SAN FRANCISCO – Marvel Comic writer Rick Remender is best known for bringing worlds like Venom and Dark Angel Saga to life on the page. But he’s one of many comic book creators who has taken the virtual plunge. After helping Electronic Arts bring the original survival horror franchise Dead Space to life, he partnered with Epic Games to create the pulp comic book style shooter BulletStorm to PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Remender was at WonderCon 2011 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the convention. He talks about the creative overlap between the game and comic book worlds in this exclusive interview.
Today EA hosted its Investors Day, and Chief Executive Officer Andrew Wilson talked about the company's dedication to generative AI.
He's so excited to layoff more employees for FAKE STUPIDITY computer programing to replace them.
Hopefully EA takes a nosedive just like Ubisoft is currently doing. Lack of money is the only thing that can hurt them and possibly change them.
Knowing EA, I think they're more likely to sell their games cheaper or make Access the only way to play their titles than change course. They seem committed to destroying their labour force.
And the sad part here is that the proof of concept is there, where games can be made using AI.
I hate to say it, but those working in the gaming industry might be cooked. And unfortunately, I'm doubting most people will care as long as they get games they want. EA would absolutely dangle Dead Space 4 or a new Burnout in front of us, developed with AI. I wouldn't take it, but I think most fans would.
If AI does a better job then yeah why not? Though, I have massive doubts it will. If developers aren't willing to put effort in their games then they shouldn't be surprised that they're replaceable.
Damn, a new Burnout, don't even bring that up. It hurts just to read those words.
The indie scene is massive theses days, but the big budget scene is mostly trash. I wouldn't mind to see these big publishers suffer or crumble away.
But that can only happen when the casual gamer stops buying yearly roster updates or whatever garbage is marketed to them on TV.
CantThinkOfAUsername,
I disagree. I don't believe the developers are at fault here. I would think those people don't like what EA is doing, but it's EA and they have tremendous power in the industry. Not everyone has the leadership qualities to peel off and form their own company. Add to the fact that falling out of grace with EA might just be an industry kiss of death. These people don't have any power, so I really don't agree with saying they're not willing to put in the effort.
Hopefully, the only people who're going to be replaced by an AI are Andrew Wilson and his top management goons.
Of course it is. EA has been lazy for years. Profiting for investors and themselves without putting in the work. Having AI write code or build graphics for them just makes them even more lazy.
I'd laugh if those same investors built "executive code" and got rid of EA's CEO and board of directors and replaced them with AI.
Today Electronic Arts hosted its Investors Day and its executives shared what's next for the Battlefield franchise.
ohh god, here we go!
This is exactly why the gaming industry is failing. It's now an industry of suits "trying to find the fun".
...I'll help you out a little, If you're trying to find it, then it's not fun and neither are you. move on!
I disagree, tbh. I definitely wouldn't classify Vince Zampella as a soulless suit. It's kind of an acknowledgement that Battlefield fell off which is why they had to bring him in in the first place. He's probably the best shot EA has of making this franchise fun again.
From a software development perspective, what I read in the article of Zampella's approach of being able to easily playtest and iterate from early on in development is a good thing. That's likely a big part of why his COD games and Titanfall were so fun.
Calling Zampella a suit lol! People like Zampella are the half suits if you will, they bridge the gap between art and business. Suits don't care how fun a game is, they only care about profit margins.
It's people like you that's ruining the gaming platform, negativity already before it's even dropped
20 years ago, Bungie used to have the motto "making games we want to play", if the devs are having fun it's a good sign it's going to be an enjoyable experience. If the devs are worried about shareholders, quotas, fitting in with current trends and trying to make a small percentage of the population happy, it's not an encouraging sign.
Honestly, get them to sit down and play Bad Company 2 together.
If they can't see why that had the magic, they shouldn't be game developers.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney notes that the mobile gaming industry is "largely broken," and blames the 30% tax levied by Apple and Google.
Man has been saying this for ages and knows full well the only thing he wants is more money at Apple and Google's expense and absolutely none of this will result in lower prices for the consumer.
He expects the digital equivalent of opening up his own store inside of a Walmart or Target. It's absurd.
And he feels absolutely entitled to it, in a too-big-to-fail sense - because Unreal Engine is used by so many developers, banning Epic would hurt those developers relying on their tech, which would be super unfair to the developers.
Thank goodness you are there to defend the small guys Google and Apple. You're so brave, Christopher!
Yeah, I'm totally defending Apple and Google and not explaining how another company is just as greedy. That's the big takeaway from my comment, Apple and Google good, only Epic bad. Yup. I totally didn't make it about the fact that this man just wants more money and isn't doing it for the consumers. Nope. Not that at all. I'm just praising up Big Tech. They're my one and only love in life. Please recognize me Big Tech Senpai!
The epic games store charges a 12% tax and has been losing money for 5 years...that sounds dysfunctional.
It's a play to attempt to win over the market so they can then realign pricing with what Steam has in the long run. The problem is they are doing only that and not actually building a better software supported platform on PC. Essentially, they're throwing money at the problem, not actually trying to compete by providing better service.
Agreed.
This is why the Left 4 Dead and No More Heroes franchises are my favorite this gen. They're the definition of a video games. They don't take themselves seriously and there's meant for straight-up fun.
There's nothing wrong with a dramatic, epic, single-player campaign, but the problem is, few developers know how to really nail that area.
Video games take themselves way too seriously when they should just be light-hearted fun.
I agree with him
Dicktits.
I'm happy the majority of games aren't as ridiculous and juvenile as Bulletstorm. The dialogue in the game was embarrassing.
I don't get how any person old enough to buy a mature game (over 17) could think stuff like "dicktits" is that funny. It's stupid.
THAT said though, I still think the guy is wrong. Videogames have ALL the potential in the world to be as captivating in terms of narrative as books, or movies. The reason why so few actually do create good narratives is the fact that creating video game stories is one of the hardest narratives to create. With a movie, pshh, easy. With a videogame, the player has to be involved at all times. If a videogame revolved around a ballerina becoming crazy then no one would play it. From the 1st seconds we the player have to be engaged, WANTING to progress forward. That's a damn hard thing to do.
That said, the industry as a whole is extremely young. Yet, we are progressing faster than films did, or books did (mainly due to technology). Let's not forget, society also deemed films as trite, nonsense, that causes violence. An let's not forget the type of films that were made during that time? An how long it took for films to finally garner respect from people from films like Gone with the Wind, or Citizen Kane? Nearly 70 years people....70.
Books were once paintings on a wall, congered up by naked cave men. During time though we evolved.
Just how videogames should, and WILL evolve to. Do I think in the next 50 years games will overtake movies, and books in narratives? Probably not. But I'm sure they'll be damn close. It takes time people, and this industry is just a newborn babe compared to the grandfathers of film, and books.
Remember folks; baby steps, baby steps!
[sorry for the long rant..apoligizes for anyone who might've been offended ;)]