This guy makes several key mistakes, and doesn’t understand the relationship between (or difference between, for that matter) developers and publishers / executives. He pivots in one sentence from talking about number of layoffs to talking about failed games, but those are not direct corollaries. Big publishers and large studios laid off teams with games that performed incredibly well. Lots of teams that were mid-development were killed. Remember Tango Gameworks? The studio that everyone liked, and didn’t have any flops? That was completely laid off? It had nothing to do with their games, and was entirely about Xbox forcing its 1P studios to release on Game Pass, which doomed their sales. It was bad executive management at MS, not bad games, choosing to buy Bethesda and Activision at the expense of budgets for its existing studios. Obviously Redfall and Concord were huge flops, but they were a tiny fraction of the layoffs across the industry.
He correctly points out that Gaming is a subset of the software industry, and that the trends and decisions being made by executives across the industry are the same, but just sort of hand-waves that away by saying it’s not just gaming, and that “people are facing economic challenges right now” in general. Yeah! And guess that those challenges are? Short-term P&L gains via mass layoffs, in order to claw back money from acquisitions, stock buybacks, and executive pay-gouging. But it’s not developers doing that, it’s publishers and executives. No one writing code is like, “I’ve decided to make live-service schlock”. But they’re the ones losing their jobs, not the dorks who did decide that.
“What is unique in gaming, is that this is largely self-inflicted.” My brother in Christ… stahhhhhp.
He then turns this into some kind of attack on game journalists, who have been rightfully calling out the game industry layoffs, as though they’re… supposed to only report on things happening uniquely in gaming, and not also in other industries, even if it’s also happening in gaming? The narrative that “if a studio is laid off, it was their fault, or just the economy forcing them to be laid off”, is the false narrative of the publishers, and this guy is (whether he realizes it or not) helping bolster that narrative.
Lastly, this dude is dropping right-wing dogwhistles left-and-right. Listing “ideological soapboxes” alongside “bloated projects” and “garbage games” for failing games tells me everything I need to know.
Here’s his brilliant take on thousands of line-level developers being laid off for decisions made above their heads by millionaires:
“As a customer I’m going to be honest, I just don’t care or feel anything for any of these internal struggles that these companies go through.” (7:10 in the video)
Big “stop picketing and deliver my Amazon package I paid money for” energy right here.
Remember Tango Gameworks? The studio that everyone liked, and didn’t have any flops? That was completely laid off?
He pointed that out as an exception. But, it’s been mostly the AAA studios that produced massive, massive high-budget flops, and then they laid off a bunch of their staff.
But it’s not developers doing that, it’s publishers and executives. No one writing code is like, “I’ve decided to make live-service schlock”. But they’re the ones losing their jobs, not the dorks who did decide that.
No, but when developers and the rest of the teams see that it’s “live-service schlock”, they should start looking at their resumes, instead of thinking “well, my job is safe because it’s a large corporation”.
Why would anybody working on Concord think that it’s a good game with a good concept that is going to succeed? Or Kill the Justice League? Or Multiverse? You think all of those microtransactions and attempts at catching some unoriginal idea are going to be well-received?
Just look at it for what it is, and realize it’s going to fail. And then plan accordingly.
He then turns this into some kind of attack on game journalists, who have been rightfully calling out the game industry layoffs
No, look at what they did before they talked about the layoffs. Sure, calling out the layoffs is justified and it’s worth reporting.
What’s not worth reporting is what Twitter is saying about any of this, and then going on some soapbox trying to counter it. Thus, promoting this idea that the general public gives a shit about whatever fight this is, when in reality, they don’t even know it exists. He’s literally reading off one of this articles, that goes off on a tangent that a few people on Twitter said something about games being “too woke” and tries to counter that.
Fuck Twitter. Stop reporting on Twitter. It’s a shit platform that is a tiny, tiny microverse of actual people doing actual things that don’t see any of that. Obviously, nobody looked at a game and thought “oh, well, that’s too woke, so I’m not going to buy it”. They didn’t buy it because it was a shit game with shitty microtransactions.
And if you check the comments, his fans definitely heard the whistle too.
I checked the comments. I read the comments on most YouTube videos. I saw nothing of the sort. Most of them are praising him for what he’s saying.
Ideological soapboxes are very real things that games “journalists” push on a daily basis. It’s manufactured bullshit that gets echoed only because they report on whatever some dude on Twitter said. I don’t know why you would mistake that as some dog whistle.
“As a customer I’m going to be honest, I just don’t care or feel anything for any of these internal struggles that these companies go through.” (7:10 in the video)
Right, instead of talking about the discussion as a whole, let’s take some out-of-context quote he said in the video and use that as evidence that he doesn’t care about the industry.
You didn’t even quote the entire sentence: “…especially when it’s mismanagement to blame.” I guess that bit didn’t fit your narrative?
I didn’t really want to have to watch any more of this dude, but I wanted to make sure I gave him a fair shake… and hoo boy.
Just look at it for what it is, and realize it’s going to fail. And then plan accordingly.
This is just victim blaming, bruh. Even if a developer sees a project is going badly, it’s not like there are infinite jobs out there that need filling. Changing jobs is not fast and easy, some of the workers are likely on work visas that don’t allow them to just change employers, game companies aren’t all in the same small area such that it won’t require moving homes which is a huge expense, and there’s no guarantee that the project you’re moving to will be any better.
This is a failure of worker protection laws. Framing it as workers just needing to hustle smarter, while executives run companies and families into the ground, is peak corporate apologism.
He’s literally reading off one of this articles, that goes off on a tangent that a few people on Twitter said something about games being “too woke” and tries to counter that.
If you don’t think that alt-right-lite is a huge problem in gaming circles, I don’t know what to tell you. Go play literally any multiplayer game and you will find plenty of gamers spouting anti-DEI/ anti-woke/ right-wing talking points in no time flat. And yes, they absolutely do avoid games based on it. And the problem with just ignoring this is that you’re ceding the narrative to them. Young white men have seen a shift rightwards precisely because alt-right-lite chuds like JonTron capture them via gaming-focused content, and then shift them over to politics-focused guys like Tate/ Shapiro/ etc. It’s a pipeline, that often starts in gaming spaces.
Ideological soapboxes are very real things that games “journalists” push on a daily basis.
He wasn’t talking about ideological soapboxes in reference to journalists, he was talking about developers. And he is using that as a direct euphemism for “DEI”/ “woke” content.
And yes, the comments are agreeing with him, that’s the point of a dogwhistle. There are a bunch of comments being anti-diversity/ anti-woke, referencing another video of his about game companies hiring people who supposedly despise gamers.
Here is a video of his called “The Real Impact of DEI in Gaming”. He uses rainbow/pink/diversity-washing being bad to then ultimately conclude that DEI is a net negative that he (no joke) BLAMES ON OVERREGULATION by the government. He then goes on to suggest that DEI actually is about dividing people in order to (also not a joke) feed a DEI-consulting industry.
“They’re hiring in people that don’t have the merit, that don’t have the skill” (8:40) Classic. He then goes onto blame “DEI hire” developers for games being buggy or releasing too early, as though that is their choice (once again, he clearly doesn’t understand what developers do or do not control).
It’s frustrating seeing these chuds get wiser about the number of levels they couch their ultimate anti-diversity rhetoric in, because clearly it’s working on some people. Instead of saying, “diversity in gaming companies bad”, he says, “regulations force execs to hire diverse devs who lack merit (which is bigoted bs on its own), who then over time lower the quality of games, ** and also** evil DEI consultants intentionally push devs to make diverse games without being sincere about the portrayals and stories… so in the end we should stop pushing devs to be diverse and make diverse games, and just let each group of people make games for themselves (which is back to square one where big companies just hire white guys).”
He’s literally just taking all the Republican anti-DEI rhetoric and applying to to gaming.
Obviously, nobody looked at a game and thought “oh, well, that’s too woke, so I’m not going to buy it”. They didn’t buy it because it was a shit game with shitty microtransactions.
Except these people are out there, and we’ve known this since GamerGate happened over a decade ago. One of the top Steam curators is called “Sweet Baby Inc detected”, and exists to identify games that are “too woke”:
Clearly there are at least 468k losers out there that avoid specific games because “that’s too woke, so I’m not going to buy it”.
But, it’s been mostly the AAA studios that produced massive, massive high-budget flops, and then they laid off a bunch of their staff.
Those are still failures on the publisher’s part. This isn’t 30 years ago. Most game studios are not independent, they’re owned by the publishers, and the publishers have immense creative control.
No, but when developers and the rest of the teams see that it’s “live-service schlock”, they should start looking at their resumes, instead of thinking “well, my job is safe because it’s a large corporation”.
Really easy to say, but, believe it or not, during a time where the tech industry is actively shedding 10s of thousands of jobs, looking at your resume doesn’t actually do anything for you.
Honestly, you seem to be saying “it’s developers fault because I refuse to understand power dynamics”. You may as well just scream “bootstraps” over and over.
Thanks for writing this up, sounds even worse than I’d have guessed from the title.
I will be honest I stopped after about 12 minutes, so perhaps he says something of value later on… but I doubt it. :P
Hey, just a quick tip, when posting videos on Lemmy, it’s generally good to include the video length and the channel in the title, and then include a short summary in the post description. You are certainly not required to do any of this, but videos tend to get better responses here when people include those details.
If Lemmy had YouTube embedding, like a certain other platform it’s trying to emulate, this wouldn’t be a problem.
As it stands, it can’t even extract the thumbnail properly. (I have to do that myself.)
yes, using a smaller platform means forgoing some of the conveniences you are used to on a larger platform. but we all make do because we’re here for the community, not the features.
I agree that that’s useful information. I wonder though, if it is that useful, if Lemmy or the Lemmy app does that automatically?
My instance doesn’t show any of that, and neither does my app. So if anyone has that info automatically, it’s because their instance admin or app dev did that for their specific case.
@Penguincoder@beehaw.org Is there any way to set this up?
Would require frontend work and maybe some glue for the backend. I think the Photon Front end does some of those embeds. I’m sure there’s others, but not confident that any would work with Beehaw’s older Lemmy version. Better to spend energy on the sublinks convert, or my home-grown alternative Fediverse stack.
Agreed and thanks!
