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Chimpzy

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Disrespect is trying to come back.

Well, that didn't last long. Thought he'd try a stint on Kick first, but from some of his latest tweets I saw, he might just skip that and go straight to right wing griftosphere.
 
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BrawlMan

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he might just skip that and go straight to right wing griftosphere.
Because the biatch has no place else to go. Even then, they may not accept him completely.

The worst part is if he’s really guilty then he’s just so much more of an obnoxious dbag in the first place than his persona ever let on.
There is no if, when he straight up admitted after being found out.
 

CriticalGaming

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Nothing new here, but StephaJim makes it easy to be infuriated all over again.

Bungie has been struggling for years to maintain a consist output for Destiny 2. The last expansion was okay coming from what people who play have been saying. But it's clear the game is struggling to maintain people. Like all live service games over 10 years old, at some point you have to develop new projects to supplement your bigger cash cow. Bungie has failed to do so producing nothing but Destiny since 2014.

Blizzard at least learned to have other teams making something other than WoW.

Sony bought Bungie expecting to see more things being worked on and were likely disappointed that they didn't even have design documents for additional projects.

In this I agree with Sterling in that's its a failure of management, however I dont blame someone making a lot of money putting money into their hobby (ala Car collecting). Bungie has been going strong for a long time and the hatred of CEO's is quite hypocritical considering Sterling refused to pay his slave wage workers doing editing for their videos to. So maybe dial back the hatred of "greed" in which Sterling themselves is very very guilty of.

I got to together with one of my friends who works in the gaming industry (currently a producer for one of the biggest games in the world), and when we were talking about all these layoffs happening he explained it as a lot of company correction for two issues. The first issue is that many studios have extra staff for no reason, too many people in the dev team and not enough projects to justify it. Mainly a lot of studios over hire expecting to be able to work on multiple projects at once but those fall through and you end up with too many people for the job. So layoffs have to happen in that regard.

The second issue is that a team is under performing. Either not developing a project that has any confidence, or releasing a project that fails. In which case they also get let go. Tango is an example of this. Hi-Fi Rush was a success, however Ghostwire was not. And rather than cut a portion of the studio, Microsoft decided to cut the whole thing because having one random small fry studio in Japan wasn't worth the logistics. Redfall was dogshit so Arkane was shutdown. Forespoken was dogshit, Luminous was shutdown. Game development is too expensive to let studios make dogshit and 1 flop can and will result in your studio shitting the bed. Starfield is dogshit, but everyone fucking bought it so Bethesda lives.

You can see examples of this everywhere too. EA is known for killed studios the moment they release a game that underperforms. And it's also why EA basically only makes live service mtx filled garbage because those games make the money. It sucks, I fucking hate it, believe me I hate it, but we've lost that war. MTX are king and it's something we have to deal with from most companies in at least some of the games we play.

All companies are motivated by profit because that's the only job the company has. Every business on the planet exists for the sole purpose of making money, that's it. They provide goods or services or utility to people in exchange for making money, nothing more nothing less. It doesn't mean companies are fueled by greed, but it does mean that they can't just waste money because it would be nice to keep a weak studio open for no reason. Business is business and jobs get lost as a result of decisions that have to be made for the business. And no company is going to waste money for very long.
 

BrawlMan

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however I dont blame someone making a lot of money putting money into their hobby (ala Car collecting).
Most people do for a good reason. Especially when Peter could have taken a pay cut, and kept the people on, instead of wasting his money on a bunch of stupid classic cars. Hell, he would still have enough money to buy the cars and take a pay cut to keep all the people employed. It's especially wrong when you invite people two days before firing them to see your car collection, and then fire them because you bought said car collection on the company's dime and people's paychecks. So let's not throw sympathy and excuses to the super rich fuck head.

The first issue is that many studios have extra staff for no reason, too many people in the dev team and not enough projects to justify it. Mainly a lot of studios over hire expecting to be able to work on multiple projects at once but those fall through and you end up with too many people for the job. So layoffs have to happen in that regard.
That's still the failure of management either way. They shouldn't have hired so many people nor made so many false promises to begin with.


Tango is an example of this. Hi-Fi Rush was a success, however Ghostwire was not. And rather than cut a portion of the studio, Microsoft decided to cut the whole thing because having one random small fry studio in Japan wasn't worth the logistics.
Ghostwire wasn't even that big of a failure. It was done just before the buy out anyway. HF On the other hand actually sold Xbox units in went above and beyond. MS had unrealistic expectations and were expecting Bloodborne or Elden Ring 💰 money. So that's still a failure on upper management and the top executive part. Not to mention this:


Fuck you Matt Booty! Fuck you MS!

doesn't mean companies are fueled by greed, but it does mean that they can't just waste money because it would be nice to keep a weak studio open for no reason. Business is business and jobs get lost as a result of decisions that have to be made for the business. And no company is going to waste money for very long.
Not all businesses are fuel by greed, but too many of them are. If not that, are too wasteful with resources or don't give actual thoughts to where their money is going half the time. And they treat those under them as less than human as we seen with Bungie, MS, Sony, GameStop, Activision/Blizzard, etc. All these electronic gaming or tech companies who can't even bother them to let them know when their employees are getting fired and will announce them on Twitter. But the employees will almost always be the last people that know. Fuck you GS.

I find it funny when he answers right in front of you. You always try to pull this "Not everyone", whenever the problem is spitting right in your face. Yes,
That can sometimes be true, but that still isn't make it better that you have a bunch of greedy fools at the top, playing with people's lives because they have unrealistic and impossible expectations or see people on the lower totem pole as mindless machines or replaceable/disposable resources.
 
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BrawlMan

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@GeremyG
From independent to Microsoft to Activision to independent and now to Sony. Guys, maybe Bungie was the problem all along.


Leadership flaws, market saturation, underwhelming products, etc. A bit of everything can take some blame.

Also another aspect is corporate law/cultural differences in east vs west.



I think Capcom did something similar.
 
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Chimpzy

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It gets worse with GI layoffs. There's an AI "Goodbye" message on whatever links to the website now.

Oh, it gets worse still. Staff had posted an actual goodbye message on GI's twitter account, which then got deleted by Gamestop. Presumably to prevent anyone else who still had access from using it, but still, pretty dickish.
 
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Wonder how things will look in the industry once the dust settles. Seems to be the year of shakedowns, takedowns and breakdowns.
 

meiam

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Wonder how things will look in the industry once the dust settles. Seems to be the year of shakedowns, takedowns and breakdowns.
I think the ballooning budget is finally catching up with AAA company who are starting to see plenty of AA company make big hits for smaller budget (ie baldur gate 3). Most company instinct is to go big or go home, so I expect most to fail except a few who hold very valuable IP that can be easily milked (CoD, football game), but the smaller company that are still able to put out large-ish game should be able to fill the gap.
 
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Bedinsis

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I think the ballooning budget is finally catching up with AAA company who are starting to see plenty of AA company make big hits for smaller budget (ie baldur gate 3). Most company instinct is to go big or go home, so I expect most to fail except a few who hold very valuable IP that can be easily milked (CoD, football game), but the smaller company that are still able to put out large-ish game should be able to fill the gap.
I think the pandemic was a big boon to the industry spending wise, since a lot of people in well off countries were forced to be stuck at home. With the boom comes the investors, and now with more normal circumstances they've gotten to see what video games normally sells, and it is unfortunately not enough to sustain operations.
 
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Johnny Novgorod

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Frost continues to shake his fist at the "systemic issues" plaguing Second Wind.
Not that you'll find out what those are from reading any of this:
GUUXHJDWIAAS4nv.pngGUUXHJUXAAAxItl.png
Either you die a grifter or you live long enough to become a professional grifter.
 
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Frost continues to shake his fist at the "systemic issues" plaguing Second Wind.
Not that you'll find out what those are from reading any of this:
View attachment 11638View attachment 11639
Either you die a grifter or you live long enough to become a professional grifter.
It's amazing from that two page long winded satement, Frost said absolutely nothing or coherent. There goes my respect for him. I am not big on Nick either, but something is so fucking off. Like I said befoe, this feels like nothing more than some petty dispute between two people, than a "systemic issue".

Either you die a grifter or you live long enough to become a professional grifter.
Why do certain gaming heads or those in the industry keep doing this? Especially out of touch or have not been relevant in years like Sessler or Stuttering Craig?
 
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Johnny Novgorod

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It's amazing from that two page long winded satement, Frost said absolutely nothing or coherent. There goes my respect for him. I am not big on Nick either, but something is so fucking off. Like I said befoe, this feels like nothing more than some petty dispute between two people, than a "systemic issue".
Yeah, same. Whatever I think of Nick, this is plain psycho ex boyfriend behavior from Frost.

Why do certain gaming heads or those in the industry keep doing this?
It boils down to visibility. There're a billion videogame op-ed channels, but only 2 or 3 dedicated to hating Nick Calandra.
That and every YouTuber thinks they will Pokemon-evolve into a Journalist if they can escalate a feud online.
 
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