This is a shining example proving that games don’t need to die. Especially if you’re a company that is completely uninterested in pursuing an IP any further. When I read that they were going to post the server tools and a new client on itch I was over the moon.
Proletariat took the best approach possible with Spellbreak, whereas iron galaxy… Fuck them. The community was actively trying to reverse engineer Rumbleverse to get it running again and they shut it down. They also seem completely uninterested in bringing Rumbleverse back. (Thankfully there are still ways to self host it, it’s just not as clean as it could have been).
Whenever you hear someone say it would take too much effort to give the community tools, point them to Spellbreak. Hell It would be commendable even if the company didn’t give communities tools but didn’t actively shut down any revival projects.
Games are art and I’m sure plenty of devs that worked on these live service games would have loved to keep working on them, but their employer told them to stop. I’m sure there are plenty of devs that would love to see their game continue to live on, but their voice doesn’t matter because they aren’t the decision makers. So much time and manpower just thrown out the window.
Proletariat, thank you. You are one of the good ones.
Always cool to see a thriving online community after a game’s official shutdown. All possible because the devs released a self hosted version, something increasingly rare these days. And it works on Steam Deck? Might have to check this out.
I remember being hyped for the launch of the game, because this looked amazing. It was one of the few live service games I waited for. Then it happened, they went with an exclusivity deal on Epic Games store and it was over for me. And apparently for the game, because it was shutdown as I remember.
I never heard they posted a free version with servers you could host yourself. Why nobody told me! This is actually the best possible case (besides going Open Source) for live service games that shutdown.
My question is, is this game playable on Linux (through Proton)? Does it use Easy Anti Cheat? I don’t know how this works if this is self hosted, so probably not.
The hopes, dreams, and aspirations of generations of creative people getting exploited, overworked, and underpaid because they were willing to put up with that all to chase those hopes, dreams, and aspirations, all eventually got crushed in the corpo mill, only to be replaced by the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of the next successive wave of creative people. That was always working as intended. capitalist-laughyou-are-a-serf
At AAA studios you can pour your heart and craft into creating something beautiful along with hundreds of other wonderful colleagues, for years, only to have it ruined by management who literally doesn’t give af. Not only do they not play games, or even like games, they are proud of this fact in a sort of, “sell me this pen” type of way. These people always existed but the “financialization” of the industry means they are everywhere now. Even one of these people in the wrong place can be poison, and they are everywhere. This mutated organelle has made the entire studio system too neoplastic to perform its primary function.
It’s like training for years as a chef, slaving away in a hot kitchen for the big opening, then having the owner (who hasn’t cooked in decades) insist you serve your food in the toilet because “hey it’s porcelain, it’s the same as fine china”. Then when the restaurant bombs you get fired and he gets a huge bonus because he’s a genius cost cutter and you couldn’t sell his vision. Nobody cares that you made the best bisque of your life when its served in a toilet. How many times can that happen before you say, “fuck it”?
Well for me it was ten years. Not laid off, but just couldn’t take it anymore. I could probably get another job with my resume, but I just can’t bring myself to apply again. Through a little planning and extremely good luck I’m not really under any pressure. Makes me feel like a fool because a lot of people work worse jobs, but then I remember how sad and angry I was all the time. When I look at job postings those feelings return. The problem is I still like it and want to do it. I feel forced out because I care about making good stuff instead of just “line go up”. I would take a huge pay cut to work on a team that had the “magic” again.
Maybe it’s time you made your own project (if you’re up to it) :) time to serve that quality bisque in a bowl deserving of it lol besides, things will never change if we stay the route with Jack Welch-esque CEOs running the show; we need more indie devs, more small businesses, people who want to make something great because they’re passionate, or even just folks who want a sustainable future without strangling ourselves with the noose of “line must go up” mentality.
But also that’s a metric ton of work, and owning a project like that is certainly a risk to take!
No problem! :) If you do opt to try making something yourself I’m sure the folks here at Lemmy would be more than happy to check it out and give you some feedback!
This article could’ve been written any decade since the 1990s. It’s nothing new: The big game companies haven’t changed a bit and continue to exploit workers.
The only way to change things is via stronger worker protections/regulations.
And there are millions of people lining up for jobs that suck that LITTLE to work at. That is how our world functions. It chews people up and spits them out.
Funny how much we hear about it in the video game industry, but every school closure loses teachers. Every hospital lay off looses nurses. Every time capitalism grinds people into dust, those people are dust now.
Honestly I’d sooner starve than go back to service. Consumer crackers are not housebroken; I’m not going back to almost-literally slaving for COVID-spewing petri dishes at any fast food hellhole in my city; layoffs or no I’m staying my ass in tech as long as I can.
24 years ago, I decided that instead of going into video game development like I had always dreamt of in school, I’ll go into business software because at the time there was only one nearby game studio (Blue Byte), they weren’t looking to hire in the next few years and I wasn’t really willing to move very far at the time.
Looking back, that decision was one of the best branching-path decisions I’ve ever made in my life.
Thanks, Blue Byte! Indirectly you got me an amazing job! 🥂
This has a side effect of the people who went through the full game development cycle and can help to improve the process of developing of future games with actions based on their experience do not stay in the industry and thus the industry is bound to repeat the same mistakes again and again. I mean, I started working in the gaming 22 years ago, worked there for 7 years, then took 12 years of break elsewhere and now I am back for 3 years. After I returned I was surprised how almost nothing changed. It is still the demo-to-demo sprinting without proper planning or building the technical layers in advance. So the publishers/management is getting more or less faked demos and are always surprised that at some point they get a very badly made piece of software full of bugs and architectural flaws.
Shows a demo function just to show how it could be done.
Manager: (looking in his manager book)
-“So it’s already implemented!”
Me: no it needs to be programmed first
Manager: but it already is, i can see it on screen!
Me: it has to be implemented correctly.
Manager (looking in book again)
-“How much time if you implement quickly as quick as possible?”
Me: it will take X time.
Manager: Starts to call tech-lead and chief boot-licker to “convince” me it doesn’t need that much time.
After 3 hours of painful meeting I say okay okay okay and pushes ‘best I could do’ to production in the same evening. Reinforcing the idea that I’m a lying bad programmer and that Manager, tech-lead and chief boot-licker are correct.
It’s wildly underpaid and the developers are highly highly skilled devs. They work in game dev because they want to, but the money isn’t there. Most game developers are working at tiny studios hoping for a break.
The shame of it is this kinda the way she goes for passion jobs like game dev. Similarly, EMS is a chronically underpaid career. Not for lack of difficulty or skills required, but because people want to do it. That desire to help others only translates into an ability to underpay people for the privilege. There’s a nobility to wanting to dedicate your life to helping people despite the lack of pay. A nobility that is happily exploited by private equity.
Guy I know worked for a pretty big video game studio or two. (You’ve definitely heard of some games he worked on). Then he realized it sucked. Took a job in FinTech, made like double the money for half the work.
When I was leaving college a quarter of a century ago I briefly considered going into game dev…even back then everyone said it was low paid and gruelling work, so I passed.
aftermath.site
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