Jeff of Just Press Start writes:
"Stephen Reid was kind enough to take time out of his busy day to talk Gazillion Entertainment’s Marvel Heroes with me, AND was generous enough to provide a multi-use code for closed beta access!!! We discuss Brian Michael Bendis’ involvement with the story, creating “legacy” versions of iconic characters, and whether Squirrel Girl REALLY beat Thanos . ."
The high-profile impending closure of Telltale Games has sparked a conversation about development practices within the video games industry, and their impact on employees. However, Telltale wasn’t the first or the only casualty in the past twelve months.
It’s no secret that the industry suffers from a lack of job security. Often, companies will “restructure” and lay off a significant proportion of their staff after projects are completed. In other words, a high number of layoffs are almost regular business. What’s worse is that it isn’t unheard of for developers to be in the dark about their employment status (Telltale showed everyone the door after handing them their final payment). Decisions made at the top affect those at the bottom of the chain the most.
A guild would be a great start. The problem is that game companies feed off of dreams, so a lot of devs will say yes to just about anything to get in the door. With a guild and or union they would at least have some protection.
Companies fail in capitalism, that’s just a fact. Unionizing to keep failing companies afloat through subsidies and taxes is a joke. I’m sorry the developers got laid off but that’s the business. Telltale should have never had 300 employees or whatever it was to begin with, they expanded to fast without innovation. Thats why they are broke plain and simple. And you want unions so they have to keep 300 employees or pay them anyways for firing them lol. Can you understand how the loss of merit and strategy would affect the quality of games? That would ripple through the industry like a battering ram, many more companies would fail.
That’s the totalitarian egalitarian mindset, Johnny wants his severance entitlement. From an outside perspective, I think people should be making their own teams in college. The tools are getting much more productive as the business gets older. Even I can play around with the basics of a game engine and I don’t know shit. Use your school loans and collaborations to make your game or at least a solid prototype to pitch which would cut costs.
Making games shouldn’t be about your corporate cubicle rights, that’s not why I would get into it anyway. I’m just a gambler and capitalist, if I was a developer I would bet everything on a good payoff. That’s why I support AA indie like the biomutant devs. 20 skilled veterans going back to basics with some new technology. Small teams can make it happen now and it will only get easier.
Pretty sure that's the way this industry has always been. They hire for projects and when they're finished they lay off all non essentials.
This is more about companies going out of business than just laying off a certain amount of people
Trion Worlds has aquired Gazillion Entertinamnets tools and assets. Trion CEO Scot Hartsman hopes this will open up whole new opportunities for the company and developers who wish to partner with the Trion.
A non-profit educational group is looking to buy the Marvel Heroes license to either maintain the MMOARPG as-is or use it to build an entirely new game.
Why campaign is set to "Flexible goal"? Like "We desperately need $450 000, but hey, we'll settle for any amount of money you'll give to us. And we won't have to do a damn thing.".
They say in Indiegogo campaign: "To achieve our plan, we are currently seeking a minimum of $450k – $900k". MINIMUM of $450k, so why "flexible"?
Next, they say that currently, "creditors claims totaling at $900K" and "The closer our offer is to those claims, the greater our chances of success". A chance costs $450 000.
They're also saying that "One downside is that Gazillion has spent millions to license the use of characters and story lines over the years", where will they get millions for a license? Another campaign? Aggressive microtransactions? Oh, right, "Unless millions are raised to fund this campaign, the odds of this option being successful are very limited."
Even their Paragon university website has "Coming Soon" on it and "Elder mage" have only one "news" and copy-pasted content from Indiegogo campaign. Sounds like a scam to me.
These were all my feelings as well. The whole thing reeks of ripoff and I'm generally a pretty forgiving guy when it comes to crowdfunding campaigns.
