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[The contingency plan for projects that are making it out the other end of this is to supplement the loss of manpower & experience by training management of all levels on proper applications of CoPilot/ChatGPT. Videos on how to prompt LLMs for assets and new potential workflows are being produced as we speak.]

#1

Gaming Community / Re: Xbox | Zenimax Development...

Last post by the-pi-guy - Today at 03:31 PM

This'll be a mess, I'm pulling a bunch of Neogaf posts - Schreier is corroborating on the claims about the Zenimax Game that got cancelled.  So I'm sharing some other things. 

The contingency plan for projects that are making it out the other end of this is to supplement the loss of manpower & experience by training management of all levels on proper applications of CoPilot/ChatGPT. Videos on how to prompt LLMs for assets and new potential workflows are being produced as we speak.

In layman's terms: the expectation is the surviving projects will come out on time tables, now at lower budget levels, and at quality levels that were established before the cuts.

Also - this is not the last round of layoffs for XGS by a long shot.

I have been told in clear terms that, outside of a few quarters in the 2nd half of the 360's lifecycle, the only time Xbox has operated at something resembling profitability was after ABK's earnings were integrated into their reporting.

It is not hyperbole to suggest that Xbox as a division likely would've become simply 'Microsoft Gaming' as a brand and had all of their HW positions folded over, with a handful of software studios (think Mojang tier) remaining on the studio front, had the ABK merger not gone through.

Based on the convos i've had, I think the future of Xbox overall is likely a combination of a handful of teams at the tier of Blizzard, CoD, and Minecraft, with a slow-bleed of every other team and studio slowly dying off as layoffs and budget cuts reduce everything as time marches forward.

The reason why so much effort is being poured into maintaining the charade is because theres a 10-20m userbase of very diehard users who all have an absurdly high likely hood of maintaining their higher tiers of GP subscriptions through this.

They wanna maintain that revenue stream as long as possible while they, over-time, restructure Xbox into a far leaner endeavor that focuses on a handful of mega-projects.

These cuts are gonna go on for a much longer while, and the sad part is - if the gaming community finally said 'enough is enough' and just all chose to divest, and tbh its hard to argue we're not already there given how returns have been (outside of ABK) the last couple of years - Microsoft would just expedite the process and close off even more teams now. To them, whether someone like 343, now Halo Studios, makes Halo versus just outsourcing it out is just semantics to them, plus Halo hasn't been 'Halo' since Bungie bought their way out.

MS is never gonna have the come to Jesus moment that media mouth pieces keep claiming just around the corner for team Xbox.

"Enough is enough"? I'm not sure which context you want this applied towards.

There are a variety of market factors affecting the Western Games Industry right now, driven significantly by MS but also just how capital markets and the games industry have intersected for decades at this point finally reaching a boiling point.

For Western game devs, short term, this is going to be abysmal, but this is gonna be look backed on as the period preceding a radical revolution for the Western Games Industry. If you're interested in getting into game development and don't mind putting in the time to work on prototypes and develop your technical skills working on an engine, as long as the USA's socioeconomic situation doesn't deteriorate into some really awful places (this has a much higher chance of happening than i'm comfortable with...), then i'd say that opportunity cost is going to pay out big time.

Sure, it means a lot of titles that we as a fanbase have emotionally invested in for decades are likely going to be lost in the IP/license hordes of these mega-corps, but there is gonna be a lot of new, amazing things coming out of this budding western game dev scene. Consumer purchasing will change, as it always does. Thats just a constant to business. Consumers still will flock to quality, now more than ever, even as the amount of money they have to spend on entertainment continues to decrease (and sharply).

That said - the way we make games is largely going to change, and there are some very hopeful signs of development structures that I am very excited about. I look at what Kepler and Sandfall pulled off with Expedition 33 as the blueprint for the Western Games Industry going forward, to be honest.

When it begins to come out just how fudgy incredible the title he was working on was that got axed today.

That game had some of the best reactions from folks who played it as playtest for an MP-focused title that i'd heard from in years. It takes an absolute truck load to have folks heap praise on an MP playtest in modern times. This game would've been spectacular.

Edit:

Typically, in situations where publicly-known games get cancelled, theres this sense in the fanbase of 'the thing we didn't get might've been so incredible', and finger-pointing amongst execs who just didn't get it. FOMO and all that. Well, this is one of the cancelled games that, by literally every account, sounded like it would've been a slam dunk in literally every sense. Felt like I should make an edit to clarify a little further.

Theres a lot that can and should be said about what went down with Xbox after ABK was allowed to go through. Many were too focused on Kotick and the board wanting to sell and how profitable it all was, and not what ABK themselves felt about where the direction had led them. Many folks conflated the sale going through due to the civil & potential criminal cases, and while it was a contributing factor, the larger issue was that ABK as a publisher, was on the other side of their crested wave and the board knew it.

It wasn't just that Blizzard was facing some major headwinds or that CoD's revenue stream, while profitable, had reached an unsustainable level of overhead and tech debt that eventually would need to be addressed. The real issue was that ABK as a publisher had long-since moved past the point of even bothering to diversify their portfolio, instead focusing on an ever-increasing small number of projects/IP that were having solid returns. With the ABK deal going through, many leaders in ABK found very welcome homes at MS, especially since their leadership was viewed as being so much more successful than MS'. So it absolutely doesn't surprise me that all we've gotten since the deal closed was a MS who is increasingly treating their portfolio like ABK treated theirs.

For any dev in a western studio who is under MS, any project is do or die for them. Any. If you think you're working on a sacred cow, you're wrong.

As for Halo Studios, i'm honestly not entirely convinced that game ever ships. Thats not me speaking on the quality of the project, mind you, just more speaking to the publishing reality MS is faced with; they own Call of Duty, the FPS IP that basically took over Halo's entire presence in the FPS market genre as the years ticked by. As far as market impact, Halo has not had a large market hit in a long time, and the studio has faced nothing but turmoil since 4 shipped. I feel like you can pick basically any year since 2018 and say that was the worst year for Halo as an IP and you'd be on the money for the most part. Despite folks always thinking budgets somehow don't exist for Xbox, they always have, and when you have Call of Duty, which is more a production pipeline than it is a game, a pipeline which requires ever-increasing investment in order to be maintained, while Halo hasn't come close to sniffing that level of RoI, you eventually are gonna have to make a decision on which one has a future and which one doesn't.

Even if this new Halo project ships - it would need to recapture a market in a way that I just haven't seen occur since maybe Doom 2016, with the added bonus that Halo's success is really not measured by the quality of its SP campaigns, and more about its presence as an online MP shooter, so it can't even stand out in the way that Doom 2016 did (focusing on a solid campaign), cause even if its the best Halo campaign thats ever been produced, if the online MP doesn't catch on, then thats basically a wrap.

MS throughout the years but particularly since Bungie walked, has always been open to the idea of just licensing out Halo as an IP for others to develop should they have a strong enough pitch for it. We almost got a major Halo release that wasn't helmed by then-343i not even a couple of years ago. Mind you, Halo Studios got impacted today despite both wanting to ship a title next year, a title that is being made on an engine they've never shipped on (Unreal), and now with the added bonus of having to ship on more platforms than you ever have before. From the outside looking in, Halo Studios is being setup to fail. You wouldn't ever cut resources at a marquee team that is, on paper, within 16 months of shipping. Thats just a recipe for disaster.

#2

Gaming Community / Re: Helldivers 2 |OT| Trying t...

Last post by Legend - Today at 03:21 PM

no clue why sony is doing this.

so little to gain.  so much to lose.

Cause Sony probably agreed to timed exclusivity before the game launched.

But yeah, bad move. 

#3

Gaming Community / Re: Helldivers 2 |OT| Trying t...

Last post by kitler53 - Today at 01:59 PM

no clue why sony is doing this.

so little to gain.  so much to lose.

#4

Gaming Community / Re: Helldivers 2 |OT| Trying t...

Last post by the-pi-guy - Today at 01:30 PM

Coming to Xbox. 

#5

Gaming Community / Re: Xbox | Zenimax Development...

Last post by kitler53 - Today at 12:49 PM

tbh i don't know anything about this but seems like MS's downsizing is affecting non-MS studios as well.  romero games had their funding cut along with "several other unannounced projects at other studios"

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:cxumluk6uferxhndrp5wugky/post/3lt2io5pmfk2v?ref_src=embed

#6

Off-Topic Community / Re: Do you golf?

Last post by kitler53 - Today at 12:26 PM

perfect timing to fix your club!

#7

Off-Topic Community / Re: Do you golf?

Last post by Legend - Today at 12:52 AM

Oops

#8

Off-Topic Community / Re: Do you golf?

Last post by nnodley - Today at 12:32 AM

Only golfing I like is going to top golf

#9

Off-Topic Community / Re: Do you golf?

Last post by kitler53 - Today at 12:07 AM

not well but here is my advice as a not good golfer:  don't swing so hard.  

when I try to get a 300 to drive I always shank it like you say.   when I go less hard I only go 200 yd but I go straight and overall I do better.  

#10

Off-Topic Community / Do you golf?

Last post by Legend - Yesterday at 11:25 PM

I've got two weeks to get good enough for the course to not be mad at me. Future bro in law is golfing at his party.

I can do good swings, but many go far left and far right. Almost hit a dog the other day.