A lofty player target was set for Glacier: 100 million players over a set period of time that included post-launch.
"Obviously, Battlefield has never achieved those numbers before," one EA employee told me. "It's important to understand that over about that same period, 2042 has only gotten 22 million," another said. Even 2016's Battlefield 1—the most successful game in the franchise by numbers—had achieved "maybe 30 million plus."
(...)
Despite the big ambitions of the new leadership team and EA executives, "very few people" working in the studios believed the 100 million target was achievable, sources told me. Many of those who had worked on Battlefield for a long time at DICE in Stockholm were particularly skeptical.
"Development of games has changed so much in the last 10 to 15 years," said one developer. The new arrangement excites investors and shareholders, who can imagine returns from the next big unicorn release, but it can be a less creatively fulfilling way to work, as directives come from the top down, and much time is spent on dealing with inter-studio process. Further, it amplifies the effects of failures, with a higher human cost to people working on projects that don't meet expectations.
For nearly seventy years, US companies could immediately deduct the full cost of their research and development activities, from engineering salaries to software development and contractor fees. (...)
That landscape changed in 2022, when a provision from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which had been delayed, took effect. To offset the cost of lowering the corporate tax rate, lawmakers required that R&D expenses be spread out, or amortized, over five years for domestic activities and fifteen years for foreign ones, rather than being deducted all at once. (...)
The impact was immediate and severe. When companies filed their 2022 tax returns under the new rules, they found themselves unable to offset their R&D spending against taxable income fully. For cash-strapped firms and those not yet profitable, the result was a sudden and painful increase in tax bills, just as venture funding was drying up and borrowing costs were rising. The financial pressure forced companies to make tough decisions, and in many cases, the largest and most flexible expense – headcount – was the first to be reduced.
Hey Polycount Community!
I’d like to introduce UV-Remap – a tool that allows you to edit the UVs of already textured 3D models. This is perfect for merging models with different UV maps and texture sets, or for freeing up space on UV maps to add geometry. Check out this 20-second video for a quick overview of UV-Remap.
Screenshot of multiple textures and UV maps merged into a single square in UV-Remap:
Price: The Beta of UV-Remap is available for just $19.99!
Features:
✅ Edit UVs without retexturing
✅ Merge multiple texture sets
✅ Free up space on UV maps
✅ Tangent-space normal map support
✅ Simple and intuitive interface
Here are some detailed tutorials on how to use UV-Remap:
For more information, check out the FAQ section.
I’d love to hear your feedback! If you encounter any bugs, feel free to report them here or via the contact page. I will address any issues as quickly as possible!
MBauer17 said:For example, my friend ran her art piece through ChatGPT. Here is the original scene render.
I agree with @Alemja . This is my work being referenced up thread ^
and I would make the opposite point of @MBauer17 . AI feedback isn’t a problem because it’s bad. It’s pretty good, generally. Yellow renders aside, the text feedback that I got from ChatGPT overlapped substantially with that from the human artists I showed it to. Also the renders are only getting better, as @d1ver 's model shows.
My problem with AI feedback on Polycount is that it disincentives artists from practicing the (still very relevant!) skill of giving feedback. It already takes an uncommon amount of generosity to spend 15 minutes doing a redline and writing some thoughtful notes on someone's piece. Why would anyone take the time to do that when someone else can swoop in with an AI “paintover” that took 10 seconds to gen and is 100x more impressive to the casual onlooker?