The BRAWL² Tournament Challenge has been announced!
It starts May 12, and ends Sept 12. Let's see what you got!
https://polycount.com/discussion/237047/the-brawl²-tournament
It starts May 12, and ends Sept 12. Let's see what you got!
https://polycount.com/discussion/237047/the-brawl²-tournament
Former Firewalk/Concord dev talks Marathon
polycounter
Here's something we don't usually see.
A dev from Concord recently made a post on reddit appealing that Marathon not face the same fate as Concord given the comparisons being made online in gamer communities.
Its worth a read
https://www.reddit.com/r/Marathon/comments/1jyr8dm/former_firewalkconcord_dev_talks_marathon/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Also recommend reading the first controversial comment that I felt best summarized the situation
https://www.reddit.com/r/Marathon/comments/1jyr8dm/comment/mn1inzk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Few other comments that resonated with me,
https://www.reddit.com/r/Marathon/comments/1jyr8dm/comment/mn3nfoy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
https://www.reddit.com/r/Marathon/comments/1jyr8dm/comment/mn0vodj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Its unusual for a dev to approach reddit directly and openly, so I do admire the transparency, it would have been great to see more responses to comments that criticised/analysed why Concord failed by dev and I understand that for a dev this could be a risk to their career/what they can actually reveal without breaching NDA.
That said this devs post comes across as an appeal for Marathon not a defense of Concord and seems genuinely made in good faith. (edited to remove a reference to a dev that had responded on twitter in a controversial way)
I still don't feel that its necessary or right for an artist hired by a studio to make such an appeal on behalf of what they worked on which they don't actually have any ownership on at all.
Its the studio that needs to explain itself though their response was mostly boilerplate for investors.
I think they just wrote it off as a loss and don't really care.
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sony-president-reflects-on-why-concord-failed/
Its a situation which I think is very unique to video games since we're production artists working on a commericial product as opposed to being fine artists working on creative expression with artistic development as the main focus.
Its great when a studio has a balance of the two but I find this to rarely be the case in AAA as the business aspect of game development takes centerstage with investors dictating a studios direction and artists being the first to face the hammer when it comes layoffs
(actually its QA thats the first to fall, but that was always seen to be quite routine and many of them are subcontracted so they were never employees to begin with)
note: I'm not intending this topic to go into culture war related issues, but that aspect did dominate over a lot of Concords promotion on release which a few comments in the reddit post do delve into, so reader discretion is advised on the reddit post.
But a lot of good analysis and feedback that I've highlighted here.
Theres also some fundamental misunderstanding about how games are made and who's responsible for decision making which also reflects in the confusion some users feel as to why this dev made this appeal when they are not really responsible for Concord ending up the way it did.
This also extends to some curiousity about if the devs were rehired after firewalk was shut down, for some users this is a red line i.e devs should never work in the industry again, though again artists are just doing what they are told and I'm not sure if any of them under leadership positions have any taken seriously if they raise any concerns/objections during the development process.
A dev from Concord recently made a post on reddit appealing that Marathon not face the same fate as Concord given the comparisons being made online in gamer communities.
Its worth a read
https://www.reddit.com/r/Marathon/comments/1jyr8dm/former_firewalkconcord_dev_talks_marathon/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Also recommend reading the first controversial comment that I felt best summarized the situation
https://www.reddit.com/r/Marathon/comments/1jyr8dm/comment/mn1inzk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Few other comments that resonated with me,
https://www.reddit.com/r/Marathon/comments/1jyr8dm/comment/mn3nfoy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
https://www.reddit.com/r/Marathon/comments/1jyr8dm/comment/mn0vodj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Its unusual for a dev to approach reddit directly and openly, so I do admire the transparency, it would have been great to see more responses to comments that criticised/analysed why Concord failed by dev and I understand that for a dev this could be a risk to their career/what they can actually reveal without breaching NDA.
That said this devs post comes across as an appeal for Marathon not a defense of Concord and seems genuinely made in good faith. (edited to remove a reference to a dev that had responded on twitter in a controversial way)
I still don't feel that its necessary or right for an artist hired by a studio to make such an appeal on behalf of what they worked on which they don't actually have any ownership on at all.
Its the studio that needs to explain itself though their response was mostly boilerplate for investors.
I think they just wrote it off as a loss and don't really care.
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sony-president-reflects-on-why-concord-failed/
Its a situation which I think is very unique to video games since we're production artists working on a commericial product as opposed to being fine artists working on creative expression with artistic development as the main focus.
Its great when a studio has a balance of the two but I find this to rarely be the case in AAA as the business aspect of game development takes centerstage with investors dictating a studios direction and artists being the first to face the hammer when it comes layoffs
(actually its QA thats the first to fall, but that was always seen to be quite routine and many of them are subcontracted so they were never employees to begin with)
note: I'm not intending this topic to go into culture war related issues, but that aspect did dominate over a lot of Concords promotion on release which a few comments in the reddit post do delve into, so reader discretion is advised on the reddit post.
But a lot of good analysis and feedback that I've highlighted here.
Theres also some fundamental misunderstanding about how games are made and who's responsible for decision making which also reflects in the confusion some users feel as to why this dev made this appeal when they are not really responsible for Concord ending up the way it did.
This also extends to some curiousity about if the devs were rehired after firewalk was shut down, for some users this is a red line i.e devs should never work in the industry again, though again artists are just doing what they are told and I'm not sure if any of them under leadership positions have any taken seriously if they raise any concerns/objections during the development process.
Replies
Anyone can say anything on the internet, and this is on the same level of pettiness as Elden Ring players saying you haven't ackshually beaten the game if you use spirit ashes.
Here's a fun tip; when people say you need a thick skin as a game developer, what they really mean is that you need to be capable of translating feral karen bitching into something legible; for instance here is my game developer translation of Atrocious1337's comment.
Gamer Language: "Sorry, but bland, homogenized, paint-by-numbers games like Concord deserve to fail. *additional crying noises here*"
Developer Language: "The game looks generic, I'm not interested."
Most were just wondering about what he could really do in his current position to make Marathon a success
The other issue is that many gamers believe that their game language being translated into developer language isn't leading to the results gamers want to see quickly enough.
And certainly I don't agree with gamers demanding developers be blacklisted, but that seems to be a fundamental issue with them not fully understanding how games are made.
Then again I'm not sure who in the team should be held accountable for a 400 million $ loss, and is a loss of their job the expected penalty which gamers ought to be satisfied with because, they are organising to target companies that these devs have joined.
Its concerning that every Corcord dev has a target on their back and there's groups actively following their careers to determine which studios need to be scrutinized.
The issue remains that these groups are the ones that are voting with their wallet, so its good that there are developers that are approaching gaming audiences in this manner, but I think the thread was locked prematurely or the dev would have answered more questions.
too bad for gamers then. What are they gonna do, send us death threats? lol nerds
And I've never wanted devs to be blacklisted, I've wanted studios to take initiatives to be transparent and respond professionally to prevent situations like this from escalating.
This approach by the dev is appreciated by gamers, but it does not have studio endorsement and comes at considerable risk.
A more appropriate approach would be the studio taking more accountability officially and this is during the process of development when their promotional material is not having favorable reception.
In concords case this was apparent a year before its release, and this developer and gamers are concerned that the very same situation is about to repeat with Marathon
I've been exploring other avenues for 3D art while at the same time waiting on the industry to make a comeback.
This thread was a mistake & should not have been made. Concord was made and shelved eight months ago. Move on already.
I do feel sometimes that if game devs had been more aware of the business aspect of the industry we wouldn't be facing the situation we're seeing today. We wouldn't have sold out to mega corporations that consider devs to be disposable. This limits what we can achieve of our artistic potential.
Two of concords senior devs who faced pushback for a variety of reasons have just been hired into studios, so atleast in game dev there doesn't seem to be an issue with blacklisting based on the performance of the overall product, but there is speculation among gamer circles that this could be a result of nepotism.
The only list at the moment is the SBI detected curator which continues to grow and this is a difficult issue for studios to face.
I did feel that this dev approaching gamers on reddit openly may have alleviated gamer discontent somewhat, but its difficult to know what will become of marathon.
About hiring preferences based on what a dev might have to say about culture war minutiae, you would have to deliberate with the hiring team if this is a significant reason to dismiss a candidate, but you'd need to be wary of dev teams becoming toxic positive echo chambers which is something that Laura Fryer goes through at lenght.
@Rima - I understand the concern, but with game dev being a mix of creative expression, entertainment and marketing that is a risk all developers will take unless studios adopt a policy where you are not allowed to disclose you're being an employee or having worked on any games.
While this would not be recommended, at the very least studios need to reign in developers or have very clear guidelines on the opinions they express and the impact of what they say on the company.
This has been breached several times by employees defending their game like they have ownership of it when they don't.
Patrice Désilets felt he had ownership of Assassins creed and ubisoft fired him and hunted him to the ends ot the industry even buying a studio just to kick him out again.
But he persevered and fought for what he believed was rightfully his. [1666 Amsterdam.]
He now runs his own studio which is doing well.
Ultimately its really on studios to decide what they want the outcome to be. I'm seeing a shift towards leaner projects with smaller teams and AAA companies focusing more on publising instead of bloated budgets which are difficult to make a return on.
This also allows for more innovation in the content.
Like I'm very appreciative of nintendo's model where their releases resonate very well with a dedicated audience while keeping controversial content to a minimum or being creative with it.
It would be good to have this balance and for game studios to emphasize it more in their communication to gamers.
For example in the response from the sony president, he says that despite concords failure sony did have success from helldivers and they learned from both experiences, so gamers logically assume that sony needs to show this in Marathon and if sony is willing to take on additional risk it would help the company to relay this approach to the audience officially through their development and marketing teams.
This approach shouldn't simply be focused on visibility or engagement, be more transparent with the audience and show authenticity which I find is much harder at the AAA level.
This to me is a great example of authenticity, (spoilers about the games referenced)
And of course
Thankfully gamers are aware of these videos and have seen positivity and hope in this apro, so not all gamers are obsessed with the extreme aspect of gaming culture.
@NikhilR
EDIT: im not gonna comment on the culture war stuff as i agree and disagree with tons of points and thats a whole other thing.
Im going to just mention stuff me as a dev and as a consumer think about some behaviours from our industry that need to change for sucess :
- Insulting\belitling the consumers ( gamers ) due to their less informed\wrong opinions. We cant expect consumers to know how the pie is made and that maybe that game that came out crappy had a ton of reasons for their development to be a nightmare, thus outputting a game that doesnt resonate with the fanbase\butchers an established IP. I have a motto "retards get the mute button", that means people that send threats\insults, i simply mute them and dont engage, i dont put them in the same basked as consumers that are disgrunted.
- We are one of the few industries where consumers pay full price for a broken\unfinished product. Imagine buying a meal or a car where half of it was missing\didnt work, i know this might not be a "fair" comparizon, but lets just use the alegory. I honestly think we have a ton of understanding from the consumer base and "expectancy" on a broken product. We should be inputable full refunds if the product we deliver is broken, thats my consumer opinion.
- Toxic positivity IS a big problem imo. Lots of artists know each other and are friends and mingle quite often, thus making the "honest" feedback on what they are making hard to give, either for personal reasons\political reasons, wich usually make actual legitimate feedback beeing grouped with mean spirited feedback ( i have never seen mean spirited feedback given in my career btw, even if its "brutal" feedback, it always has a valid point ). Not beeing able to freely give feedback on stuff that isnt up to par\will make the final product suffer, due to us beeing afraid to hurt someone`s feelings is insane, learn to detach yourself from your work, saying something isnt working isnt an attack on you, artist, but a "this isnt working with the big picture"
- im 100% in favour of hiring based solely on merit and i believe it should be like that in all jobs. But atm people that come from diverse backgrounds are also under fire cause they can be assumed to be hired not based on merit, this definately backfired imo to people that had nothing to do with those decisions.
- Devs should be given media training due to how they expose themselves and engage in social media. Beeing vitriolic\acting insane\unhinged in social media will definately put you in a bad spot considering the company youre supposed to represent. I believe devs should have the right to free speech but also have in mind that working for very public companies puts them in an easier path to be misconstructed\everything they say can be taken out of context. And honestly there are a ton of people in this industry that behave like total insane people that make me think "hell i wouldnt be caught working alongside this person even if they gave me a million bucks" We are humans, people make mistakes, people sometimes act like retards sometimes and thats normal. Dont expect people not to act on it if you publicly display that.
- At the end of they day games come out broken\unoptimized\requiring NASA computers to run due to poor resource management\production hell. I as an artist and beeing involved in productions know the pain of this on my colleagues and i feel for them, hell even tho Concord for example, didnt resonate with the consumer base ( wich i totally get why ) i find the weapon art for instance simply gorgeous, great materials, great design etc, does this mean that the artists involved in that production are "bad" ? some might be not up to par ! but some of them are also great ! this happens everywhere. At the end of the day it comes to resource management and a shitty pre-production "we do it as we go" mindset with design by comitee beeing the imperative norm, wich imo, just bogs down everything and makes baking a cake a nightmare.
- We are not "better" than other people with other jobs nor we should be cut slack due to that. At the end of the day this is a job, a VERY fullfilling job that i feel super lucky to have and love to do, but not in a million years i will ask people to cut me some slack due to things that are outside of my control. What is in my control i should definately be held up to standards, and thats how i operate in life.
I know this is maybe unpopular with my colleagues, but i like to be honest and not say "this is okay" when it clearly isnt, i wouldnt be helping anyone like that. And we are all humans that want to do the best we can, wich sometimes simply doesnt happen by a miriad of factors.
Again, im sure people disagree with me and thats okay, this is what i believe as an individual and i am always open to learn from my mistakes\other perspectives
Thanks, Joao for that honest response. I feel the same on a lot of what was said…and can really appreciate communicating in a no BS way.
On the point about “toxic positivity”: I’ve always been wary of the term. I only first heard it when Concord became a thing, but I fear if it has been co-opted by media personalities; practically to the point becoming a meme and being lumped together with other rage-baiting terms like “woke” “snowflake” “chud” “incel” etc…which doesn’t really help anyone. But this is only from my point of view as an outsider looking in.
This will just make your message poluted and paint you as someone that is unhinged\mentally unwell to be able to have an honest and open conversation, wich is a shame since i believe everyone should voice their concerns and reach an understanding.
Im not adressing the content of what you wrote, but it really is very off-putting to read.
It doesn't help that so many points central to these discussions constructed around highly subjective or misguided "truths".
...Like, why we keep acting as if there is a "default" type of human (as pointed out above)? How come even your average women protagonists suddenly become "controversial" should they not appeal to some broken teen fantasy?
...Why gamers act like customers in a store? We're not consumers, art is not a service. Sure, return the game if it's broken on technical side, but demanding "cultural" changes?.. It just doesn't make any sense.
...Why is it okay to accept cancel culture as part of "risks of the industry"? This is messed up! It's for devs and publishers to analyze why some title didn't sold enough and who, if anyone, is responsible. A lynch mob should be treated as such, not as an "audience". Individual people may have opinions, but mobs just want to see the blood.
As a mere gamer, I think the whole Concord thing is a sad lost opportunity: the trailers and the episode in Secret Level looked so good, and fun, and with a dose of adventurous optimism to offset all those grimdark fantasies, social dramas and psychological horrors around.
I would've loved to see it as an adventure or heist game, with unhinged plans and daring escapes... Or maybe there could've been some other way to adapt it. It could've been great.
So it saddens me to see that it tripped at the start and is immediately treated as dead and undeserving of any chances. Ever. Like all of this work suddenly can't be salvaged. Throw it in a trash bin, pretend it never happened. The whole situation is insane and stupid beyond measure. IMHO, of course. And it would be equally horrible to let it affect any other games as well =(
One aspect to keep in mind with protagonists (women or otherwise) is what a default is and how the audience feels about it.
Broken teen fantasy like Dead or Alive Basketball or Japanese eroge games is an extreme, as are characters from Concord or Dustborn and studios on both sides are very open about it.
However the unfortunate/or fortunate reality is that it is difficult to know which way the scale will tip when it comes to sales, and thats where studios need to evaluate if their core audience is sufficient for the game to perform to expectations or if they want new players.
I think by now its clear that any game that diverges from the norm is going to come under heavy scrutiny since the audience is organised and very willing to flood social media with dissent.
Still they can be negotiated with, but it should not have to come to that.
Like with Concord, besides the obvious focus on representation, there were many aspects that went against the games success such as the 40$ price tag and the heavy investment in cinematic shorts before release which mirrors Overwatch.
And who knows if there hadn't been an overwatch, maybe Concord would have had better prospects, but when you watch the shorts which are made in a totally different style
and go through comments like
"The strange thing is it's marketed as if we already care about these characters."
the studio needs to be clear about who they are marketing these characters to, and I think they lost the plot along the way somewhere.
Now Concord being shut down isn't because it is woke, it is because Sony sees more sustainability in writing it as a loss and laying off the team not just by seeing the excessive pushback but seeing player numbers and extrapolating the games performance over a period where it would actually make the most profit.
In that sense, they had two options,
- Keep the game running while they decide on adding more content or take the game in a completely new direction
- Liquidating the studio as a whole and shelve the game since they have other properties that are profitable.
The issue is that when the team takes this as a personal failing and attempts to defend the game without sony's consent, then the dissenters will target the team which is why it would have helped if Sony's boiler plate to investors would have been released a lot sooner and devs should have gone AWOL on social media for the duration of its release.
Of course Sony needs to follow the boilerplate to the letter, lest the same situation befall marathon.
If you just continue to conform to - to respect - their prejudice, then you only help the "core audience" to stay close-minded and entitled in their ignorance. Only sustain the state of unconscious fear and hatred before the "unknown" and "exotic".
Games shape us, shape communities, like any other art. It's not just about reaching new audience - it's about imagining the world where we don't treat others as collections of labels and modifiers. If you can imagine it, it can eventually become. If we only look at most efficient way to sell product, than we might as well say goodbye to the industry now - it wouldn't be worth saving. There would be no point to it.
Looking at some gaming communities now, you'd think we're on the fast track to the past, when it was okay to assume that the typical gamer is an ugly teen with zero self-respect or life... and everyone else were not "real" gamers.
The challenge is that even if we as devs/artists see the games we've worked on as art, or its content to be artistic at the end we have no ownership of it and for the end user, this is a product they are purchasing.
Its why I added, what the audience feels about it.
You can assess what the audience wants through an analysis of market demographics, but most times any content that is widely understood to be controversial will provide a challenge in understanding how the market would react.
The key thing is to achieve a balance or play it safe, I prefer the former since I do believe it is possible.
One radical thought I once had, was a universal basic income for all artists to give them the freedom to make art that they cannot profit from (since the privilege of making art becomes the profit itself)
This way, artists can produce pretty much anything regardless of reception since they will be paid for in perpetuity. Of course who is labeled an artist and on what criteria remains to be seen.
On the studio art side there is such a system through government organisations and non profits that provide grants and bursaries.
For example the canada arts council has heavy emphasis on the artistic merit of projects, a lot of that being subjective and also on how the practise benefits artistic development of the artist.
We don't have this system for AAA games where the large amount of financial investment is from investors that likely will never play the games we make or care about the content unless it affects their bottom line and margins.
The closest I can see for AAA is refundable tax credits, and this is purely motivated by the government lowering production costs to incentivise hiring with the expectation that companys would reinvest profits back into the economy.
In Quebec, the government realised that with several AAA projects underperforming and studios downsizing, it wasn't sustainiable to keep providing these credits so they reduced it and moved the surplus over to live action film.
Also with the sheer volume of gaming content being released, save for the core audience who is willing to preorder or pay full price day 1 to play a game religiously, I'm not sure how many gamers outside of this demographic are being impacted/influenced in ways that say a Monet would within a museum space.
Or the works of Refik Anadol projected upon the architecture of Guadi in Barcelona.
You could add it to a game and that could impact the artistic sensibilities of gamers, but will they buy the game to experience it or is it sufficient for them to watch a video on youtube?
A lot of variables to consider today when it comes to games and profitability.
Hence the advice is to really be wary of budgets and what the ultimate objective is.
This is something AAA particularly struggles with when they make games with content that challenges the narrative.
It gets more dicey when they add this content to popular content creating divergent divisive narratives that don't resonate with new audiences.
This is a game I'm really looking forward to,
When devolver digital considers sales projections, should it consider adding representation by default because this work of art will influence the public, and how obvious should it be?
The characters in this game are crystal demons
If Sony bought Devolver and were to pump 400 million $ into this game how should they add representation so certain demographics don't feel left out and how would devs do it in a way that doesn't alienate its audience?