Pancakewow: "What an incredible moment for us at the GGGWP to have the one and only Bonnie Ross head of 343 Industries on the show. We discuss Halo, Halo, Halo, and some more HALO! Second half we discuss booth babes vs. Cosplayers and what is the fine line? ORI AND THE BLIND FOREST! Where we will be next."
Bonnie Ross: “While I had hoped to stay with Halo until we released the Winter Update, I am letting you know I will be leaving 343 and attending to a family medical issue.”
Must be quite a serious medical issue to leave your job. I hope her / her family are OK.
It’s because he’s one of the fakest people on this site. It’s solely there to stroke his ego
I’m sorry but I mean the timing of this is such a coincidence
She was pushed out and is using this as an excuse
Yeah there’s probably a family issue but if Halo Infinite was doing super well she’s be able to handle it and work her job.
Let’s be honest
And if she has kids and a husband with cancer or something along those lines? We don't know the real story so we shouldn't comment like we do.
"Yeah there’s probably a family issue but if Halo Infinite was doing super well she’s be able to handle it and work her job."
I understand skepticism, but you do realize that depends on the medical issue. That stuff can change on a whim. My dad went from having 6 months to live, to 3 months, to hours. That all happened in just 9 days.
Maybe you guys are right. Maybe she was fired. Maybe it was convenient timing. But sometimes things really are just a coincidence.
I hear you pork chop. Sorry to hear about your pops too.
Some things are coincidental but she had her release from her tenure coming. She wont be the only to 'leave' either.
@generic-user-name
You shouldnt tell people what the fuck to do or how to act.
It's very much a coincidence. If she got pushed out, oh well...If she didnt, I hope everything is ok. Wish here the best regardless.
Medical issues don't care about Halo issues. They just happen. Speculating on what is reality when it doesn't change anything only says you don't care that someone might be going through a difficult moment in their life not related to games.
I felt the need to login here and say to PorkChop: I am so sorry to hear about your dad. Seriously. That is absolutely heartbreaking. I made a comment below that didn't outright claim she was lying, but that the timing was suspicious, and my entire family has been through a lot as well and things can change so quickly. I honestly regret making that comment.
I'd rather believe that she has a medical emergency rather than call her out and be wrong, because, at the end of the day, it's a damn video game. There *are* more important things in life that may need tending to.
Thank you. It was a tough time but unfortunately life just goes that way sometimes.
The timing is incredibly coincidental. I believe this is an easy way of saying “I got fired.” If not then I hope all is well. Regardless, the writing was on the wall.
“Microsoft is also restructuring 343i's leadership team”
Pierre Hintze will take over as studio head immediately
Bryan Koski will become the GM of Franchise, and Elizabeth Van Wyck will oversee business and operations
“will these changes be for the better???”
It couldn’t get any worse that’s for sure.
All I can say is best wishes for her family member fast recovery without complications.
Now to the business side going by the way the halo community was reacted to the last bad news of a promised game mode and cancellation the writing is in the wall, now let’s wait and see how the next halo will come out if it’s amazing we know she was holding it back but if it’s same quality or less than the current game you know it wasn’t her fault 🤷🏿
Only time will tell
343 Industries head Bonnie Ross says women are rare and in-demand, leaving dev teams very male-dominated.
Are they in demand for being women? Or in demand for their talents?
What someone has between their legs should not affect their ability to get a job as long as they are the best candidate.
This just sounds like they’re trying to fulfill quotas.
Well, I think the answer to both of your questions is "yes." As long as there is such a large gap in the talent pool, that diversity hiring part is not going to change. Diversity will be considered a commodity in many professions. I understand where you're coming from, but it's not going to stop anytime soon.
All I can say is take advantage of what you can. If you have a daughter, get them into those coding programs discussed on the show. In the same mindset, encourage your sons to go to nursing school. There's no shame in gaming the system imo.
I will anxiously await your new world order. For the rest of us stuck living in reality in the interim, this "obsession" ain't going away anytime soon.
How about encouraging them in what they want to do instead of what YOU want them to do?
@Atom666 why should I get my daughter into coding programs. I’m not a Asshole parent that tells my kids what they should be doing with there future career. If she wants to be a stay at home mom, good for her. If she wants to be president, good for her. I’m not going to try and manipulate her into what I want her to do.
why not just let your son or daughter decide what they want to be when they grow up? and just be there for them when they have questions about what they are deciding on? Much better than trying to push them into something they won't be happy doing, its very hard to excel at your job, when you don't like what you are doing.
Haha, God I hate this generation sometimes. Yes, follow your dreams, life is what you make of it, etc etc.
"Encouraging" your kid to explore careers in which they might have a happy and fruitful future is a good thing. No one said force or manipulate them. If you raised such well-adjusted little free thinkers, they'll still follow their own path, right?
Encouraging them to explore fields which are proving particularly good for employment prospects is the responsible thing for anyone to do.
The whole point to the 60 minutes piece was to show how young boys and girls are being "encouraged" by getting into code.org programs. How do 10 year olds 1) know what they want to be and 2) know if they like something like coding if they aren't exposed to it?
So, yeah. Get your kids in those programs. Encourage them to look to education paths that will lead to gainful employment...especially if you know that they will have a leg up imo.
Or don't. While Junior has that $50k philosophy degree, Sally is getting 5-7 job offers while interning at Microsoft.
You shouldn't try to get them into it. That doesn't work. But, it doesn't hurt to expose them to it, and see if their interests can lie there. I work with STEM programs regularly, and their whole intent is to not try and make younger girls feel they have to do these things, but show them what it's like, and promote that it's OK to like doing such things if they're interested. If they are, they can continue to come and do more programs or learn on their own, which in the long term builds more women wanting to get into such things. It breaks pre-conceived notions of what is expected of a particular gender, and supports the idea that people can do what they're most interested in.
Working with STEM programs, I've come across parents, usually fathers, who are themselves in IT positions, and feel that that direction would be good for their daughters. They make them come to these things, sometimes more than once, and it's obvious the girls aren't interested enough to make a career out of it. It takes a delicate hand to tell a parent who places their own expectations on their children, because parents often can't see what they're doing, or feel they know best. But for those that operate or work in these programs, the interest is in getting people interested because it's something they like, not just to get bodies to fill positions in various technical industries.
STEM programs are working. It's a long process, because you start with girls in their early to mid teens, and you have to wait 5-10 years or more to see results. but results are now happening, and the programs are increasing to cover more areas. But, the industry isn't going to ever see immediate results from such programs, and hiring someone because of gender alone is a piss poor way to run a business.
my younger niece told me she wants to be a developer/coder and thats awesome. but she is 11, who knows what she really wants to do when she grows up.
do what you love and what youre good at. who gives a damn about a gender gap in some areas of work? there is a reason why 95% of all work related deaths are of the male gender who account for 54% of the total workforce. certain areas are male dominated for a reason, why waste time and money encouraging men to do what generally women are interested in and for women to do what generally men are interested in? like what really is the point? is it not "fair" that everyone is doing what that want or something? i dont get it. millions of dollars are being wasted for no apparent reason and is having a completely opposite effect.
It needs to stop. These people are spending 10s of millions to make games. There is zero reason to hire based on the sex of an individual. Ability is the only thing that matters
@rain
I would use the same analysis with parents who push their kids into music or sports. That part's not going to change.
We say diversity hiring is bad, and I mostly agree. There is a counter argument that says that the intangible gains from having a diverse employee pool is a benefit to the company. Differing perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences are seen as a benefit. Someone else can make that argument though. My position is just acceptance of reality.
Where diversity hiring gets tricky is in the employer's ability to try to make sound hiring decisions in that same environment. Good luck to you if you ignore diversity "requirements" that are being put forth.
Case in point - of the dozen or so RFPs I've seen in the last several years from potential clients, 90% require that you provide your diversity numbers in your application. Last year, we missed out on a sizable client. In their correspondence they specifically put our low minority ratio as the only reason we weren't chosen. Fast forward a few months...and our next 3 hires were minorities.
They are bright and capable professionals. No one would say that they were ONLY hired because of race, because they weren't. Were they targeted because of it? Well, you figure it out.
It is what it is. I again say that everyone should learn to navigate the world we live in and know that complaining about things like gender advantages isn't going to get you far.
But I'm an advantageous prick. I'm a white American Male with an "exotic" surname. True story - while in school, I got invited in to intern at a very big company. They flew me in, did all of the interviews with the partners, etc. Towards the end of the day, one of the younger guys says to me "I'll be honest, we thought we were getting a diversity hire based on your name, but we like you so we're going to offer you the job anyway."
I didn't take it, but I leveraged that offer to help get a better one.
#Merica.
I really don't get this quota crap going on these days. The right people should be hired for the job, regardless of gender. If they have to fill a post and 10 people apply for the job with 9 of those people being men, should the female immediately get the job just because there's a quota to fill, even if there are male applicants better suited for the job?? The world really is going mad.
Technically, it's illegal to hire or not hire someone because of gender. Meeting quota's was a result of things like affirmative action, which was popular in the 90's, but ultimately, was counter to more important anti-discriminatory laws, and it's just as illegal to hire someone because they're female, as it is to not hire someone because they're female. Many big companies have ways of doing interview processes that use a grading scale to avoid such things, and while there is of course interpretaion to how that can ultimately be done and still get specific results, nowhere will you see on there extra points awarded due to gender.
Both men and women could be talented, but women see things under a different light, have a different approach to things... That's why it could be beneficial as good old Bonnie says to make a little room, just a tiny space, in a male dominated industry: to see the talents of your mom, your sister, your daughter, shine.
If they do that I expect great things, from 343. And I want to say that this article made my day :)
So hire them because vagina. Got it. Not their talents. Not what they actually bring to the table but their vaginas perspective.
Jesus.
@Hungryalpaca It is advisable of course to always hire talented persons, Men and Women
Don’t get why you’re being downvoted. Talent is equally distributed, that includes women.
There just aren't as many women getting into game design to really just have a decent mix to choose from to make that viable to close that gap by talent. One would expect a company to try and get the best talent, and if all things are equal, gender shouldn't be an issue. But if there are fewer women to choose from, and they're trying to meet this goal, then it means potentially giving up talent in favor of "meeting quotas".
The only way to responsibly close the gender gap is a long term solution that involves getting more people involved in game design. Not just women, as there is a shortage of game developers in general. The industry has grown faster than there are people to fill it, especially on the engineering side of things, and that talent has to be shared with the industries which have more favorable working conditions for the same or more pay, like general IT industries which are well established.. Artists are more ubiquitous, but talent has to be shared with other forms of graphic design creation like movies/TV or advertising.
Ross pretty much states that woman aren't as interested in computer science as men. I think her statements were pretty fair, but, Ross never directly states that she "wants to close the gender gap in game development".
Hire the best coders/designers, then you might make a great game. Gender has nothing to do with talent working on a computer. It’s a shame that after all the progress between sex and race relations, one election tried to put everyone against each other. Really sad
During a classroom discussion I one stated “that males and females tend to have different job preferences” and a few people gasped.
Any Psychologist worth his salt will acknowledge gender differences. It’s not a bad thing or oppression by the Patriarchy. Even animals have hierarchies. Would the gaspers in your class gulp were you to inform them that there are far fewer male teachers than female teachers https://www.nytimes.com/201... ? Fewer male nurses? Fewer female engineers?
Free choice in a free society means you will not get equal outcomes. If women don’t want to work with computers or on the oil rigs, they don’t want to. Forcing a square peg into a round hole doesn’t work. Learned that in kindergarten. At some point, people forgot.
@P_Bomb
The disparity in numbers of certain professions is something I believe that is largely due to differences interests between males and females. I see far fewer male teachers in Canada, especially in early to middle years schools. There are also way more female nurses and far more male engineers than female ones. Males and females generally have different interest due to biology, it is something that we should accept. We shouldn't try to aggressively encourage or recruit one sex to partake in a particular job.
I always disliked Bonnie Ross. Her entire demeanor put me off and is not a gamer. Kiki Wolfkill was the better of the 2 ladies at 343. Judging by the interview there's going to he alot more Commander 'Dont need no man' Palmers in the future as well as more cloths to cover up Cortana.
Cortana has never been sexualized anyway so I doubt they will add clothing on her haha
Spoiler alert maybe in a way
Given how 5 went they should retire her
Aren't strong computer scientists that are women just like men or I am wrong here. Amy Worked with ND comes to mind
343 Industries head Bonnie Ross revealed the Slipspace engine was created to fulfill a promise made to the development team before Halo 5.
glad to hear it. Also I'm glad they didn't follow the 3 year cycle Halo games normally come out in. And instead they focused on taking their time with this on to make sure they get it right and innovate once again.
I think MS needs to rethink their approach with their major franchises. From here on I'd rather we only have 1 Halo/Gears mainline game per generation and continue to support them (like they have this gen). It would allow the teams to also work on more projects that are not just limited to Halo or Gears.
Not only that, but the main title would be more focused, fully fleshed out, and we wouldn't have annual or semi-annual releases etc. fragmenting the playerbase in mp lobbies.
I'd rather have continual updates and dlc so to speak for one or maybe two games per generation than have to pay 60 bucks each year or every other year to stay current in my favorite franchises.
@xb1ps4
Just do what Halo 3 did and make an expansion like ODST. New SP and multiplayer content like Firefight. We don't need an all new game.
Honestly, I almost think I am crazy to say this yet....Yes I agree with you. I miss those days where Halo 3 for example wasn't brand new but myself and friends would set aside time to play and it felt like it lasted for YEARS until the next big thing...and even then you could still go back and enjoy it. Halo 5 for me was super fun multi, and yes I hop on once in a while, but I find I never really was quite as sucked in as I once was. I'd love for them to get back to that feeling of just like never ending fun and excitement kind of thing. The long development cycle and break to me at least, gives me hope that they can make a massive comeback and gamechanger once again.
You know the people at 343 took the job to work on halo and nothing else. Most of 343 is made up of former bungie devs that wanted to continue to work on halo. Now I don’t hate the idea of one really banging main line entry per gen and trying something new within the universe. A halo rpg would be awesome or a horror title based on the grave mind. Don’t forget Halo Reach was a prequel but many people think it’s the best one. An ODST 2 is way past due. But I never see the day where 343 makes anything but halo it’s just not gonna happen.
"You know the people at 343 took the job to work on halo and nothing else. Most of 343 is made up of former bungie devs that wanted to continue to work on halo."
This is not true. I think people actually did research and found that at most there is a handful of ex-Bungie employees and that laughably there are more ex-343 developers at Bungie than the other way round. Its also literally impossible for 343 to be made up of mostly Bungie devs since 343 is roughly 3 times larger than Bungie was under Microsoft.
"A halo rpg would be awesome or a horror title based on the grave mind."
Ugh no. I've already criticised how people this gen have been begging every single game become an open-world RPG this gen and it needs to stop. Also a Horror based Halo would be a terrible idea because it wouldn't be Halo. You can have a level with some horror elements but the entire game should not be based around it. 343 doesn't even have a reliable track record with the core series yet so how can we trust them with a spin-off in an entirely different genre?
"Don’t forget Halo Reach was a prequel but many people think it’s the best one. An ODST 2 is way past due. But I never see the day where 343 makes anything but halo it’s just not gonna happen."
People can believe what they want and Halo: Reach is a good game but it does not have the legacy that Halo 3 has. Halo 3 set such a high standard and its something that 343 need to aim for. Brilliant SP with co-op, great custom games/maps, Horde mode added with ODST and an incredibly good multiplayer component. Halo: Infinite needs to aim to be just as good as Halo 3.
I think that should be for sport games but not a shooter.. that’s just crazy, 1 per generation...
343i are changing their Halo engines and Bethesda need to follow suit with the next elder Scrolls and especially Starlink. Starlink will fall off my anticipated list if it has the current fallout 76 engine. I can't imagine it looking and feeling fun to play.
I'm pretty sure they already confirmed it's using the same engine as it's previous games but that doesn't mean it won't be retooled/reworked, it's too far down the road to know for sure. That said even if they do use a new engine it doesn't mean it won't have the same problems, the closest game to Bethesda's mainline games for world interactions, NPC tasks & items ect is Kingdom Come Deliverance which uses Cryengine but has a lot of similar bugs/issues.
Didnt realize they had been on the same engine for so long. Cant wait to see what kind of results this brings. Halo 2.0
Most engines are quite old or have roots in old ones, the Dunia engine that Ubisoft uses for Far Cry is based on the original Cryengine but it's been worked over so much i believe they said less than 1% of the original code exists for example.
A game engine is kind of a tricky thing to define. There are a few core aspects that make it up. The SDK is the front end which determines the workflow of the engine. This can generally remain in tact through mutliple versions, and usually isn't thrown completely out the window unless it just becomes too bloated or requires too many dependencies that hold it back.
Then you have the graphics pipeline, which is the core aspect of how the work entered will be processed through the system. This usually determines the game loop, and the game engine can easily be modified to adapt if it's flexible. If it's not flexible, then it can cause problems as you have to take extra steps in the build itself.
Then you have the general compiler process which is the most important to get right. If you can't modify the other two parts to compile in an efficient manner in the most direct way without having to use a lot of extra functions to get the same result, then you have a buggy slow engine....like you see with Bethesda, who never had the best graphics pipeline to begin with. I hear the workflow of their engine is OK though, if not a bit antiquated, and too reliant on 3rd party coding outside the engine....which isn't atypical of big games anyways.
Generally the more modular a game engine is, the more adaptable it is. Unreal is a good example, and they aren't afraid to throw out things for new versions if they just don't work in the new.
Anyhow, it's not like Bethesda is still using the same exact engine they have for a couple decades now, just that they haven't adapted it well enough, and still rely on poor rendering pipelines, despite much better ones being available within the general SDK's out there from the console makers, NVidia, or AMD. My guess the reason they do this is because they write games to be as open platform as possible, so use a higher level code and don't spend as much time on the actual optimization part. For systems that use that core high level code, namely DX, they will require less work on Bethesda's part.
Basically... previous engine was too old and complicated to keep moving forward with in the next gen. They wanted something easier and prettier for where they want to take the future of Halo... makes sense and I support this longer dev time for it.
This is something all devs need to do at some point, and more specifically Bethesda.
Not sure if the original Saber Engine is still supported. Halo has used a couple different engines through the years, and not sure which one's used what, but some of them used more than one engine in a single game.
Not going 2lie Bonnie Ross is pretty hot.