own language, so they shouldn't ever criticise or make fun of anything.
This is the only weekly podcast that always surprises me when it comes out. Every single time I see it in my NewPipe subscription feed, I'm like _"What? This must be a clip or re-upload, right? Dang! A new episode already? AWESOME!!!_ Maybe it is because they are so super re-watchable. ❤
The whole thing with Yuzu is not just the piracy aspect. It's also the fact that Yuzu managed to get access to the cryptographic keys that that the switch uses when dealing with games. Alongside that, they also provided guides on how to essentially pirate switch games. That's the core of the case Nintendo put forward. There was an article that talked about this and other emulator developers commented on the fact that they believe they are still relatively safe because they cover systems that don't really make money anymore. I think the best comparison someone made was comparing Yuzu to Bleem and how that collapsed.
I'd honestly do the same and inform the buyer about the game being FREE on the respective service being PS+ or GamePass. Because if the customer has that experience they will come back to do other purchases, because if not for those customers these stores would close down.
Its odd that he thinks a cashier would be more interested in the store's bottom line than connecting with someone on a topic he clearly cares about too lol.
Yeah, his reaction on that is really weird, he could have just said to him that he likes owning physical games. And also how is it weird that a normal cashier at a big chain doesn't care about their sales and just wants to be nice.
I can't help but notice how Try holds his controller. He holds it up literally the entire time. Wouldn't it be more comfortable to rest it in your lap? 😂
The fact Sony have come out and already said there won’t be any AAA first- games this year, so early into the year, spells out how bad things are. That’s a massive hole in their line-up.
Excited for the physx video coming because as Alex im also a big fan of the physx effects it just made the games using them so damn impressive to look at especially for the time i would much rather have physx than RT in my games !
Iv said it for years and il say it again. Bring back the 8 to 9 hour game. You can still have the naughty dog level polish but ya let's reign in the scale. I actually think uncharted lost legacy is a perfect example of this. My question to others in the comments is let's be real. Are you willing to pay $50, $60 even $70 for a game that lasts nearish 10 hours maybe less? I am, but im afraid im in the minority. There's tons of gamers out there that value the length of the game first and foremost. The order 1886 was crucified for many reasons, some very valid, but the main sticking point with most was the length. It's only 7, 8 hours and its $60. It was standard practice in the ps3 360 days but now apparently that's not good enough. Would love to hear what others think about this.
You are so on point with this! Somehow I get tired of most games, even if they're generally pretty good because they overstay their welcome... Add a lot of replayability instead of length, developers!
Sadly these layoffs are inevitable. People are probably spending less on entertainment, including games, since the cost of living is going up. And given that there's less money going in, there will be less budget available for salaries.
You have to have really good reason to up the scale. It has to really fit the game and be something more than just bland space that tries to hide its blandness. Elden Ring comes to mind as justified in 80% (it will probably go lower when i get to the end tho), and thats the best example. Most game worlds just left you feel like a growing waste of time. Shorter game with other modes (like Witcher 2 with its arena) feels like best of both worlds to satisfy wider range of length expectancy
Game length does not scale linearly with cost sadly. I personally wouldn't mind paying way more for a great game. The fact that TLOU costs the same as robocop is just out of balance.
The ironic part is that London Studio is the last part of Psygnosis which was the publisher Sony bought before they sold a single PS1. Crazy how something that was key to PS existence in the UK and EU which they dominate is now gone
@@jjboonzaier most projects take 3-4years and with 2020 and 2021 putting a damper on the industry it seems Sony didnt do much to toss them some backlog projects. Even still this hurts their image overall in that region
@@mrsock9135 I was thinking the same. Actually, if you knew a studio was going to close, wouldn't you want to visit it one last time, etc., that kind of thing? As opposed to just ignoring it and not even think about it anymore. Nore sure one is worse than the other.
After talking with a number of friends and associates that fell victim to the layoffs, I’d say this episode has the right amount of foul language. Could use even just a little more for good measure tbh.
I appreciate John's candor when he expressed his distaste of these layoffs at Sony. He uses control when expresses his anger at times, but sometimes you gotta let go of that anger with an f bomb every now and then, bleeped of course, and that's ok, cause I blows my mind too.
Alan Wake 2 budget was 75 million dollars. Spider-Man 2's was 315 million. The only difference to me is the giant map that's about as interactable as Alan Wake's tiny playable areas. Seriously where does 4.2x the budget go, that's insane. Especially considering they already made the map, and gameplay in the 1st game. They could have just added Spider-Man 2's campaign into Spider-Man 1 and bam, save 250 million dollars, and a few years. That's what it feels like they did any way, except they redeveloped the same fucking map. GTA V cost less and it's bigger, more systems, bespoke cars, boats, planes, helicopters, bikes and their interiors, driveable vehicles, insane ai routines and economy, an internet and cell phone, dynamic destruction, etc, etc. Such a grossly overinflated budget for a 15 hour linear game, jfc.
The layoffs aren't a games industry problem, it's a problem with our entire economic system. Shareholders want to make infinitely growing profit and have been doing this by scalping the consumer more and more while working their employees to the bone (for relatively low compensation compared to the executives). Everyone in almost every industry up and down society has less disposable income than ever to spend on products like video games. People are less willing to take a risk on a $70 game when they know that money could be going to food or rent - especially when these games are competing against "f2p" games like fortnight. The other issue stemming from this is that now people have less money to spend on an individual game, they expect more "value" from each. Spiderman2 was considered "too short" for some despite being probably the longest Spiderman game in franchise history - the expectation has gone up. The only way to do that is by increasing manhours or cutting quality.
Developers need to adopt the Larian Studios model. Get the funding for your games in Early Access from the gamers. It’s a win win. You get money from “investors” to pay your devs, and don’t actually have to pay dividends. If the product never ships, it never ships.
Completely accurate but be very very careful....The majority of the population (At least in the USA) is brainwashed and will immediately claim that this is some sort of.... 'ism mentality. In their minds CEOS are perfect human beings, and corporations as well, they can do no wrong.
I think it's clear to see based on some of the history of this type of stuff that John isn't fit to comment on these kinds of things. It's okay to have a reaction like this but that type of mentality is what internet forum dwellers do and he has a history of that. I would respect the sound of it more if it came off as a more understanding of how the industry works. And while you could argue that it's been true in the past that these things haven't worked, you can see that there has been an industry-wide reasoning even within Sony to say that the current business model isn't really sustainable long-term and let everybody would handle it the same but you have to start somewhere. Like I said elsewhere, I expect them to come out stronger because of this regardless of John's overly emotional opinion. That's the kind of opinion I wouldn't trust either. Even as I'm listening to this with Rich's opinion, this comes off as a poorly worded internet forum dweller argument. The fact that one of the industry leaders is saying this should be heeded if you want your precious gaming industry to thrive the way it has been Has anyone forgot that we are in an unprecedented financial shift worldwide and how some are so naive to miss the big picture is concerning and makes me think less of the opinions of people like John and Rich (to a lesser extent).
I wonder if everyone complaining about Microsoft considering cross platform releases to help with sustainability, now sees this through a different light? Sometimes businesses have to make hard decisions and finding other (ethical) ways that doesn't involve lay off's is always commendable in my opinion
@@RubyRose23328true. These gaming media people have always viewed MS and Xbox as an “unnecessary outsider”, since day 1. I say this as an old timer that worked in the games business in the 90s.
@@RubyRose23328 Well, he is pretty impartial when discussing the Series X and S as far as I have seen. Him stating that he wishes they never entered the market isn't an explicit statement made to show his seething hatred for the company.
King makers looks like it's based on that story that went viral and reddit where a team of marines was transported back to medieval times. Such a cool idea and I'm glad they're making a game based on it
I really agree about those Geometry Wars games, Rich. They are addictive, beautiful in their simplicity, and all around excellent. Geometry Wars 2 has always been my first test for buying a new TV. I'm always excited to see the bright colors pop on a new TV. AAA video games are on the Hollywood model of spending insane amounts on projects and thinking they'll make enough profits to overcome the budget. It's not working out well for them.
The games industry was largely started by people making games in their bedrooms on open platforms. If we have to go back to that we will, only now we have global reach, can collaborate from anywhere in the world, and don't need every game to make billions.
Another great discussion DF Team! RE: Lay-offs, in a profit/shareholder driven business, this will be common place on an annual (if not more frequent) basis. When there isn't large enough growth to please shareholders, the workers suffer. Every time. It's frustrating and sad. If there is any lesson to be learned here it'd be to remain a private company and make agreements to publish on platforms. Easier said than done without a doubt, but I can't see this industry really thriving in the current acquisition/publicly traded heavy environment. The bigger companies are, the more the workers suffer. Microsoft flat out lied during the FTC proceedings regarding the Activision/Blizzard acquisition and layoffs following the deal going through. This should tell you all you need to know about how these companies really operate in today's industry. It's pathetic.
I'm not an industry expert by any means, but I do know that tech companies in general (which includes game studios and publishers) went hog wild with hiring in 2020 due to the rapid growth in consuption of home entertainment because of the pandemic. We also saw expansionary monetary policy in much of the developed world (North America, Europe, Japan, and so on) that stimulated high amounts of low interest investment, as Rich mentioned. Now we have an environment where people are spending less money on home entertainment while investment is more expensive to secure with central banks trying to slow inflation. These factors suggest that some layoffs would make sense, but I agree with the DF team that the scale of the layoffs seems too broad, and they have punished too many highly successful studios wholesale. I would have expected these companies to bring their staffing levels to 2019 levels, but these layoffs almost certainly exceed that. The layoffs at EA seem especially harebrained.
Yuzu has settled the case for 2.4 million and will shutdown. They made up to 30k a month, and even if they did that for 5 years, which they didn't since it stared far less, that still only means they made 1.8 million. So they probably actually lost all the money they made in that time. Effectively they were working for free for the whole time.
Let's not pretend like these CEOs in question are of some higher stock of thinking and understanding. So many awful decisions (both financially and artistically) can be traced right back to CEOs strongarming their ignorant and selfish views. @eSKAone-
Yeah they should be the first to go. They make the most so it’d be the greatest savings and they don’t do anything so they wouldn’t be losing anything.
The easiest difference in physics is comparing the single player Star Wars games. The Force Unleashed series on the PS360 had crazy physics, allowing you to force push/pull almost anything. The Jedi series on the recent consoles are basically souls games with physics having basically no impact to the environment.
These layoffs should be repurposed into QA. The concentration on Microtransactions at the expense of Mechanics and user experience is not acceptable. Developers need to concentrate on making games run smoothly and use all modes of software scaling so they run on all platforms. The "need" to buy new hardware just to brute force any game to run well is not acceptable.
I wonder if some of this is the impact of fairly low cost games being successful and companies like Sony then asking themselves why they're spending so much money. Personally, I think you'll see more of these layoffs as studios reorient themselves to be more efficient. The issue is, they don't care about the artistry, they're only thinking about it from the financial perspective. The games that succeed with small budgets are oozing with creativity. Of course Jim Ryan knew, but legal and HR are going to prevent him from saying anything. Those two departments are almost single handedly responsible for all the "unkind" actions of these large companies.
44:43 reminds me sort of Kingdom Under Fire for the original Xbox. RTS game but you have a third person perspective while controlling a hero character with also a Koei warrior genre sprinkled in as well. I loved those games. Sadly KOF 2 was an mmo and took down the IP
I doubt it. The ones from the bigger established media sites will do so but won’t treat it like it was Watergate or career-defining. For the most part most of the people who cover the gaming industry too intertwined with the PR teams for these publishers and studios.
You're always going to have a bottleneck somewhere, but it's best to have it in the GPU. It's far easier to adjust settings to get a stable frame rate that way.
Unfortunately Sony has begun this journey in 2016…I slowly phased out of PlayStation and slowly hated it because of how repetitive and “big” from a budget standpoint games started to become. People loved them but now realistically they are too expensive and they’re not that innovative. I would’ve preferred lower budget games and a lot more diversity…now I am worried about PlayStation as a whole because having these games on PC or the PSVR relevant outside of the console should not be mutually exclusive with keeping jobs and fostering creativity. Really this whole PS5 generation has been lie over lie, mistake over mistake and the only people who kept doing their job properly in PSStudios (the devs) are paying for someone else hideous ideas…
Bravo to Rich when he brings up Geometry Wars 2. I think the point is the industry needs to get back to making games again - rather than interactive movies.
17:00 i agree Rich. But working at a big company as well, layoffs like these are normal for them in a way that they almost just immediately forget about them after they talk about it.
When your staff is bloated with DEI hires who don't contribute to development and instead run off the paying customers, how could there not be lay offs?
I'm really loving the Turnabout Sister Theme playing at the end of DF Directs. Such a good tune and immediately gets me seeking out the Phoenix Wright and Ghost Trick Soundtracks
It's about time that DF more stridently criticizes the industry. You got the clout for it, I don't think they can afford to blacklist you so you have nothing to fear.
At this point I'd be curious as to how many dollars have been spent on the development of cancelled Star Wars games vs shipped Star Wars games...
Same goes for Star Wars movies.
good point...
Align with Palpatine, you get Lord Vaders saber in the end, just like the Trade Federation.
The good this is, all the money spent on the cancelled projects went to pay devs working on ultimately cancelled projects.
Disney killed the franchise a while ago… I think they’re just about done with successful Star Wars games too. It’s not hopeful 1998 anymore. It’s reality 2024. That franchise was used and abused too much for most of us normal people to care about it.
@@boosted2022 There is still hope because of the game being made by the studio that made Detroit Become Human.
John’s new hair tech is amazing when you consider he was running in performance mode.
Must be TressFX lol, or whatever it's called.
I think it's advanced procedural hair rendering using the new mesh shading pipeline for ultra low memory access cost
DLSS performance? 🤔🙃
@Prep84😆
Looks like a 256x256 texture on zoom
Appreciated Rich's point regarding simple kindness around the layoffs. The picture of them celebrating the retirement of an executive aware of the firings is just horrible, I would look back on that photo and feel so disrespected if I had experienced that :(
Not to mention, Jim Ryan got a golden parachute, millions of dollars in his retirement fund, and he really ran PlayStation into the mud with some seriously bad moves, and a lot of other people got fired for the stupid things that he did.
microsoft lays off 2000 people the week that phil was on stage at blozzcon yucking it up with people xbox fired days later and npt a peep form digital foundry..
micrsft lays off two thousand the week that phil was at blizcon all smiling on stage with those he would fire days later and not a peep from digitalfoundry, hmm very unbiased channel they're running here...
It wasn't simply "unkind". It was psychopathic. He went to celebrate with those people, without caring about them at all. He was only interested in them celebrating him.
we would probably feel a whole lot differently if we were big fancy CEOs to be fair!
I can't believe that DF Direct weekly, for some reason still is their weekly show where they disscus the latest technology and gaming news 😮
I really enjoy listening to this on Mondays, I hope they don't start to do it less.
Alright, can we move on to the next topic?
I'm only 4,5 minutes in, and I'm very sad that I can't like the video multiple times.
because richard = cringe = skipping with right arrow key.
@@joejoe2658 Richard *is* Digital Foundry, don't see how you could not like him but still like the channel.
John’s description of a hypothetical Astro’s Playroom for PS6 was hilarious :)
He absolutely slaughtered Sony on that one
"play levels that are remakes of other levels"🤣
And Alex the PC guy reveling in laughter! 😅
That Sifu story comes across to me as good customer service. That’s the kind of thing that would make me feel good about shopping there more.
Remember that 505 games also had large layoffs in Europe. This was mentioned after they sold the Control IP to Remedy. 505 is from Italy, really interesting.
Love the commentary not just on Sony but the problem with their model of not diversifying the “size” of their dev projects. It’s so true
Sony had that diversity and decided to get rid of it and close a bunch of studios a few years ago. And I've really felt it. I miss all the smaller unique titles, those were some of my favorites.
For me, Media Molecule's Dreams is a perfect example. A creative sandbox in a kind of live service, which Sony wanted for a long time. It reasonably successful and liked by the community. So much potential, a PC version would be a massive hit that could rival Roblox on the long term, and Sony is simply letting it fade away.
I think Dreams probably was a commercial failure. Albeit technically very impressive
I expect Try4ce to still be in John's living room for next direct and playing OOT
It's 3d live wallpaper, looks pretty good doesn't it.. Ray tracing I think
This should just be a mandatory part of the show.
@@JackWsethe live wallpaper can even wave back when you mentioned his name! Lol
That store employee was just being cool and nice. Nothing weird about that at all.
I think John got tripped up on the 'refund' part of it, but it's not really any different than the cashier telling you there's currently a coupon or promotion going on for an item they're ringing up.
I think is more like: this dude is going to return it after he finds out, might as well do it now and I keep the sale. Handling refunds is annoying, back when I was in sales we didn’t sale brands or specific devices, unless there was a specific spiff on something (usually some LG phone). If the customer refunds you lose the sale, if I suspected the customer was likely to return something I would get the right item in his or her hands the first time, because next time could be a refund and not an exchange. Besides, nobody wants to process a refund or exchange when you could be helping a different customer with a new sale.
Mans trying to save him a buck, most people aren't so dedicated to physical or digital, just whatever is cheapest and/or easiest.
Surprised John’s been in Europe for years and hasn’t come across this attitude from store employees before. Also, the employee must of thought John was a massive noob for not taking him up on the offer 😂
I personally work for a large corporation, and they got rid of a bunch of positions that were supposably unnecessary. After a few months productivity went down, and people started to quit because of how much their workload multiply. After that the company went on a hiring spree that hasn't stop. Laying off people doesn't fix anything, it makes things worse for a company as a whole.
This same conversation will happen when AI comes in fully for game development.
They'll use it to help with development at first, then use it to replace people as their profits have capped.
Dont know why but theres something humorous about the idea of Mark and John hanging out in that room until the early hours playing games and letting the beard grow...
They're making content for Bear film productions 🥵😍
"Let's check in with Mark. How's Starfox coming along?"
"Just beat it. Let's check in with John. How's the beard coming along?"
"Just beat the stubble.🧔♂️"
15:34 - The most savage take on the direction of PS6.
Beard John is nothing but a savage
Alex dying of laughter at Johns ps6 version of Astro's playroom was absolutely hilarious and also unfortunately true
beard john spitting facts.. punishing those top tier studios like that is crazy.. i mean i get making cuts on studios that dont deliver but.. those guys? really?
Only thing I can think of why Insomniac got hit with layoffs is due to them not doing very well with keeping the budget to Spider-Man 2 from ballooning. Sony COO Hitori Totoki pretty much spelled out that these studios need to do a better job in managing their budget and development time better.
Not sure how cutting workforce will keep development time down or budget from rising but finance people sometimes don't see things the way creatives do.
"i mean i get making cuts on studios that dont deliver"
With the way this generation has been going, Insomniac should have been untouched, maybe even given more budget.
Naughty Dog, on the other hand, I'm surprised they just got layoffs and not closed entirely. They haven't put out a single new game this generation. They've wasted loads of time and money on a live service The Last of Us multiplayer only to cancel it after realizing how much work ongoing support would be. If they were under EA or Embracer Group they would definitely be closed right now.
EDIT: Just to be super clear, I don't _want_ Naughty Dog to be closed. I'm just surprised that they haven't been, because a lot of other publishers would have closed a developer with their recent lack of success.
@@mjc0961 I don't think giving Insomniac more money will fix the problem. It could exacerbate the budget increasing exponentially for a game that plays out to 10-15 hours, at best.
Sony needs to set concrete guidelines on budgeting and to listen to their studios if they can meet those guidelines based on the budget allocated.
IF they said they can't then they have to explain. This is the same with any industry where a group is given a budget. Is it too much or too little and if it is then it's up to the group leads to explain why that is.
Why the video game industry do not follow this simple concept of accountability I have no idea.
I'm all for creatives getting the freedom to make what they want, but letting creatives handle the finances of their projects gets us to where the industry is now.
That's how I felt about the Epic layoffs in January. If they're cutting even though they're still making ton of money from fortnite then no company is safe from layoffs in this current Era.
It's all part of that ABAP strategy. Nothing but the most ballin' games are accepted on the quintuple. ABAP baby, A B A P!
John is just slowly turning into Paul's Hardware.
lol. Now i cant unsee it.
Can't unsee it now
One of the reasons why I think there have been so many layoffs is because I think all of these big companies underestimated the amount of time and effort it takes to make a good game. Games take years to develop. Having hundreds of people would make you think that it would speed up game production right? Wrong! When you have a huge amount of employees, simple things like communication becomes extremely difficult and ends up having the opposite effect of what you'd think. They've bloated their studios thinking that they can pump more games out at good quality, but have now realized that you run into more hurdles and it's not sustainable. Add to that that a lot of the people in charge aren't passionate about video games or don't know how to actually MANAGE a team, and you have a huge mess on your hands. The entire gaming industry has become oversaturated because people have realized it's a huge money maker. In my opinion, it would be better to have a studio with around 100 people, a handful of them being veteran developers, have each one run/manage a team of 10 or so and then have someone oversee all teams specifically to make sure everyone is communicating directly and are on track.
This will also help with the budget issue, more employees means more salaries to pay. The average wage for a game dev is $82,000. If you have 300 employees you are spending over 100 million throughout the games development SOLEY on wages. This doesn't include things like insurance and other benefits. Decreasing the amount with employees would have a huge effect on the games overall budget.
Everyday that passes, John look more and more like "punished Snake"
Suspicious quotations
The layoffs aren’t about fixing problems.
They’re about meeting budgets and shareholder expectations. That’s it.
_"They’re about meeting budgets and shareholder expectations. That’s it."_
You have no idea if that is true or not, nobody really does. For all you know these could be dozens of sub-par employees that were warned more than once about their performance. You just don't know and are making generalizations about the businesses without any facts and only one sensationalized side of the story.
@@davidandrew6855 you don’t magically have 900 employees that are suddenly bad at their jobs.
Mass layoffs are a cost cutting measure. It’s not rocket science.
I might not personally know the cow that gave the milk in the gallon I bought from the store but I don’t need an expert to explain me where it came from.
@@lipsontajgordongrunk4328 So you agree you don't know what you are talking about as nobody has the full story. Got it.
I'm also not saying layoffs are good, but blanket assumptions that it was done just for shareholders and budget doesn't ring totally true. The flip side is how many people get to keep their jobs because of this unfortunate layoff? Nobody ever thinks about that, and just assumes that management is evil and don't care. That is not always the case.
They're about shedding responsibility from piss poor leadership onto a percentage of the workforce. Egregious strategies, budgets and moronic stubbornness -- look no further than the leadership. There's nuance to some of it, but the major beats boils down to horrendous leadership.
@@davidandrew6855 Yeah I got it. It was done for financial reasons. Purely. Source: you'd have to be utterly redonkulously willfully blind or Stockholmed to say otherwise.
Housemarque is another dev example of incredible and fun lower budget games. Still love playing Nex Machina.
Give me Nex Machina 2 or Resogun 2 over another Returnal. But I know they will make Returnal 2 cos of the $$$
“It’s an old code, Rich, but it checks out” 😂
Nintendo's attack on emulation is nothing new but the implications of this legal procedure for FOSS development, progress in engineering and game preservation the worst. I hope Yuzu wins!
It's a case of people taking a good thing too far and ruining it for everyone. The pirated downloads are excessive for a console that's still in service, and no, "the console is underpowered e-waste" is not a legal defense.
No it's not a legal defense, but it is a decent justification @@KhalidTheSequel
@sirgriffinman not really... if you think the console is weak, don't play it and avoid the games. Edit for typo, some instead of don't.
@@KhalidTheSequelit doesn't matter how many people use Yuzu for piracy, that doesn't justify or excuse Nintendo abusing the legal system for nefarious purposes.
The amount of pirated downloads is probably also related to how easy it is to run pirated copies on a real Switch.
The beard looks great, John!
Thanks for speaking up for devs.
It means a lot, and we notice. 💜
He only cares about developers that aren't under Microsoft.
@@RubyRose23328 I can personally confirm that isn't even remotely true.
@@RubyRose23328 Always fun to see which company, according to you weirdo console warriors, Digital Foundry is supposedly biased against. It seems like you people can't make up your mind whether DF are Sony or Microsoft fanboys, cause it changes from week to week.
@@djwhitepeopleexactly!!
John is spitting facts. Sony is just lucky that Microsoft is a complete disaster. Honestly this console gen has been a disappointment.
It has also been a major flop on both side, Microsoft and Sony
Microsoft is the most valuable company in the world, in front of Apple, Nvidia and Saudi Arabian Oil Co.
They could buy Sony 20 times and still have a trillion left.
@@eSKAone- the difference is that Nvidia has grown organically due to gaming and ai. Microsoft is dependent on buying companies such as activision blizzard and they already started laying people off. The ABK acquisition is going to going be a huge flop, anyone that knows anything about how these companies are ran knows that blizzard is just a name, none of the talent that made it famous even works there anymore.
@@eSKAone-YEAH that's why they fell flat on their face when they released their garbage Xbox one console back in 2013 ! And lost the console war !
We all want our 100 hour games at $$60. This is what we deserve.
My grandpa was telling me that Strider on SEGA Genesis cost him $50 at launch ($120 in 1989 money) and only took 30 mins to beat!!
Imagine having these consumer unfriendly practices nowadays!!
I don't actually agree with much of the sentiment shared here. It was only a short while ago that we were all (including DF quite vocally) bemoaning Sony's LACK of commitment to their single player narrative driven games in their search for the live service golden goose. It was all anyone could talk about, in fact, during Jim Ryan's era; how Sony were abandoning their core player base by focusing too heavily on live services, taking studios like Naughty Dog and chaining them to their live service Factions thing instead of letting them do what they do best. We were all literally having this conversation a few months ago! Now suddenly it's Sony's commitment to single player narrative games that is its own undoing? Come on, DF. You have longer memories than this.
What I personally think has happened with Sony is that they've seen the live service bubble bursting after they've already committed so many studios and resources into it, and are now having to axe much of their plans and pivot away, back to their original status quo of making single player games, and a lot of jobs are being lost as a result. And then there is the overhiring during the pandemic which is now being course corrected as many have pointed out, then you've got just straight up greedy 'line-goes-up' shareholder BS on top of all of that.
But to say the current state of Sony is just down to their commitment to single player narrative AAA titles is disingenuous when you guys were lamenting Sony's lack of commitment to that very thing just a few short months ago.
It was so nice hearing you stand up for the people who had being laid off. It's so baffling that Insomniac and Naughty dog are affected as well.
Is Naughty dog baffling? They haven’t had any truly significant releases in 5 years. I don’t consider Part 1 to be akin to Demon’s Souls since it was already ported to PS4
So with that logic sucker punch should have been on the chopping block too. @@DVD013009
@@DVD013009 Well, yeah..That one I can understand more, but doesn't Sony have some say in what these studios should make? I don't know the details, but since they are the publisher, they "contract" their studios to do a job, no? So it's up to them to say what their studios should do and if it isn't done right, it's the developer's accountability.. But if it isn't even greenlit, isn't that the publisher's accountability? Maybe I don't understand it right, but this is how I see it now.
@@Chasm9 Yeah, I have to imagine the failure of the multiplayer game factored into this decision
Too bad Neil Druckman is still there. Why he wasn't fired is beyond me
With Helldivers I think a key aspect there is that while it is live service, there is a dev acting as a DM and driving the story. So like there's a reason for it to be live service. It's like the point rather than it being an afterthought to juice money.
Yuzu should fight back and open a gofundme for their legal battle, all emulators makers should also join the battle in a way.
Absolutely. Weird that Ryujinx isn't being targeted at all here? Only YUZU. Nintendo needs to back off and just release their Switch 2 already 🙄
They can slam dunk this case easy if they take the same stance as firearm manufacturers
They're pretty screwed. Like they took money for one then they developed a patch for an unreleased game and only released it by channel of the monetary path. Directly financially benefiting from piracy. There was no other way to get ToTK at the time of the patch. Same really applies to Mario.
If Yuzu win, it will accelerate all console makers to stream only games,, it will also be good evidence to their shareholders that the law won't protect them, so it's better they give up and just go back to the arcade days where gamers don't own the games anymore and pay to play(freemium games have kinda started this trend a while ago).
@@RubyRose23328The right to bear emulators
With these layoffs, we’re going to see a rise in smaller new teams doing maybe indie to double A works, which may be for the better where they’ll have more creative control and less crunch. Me and many others im sure are here and ready to help support their work.
That may be the case. Hopefully this leads to more fun kingmaker type games and less moralising preachy ones. One can only hope.
I would love to see more stuff like The Finals. Ex AAA veterans releasing nice little gems like that.
I think the moves Xbox has made in the past few weeks demonstrate the shifting landscape of exclusives being able to sustain the massive video games industry. Microsoft is a multi decade looking forward company and so I really hope with less money being restricted to individual platforms that these developers will be able to feel confident and comfortable in their jobs. It sucks all around :/ was there bloat with the pandemic bubble? Absolutely. But these are people’s lives.
The moves Xbox has made demonstrate how badly the current executives have been running things. Did Nintendo lay anyone off? Nope. Is Nintendo talking about going multiplatform? Nope. Is Nintendo the richest company in Japan? Yup. So, Nintendo executives have been running their business well, better than Microsoft even in terms of forward thinking.
@@G360LIVE Where do you get your insight and illogic? Also Nintendo is not the richest company in Japan, not by a long shot, that would be Toyota with a market cap about 4x that of Nintendo. If you don't understand the layoffs, and you don't by your posting, then why comment at all on them. Nobody has any real knowledge of what is going on in Sony or Microsoft or any company that has to do these layoffs, we don't have the whole story.
It amazes me that Sony seem completely unwilling to make more than one type of game. That’s just asking for trouble.
Part of Nintendo’s continuing success is that they are constantly making AA and even A games as well as giant AAA epics.
The only reason Microsoft hasn't been completely wiped out of the industry is because they at least have some interesting variety as well. I don't know if Sony or the Playstation brand is going to do well long term.
They literally just made Helldivers 2.
Sony did not make Helldivers 2.
It was made by Arrowhead Game Studios.
Sony is only the publisher of the game.
@@jefp65 no, they published Helldivers 2. Arrowhead is an independent studio.
@@pris1883cr Yeah as publisher they helped fund the game. That is what publisher do.
I believe that no matter how successful games could be, these companies will find a way to cut costs and maximize profits. Unfortunately they have dehumanized these layoffs and they’re only numbers at this point. So many companies have reported record profits and followed that up with layoffs. The money funnels up and then disappears.
TIL that they say "unkind" in the UK, whereas over in the States, I'd use the word "Disgusting".
My favorite is router “rooter” 😂
@@Chill_Mode_JD Americanised English is watered down rubbish from what real English is. They don't even have their own language, so they shouldn't ever criticise or make fun of anything.
I think he was being sarcastic
Think it's about time England started adopting English as its primary language.
@@Chill_Mode_JDDifferent variants of English pronounce words slightly different shocker. 😂😂😂😂😂😂
The employee offering the refund is just a gamer bro looking out for another
This is the only weekly podcast that always surprises me when it comes out.
Every single time I see it in my NewPipe subscription feed, I'm like
_"What? This must be a clip or re-upload, right? Dang! A new episode already? AWESOME!!!_
Maybe it is because they are so super re-watchable. ❤
I upgraded from a 2600X to a 5800X3D. It was a massive upgrade! Now most games are GPU limited on my 240Hz 32:9 monitor
RIP Yuzu, long live the Yuzu fork
The whole thing with Yuzu is not just the piracy aspect. It's also the fact that Yuzu managed to get access to the cryptographic keys that that the switch uses when dealing with games. Alongside that, they also provided guides on how to essentially pirate switch games. That's the core of the case Nintendo put forward. There was an article that talked about this and other emulator developers commented on the fact that they believe they are still relatively safe because they cover systems that don't really make money anymore. I think the best comparison someone made was comparing Yuzu to Bleem and how that collapsed.
I'd honestly do the same and inform the buyer about the game being FREE on the respective service being PS+ or GamePass. Because if the customer has that experience they will come back to do other purchases, because if not for those customers these stores would close down.
Laid off person checking in. Thanks for covering the state of industry in this way.
0:39:37 John's inability to detect when an employee is being a bro is so John Linneman.
Its odd that he thinks a cashier would be more interested in the store's bottom line than connecting with someone on a topic he clearly cares about too lol.
Yeah, his reaction on that is really weird, he could have just said to him that he likes owning physical games. And also how is it weird that a normal cashier at a big chain doesn't care about their sales and just wants to be nice.
He literally called it respectable for the attempt to save him money. Clean out your ears
I can't help but notice how Try holds his controller. He holds it up literally the entire time.
Wouldn't it be more comfortable to rest it in your lap? 😂
Man, I love starting the week with the DF Direct Weekly. I love the format and the discussions.
The fact Sony have come out and already said there won’t be any AAA first- games this year, so early into the year, spells out how bad things are. That’s a massive hole in their line-up.
Excited for DF Retro. Thanks guys, always a good show.
Atleast Nintendo and Xbox still have variety in size, genre and price point. Keeps them interesting
To circle back on Titanfall II, I agree 💯 percent. That game had one ofnthe most memorable FPS campaigns since Half Lafe 2. This isball so depressing.
Excited for the physx video coming because as Alex im also a big fan of the physx effects it just made the games using them so damn impressive to look at especially for the time i would much rather have physx than RT in my games !
This might be the best DF Direct Weekly of all time. Truly wonderful.
What they need to do is not let sweet baby inc write the stories of IPs we love, start from there.
Thank you.
Iv said it for years and il say it again. Bring back the 8 to 9 hour game. You can still have the naughty dog level polish but ya let's reign in the scale. I actually think uncharted lost legacy is a perfect example of this. My question to others in the comments is let's be real. Are you willing to pay $50, $60 even $70 for a game that lasts nearish 10 hours maybe less? I am, but im afraid im in the minority. There's tons of gamers out there that value the length of the game first and foremost. The order 1886 was crucified for many reasons, some very valid, but the main sticking point with most was the length. It's only 7, 8 hours and its $60. It was standard practice in the ps3 360 days but now apparently that's not good enough. Would love to hear what others think about this.
You are so on point with this!
Somehow I get tired of most games, even if they're generally pretty good because they overstay their welcome...
Add a lot of replayability instead of length, developers!
I want every game I play to be Mirror's Edge length.
Sadly these layoffs are inevitable. People are probably spending less on entertainment, including games, since the cost of living is going up. And given that there's less money going in, there will be less budget available for salaries.
You have to have really good reason to up the scale. It has to really fit the game and be something more than just bland space that tries to hide its blandness. Elden Ring comes to mind as justified in 80% (it will probably go lower when i get to the end tho), and thats the best example. Most game worlds just left you feel like a growing waste of time. Shorter game with other modes (like Witcher 2 with its arena) feels like best of both worlds to satisfy wider range of length expectancy
Game length does not scale linearly with cost sadly. I personally wouldn't mind paying way more for a great game. The fact that TLOU costs the same as robocop is just out of balance.
The whole of london PS studio being closed down is wild .. They really couldnt make that work ? crazy
The ironic part is that London Studio is the last part of Psygnosis which was the publisher Sony bought before they sold a single PS1.
Crazy how something that was key to PS existence in the UK and EU which they dominate is now gone
What was their output like? I mean I can't think of many of their releases over 7 years
@@jjboonzaier 1 game in 2016, 1 in 2017, 2 in 2019
Its like Santa Monica went 8 years between God of War mainline entries but thats god of war
@@imo098765 what were the games?
@@jjboonzaier most projects take 3-4years and with 2020 and 2021 putting a damper on the industry it seems Sony didnt do much to toss them some backlog projects. Even still this hurts their image overall in that region
Evil Jim Ryan? How can the guy be more evil 😂
Tbf if Jim left London Studios out of his retirement visits the same people would be mad that "he didn't even have the decency to visit them" 🤷♂️
@@mrsock9135 I was thinking the same. Actually, if you knew a studio was going to close, wouldn't you want to visit it one last time, etc., that kind of thing? As opposed to just ignoring it and not even think about it anymore. Nore sure one is worse than the other.
Layoffs at AAA software factories is a good thing. The publishers are right to think you don't need that many people to make a videogame.
After talking with a number of friends and associates that fell victim to the layoffs, I’d say this episode has the right amount of foul language. Could use even just a little more for good measure tbh.
I appreciate John's candor when he expressed his distaste of these layoffs at Sony. He uses control when expresses his anger at times, but sometimes you gotta let go of that anger with an f bomb every now and then, bleeped of course, and that's ok, cause I blows my mind too.
Similar to Remedy buying Control, I would like to see Ready at Dawn buy The Order IP from Sony
Alan Wake 2 budget was 75 million dollars. Spider-Man 2's was 315 million. The only difference to me is the giant map that's about as interactable as Alan Wake's tiny playable areas.
Seriously where does 4.2x the budget go, that's insane. Especially considering they already made the map, and gameplay in the 1st game. They could have just added Spider-Man 2's campaign into Spider-Man 1 and bam, save 250 million dollars, and a few years. That's what it feels like they did any way, except they redeveloped the same fucking map.
GTA V cost less and it's bigger, more systems, bespoke cars, boats, planes, helicopters, bikes and their interiors, driveable vehicles, insane ai routines and economy, an internet and cell phone, dynamic destruction, etc, etc.
Such a grossly overinflated budget for a 15 hour linear game, jfc.
The layoffs aren't a games industry problem, it's a problem with our entire economic system. Shareholders want to make infinitely growing profit and have been doing this by scalping the consumer more and more while working their employees to the bone (for relatively low compensation compared to the executives). Everyone in almost every industry up and down society has less disposable income than ever to spend on products like video games. People are less willing to take a risk on a $70 game when they know that money could be going to food or rent - especially when these games are competing against "f2p" games like fortnight.
The other issue stemming from this is that now people have less money to spend on an individual game, they expect more "value" from each. Spiderman2 was considered "too short" for some despite being probably the longest Spiderman game in franchise history - the expectation has gone up. The only way to do that is by increasing manhours or cutting quality.
Developers need to adopt the Larian Studios model.
Get the funding for your games in Early Access from the gamers.
It’s a win win. You get money from “investors” to pay your devs, and don’t actually have to pay dividends. If the product never ships, it never ships.
Completely accurate but be very very careful....The majority of the population (At least in the USA) is brainwashed and will immediately claim that this is some sort of.... 'ism mentality. In their minds CEOS are perfect human beings, and corporations as well, they can do no wrong.
I think it's clear to see based on some of the history of this type of stuff that John isn't fit to comment on these kinds of things. It's okay to have a reaction like this but that type of mentality is what internet forum dwellers do and he has a history of that. I would respect the sound of it more if it came off as a more understanding of how the industry works. And while you could argue that it's been true in the past that these things haven't worked, you can see that there has been an industry-wide reasoning even within Sony to say that the current business model isn't really sustainable long-term and let everybody would handle it the same but you have to start somewhere. Like I said elsewhere, I expect them to come out stronger because of this regardless of John's overly emotional opinion. That's the kind of opinion I wouldn't trust either.
Even as I'm listening to this with Rich's opinion, this comes off as a poorly worded internet forum dweller argument.
The fact that one of the industry leaders is saying this should be heeded if you want your precious gaming industry to thrive the way it has been
Has anyone forgot that we are in an unprecedented financial shift worldwide and how some are so naive to miss the big picture is concerning and makes me think less of the opinions of people like John and Rich (to a lesser extent).
I wonder if everyone complaining about Microsoft considering cross platform releases to help with sustainability, now sees this through a different light?
Sometimes businesses have to make hard decisions and finding other (ethical) ways that doesn't involve lay off's is always commendable in my opinion
John despises Microsoft. He is going to hate them no matter what they do
@@RubyRose23328John? I don't think John hates Microsoft. Alex on the other hand - I think there's some contempt for Microsoft there.
@@RubyRose23328true. These gaming media people have always viewed MS and Xbox as an “unnecessary outsider”, since day 1. I say this as an old timer that worked in the games business in the 90s.
@@BasePuma4007 John is on the record as saying that he wishes Microsoft never entered gaming.
So yes he hates them
@@RubyRose23328 Well, he is pretty impartial when discussing the Series X and S as far as I have seen. Him stating that he wishes they never entered the market isn't an explicit statement made to show his seething hatred for the company.
King makers looks like it's based on that story that went viral and reddit where a team of marines was transported back to medieval times. Such a cool idea and I'm glad they're making a game based on it
The "Astro on PS6" roast was too good lol
I really agree about those Geometry Wars games, Rich. They are addictive, beautiful in their simplicity, and all around excellent. Geometry Wars 2 has always been my first test for buying a new TV. I'm always excited to see the bright colors pop on a new TV.
AAA video games are on the Hollywood model of spending insane amounts on projects and thinking they'll make enough profits to overcome the budget. It's not working out well for them.
The games industry was largely started by people making games in their bedrooms on open platforms. If we have to go back to that we will, only now we have global reach, can collaborate from anywhere in the world, and don't need every game to make billions.
Another great discussion DF Team! RE: Lay-offs, in a profit/shareholder driven business, this will be common place on an annual (if not more frequent) basis. When there isn't large enough growth to please shareholders, the workers suffer. Every time. It's frustrating and sad. If there is any lesson to be learned here it'd be to remain a private company and make agreements to publish on platforms. Easier said than done without a doubt, but I can't see this industry really thriving in the current acquisition/publicly traded heavy environment.
The bigger companies are, the more the workers suffer.
Microsoft flat out lied during the FTC proceedings regarding the Activision/Blizzard acquisition and layoffs following the deal going through. This should tell you all you need to know about how these companies really operate in today's industry. It's pathetic.
Nintendo is the same company that takes down roms which are 30+ years old, even EA is not that greedy
Perfect time to bring back LUMINES and Geometry Wars. LFG!
I have Lumines on PSP, Vita, Switch and Steamdeck. My desert island game.
1:33:00 John heard you guys, addressing the past podcast's slight bother. respect++ for John
It's official, background Try4ce is part of the DF Direct crew.
Better in the background and mip mapped out of focus imo
The audio is fine but my brain can hear all of the star fox sound effects and music for the submarine level every time I look at John's screen.
It just dawned on me that Rich reminds me of Palpatine. I bet he could make a mean cosplay if he wanted.
I'm not an industry expert by any means, but I do know that tech companies in general (which includes game studios and publishers) went hog wild with hiring in 2020 due to the rapid growth in consuption of home entertainment because of the pandemic. We also saw expansionary monetary policy in much of the developed world (North America, Europe, Japan, and so on) that stimulated high amounts of low interest investment, as Rich mentioned. Now we have an environment where people are spending less money on home entertainment while investment is more expensive to secure with central banks trying to slow inflation.
These factors suggest that some layoffs would make sense, but I agree with the DF team that the scale of the layoffs seems too broad, and they have punished too many highly successful studios wholesale. I would have expected these companies to bring their staffing levels to 2019 levels, but these layoffs almost certainly exceed that. The layoffs at EA seem especially harebrained.
Yuzu has settled the case for 2.4 million and will shutdown.
They made up to 30k a month, and even if they did that for 5 years, which they didn't since it stared far less, that still only means they made 1.8 million. So they probably actually lost all the money they made in that time. Effectively they were working for free for the whole time.
Weekend confirmed. Thank you DF Crew!
why don’t the ceos get laid off?
Want to talk about a dive in stocks. Lol
And replace them with the armchair CEOs from DF?😂
they couldn't be any worse imo @@eSKAone-
Let's not pretend like these CEOs in question are of some higher stock of thinking and understanding. So many awful decisions (both financially and artistically) can be traced right back to CEOs strongarming their ignorant and selfish views. @eSKAone-
Yeah they should be the first to go. They make the most so it’d be the greatest savings and they don’t do anything so they wouldn’t be losing anything.
The easiest difference in physics is comparing the single player Star Wars games. The Force Unleashed series on the PS360 had crazy physics, allowing you to force push/pull almost anything. The Jedi series on the recent consoles are basically souls games with physics having basically no impact to the environment.
These layoffs should be repurposed into QA. The concentration on Microtransactions at the expense of Mechanics and user experience is not acceptable. Developers need to concentrate on making games run smoothly and use all modes of software scaling so they run on all platforms. The "need" to buy new hardware just to brute force any game to run well is not acceptable.
I wonder if some of this is the impact of fairly low cost games being successful and companies like Sony then asking themselves why they're spending so much money.
Personally, I think you'll see more of these layoffs as studios reorient themselves to be more efficient. The issue is, they don't care about the artistry, they're only thinking about it from the financial perspective. The games that succeed with small budgets are oozing with creativity.
Of course Jim Ryan knew, but legal and HR are going to prevent him from saying anything. Those two departments are almost single handedly responsible for all the "unkind" actions of these large companies.
44:43 reminds me sort of Kingdom Under Fire for the original Xbox. RTS game but you have a third person perspective while controlling a hero character with also a Koei warrior genre sprinkled in as well. I loved those games. Sadly KOF 2 was an mmo and took down the IP
Yes
John, I can’t believe you haven’t kicked that bloke out of your house yet
I hope the gaming editorial press doesn't let up and continues to hound executives to answer for these layoffs.
I doubt it. The ones from the bigger established media sites will do so but won’t treat it like it was Watergate or career-defining.
For the most part most of the people who cover the gaming industry too intertwined with the PR teams for these publishers and studios.
As a teenager who grew up through that n64 era DEFINITELY looking forward to that DF Retro 👍
"Tempest in a teapot" sounds better because of how alliterative it is
Wow, Yuzu folded before this episode could even be released.
"Mark was very impressed. How impressed were you Mark?"
"I was very impressed."
New favorite DFD moment unlocked 😂
Just wanted to say thanks for answering my question on cpu, very informative. I was mostly worried that the bottleneck would be in the ram or GPU
Good luck with upgrade! In my rig I have even older CPU (Ivy bridge HEDT 8C/16T@4.3GHz) and it is still OK for 1440p60 with RT :).
You're always going to have a bottleneck somewhere, but it's best to have it in the GPU. It's far easier to adjust settings to get a stable frame rate that way.
Unfortunately Sony has begun this journey in 2016…I slowly phased out of PlayStation and slowly hated it because of how repetitive and “big” from a budget standpoint games started to become. People loved them but now realistically they are too expensive and they’re not that innovative. I would’ve preferred lower budget games and a lot more diversity…now I am worried about PlayStation as a whole because having these games on PC or the PSVR relevant outside of the console should not be mutually exclusive with keeping jobs and fostering creativity. Really this whole PS5 generation has been lie over lie, mistake over mistake and the only people who kept doing their job properly in PSStudios (the devs) are paying for someone else hideous ideas…
John on absolute top form here. Administering that beatdowns as needed! I'm here for it. Much love everyone.
Bravo to Rich when he brings up Geometry Wars 2. I think the point is the industry needs to get back to making games again - rather than interactive movies.
41:20 imagine you get home and soon discover, he was avoiding the bad experience thereafter
That's exactly what I thought
John falling asleep around the 1 hour mark is perfect.
The issues with only producing large-scale games sound suspiciously similar to what is happening in the modern movie industry.
So happy to see saber leaving. Snowrunner and insurgency are awesome games.
17:00 i agree Rich. But working at a big company as well, layoffs like these are normal for them in a way that they almost just immediately forget about them after they talk about it.
When your staff is bloated with DEI hires who don't contribute to development and instead run off the paying customers, how could there not be lay offs?
I'm really loving the Turnabout Sister Theme playing at the end of DF Directs. Such a good tune and immediately gets me seeking out the Phoenix Wright and Ghost Trick Soundtracks
It's about time that DF more stridently criticizes the industry. You got the clout for it, I don't think they can afford to blacklist you so you have nothing to fear.
DF direct: John unhinged! And we’re here for it.