Have any of the involved voice actors confirmed the claims made in the article? I’ve seen multiple articles on this game, and the only quotes are from the game’s director.
So far I’ve only seen one side claim this is ethical. That’s not enough.
What is the timeframe in the contract? The quotes only show a tiny excerpt of the whole contract.
I don’t see anything unreasonable about this if the terms expire when the game releases or the review embargo lifts. Reviewers can’t review pre-release copies of games until the embargo lifts.
If the non disparagement clause remains in effect after release, that’s very bad. Impossible to tell which it is from the tiny excerpt provided.
Arcane austin was already killed by the development of redfall. Most of the talent responsible for making dishonered and prey the games they were left during development of redfall. If arcane austin went back to making immersive sims instead of closing, it would be a new team making it, with little help from the pedegree implied by arcane’s legacy.
Keep in mind however that arcane was two studios, the main studio in lyon france, and the other in austin texas. Dishonered was developed jointly. Dishonored 2 was lyon, pray was austin, and deathloop was lyon.
The lyon studio still exists. They are continuing to make games. The only thing announced from arcane is the marvel’s blade game. Not optimistic, but arcane may still be around a while yet.
If you look at this from an entirely cynical lens, backing Kojima is the sensible choice. Kojima wasn’t leaving the industry. He would have a high level, influential job wherever he ended up.
At the same time, Konami was publicly backing out of the games industry. Konami is a multimedia company with many divisions. Their casinos are far more profitable than their games, so they were making major cuts to their gaming division.
Backing the major industry figure against the company that doesn’t want to make games anymore is what anyone running a show like the game awards would optimally do. That’s why you shouldn’t consider it a principled stance.
Keighly has a history of working in games media to publicise games. He was never an investigative reporter publishing things the industry didn’t want talked about. If you read his writing from before starting the game awards, it was like most gaming media, little more than third party advertising for upcoming games.
The thing with Kojima wasn’t some principled stance against injustice. He gave the award he was scheduled despite konami’s decision. That’s showbusiness. The awards are the result of a vote. Had konami allowed Kojima to attend, he wouldn’t have mentioned the firing.
Many asked Keighly to mention the layoffs at his show. Those familiar with his work knew not to expect it. The show is funded by games publishers. Calling out one publisher is fine in some circumstances. Calling out the industry as a whole is a good way to make this show your last.
Stock traders who do not have any information about nintendo’s plans beyond the rumors in the press have sold shares in response to rumors in the press about the switch 2.
Back in the day, so many studios tried to unseat wow with a fantasy mmo of their own. Seems an unwise strategy when playing an mmo is nearly a full time occupation. Very few players will have the time for more than one. Bad strategy. Which is why nearly every wow killer died.
Its clear the industry learned nothing when they started pushing perpetual live service games. Why would anyone play EA’s destiny clone when they could instead play destiny, especially when the time investment makes it infeasible to play both?
Now the big thing is the battle pass, that demand tens of hours to complete. Same issue there. Can most players justify more than one battle pass subscription? Probably not.
I would not be so sure this is the Dishonored team. The studio may have the same name, but the investigative news reports about Redfall’s development suggests that most of the studio’s senior talent left during that game’s development.
Developers who chose to spend their career making immersive sims are unlikely to stick around at a studio that decided to randomly start making a multiplayer shooter.
Localization is generally contracted out to external studios. With the dozens of languages games are released in, localization is rarely done in house, especially for languages added in a patch well after release.
When CDPR says “These lines have not been written by CD PROJEKT RED staff and do not represent our views.” It makes sense.
The localization team, being fluent speakers of Ukranian, can be expected to have strong opinions on the war, so they chose to add the anti Russian lines.
It makes sense for CDPR to remove the lines. Sure their PR teams will apologize for the ‘offense,’ but the real issue is a localization team going rogue.
Cyberpunk 2077 is set in a far future californian dystopia. In an alternate history world where the present day would be unrecognizable to us. A future where Russia and Ukraine and others have reformed into a new USSR. This war in Ukraine did not happen in cyberpunk.
Adding references to the war in a localization is undermining the setting. Despite CDPR’s stated support for Ukraine, this is not how they want to do things. They are going to change the lines.