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TheFace posted:I know this varies depending on location, but what's the typical pay like for the assorted roles in game dev?
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# ? Sep 20, 2017 15:39 |
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# ? May 23, 2024 17:53 |
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I'm just realizing now that my not-entirely-anti-crunching in your 20's position comes from starting out in post-EA Spouse California, which is probably something worth talking about! Essentially, because of that blog post, junior developers in California (if your salary is under a certain threshold, and you don't manage anyone) are required to be paid hourly overtime. I made a killing on my first few titles due to this, and it influenced my position quite a bit. If the bosses are trying to get 60 hours for the price of 40, that's a wayyyyy different story.
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# ? Sep 20, 2017 16:39 |
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I've posted this to y'all already but I think a good thing we can do as devs is be asked about all of the cool game tech stuff coming out that we might be able to shine some kind of light on, whether it's a sign of increasing complexity or some flash in the pan bullshit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo_FALeUc8c My first thought on this was more being impressed on the modelling end, I've no experience with face rigging but given performance capture that's been used for a while now, this kind of detail is pretty wild. The major and micro creases and subsurface detail that appear when an expression is pulled, all of that is pretty nutso. But again, I've no idea how much of this is raw concept and how much of this makes it into games 3-4 years down the line. I remember seeing the closeup character renders of BF3 characters and then playing the game like welp, you will never see that detail shooting the badmens or in the cinematic cutscenes so :p GeeCee fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Sep 20, 2017 |
# ? Sep 20, 2017 21:37 |
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floofyscorp posted:So this varies hugely by location as you've said, but here are some relatively recent numbers from the only large-scale games industry salary survey that I know of - that said, they still only got fewer than 400 respondents from around the world so take this with several grains of salt. This seems really really low to me? Must be what you guys are talking about, where there's a fresh new batch of grads just waiting to take your place for cheap? I guess the love of making games outweighs that (as a dev/programmer) you could likely be making more money elsewhere?
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# ? Sep 20, 2017 21:42 |
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It depends on your role, too. For an artist, game dev wages are pretty ok. For a programmer, you can be making more pretty much anywhere else.
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# ? Sep 20, 2017 21:49 |
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Their sample size for that survey is pretty useless. I remember the game developer mag surveys seeming a lot more reasonable, and the salaries in that were generally significantly higher than that link for the US. Everything I've heard about the UK is that programmers in games there make a lot less in comparison to programmers in games in the US/Canada, which probably pretty significantly skews their results. Really, a global average for salaries doesn't seem like it's going to be very informative, given the wide range of salaries across different countries. Even within the US, there's a pretty huge range of salaries based on location.
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# ? Sep 20, 2017 22:00 |
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How does the shift to longer-term DLC "seasons" or the "games as service" model Starbreeze touts, and other equivalents that aim for a long tail of activity and purchasing, effect the development cycle and project management? How do they effect quality of life and job security?
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# ? Sep 20, 2017 22:11 |
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For more salary information, you can search the H1-B database for the salaries of H1-B work visa holders at specific companies here: http://h1bdata.info/index.php
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# ? Sep 20, 2017 22:25 |
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mastermind2004 posted:Their sample size for that survey is pretty useless. This is true, in fairness. Based on the number of respondents, the number of female respondents, the number of female artist respondents, etc, my own entry to the survey ends up being a fairly ridiculously significant data point. But I don't know of any bigger recent surveys, unless you want to go aggregate some numbers from Glassdoor.
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# ? Sep 20, 2017 22:47 |
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eshock posted:Pretty much nobody crunches anymore (in AAA) besides Naughty Dog and Rockstar. Just about every other studio has wisened up, but it's just super embedded in those company cultures. I'd challenge this point a bit? I agree that it is definitely getting better, but I still think based on discussions and anecdotes and other devs chiming in that some amount of crunch is in the majority at most devs. I guess we could drill the question down and ask what the severity of the crunch we're talking about and whether people consider, say, a week or 2 of crunch to be unacceptable versus a 4 month to year+ deathmarch too, but consensus seems to be that it's still a part of the landscape.
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# ? Sep 20, 2017 23:00 |
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eshock posted:Pretty much nobody crunches anymore (in AAA) besides Naughty Dog and Rockstar. Sorry, I haven't been able to drop some replies on this thread due to the crunch. Forer posted:So, I'm interested in getting in the gamedev field but I'm absolutely scared that crunch will eat me alive and I desperately want to avoid it. I'm interested in just junior design stuff but I have a LITTLE programming background and whatnot, and I know to keep filling out my portfolio with projects but, that crunch man, it just is so intimidating that I stop before I start. Is there anything to say to console me or is it just "YUP stay out if you hate crunch" Typically AAA is more inclined to the crunch, but a lot of studios recognize how hosed up it is. It wouldn't be difficult to find a studio where they won't require you to suffer through the crunch; interviews are as much for them as they are for you. It's also nice to have a network of people that would give an unbiased look how it is to work at a studio you're currently looking at. exquisite tea posted:Is a well-coded engine just something that an experienced programmer can kind of suss out from playing the game? Like you're playing some old-school shooter and think to yourself "they handle floating point arrays really well here" or something similar. Not so much. I get impressed with elements that I can see/feel as much as anyone, but I wouldn't want to claim something is well-engineered from just visual and feel alone. I can guarantee every game in the last few months towards shipping have committed dire code crimes because there is rarely enough time to get it done in the ideal way. Thankfully there are talks and conferences like GDC where people can appreciate other people's work properly. I'll try to put up more replies when I get the time.
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# ? Sep 20, 2017 23:13 |
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Songbearer posted:
Looking at build of game today, there's a bug where spawn points in a space are screwed up so all characters meant to spawn in the location are doing so at the same spot. If your dice roll correctly, you get one character with the "carrying something" pose and another with the "sitting in chair pose", which combine to produce a NSFW scene. My all time favorite is the first time we did a game with ingame cinematics. Nobody coded anything to disable what was happening in the game proper when we transitioned to the IGC, so you'd hit the trigger, camera to a the lead character, they'd start giving a deep, heartfelt speech intended for the cinematic, and BAM! a spell cast just before the transition would land and dude would get blasted out of the scene by the physics impulse. The audio position was on the character, so as you were watching this guy fly over the horizon, you'd hear his calm, somber speech trailing off.
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# ? Sep 20, 2017 23:38 |
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Discendo Vox posted:How does the shift to longer-term DLC "seasons" or the "games as service" model Starbreeze touts, and other equivalents that aim for a long tail of activity and purchasing, effect the development cycle and project management? How do they effect quality of life and job security? There are still update deadlines to hit but it's definitely different being in a position of developing for an installed user-base than it is trying to make that initial push to gain a following or say, needing to hit the pre-christmas launch window that could make or break your company. I feel more secure right now for a number of reasons, but that is definitely one.
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# ? Sep 21, 2017 00:29 |
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eshock posted:Pretty much nobody crunches anymore (in AAA) besides Naughty Dog and Rockstar. Just about every other studio has wisened up, but it's just super embedded in those company cultures. On the last game I shipped, the studio opened 1-2 Saturdays per month toward the end, and started offering dinners 4 nights a week, but we still closed the doors and kicked everyone out at 9PM. Compared to some of the first games I worked on, it was a walk in the park. I know of at least two other big studios besides the ones you listed that have crunched with the last 2 years. It's might not be *as bad* as it once was, but it's my perception that it's still very much alive and well. quote:Do you have any responsibilities besides yourself? If you're a young single person, crunch really shouldn't bother you at all. It isn't uncommon for white-collar salaried media jobs to demand 50-60 hours per week anymore. Which I'm not defending, just pointing out that the game industry isn't unique in that regard. I'm young and single, but I don't want to crunch for months at a time. It does bug me a great deal - it's mentally and emotionally draining. It's honestly super rewarding to work on a project you love and believe in for 40 hours a week for a couple years. Some Overtime sprinkled in there as you approach content locks and milestones is fine too! Crunching for months at a time though is a great way to induce both project and industry burnout though.
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# ? Sep 21, 2017 02:28 |
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Mother posted:I'm not trying to be insulting with this but, just so you know, it is not uncommon that "ideas man" is used to mean "doesn't like to do any actual work" in the games business. That was the intention of using "Ideas Man" as I have seen countless posts that are basically along the lines of "I have an idea! It's amazing! Who wants to go off and make it for me?" My question was more about what the potential and costs are involved in taking a concept from idea to reality.
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# ? Sep 21, 2017 05:48 |
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What's the relationship like between people in the industry proper and people in games culture who don't make games - games journalists, streamers/let's players, pro players (for a competitive game), and so on and so on?
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# ? Sep 21, 2017 06:06 |
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Anil Dasharez0ne posted:What's the relationship like between people in the industry proper and people in games culture who don't make games - games journalists, streamers/let's players, pro players (for a competitive game), and so on and so on? Kind of a broad question. More often then not devs in bigger studios do not have direct relations, since it's all channeled through PR/producers. Indies and other smaller studios are usually happy for any kind of visibility and are genuinly nice most of the time. If you're getting creative or really deep into someones game as a YouTuber or so, say make a fun video or extensive tutorials, it's appreciated and probably will get noticed. Unless there is a specific reason, most people on both sides get along just fine.
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# ? Sep 21, 2017 09:20 |
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Anil Dasharez0ne posted:What's the relationship like between people in the industry proper and people in games culture who don't make games - games journalists, streamers/let's players, pro players (for a competitive game), and so on and so on? At 4J, we've partied with some of the more famous console Minecraft youtubers like Stampylonghead, iballisticsquid, Sqaishey quack, Bigbst4tz2 and more. We've a good relationship going with them (they're all lovely people) but they're not given special NDA access or anything
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# ? Sep 21, 2017 14:06 |
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PotatoManJack posted:That was the intention of using "Ideas Man" as I have seen countless posts that are basically along the lines of "I have an idea! It's amazing! Who wants to go off and make it for me?" Sorry -- hard to gauge the level of understanding. "Ideas guy" is also enshrined at our shop so it made me laugh. We had a young QA new hire (now a producer at well known shop) who begged for a chance to be on the design team and we allowed him to try out. Ok, here's the editor, make some levels. Days pass... How's the level coming? Oh, I didn't make one. I don't think I want to be that kind of designer. Ok, here's the database and the combat doc, go look at some scripting and balance work, head down to playtest. ...days... I don't think I want to be that kind of designer. Ok, here's the story doc, go look at the character pages and VO, talk to the writer, take a hack at some lines. ...days... I don't think I want to be that kind of designer. Ok, well, we're kind of out of "kinds of designer." What kind of designer do you want to be? You know, I want to be the ideas guy.
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# ? Sep 21, 2017 15:34 |
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Mother posted:Sorry -- hard to gauge the level of understanding. Maybe I'm weird, and I definitely don't know the actual work involved, but all three of the opportunities he got to try sound fun! I now want to punch this kid.
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# ? Sep 21, 2017 18:06 |
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Mother posted:Ok, here's the story doc, go look at the character pages and VO, talk to the writer, take a hack at some lines. ...days... I don't think I want to be that kind of designer. Man, I'd do awful things for exactly that shot.
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# ? Sep 21, 2017 18:16 |
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How difficult do you find it to divorce frame rate from any aspect of game speed in the engine you use? I was pretty shocked when I made a game for a student project in unmodified unreal 4 and saw characters suddenly move twice as fast when the frame rate went down--it sounds like an extremely hard problem to solve at a low level, but also one so fundamental to many games that I sort of assumed any modern engine's default physics wouldn't be that dependent on frame rate anymore.
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# ? Sep 21, 2017 18:32 |
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TheFace posted:Maybe I'm weird, and I definitely don't know the actual work involved, but all three of the opportunities he got to try sound fun! I now want to punch this kid. That's what WE said! Everyone else on the team had the "and this is the mountian I had to climb for the same opportunity" background. This is something to think about if you're trying to get in the business. Stories about giving people opportunities and seeing them squandered like this are common dev-to-dev chat fodder.
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# ? Sep 21, 2017 18:50 |
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Digirat posted:How difficult do you find it to divorce frame rate from any aspect of game speed in the engine you use? I was pretty shocked when I made a game for a student project in unmodified unreal 4 and saw characters suddenly move twice as fast when the frame rate went down--it sounds like an extremely hard problem to solve at a low level, but also one so fundamental to many games that I sort of assumed any modern engine's default physics wouldn't be that dependent on frame rate anymore. Pretty simple. Multiply whatever value by deltaTime and it becomes based off however much time has passed since the last frame tick. Most students don't consider framerate in their projects so they never think to ask how to fix it. Also that probably doesn't have a lot to do with the physics engine itself. They might be applying a force over time, or moving the character X distance over time, so that when the framerate changes, so do the number of calls to whatever move function they've written.
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# ? Sep 21, 2017 19:07 |
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Chunderstorm posted:Pretty simple. Multiply whatever value by deltaTime and it becomes based off however much time has passed since the last frame tick. Most students don't consider framerate in their projects so they never think to ask how to fix it. To tack on to this, the other solution, instead of multiplying by delta time, is to make 100% sure the frame rate is a steady 30fps or 60fps. In some cases this is preferable, but it's a lot more work to make that happen. Here's some more info on that sort of thing in the context of iOS game dev, but the principals apply all the way up to big budget AAA titles like GTA. http://www.learn-cocos2d.com/2013/10/game-engine-multiply-delta-time-or-not/
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# ? Sep 21, 2017 19:21 |
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Chunderstorm posted:Pretty simple. Multiply whatever value by deltaTime and it becomes based off however much time has passed since the last frame tick. Most students don't consider framerate in their projects so they never think to ask how to fix it. Actually, using a variable delta does cause inconsistent behavior with physics. Game simulations, including physics engines, belong to the family of explicit methods, and the results of those vary with the size of the delta. That is to say, running the same physics over two frames of 16ms or one frame of 32ms, even multiplying with the delta, will normally yield different results, purely due to numerical integration. On top of that, having a variable physics timestep will cause extra instabilities too (and not just in complex physics engines, an oldschool shmup or street fighter style game is also best served by a fixed timestep). In general using a fixed timestep will make everything more stable, predictable and reproductible, which also carries some implications for networking, debugging and replays. However, what happens if the frame rate itself is too slow or instable? So, the most flexible option is to separate the update rate (at which the simulation is run) and the rendering rate (at which the frames are rendered, thus usually called frame rate). Although that can introduce some stuttering if done in the most straightforward way there are ways to smooth that. Note that there may be extra issues when separating them these days, like using the GPU for gameplay tasks. For example the behavior of the water in From Dust was affected by the framerate unlocker mod because it was simulated on GPU as part of the render loop. Due to its technical lineage, UE traditionally uses variable timestep, though I think there's an option for fixed timestep in UE4 (and some companies like Arcsys certainly managed to use fixed update in UE3 already). Here's an article about all that: https://gafferongames.com/post/fix_your_timestep/ Chev fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Sep 21, 2017 |
# ? Sep 21, 2017 20:55 |
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Chev posted:Actually, using a variable delta does cause inconsistent behavior with physics. Game simulations, including physics engines, belong to the family of explicit methods, and the results of those vary with the size of the delta. That is to say, running the same physics over two frames of 16ms or one frame of 32ms, even multiplying with the delta, will normally yield different results, purely due to numerical integration. On top of that, having a variable physics timestep will cause extra instabilities too (and not just in complex physics engines, an oldschool shmup or street fighter style game is also best served by a fixed timestep). In general using a fixed timestep will make everything more stable, predictable and reproductible, which also carries some implications for networking, debugging and replays. However, what happens if the frame rate itself is too slow or instable? Huh, thanks for the info. TIL!
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# ? Sep 21, 2017 21:10 |
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Mother posted:Sorry -- hard to gauge the level of understanding.
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# ? Sep 21, 2017 23:08 |
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The first two are definitely the kind of design I want to end up being. Whether I ever actually do that who knows but poo poo that's upsetting.
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# ? Sep 21, 2017 23:19 |
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Chev posted:Actually, using a variable delta does cause inconsistent behavior with physics. Game simulations, including physics engines, belong to the family of explicit methods, and the results of those vary with the size of the delta. That is to say, running the same physics over two frames of 16ms or one frame of 32ms, even multiplying with the delta, will normally yield different results, purely due to numerical integration. On top of that, having a variable physics timestep will cause extra instabilities too (and not just in complex physics engines, an oldschool shmup or street fighter style game is also best served by a fixed timestep). In general using a fixed timestep will make everything more stable, predictable and reproductible, which also carries some implications for networking, debugging and replays. However, what happens if the frame rate itself is too slow or instable? This is pretty much dead on.
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# ? Sep 22, 2017 16:47 |
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I have no desire to do it, I'm just curious: what does the writing process look like at a AAA shop? How does it compare to movies/tv?
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# ? Sep 22, 2017 17:00 |
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Ara peripheral driven IP/genres always destined to end up with Icarus-style endings if the manage to escape failing right out the door?
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# ? Sep 22, 2017 17:12 |
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hey girl you up posted:I have no desire to do it, I'm just curious: what does the writing process look like at a AAA shop? How does it compare to movies/tv? Second hand info but lots of meetings, email conversations and conference calls, more still if you're deciding the direction of a game. And way more redrafting and tweaking. There's a big emphasis on keeping all of the leads and decision-makers on board with the writing, there is also the politics of writing for established franchises too, getting approvals from original IP holders and such, a lot of work there. Ofc there's more to writing in games than the main core plot/concept, everything from flavour text for items to minor NPC dialogue needs a writer's hand. GeeCee fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Sep 23, 2017 |
# ? Sep 23, 2017 02:38 |
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Viewtiful Jew posted:Ara peripheral driven IP/genres always destined to end up with Icarus-style endings if the manage to escape failing right out the door? The potential for something to go wrong with peripherals or toys is vast and deep and you still have all of the overhead and challenges of the software on top of it too. The process of RND, design, prototyping, production, shipping, packaging, and storage of a peripheral would be an entire infographic all its own about as complex as the one I have in the OP and it has to line up and coincide with launch dates and projections have to be dead on or you will either run into shortages ala Amiibo or you have excess inventory sitting in containers on docks ala Disney Infinity's Yondu. Additionally, when you're relying pushing the peripherals for your profits, you have to walk a tightrope. On Disney Infinity, the character toys had the largest profit margin out of anything in the box or on the shelves, but you have to manage that supply/demand curve VERY carefully or you'll burn everyone out and parents will stop buying the toys because the toys never stop. Likewise, when Rock Band/Guitar Hero use different plastic guitars and then subsequent versions use different plastic guitars... you get the idea. Basically, embarking on a toys-to-life or peripheral-driven game essentially means you're putting out multiple products in 2 different industries. Software and hardware or software and toys. It ups the overhead and the complexity exponentially and it's so hard to get right that often their creators only know they've screwed something up when its too late. That said, I actually think the biggest peripheral and toys-to-life games have all done ok for themselves overall. Skylanders was amazingly successful, Disney Infinity was still profitable when it was shut down for company redirect reasons, and Lego Dimensions has been able to keep on their feet (although we'll see moving forward with the big reductions at Lego). Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises were ubiquitous for many years too. Then there's Amiibo which kind of stand alone.
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# ? Sep 23, 2017 08:28 |
gaming industry talks a lot with each other. whats the most hosed up rumor you have heard? (if you can share it that is) You can keep the company names out
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# ? Sep 23, 2017 10:24 |
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rope kid posted:Anyone can design but most people shouldn't. They expected him to actually make something tangible, like with a file extension. It's so generous to call napkin scribbles design.
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# ? Sep 24, 2017 06:19 |
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why is the my documents folder still used by a poo poo ton of games to dump saves and config files? there's been a centralised place for this poo poo for ages now at %userprofile%\saved games\ yet it's rarely used. I have a gently caress ton of games installed and only 10 of them use that saved games folder, the rest are just making GBS threads up my documents. (or hidden away in %appdata%, gently caress that too)
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# ? Sep 24, 2017 13:03 |
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floofyscorp posted:This is true, in fairness. Based on the number of respondents, the number of female respondents, the number of female artist respondents, etc, my own entry to the survey ends up being a fairly ridiculously significant data point. But I don't know of any bigger recent surveys, unless you want to go aggregate some numbers from Glassdoor. Speaking of surveys, what are the rules for posting forms and surveys regarding game dev projects on SA these days? Something that's been banned or does it require talking to a mod?
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# ? Sep 24, 2017 15:34 |
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cool new Metroid game posted:why is the my documents folder still used by a poo poo ton of games to dump saves and config files? there's been a centralised place for this poo poo for ages now at %userprofile%\saved games\ yet it's rarely used. I have a gently caress ton of games installed and only 10 of them use that saved games folder, the rest are just making GBS threads up my documents. (or hidden away in %appdata%, gently caress that too)
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# ? Sep 24, 2017 18:37 |
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# ? May 23, 2024 17:53 |
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cool new Metroid game posted:why is the my documents folder still used by a poo poo ton of games to dump saves and config files? there's been a centralised place for this poo poo for ages now at %userprofile%\saved games\ yet it's rarely used. I have a gently caress ton of games installed and only 10 of them use that saved games folder, the rest are just making GBS threads up my documents. (or hidden away in %appdata%, gently caress that too) Believe it or not, %userprofile%\saved games\ is not a standard folder at all, merely one that some devs arbitrarily started to use, and the actual recommended standard location is under %appdata%. The Documents folder is used due to ease of access. If you want your user to be able to manipulate the save files it's a much easier location to deal with than appdata.
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# ? Sep 24, 2017 20:32 |