IATSE’s 2023 Gameworkers.org Rates and Conditions survey showed that most respondents said they worked an average of 40 hours a week, but a quarter of people who answered said they worked for 41 hours or more....
I could understand putting this kind of time in for a passion project of your own, but for like, a job for somebody else? Worse, a salaried job? That’s way too much.
Most of the video games I’ve played were pretty good. The only one I can think of that I didn’t like was MySims Kingdom for the Nintendo DS. Dropped that pretty quickly. It was a long while ago, but I’ll guess it was because there were too many fetch quests and annoying controls.
We had a few cartridges for our Colecovision that I could never figure out how to get to do anything very game-like. I don’t really remember the names of the bad ones. I’d be hard pressed to remember the names of the good ones other than like Donkey Kong. They were pretty hit or miss in general and the controller was really weird, but it made a memorable introduction to gaming and a great starting point to watch it all grow from.
I think the worst game I’ve ever played was the Dragonlance game for NES. There are other equally bad games that are even bad in largely the same way, but I’m a big Dragonlance fan and when I finally got a copy of this I was very excited for about 5 minutes. It’s just bad. I have vague memories of throwing Tass into a hole a bunch of times and like maybe a little bit after that, but it was a mess. Maybe if I’d been able to get past the controls I’d have found a gem in there somewhere, but it just wasn’t there. I feel like if a pizza company can knock out a class A platformer, TSR should have been able to manage.
It’s odd, because D&D crpgs have usually been innovative for their time, using the D&D rules and hitting the ball out of the park. The Dragonlance game didn’t come that long before the Black Sun game they made, and I’m pretty sure they had been making similar crpgs previously. I feel like I remember playing another early one on our 8088. But they decided to make some half assed platformer instead. Huh?
But Dragonlance always seems to get shafted on adaptations. I remember Tracy Hickman talking on Palace in the late 90s about making a live action Dragonlance movie with Aaron Eisenberg as Tasslehoff, but it seemed to just evaporate and instead we got that kinda weird but cool to see very stylized cartoon. I do like that it looked like the book covers, but it was a long way from what we’d initially expected to see.
Some day Dragonlance will get some real love. Maybe Baldur’s Gate 3 will help.
The first of the tools Denuvo is offering to Switch developers is Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection, a “revolutionary technology to protect games launching on Nintendo Switch from piracy”....
Kotaku out here dutifully defending the status quo. Maybe these complex, top-heavy, primarily commercially motivated hierarchies aren’t a good environment for the development of decent games. If those top people have a vision and a passion for their art, it’ll show. If they don’t and all they care about is money while throwing figurative scraps of creative freedom and control to their actual development and art teams, that’ll show too.
What Larian did right, more than anything else, is retain artistic integrity. They didn’t hold back to stuff anything behind a paywall or try to figure out how to design their game to appeal to whales. They had something they wanted to make, a franchise they wanted to do proper justice, and they knocked the ball out of the park.
Not because it’s perfect, because it isn’t, but because it is incredibly clear that they didn’t sell out their artistic integrity. It couldn’t have been made if they had.
That, I think, is what some development studios are worried about. Ultimately though, that’s a good thing. It offers the potential of changing the nature of the business to one that’s less about Skinner boxes and more about creating an enjoyable and maybe even profound experience.
Please do use Baldur’s Gate 3 as a weapon to cut money grubbing corporate filth out of the industry.
Just thought I’d share something I thought was pretty interesting. I have a mother in law who is… well let’s just say she’s a stereotypical older mom who doesn’t own a computer, just an iPad. During the pandemic, she started getting into Nintendo games and bought herself a Switch. Fast forward a few years later and...
I’ve been closely studying dialogue and cinematography in video games lately. Try to detach the dialogue system from the dialogue. What’s the best? Was it technically multiple systems or just one?
I loved the dialogue system in Shadowrun for SNES. It was pretty simple, didn’t really have any branches or anything, but it feels autonomous in a way that’s hard to match.
Basically, wherever you talk to someone, certain words in their lines will be in bold. Once you’ve seen one of the bolded keywords, you can ask any other character about those words. Most of them will spit out a canned response specific to that NPC unless you ask about something relevant to them, but the list of keywords is long. It makes it more than possible to play the game several times through and miss certain things. There are runners you can only hire if you get the right keywords, even parts in the main story where it takes a little wandering around trying different things to get the keywords you need or figure out where to use them. Some keywords are basically dead ends, only mentioned one or two times, maybe only in the conversation they’re found in, but others will come up again and again.
Shadowrun in general felt very open as a game. Even though it had some barriers to progress before being able to go everywhere, there’s a huge amount of freedom in general.
For its time the amount of freedom and depth in the same package was not at all the norm.
As the title says. I severely dislike having to make accounts for every game publisher that wants to send me advertisements, collect data or whatever....
It literally says “Skip” right underneath the thing you’re complaining about. If you’d taken the time to look at the screen, you’d have seen it itself.
I’d start with 6 (sometimes referred to as 3 in the US). The writing is solid, there are plenty of choices to make and characters to play with, and it moves along nicely. You can put a bunch of time into maxing everyone out and grinding out the highest difficulty areas, but you don’t have to.
Great story, great characters, and one hell of a female lead especially considering the era it was released in.
I feel like this is less of a big decision and more of a ‘duh’ sort of situation. To my understanding this isn’t saying that all AI art violates copyright, but that AI art which does violate copyright can’t be used.
Like if i took a picture of Darth Vader and handed it to NightCafe to fool around with, that still belongs to Disney. Steam is legally required to act if a valid DMCA is sent, and to adhere to the court’s ruling in the case of a dispute.
I feel like this is a reassurance that they intend to obey copyright law rather than a restriction of all AI art. Basically they’re saying that if you DMCA someone in good faith on the basis of derivative works, they’ll play ball.
The Elder Scrolls VI will skip PS5 and isn’t coming until at least 2026 (www.theverge.com) angielski
Penny Arcade sums up the Unity debacle in the first panel. (www.penny-arcade.com) angielski
Today’s Penny Arcade is a near perfect commentary on the Unity debacle....
Survey finds more than half of game developers experience crunch (www.gamesindustry.biz)
IATSE’s 2023 Gameworkers.org Rates and Conditions survey showed that most respondents said they worked an average of 40 hours a week, but a quarter of people who answered said they worked for 41 hours or more....
Not counting games that were unfun because of bugs, what’s the most unfun video game that you’ve played and what made it unfun? (kbin.cafe) angielski
Most of the video games I’ve played were pretty good. The only one I can think of that I didn’t like was MySims Kingdom for the Nintendo DS. Dropped that pretty quickly. It was a long while ago, but I’ll guess it was because there were too many fetch quests and annoying controls.
Denuvo security is now on Switch, including new tech to block PC Switch emulation (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
The first of the tools Denuvo is offering to Switch developers is Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection, a “revolutionary technology to protect games launching on Nintendo Switch from piracy”....
Baldur’s Gate 3 Is One Of 2023's Best Games, Don't Turn It Into A Weapon (kotaku.com) angielski
The success of the Dungeons & Dragons RPG has kicked off a fiery debate about game development, AAA costs, and players’ expectations
The Steam Deck is changing how normies think of gaming PCs.
Just thought I’d share something I thought was pretty interesting. I have a mother in law who is… well let’s just say she’s a stereotypical older mom who doesn’t own a computer, just an iPad. During the pandemic, she started getting into Nintendo games and bought herself a Switch. Fast forward a few years later and...
what's some of the best dialogue systems you've seen and why? angielski
I’ve been closely studying dialogue and cinematography in video games lately. Try to detach the dialogue system from the dialogue. What’s the best? Was it technically multiple systems or just one?
(SOLVED) Ok, so I just bought Baldurs Gate 3. Now how do I bypass the 'Create Larian Account' bit without creating an account? (beehaw.org)
As the title says. I severely dislike having to make accounts for every game publisher that wants to send me advertisements, collect data or whatever....
Where to even start with Final Fantasy?
I’ve been wanting to jump in on the final fantasy universe for a while now but I’m not sure where to start....
Valve won’t publish games that feature copyright-infringing AI assets | Engadget (www.engadget.com) angielski
Interesting decision