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rigatti, do games w 'There's almost nobody left': CEO of Baldur's Gate 3 dev Swen Vincke says the D&D team he initially worked with is gone, due to Hasbro layoffs
@rigatti@lemmy.world avatar

Hasbro continuing to make shit decisions on behalf of WotC, the only sector of the company keeping it afloat.

Osa-Eris-Xero512,

You see, if they fire everyone from the division, it'll make even more profit. ez

phoneymouse,

There’s no one there left to defend the IP, so they can do evil things. I’m guessing it’s as intended.

Lianodel,

Ah, the Jack Welch method.

(Seriously, fuck that guy. He was a pioneer among bloodsucking CEOS, and part of it was mass layoffs to boost short-term profits.)

MindSkipperBro12,

Honest question: what’s bad about firing the “bad performers”?

caseofthematts,

If they wanted to fire the “bad performers” then they’d be firing the CEOs and higher ranked people, not those actually making the products work.

kibiz0r,

Nothing, if that’s genuinely what you’re doing.

But it’s dangerous to incentivize it, because you get short-term gains by firing anyone, whether or not it’s the right long-term call.

It’s also just difficult to identify bad performers. Fundamental attribution error is a bitch. And because we’re really bad at seeing the entire system surrounding someone’s productivity, we tend to blame operator error only to find that the next operator we hire has the exact same problem.

Lianodel,

Exactly. It’s just goosing the numbers. The company made this much in profit, and the cost-cutting from firing people will save money immediately, so it looks great… on paper… for a little while. It doesn’t matter if the company is gutted, because the CEO and most of the investors will dip before things get too bad, and go onto the next thing. The employees will suffer and the customers will be upset, but CEOs don’t answer to them, they answer to shareholders, and shareholders just want the line to go up this quarter.

corytheboyd,
@corytheboyd@kbin.social avatar

deleted_by_author

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  • ThugJesus,

    Barbie is Mattel, not Hasbro.

    corytheboyd,
    @corytheboyd@kbin.social avatar

    Fuck I mixed up my board game doll companies lol

    snor10,

    I think Barbie would like a word

    chiliedogg,

    That’s Mattel.

    squirrel,

    That’s Mattel. And one of the reasons why Hasbro looks so bad in comparison.

    half_built_pyramids, do games w 'There's almost nobody left': CEO of Baldur's Gate 3 dev Swen Vincke says the D&D team he initially worked with is gone, due to Hasbro layoffs

    For the likely large overlap this audience might have with dnd, it didn’t make 100mil a year so it gets to eat shit. It doesn’t help that the video game license isn’t counted in that total. Other Hasbro brands do make 100mil a year.

    I thought magic was one. It is surprising to see layoffs there.

    Anyway, of course a corporation does evil shit. The only moral is the line going up.

    Jiggle_Physics,

    MtG made over a billion dollars. From what I can see WotC, products/services/licenses, make up over 3 billion of Hasbro’s 5.something billion revenue.

    half_built_pyramids,

    Yeah, card crack is real. They’ve been whaling and getting kids into gambling since the 90s. Don’t know why lay offs there. Line go up just a little more probably.

    Diotima,
    @Diotima@kbin.social avatar

    Yeah, my partner really likes the art but we're both aware that MtG was just the real world precursor to the current micro-transaction culture.

    Holyginz,

    It’s not that. It’s that the fewer people they have to pay the more money they get to keep. It’s incredibly short sighted and self destructive. But they don’t care at this point.

    heyoni, (edited )

    That or they’re planning to lean on generative ai to produce content

    lorty,
    @lorty@lemmy.ml avatar

    IIRC they contract and credit the artists. I don’t think theyveven use any in-house srtists.

    caseofthematts,

    They’ve been caring less about artists and the community in recent years.

    At cons, they used to pay for artists hotels and give them free booths to set up, now artists get nothing and have to pay something like $750 for a booth.

    tmyakal,

    I think that’s more about WotC giving up on cons and tourneys than giving up on artists. If they’re having events at all, they’re not putting as much money into them as they used to.

    optissima,

    And the generative card properties?

    lorty,
    @lorty@lemmy.ml avatar

    You mean using AI to design the card’s mechanics? I’d like to think we are still a ways away from that, specially since they’d have to train their on model that adjusts not only for the text generated but what the actual card would do in a game. they could use it for french vanilla cards I suppose, but it’s not like those take a human that long to make anyway.

    optissima,

    I didn’t say they needed to be quality or anything, they just need to appear quality to corporate, as all the corps are starting to cannibalize staff at the idea of using LLMs. Corporate doesn’t play the game and doesn’t care about long term, just the short term gains.

    heyoni,

    1100 layoffs and they don’t use in house artists? I find that hard to believe but you might be right.

    DerisionConsulting,

    MTG used to have 2 or 3 releases a year. Enough to keep things fresh, but not an instance amount.

    When I was working in a Game Store in the Early 2020’s, there as more than one release a week, and a major release about once a month. They set the milking machine to maximum.

    Gullible, do games w 'There's almost nobody left': CEO of Baldur's Gate 3 dev Swen Vincke says the D&D team he initially worked with is gone, due to Hasbro layoffs

    I can only ask how much cocaine remained on the table when they finally decided to do this. Not much, I’d wager.

    joker125, do games w 'There's almost nobody left': CEO of Baldur's Gate 3 dev Swen Vincke says the D&D team he initially worked with is gone, due to Hasbro layoffs

    Haven’t played BG3 but wtf sense does it make to layoff these team(s)?

    Plenty of people paid for the game and enjoyed it and it won GOTY.

    Kecessa,

    That’s two separate products and companies you’re thinking about…

    cam_i_am,

    You misunderstand. Larian is the company that made the BG3 video game, and they haven’t laid people off.

    However it’s a licensed game. Baldur’s Gate and D&D are IPs that are owned by a company called Wizards of Coast. And Wizards is owned by Hasbro. Hasbro is forcing layoffs at Wizards, specifically on the D&D team because it doesn’t print money as efficiently as say, Magic the Gathering does.

    The people at Wizards, i.e the people who actually make D&D are no doubt passionate wonderful people. But Hasbro (and probably some of the Wizards management) are awful corporate parasites determined to suck every last penny from their properties.

    They don’t give a shit how loved a product is, if it’s not making $100M per year then it’s basically worthless to them and they won’t fund it. So layoffs happen.

    Anticorp,

    then it’s basically worthless to them

    Cool. Make it independent again.

    sukhmel,

    No-o-o, because then it may make money for others, think about all the lost profits. Better shut them completely /s

    burgundymyr,

    This is sadly a much more likely scenario

    TheEighthDoctor,

    They laid off a lot of the MtG team as well.

    optissima,

    Those AI mtg generators probably got admin too rabid at the thought of not paying employees…

    Donebrach, do games w 'There's almost nobody left': CEO of Baldur's Gate 3 dev Swen Vincke says the D&D team he initially worked with is gone, due to Hasbro layoffs
    @Donebrach@lemmy.world avatar

    “I felt your breath upon my neck; investors’ wants as cold as death.”

    Neon, do games w This fan-made HD PC port of Zelda: Link's Awakening is so cool I can't believe Nintendo hasn't taken it down yet

    anyone got the Link?

    Sirico,

    No Links just ZeldaJokes aside, Itch has a warning on the integrity of this.

    optissima,

    Likely a tip by Nintendo as legal collects themselves

    Caligvla, do games w This fan-made HD PC port of Zelda: Link's Awakening is so cool I can't believe Nintendo hasn't taken it down yet
    @Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Oh don’t worry, Nintendo has a death squad en route to the creator’s house in this very instant.

    CileTheSane,
    @CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

    Is Nintendo owned by Wizards of the Coast?

    520,

    No, but they are just as litigious when it comes to their IP

    nafri, do games w This fan-made HD PC port of Zelda: Link's Awakening is so cool I can't believe Nintendo hasn't taken it down yet
    @nafri@lemmy.world avatar

    keep it before nintendo ninja does their job

    TBi, do games w This fan-made HD PC port of Zelda: Link's Awakening is so cool I can't believe Nintendo hasn't taken it down yet

    I tried downloading and the website says the download was quarantined. Anyone else see this? I was able to download anyway.

    Donut,

    Yeah it’s a safeguard by Itch.io which flags potentially malicious users, but they let you proceed if you are sure you can trust the author

    Computerchairgeneral, do games w This fan-made HD PC port of Zelda: Link's Awakening is so cool I can't believe Nintendo hasn't taken it down yet

    Game looks cool, but I always have mixed feelings about articles like this. On the one hand it helps raise awareness about the game to the people who want to play it, but it also helps raise awareness about the game to the people who are going to send the cease-and-desist letter.

    Essence_of_Meh,
    @Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world avatar

    I’m pretty sure devs are fully aware of what’s going to happen which is why they avoided putting their names on the project and included the source code.

    Hammer was always going to come down since they included game assets in the build - news articles won’t really change much on this matter,

    Potatos_are_not_friends,

    It blows me away that people do these incredible projects but just for the thrill of to see if they can.

    Azzu,

    Just imagine what people would do if they didn’t have to work anymore!

    Probably just sit on their asses and wither, I’m sure. No one will do cool projects that many will benefit from.

    all-knight-party,
    @all-knight-party@kbin.run avatar

    I don't think it's entirely on the thrill of seeing if they can, it's also a passion project from their love of the original. They put it out there so people can enjoy the game in a fresh way, the way the devs want it to be able to be experienced.

    insomniac_lemon,

    Including a trademarked term right in the title is the thing that gets most fan projects. It's a multiplier for takedowns, it can't get any easier for companies than running a simple script that just searches Itch/Gamejolt/Github for terms and then doing a mass takedown of the results. And that will even catch things with 3 downloads.

    Sure user-added* or redone assets could help, but just distancing the name would help a lot more. Having 100% new assets won't stop a takedown if you use trademarked terms (see DMCA's Sky), and the DMCA system doesn't really discourage overstepping unless somebody has the willingness/money/time to take it to court.

    *=image detection could be a thing as well though, so be careful with screenshots especially with a logo

    Essence_of_Meh,
    @Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world avatar

    Of course, I hope my comment didn’t imply otherwise. Unfortunately even a different title and completely original assets (AM2R?) won’t help much with some companies.

    Good enough project will catch their eye sooner or later anyway.

    Darorad, do games w This fan-made HD PC port of Zelda: Link's Awakening is so cool I can't believe Nintendo hasn't taken it down yet

    They will now

    be_excellent_to_each_other,
    @be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social avatar

    I do see your point, but it's out there now. How many thousands of people just grabbed it, or will, because of the article?

    Just like PGP, decss, and countless other things, it will be kicking around at the usual places for anyone who wants it for long time, probably well past the point where anyone cares anymore.

    Darorad,

    Oh, yeah, I was mostly joking, more people have it downloaded means it’s basically impossible to take down

    Chronographs,

    Yeah it kills me when I see someone share something like this in the early stages of development though, like great you just ensured this will never see the light of day

    Freeman,

    Nintendo already shouldnt care about it, as they dont release good emulators/PC Versions anyway.

    paddirn,

    First rule of Game Club: We do not talk about fan-made games.

    Second rule of Game Club: We DO NOT talk about fan-made games.

    Jonny, do games w This fan-made HD PC port of Zelda: Link's Awakening is so cool I can't believe Nintendo hasn't taken it down yet
    @Jonny@kbin.social avatar

    Well I'm glad I managed to hear about it before they do! LA DX was my first Zelda game. Time to relive some memories in HD!

    DemBoSain,
    @DemBoSain@midwest.social avatar

    The Link’s Awakening remake on Switch is worth your time. I loved the original, and I loved the remake. I hope they continue bringing their old games forward like this (LA, Mario RPG, etc.)

    Jonny,
    @Jonny@kbin.social avatar

    Oh don't you worry, I've completed it. But thank you :)

    I agree, I thought it was great and I felt the art direction really fit the original perfectly!

    I've been slowly working my way through 100%ing every Zelda game. Done almost all of them other than BotW & TotK.

    FatTony, (edited ) do games w This fan-made HD PC port of Zelda: Link's Awakening is so cool I can't believe Nintendo hasn't taken it down yet
    @FatTony@discuss.online avatar

    Get it while it’s hot.

    Edit: it’s cold now.

    Gamers_Mate, do games w This fan-made HD PC port of Zelda: Link's Awakening is so cool I can't believe Nintendo hasn't taken it down yet

    Someone should get a bunch of games that Nintendo shut down and call it the forbidden library.

    Bread,

    You know, that’s not a bad idea.

    woelkchen, do games w This fan-made HD PC port of Zelda: Link's Awakening is so cool I can't believe Nintendo hasn't taken it down yet
    @woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

    I can’t believe Nintendo hasn’t taken it down yet

    “So I report about it on PC Gamer and make Nintendo aware of it.”

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