aftermath.site

LiveLM, (edited ) do games w IGN immediately lays off every non-UK person at their newly bought sites, including some key members like deputy editor Alice Bell

Buys publication
Immediately fires what makes it tick

???
I don’t get it. Am I dumb? Are they buying other publications just for the branding?

ahriboy,
@ahriboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Quality worsens. Losing a lot of reliable sources for Wikipedia and other free content sites to use.

efstajas,

Acquiring a company just for the brand or even just to make it disappear is pretty common in all of the corporate world.

supersquirrel,

The violence is the point

WalnutLum, do games w Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone Can’t Let Go Of Stardew Valley

Seems like the thing I’ve always considered true: you can turn a mediocre game into a masterpiece with the right application of music.

Not that I’m saying Stardew is mediocre, but good music seems to uplift a game more than anything other part.

Deway,

I wouldn’t go as far as masterpiece but indeed the music is very important. The best Final Fantasy, in my opinion, have OST composed by Nobuo Uematsu, a musical genius, for example. And they wouldn’t be as good without his work.

savedbythezsh,

That’s how I feel about RuneScape! I don’t find it a particularly fun game, but the music is so great and iconic and fits the game so well, I hear it and want to play.

Swedneck,
@Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

music, lighting, and basic game design.

nail those 3 things and don’t fuck up anything else, and people will throw money at your game, because the rest of the industry seems to refuse to provide games that are simply enjoyable without trying to turn you into a dairy cow.

Zehzin, do gaming w AI NPCs Have Potential, But Not The Kind Big Video Game Companies Want
@Zehzin@lemmy.world avatar

I think the best use for it I’ve heard is to make unnamed generic characters sound like more than 3 voice actors greeting you with the same 20 or so lines.

My cousin’s out fighting dragons, and what do I get? Guard duty.

ezchili,

And they can react to in-game state as well

If every action produces logs and the logs are given to every npc along with some flags, suddenly,

Just punched a guard? That goes in the context

Player is rich? That’s in the context

Wearing mage clothes? Context

It’s a cool way to increase immersion for not much effort without breaking anything in a traditional game

daddy32, do games w IGN immediately lays off every non-UK person at their newly bought sites, including some key members like deputy editor Alice Bell

Oh no, I love Alice :( She just moved, relatively recently…

I guess I can finally stop reading RPS now.

BeardedGingerWonder,

I remember when RPS started, Kieron Gillen and the the PC Gamer gang. Fucking shite now.

daddy32,

Yes, it went very downhill after the sale. But was still readable, even if barely, thanks to Alice(s) an Sin mostly. Now… screw it.

thingsiplay, do gaming w Valve Let Team Fortress 2 Rot And They Should Feel Bad About It - Aftermath

Compared to other companies, Valve let the community use alternative community servers. Even if Valve does not care about the game anymore (sigh, one of may all time favorites), it’s possible to maintain community servers. This is something any other game wish to had, without hacking the system; it’s just part of the game. And people can even use modded communities and there exist some really cool stuff (admittedly I never tried them, I would play the game if it didn’t have the bot problem).

But please stop review bombing other games with the cry to fix TF2. Those reviewers should get a review ban for misusing the review system.

helloharu, do games w Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees In Its Games Division - Aftermath
@helloharu@lemmy.world avatar

It is an honest shame, there was a lot of talent brought in, but honestly not surprised it ended this way.

SpaceNoodle,

Talent that was wasted and discarded.

A_Random_Idiot,

Is this your first experience with corporate america?

SpaceNoodle,

No, it was just especially egregious with Amazon in this scenario (and often in general with them …)

They had some promising technology and talent, but focused on what creativity they could cram into the flywheel instead of coming up with something good that could then later feed back into the ecosystem. The latter process can yield surprise successes like the Amazon Echo.

lath, do games w Why People Don’t Catch The Politics In Their Favorite Games

Neat stuff.

That part’s wild to me, when people are like “This villain in your story seems to have said and done bad things? So that means you agree with them, yes?” No! Of course not! It’s the literal villain in the story, man!

But there is no utilitarian point of art. It exists to express ideas and to tell truth. I think maybe a lot of people get upset because from their point of view, they are paying money, and they have this relationship where it’s like “If it’s not giving me what I wanted out of this transaction, then it’s bad.”

Justas,
@Justas@sh.itjust.works avatar

To be honest, “If it’s not giving me what I wanted out of this transaction, then it’s bad.” is a heuristic that works well for most things we buy. If I buy candy and it doesn’t taste good, it’s bad. If I buy a car and it breaks down, it’s bad.

I think the real problem is that some people see games as a product and others see it as an art piece. Some games fail at being either, some succeed at both.

lath,

A thread of the problem is likely the publisher/developer conflict of interest. When the two can’t come to an agreement, the end result usually fails horribly in both aspects.

Stamau123,

I hate those people who take content for validation. If I have a nazi in my story I am not, myself, also a nazi.

3volver, do games w IGN immediately lays off every non-UK person at their newly bought sites, including some key members like deputy editor Alice Bell

This is a part of the beginning of it. Centralization results in layoffs and worse products. This is why we have antitrust laws, now they go unenforced because of corruption. AI is going to replace a lot of jobs and we’re going to get shittier products while the winning corporations continue to make more money. Winner take all system is bad for everyone.

Perfide, do gaming w Valve Let Team Fortress 2 Rot And They Should Feel Bad About It - Aftermath

TF2 is almost 20 fucking years old and has been F2P for 13 of those years, why should Valve care to do anything about it? Frankly, the official servers even still being online at all is more than most other games(besides subscription based games like WoW) of that era can say.

Like, what were you guys expecting? For Valve to support the game the rest of your lives?

sag,

what were you guys expecting? For Valve to support the game the rest of your lives?

Yes :(

Alimentar, do games w How A Small Video Game Narrative Studio Wound Up At The Heart Of A Massive, Anti-Woke Conspiracy Theory - Aftermath

Who actually cares? A niche group of people want to curate their games based on a personal preference. Nobody has the moral authority to tell them what they should or shouldn’t spend their money on.

brsrklf,

Except they’re not just saying “we don’t like this” and moving on. They’re using dogwhistles (“woke” is only the first one) and 4-chan level type of slurs in their cries of conspiracy. It’s a thinly disguised hate club, games are only an excuse.

They tried to progressively hide it from their group’s front page, editing its language several times, but it was still there in the discussions in and around the group.

beaxingu,
@beaxingu@kbin.run avatar

why are you just totally ignoring how this whole thing started in the first place with a sweet baby employ trying to take the group down and the account of the creator. yes editing it for people exactly like you that cant handle words on the internet and that needs to call everything hate so that you can get your way but that's not going to work anymore now like how it always should have been you are just very very funny.

Rhynoplaz,

Oh, bless your heart.

thesilverpig,

I don’t really know much about the sweat baby controversy, but whenever I see “bless your heart” it just comes of as weak tea as it avoids engaging with premises or arguments and condescends and I think it generally loses the argument from a third party perspective. At least I’ve never read it and thought, wow they really got them.

It might be trite but I always preferred agree to disagree as a disengage tactic. That’s just my two cents on internet discourse though.

beaxingu,
@beaxingu@kbin.run avatar

bless you in the year of our lord 2024

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

I think I'd have a problem with it if bad internet super sleuths came up with some nonsense reasons to try to destroy my reputation.

Eyck_of_denesle, (edited )

That’s no excuse to try to get a user’s account banned. You might want to read up on some of their tweets. The ceo is also a sexist and a racist. The steam group had like 1000 people now it has almost 200,000 after the whole debacle. Reputation is earned not given. SomeOrdinaryGamer made a good video highlighting stupidity from both sides.

If they are proud of their work, why try to hide it.

Dremor,
@Dremor@lemmy.world avatar

In an ideal world, yes.
But unfortunately these days people prefer to follow blindly their bias and people validating said bias instead of investing the time required to investigate by their own mean, with least biased sources.
I’d blame social medias that make everything quasi instantaneous, but it is just a component of a whole, not the only cause.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

That’s no excuse to try to get a user’s account banned.

I'd say it is. They highlight the part of Steam's rules against harassment, and while that's always subject to interpretation, they feel that this counts, and I'm inclined to agree.

The steam group had like 1000 people now it has almost 200,000 after the whole debacle.

Before this group blew up, YouTube channels with hundreds of thousands of subscribers were already making their bullshit conspiracy theories. People try to paint this as Streisand, but that's ridiculous. The Streisand effect is trying to hide something, which you still seem convinced they're trying to do despite highlighting their clients on their web page and getting listings in the credits of the games they work on. What it looks like to me instead is that:

  1. sensationalist YouTubers paint this company as the devil
  2. this curator is made in response
  3. it gets a natural, human reaction from the people targeted by this group
  4. the YouTubers from step 1 use that reaction to mean whatever they want it to mean

In no way did I foresee a way that this group didn't continue on the same trajectory with or without Sweet Baby responding to its existence.

SomeOrdinaryGamer made a good video highlighting stupidity from both sides.

I've seen one video from SomeOrdinaryGamers, and it was too many, but he's cited in this article as perpetuating the bullshit conspiracy theories, so I'm good.

jordanlund, do gaming w Paradox Lays Off Entire Studio Before Its Game Was Even Released
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

At least they cancelled the game, imagine firing everyone then releasing it with no patches or support…

Semi_Hemi_Demigod,
@Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

The fact that KSP2 is still on Steam for $50 is criminal

Wooki, do games w Why People Don’t Catch The Politics In Their Favorite Games

Don’t go to the article, it’s click bait garbage

Feathercrown, do games w Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees In Its Games Division - Aftermath

Amazon has a games division?

konalt,
@konalt@lemmy.world avatar

For only $20, the new Amazon Basics Grand Theft Auto.

ChicoSuave,

I would play that.

AnUnusualRelic,
@AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world avatar

Had. Briefly.

RageAgainstTheRich, do games w Why People Don’t Catch The Politics In Their Favorite Games

A lot of people are just… not so bright. I remember seeing the video of all those trump supporters rocking out to “killing in the name of” by rage against the machine. Waving a thin blue line and american flag around with the lyrics blasting in the background.

Its the same with that new game Helldivers 2. Zero awareness.

Coldus12, do gaming w Fuck It, Let’s Add More A’s - Aftermath

“Skulls and Bones is actually an AAAARRR game because pirates”

My favourite sentence

uninvitedguest,
@uninvitedguest@lemmy.ca avatar

The article tags are also worth a laugh.

  • Wszystkie
  • Subskrybowane
  • Moderowane
  • Ulubione
  • Blogi
  • giereczkowo
  • Pozytywnie
  • Spoleczenstwo
  • rowery
  • esport
  • krakow
  • tech
  • niusy
  • sport
  • lieratura
  • Cyfryzacja
  • kino
  • muzyka
  • LGBTQIAP
  • opowiadania
  • slask
  • Psychologia
  • motoryzacja
  • turystyka
  • MiddleEast
  • fediversum
  • zebynieucieklo
  • test1
  • Archiwum
  • FromSilesiaToPolesia
  • NomadOffgrid
  • m0biTech
  • Wszystkie magazyny