Layoffs…a company’s way of reminding its staff what really matters most💰. On another note, I really appreciate the work of the Gameranx team. It’s always my go to for gaming info…like a game magazine brought-to-life. Thank you! 👍🏾
@@charlesgushue2552not just companies, but everyone. Every single person in this world must make more money than they spend. Or at the very least break even.
Falcon is a total moron. His views are extremely radical Left wing views that don’t make any sense. Like: “Working 8 hours a day is inhumane!” B*tch I’ve been doing that since 1st grade 🤦♂️
Every weird stories of X-Month video is like a stand comedy routine, where I am shocked and humored by what crazy or abhorrent thing is going on, in a hobby and business that I adore.
I’m so sad about what happened to Volition. Saints Row was a huge part of my childhood and met some really good friends playing co op on there. Not sure what happened to the studio after SR3 but they seemed to just lose their identity. Maybe the result of THQ going under.
Mass layoffs has become incredibly common in the industry (not only games, but tech as well) since the last couple of years, it's so sad to see. I agree with the post-pandemic argument, that they hired a lot of people because of the boom during the pandemic and could not sustain it, but there is also a very unhealthy relationship between the publishers and studios. Rapid ramp-up (hiring a ton of people during the production of a game) is followed by a quick layoff EVEN WHEN THE GAME IS SUCCESSFUL. There has been a lot of stories even with established teams like the Bioshock studio years back. The stakes for these big companies are super high, but as a gamedev myself it's sad to see that stability even among triple A game productions is quite rare sometimes.
This why trades have more job security. Electricity always needed for example. But seems like people can't handle working with their hands. If everybody sits in a chair, who'll repair stuff?
@@klarnorbert Have you not watched Sir Swags RL Class review of Engineers. Have you not played Space Station 13, my guy? Someone will do it even if they are not qualified that's how it goes in the deeper parts of the Corpo/Political world. There's always some moron in place of an actual professional, the military does it for punishment which is in of itself fucking stupid and counterproductive. The corpos do it because they are all these young rich tycoons and have zero experience and know nothing about making wise investments and just blow all their money on dumb crap, at higher levels it is because they were paid to do someone else's job for them or act in their stead. Also, some corpos are just out of touch with reality and don't understand what makes their games great so there you have Rockstar, 343i "trying too hard" Then you have the subcontracting and further subcontracting from companies to others. Too many cooks but eventually at least one dish will be out by the end of the night hopefully it will be not cold soup all that work for nothing.
but that's the norm and always have been like this, companies hires contractors and once the job is done, the contract is also done, it's not like they *have to* keep around personall that aren't needed anymore
That last story, idk. It breaks down to 8 hours a day every day of the month or 10 hours a day with 2 days off a week. There’s a lot of people who work those kind of hours doing jobs that are actually strenuous
My thoughts exactly... You know it was some kid who made no schedule. No forward thought and was trying to do it all in a marathon. Last minute to hold up his end of the deal
@srellison561 0 seconds ago It comes out to under 11 hours a day, 5 days a week, for playing games. Many US companies require this or slightly less for manual labor jobs. I had to work 12 hours overtime a week for 3 months. The company wanted to extend it but too many people were quitting because of the excessive overtime. I think he caused his own problems, personally. I'm sure there are unemployed gamers who play 240 hours or more every month.
Yeah but you got to remember this guy does RU-vid with a team of writers even so 4 hours a day 5 days a week probably sounds like a lot to him lol it's been my experience that most RU-vidrs generally don't understand how the world works for the rest of us no matter how much they try to relate
Can't even imagine how much dedication it requires to put out videos this consistently and to the mark. Huge respect for Jake and Falcon, and everyone else BTS of gameranx. You guys are too good.
To be fair, Ubisoft did everything in their power to make people doubt everything they say. I don’t wanna defend the lazy newspaper articles, but when a company as shady as Ubisoft does something shady again, it doesn’t take a whole lot to convince me about a wrong intention at play
Yep, it's not just that scummy media is scummy -- it's that Ubisoft trying to push ads mid-game is TOTALLY believable... that's not the media's fault (for once), that's all on Ubisoft.
@@meth3rlenceits both. Your logic is literally saying while they are bad we should immediately not believe them. Thats a set up for disaster on all parties. Legal systems around the world throughout history and even media throughout history gas shown us this is a terrible mentality to adopt. Youre also imppying that so long as youre beleifs and personal feelings align with a medias perspective than it is automatically correct. Again a terrible mentality to adopt. Look at the presented facts. Even if the person(s) involved have a terrible history. But when in business and in the legal realm you take all evidence presented. Same for progress in any medium. If you want true progress than judge accurately and accordingly. Judt so you know im not ok with ads in games and not ouutright just simping over ubi, but they have doen this with AC2 or 3. Ads popped up in the menu as well. They also saod it was a mistake. Now this was in some headlikes. However if you watch videos by yongyea and inside games they dig a little deeper. They also said back then only a select number of players reported this and they took it out again immediately. So historically they know ads like this arent favorable. They did it twice and under the circumstances was around a sale and only pushed to some players during the menu. The years long gaps in between suggest they arent really lying. Again its a business. They will push boundaries to see what they cam sell. But they arent stupid. Think of it like this. They are one of if not the only family owned business in the industry. They have survived years upon years in it and also numerous hostile takeovers. Like them or not gotta admit they know how to play thr game and play it well for the long run it seems. They aren't stupid. If you go this long in any profession then you are doing something right and arent making brain dead moves. Theres reason behind the madness. Again i dont like the creepy shaddy shit about them. But as a business and trying to keep an unbias mind, they are doing something right to keep going this long
@@meth3rlenceyeah regardless of whether it was or wasn't a technical error, the fact that most gamers would actually not be surprised with ubi actually trying that stunt in earnest is the damning part of it, even if the media hadn't sensationalized, players would have doubted ubi anyway because they tend to truat them less than they can throw them, when media bs is more reliable than your company, you dun f-ed up.
Having worked in news and being fully aware of how deceptive it can be, I am also equally aware that Ubisoft is a scummy company and would fully believe they were testing how far they could push that "manageable frustration". Google literally admits to doing the same thing with their ads on RU-vid.
I heard a history professor say, on the topic of various anecdotes from the past, "If it isn't true, it should be." Point being that even if the anecdote was a fiction, it still encapsulated what it needed to perfectly.
I really wish the publishers took more damage when their decisions backfire to the point of a whole studio shutting down. The devs deserve better and the publishers owe them more. If you're going to make the big decisions (for whatever reason) then why aren't they the ones more liable? I wish I was in one of the good simulations
In regards to suck forever - I still think it's worth it to make sure you have a good launch day instead of just fixing it in post. There's still a ton of bad reviews up for Cyberpunk 2077, and most people will see the first reports of 'game sucks' and not look any further. Everyone will read the front page of a newspaper but no one flips to the corrections on the back half of page 15.
Ehhhhh, I think in this case the public correction of the narrative has been so effective that nobody is seeing those articles anymore. The first thing you see if you look up the game is most likely the review scores, 9/10 IGN, 9/10 Steam, etc. You don't have to go to page 15 of the search results to see that the game is actually good. Most of the page 1 results will be singing its praises. This is obviously a rare result for a game with a failed launch, but just about everyone knows Cyberpunk is solid nowadays.
A patched game doesn't suddenly make it a good game. It just makes it a less sucky experience. Can't fix inherently flawed fundamental mechanics of a game.
Can't agree with you on that one. It's launch was so legendarily bad it's still haunting CDPR financially and in sales. I would wager it'll have a negative impact on the launch of their next new release.
I dont know. I feel like most people will go to youtube for the latest video shillery. If the game is "fixed," people will buy it. Especially if it's on sale.
So, Volition wanted to make a good game, were told by Deep Silver, "no, make this instead", then when it fails, volition gets fired, but the higher ups at Deep Silver keep their jobs?
I just did the math on that Chinese streamer contract, 240 hours a month is basically 24 10-hour days, or 30 8-hour days. Its supposed to be streatched out, not done as fast as possible. Hell, get a treadmil and a laptop and boom, you can walk and play at the same time, preventing blood clots.
Defending Ubisoft for what they did with the in-game ads is short-sighted. Not everyone saw them because they were probably running what it's called A/B testing, or releasing features to a small subset of users and gather feedback from them before a full rollout. There's no such thing as a mistake like that, that was deliberate.
I think "suck is forever" can mean more than just the game itself. The release of Cyberpunk will forever be a black mark on CDPR's record and Fallout 76 will forever be a black mark on Bethesda's, etc. Their reputation has been tarnished, and they might not ever completely recover from that. There will always be people thinking about it.
lies is what bugthesda did. lest we forget the great canvas famine 2018. or the cheap liquor in a 3d printed shell. or the cancer helmets. or "it'll be cosmetics only shop"
@@marine606I think it worst, people are saying cuz bugged Liberty is good, you shouldnt "hold onto" that the games were so badly bugged. I played Skyrim and Fallout 3 and NV on the Ps3, never had a bug, i been through the shit.
I totally agree with Falcon on the Ubi ads story. Which "razor" is it that goes something like "never attribute to malice that which can be just as easily explained by incompetence"? I bet it was a tiny code error, maybe even a typo. Live service games make me sad. Mostly because I think there's great potential in that space to tell ongoing stories, but it's almost always curtailed by corporate greed. I think Warframe serves as a fantastic example of what a live service can be.
hearing what the devs actually wanted for saints row saddens me since they knew what fans wanted but the suits thought they knew better and destroyed the franchise in the process. aaa gaming at its finest
and it's technically not even the first time, we got what we got in saints row 3 because they didn't want to alienate new fans that didn't know what was going on from the first two games.
One model that isn't exactly live service but I loved was monster hunter world. You have cosmetics, and special events and collaborations, but everything was so organic and great.
The Saint’s Row story shows again, that the devs who get all the hate online aren’t to blame. If there’s someone to be mad at, it’s the suits who are disconnected from what people want.
Crazy that live service gamnes just mirror real life. I dont play games to replicate work, its literally complete your daily task to earn currency then use currency to purchase objects in store. I play to get away from that, and be immersed in beauitful story telling, challenging decisions/combat, and creative art.
World of Warcraft's trailers VS the actual game's graphics is hilarious to me, it literally looks like a PS2 game but has the most realistic looking trailers 🤣
The 240-hour-a-month thing sounds bad, and it probably is at least concerning the pay and the age of who they contracted but broken up into 30 days that's 8 hours every day for someone without any obligations outside of the home or about 30 hours during the week and 27 on weekends for someone that does. I could do that if a game was fun or I was trying to unlock some rare item but not under an agreement.
It comes out to under 11 hours a day, 5 days a week, for playing games. Many US companies require this or slightly less for manual labor jobs. I had to work 12 hours overtime a week for 3 months. The company wanted to extend it but too many people were quitting because of the excessive overtime. I think he caused his own problems, personally. I'm sure there are unemployed gamers who play 240 hours or more every month.
I think Ubisoft was lying about ads in games, gaming suits have talked about putting ads in games much like RU-vid videos for a long time. If no one complained about it they would've/could've used that data to confirm their marketing research. It's easy for them to dismiss as a bug. Also there was a studio Take 2 if I recall that beleives we should be paying per hour to play games. Pay attention and defend the integrity of the gaming experience if you don't want it to turn into cable tv.
You know, Ubisoft's reputation has gone down the toilet and I'm willing to bet that the ads popping up was another attempt at pushing boundaries. They had emails going out when Far Cry 6 out that people had played their game in so long. And you'd believe that this stunt was just a technical error? I find that hard to believe with their current track record
I would be interested in buying some of their newer titles, but either they're only on ubi's platform or I have to sign into their launcher every time I want to play the game I already purchased. It's like a shop walling itself off from customers.
240 hours over 30 days is 8 hours a day. That's pretty standard full time hours. The only difference is that it would include weekends whereas most normal jobs would give those days off. Assuming the streamer had control over his own times to be online, the 16 hours that would be required on the weekend could be presumably divided over the weekday shifts bumping the weekday shifts to a little over 11 hours and freeing up the weekends. As someone who works 12 hour shifts in my day job on a regular basis, I don't see a problem with the number of hours. I do, however, see a problem with the low wage but the focus here appears to be on the hours 🤔 was the wage not enough to support the streamer? Is that why he died?
Exactly! I was thinking the same exact thing. Nowhere is it reported that the intern was required to complete all 240 hours in 10 days. While the company is shady, and responsible for paying the kid a ridiculously low wage ($1.75 an hour), and should be held responsible for that, why are they being called out if the kid decided to try complete that in only 10 days. (And before someone shouts that I'm blaming the victim, I'm not. The company is horrible, but the kid sounds like he was a victim of HIS OWN stupidity as much as that of the company's).
That’s 8 hours a day for 30 days. At best you’d get a day off per month and you’d lose a day or two of those depending on whether it’s a leap year or not. No holidays, no sick days. Honestly, is that really reasonable?
When you were talking about live service games and showing Avengers footage, it got me thinking... If Avengers was just announced as a single player experience, and they only released the campaign, I think it would be a high rated title. The campaign was fun and nearly every mission was unique, but the gameplay loop after the campaign got really boring. It seems like a lot of titles are recieving bad reviews because of the extra content that goes beyond the base game. Starfield, for example. If they didnt add so many planets, and need so many loading screens, and provided the same amount of content as Skyrim, it would be a high rated title. Their attempt to give us additional content is making the games look bad as a whole. Maybe more companies should focus on a small, fun experience, and stop there. I personally enjoyed both games I mentioned, and dont think the tedious extras ruined the core experience. This is all optional stuff that the player chooses to do. Unfortunately, 99% of the gamer community is irrational and toxic.
Imagine if they did a Saints Row 5 game but it was the Saints going through Space to find a new Earth and making fun of all the space games? Would of been funny.
There was a time when Ubisoft could do no wrong with games like Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, and Beyond Good and Evil (a grossly underrated game). What happened?
Hard as it is the say now but the same could be said of EA, Activision and others. The money people realised a lot of money could be made from gaming, so they bought shares, got on the boards and took control. To me, it happened with the rise in popularity of consoles (not the fault of the consoles), when they moved into the living rooms of casual players.
Regarding live service games: They are designed to take up all of your free time as an immersive hobby. You only have one "all of my free time" to give, so the market for them drops off very sharply. I can't believe game publishers and developers have not figured this out / are just figuring this out now.
They're dumb. Blinded by greed. Our entire society is conditioned to not think long-term any more. Just the next fiscal year, the next election, the next...etc etc. Everything is expected to be instant, hurry up, now, NOW! We've largely forgotten how TIME is integral in creating anything of value.
The Ubisoft map thing is not the first time! When AC Odyssey first came out they did the same thing! It lasted for about a week or two, but was introduced to the game AFTER release (meaning they snuck it in after release and reviews), and it came up EVERY time you opened any menu, and it even bogged down load time.. I remember it being absolutely infuriating to the point of not even wanting to play the game at all. This was not an accident!
I think the "error" was that they'd experimented with the idea of adds as the map opens. The animations and loading is way too smooth and doesn't look like a glitch, so it at least looks intentionally built. Whether this was an internal test that was never meant to go live and did on accident or was a trial balloon by Ubisoft, I'd give it a 50/50 chance. I can definitely see a marketing executive thinking it was a good idea.
Seriously... It's exactly this... Don't give ubisoft the benefit of the doubt... they've lost their trust long time ago... assume every word they say is a lie until proven otherwise. This was a test, and MAY have accidentally got out to the public, but I'm willing to bet it was a purposeful very small scale test in a certain area to see how things would go... knowing them getting immediate backlash from everyone about it they decided it wasn't worth trying to explain and they just claim it was an error... There is ZERO chance of them adding this for main menu's but it "accidentally" was added to in game menus too... they're separated systems it was put into the in game on purpose otherwise it wouldn't have been there. The computer isn't going to be like "Welp the instructions are ads for the menu and this is a menu so here you go..." it's not accidental with computers you have to tell it to do everything it does.. there can be oversights but this would be one MASSIVE fucking oversight.
They did refer to both where it was supposed to appear and where it accidentally did as menus, so they're setting it up to imply they named them the same thing, but where's the other menu bugs that would happen in that case? How did it exist enough in the one menu to appear there if it wasn't built in? Although, if you're saying it went call to action, run menu ad, then run menu, that would still make sense for a good animations and seemingly seamless insertion.
@bipbop3121 oh no, I'm suggesting that they made a build where it did appear as seen in the footage on purpose. But as an internal thing to show marketing as a part of decision making. And then that code slipped into the live build by mistake. Or it was a trail balloon and ubisoft wanted to gage reactions.
I appreciate your daily uploads! I hope you guys pace yourselves! Bro that last story is horrible. I hope that company get put down. People really need to unionize bro.
I see a bunch of people saying the Chinese kid's workload wasn't that bad, and all of them seem to forget the kid was also a college student. If he was going to school, even part time, meant he had to spend some time in class, and probably doing some out of class work, plus the streaming gig. Plus you gotta sleep eventually. It sounds like the kid was burning the candle at both ends, probably not sleeping, living on energy drinks and fast food and/or cup noodle, and just burnt out. F's in the chat, etc.
As someone with misophonia.. the silencer is a much needed thing. I don't expect anyone to know what misophonia is and get a lot of shit for it... It's not like I actually tune into those frequencies... They're unavoidable especially when even Bailey's uses crunching as a marketing tactic.... It's nice to know SOMEONE is actually listening....
I have misophonia too. I wish I could wear the anti-chewing technology in a device in my ear when I'm around other people. 😂 Hey Doritos! Please make this portable.
odd they dont seem to want to address the completionist scandal stuff with charity. They aint gotta go on a side but it IS a big story. No donations made for TEN YEARS?! Even penguinnzero talked on it.
@@DeviIInADress nah that doesnt work...they've reported the news in the gaming world. Good or bad they've always covered it. Not doing so invites a bias as is STILL gaming news. Also gameranx has covered tons of charity defrauding's in past. I even noted they dont have to take a side thus avoiding the drama. Again my original statement stands. The silence is now speaking more than just stating what are obvious facts because its clearly getting worse. at least gameranx could be a major voice to get the truth and facts out bc his indie gaming streams isnt some small charity lol
In my opinion one of the best ways I've seen the "game as a service" thing properly implemented is with Shadow of War at the moment. You play the game, the game is good, when you get to the end you get a gameplay loop that lets you stick around if you want with challenges and whatnot. I know it's not exactly the same but it's one of the less intrusive ways I've seen the concept being applied
With the WoW expansion being available 3 days earlier for those who pay for it, the race for max level, for world first and the first of each class on each server, is essentially being gated behind a paywall. Those are usually almost all completed within the first 24-48 hours. So if you want to take part in that race, whether for world first or server first in your class, you’ll have to pay the extra to get the early access. I always liked competing for those back when I still played, even though I never really stood a chance at getting it. Closest I ever got was about 1.25 levels behind the guy who got first.
The software for Doritos does work, but honestly it’s disgusting to me to snack while gaming, especially something like doritos that leave sticky residue all over your hands and therefore your controller. Playing games without having pristine clean hands is one of my biggest pet peeves, second only to people setting things on the couch in a way that it can get lost in the cushion
I get, but don't get, why a company like Sony would want to put out so many live service games. Live service games, by definition, compete with each others, and releasing so many would debase them all in theory. The problem with live service is it creates a bunch of single game gamers.
I'm playing AC Odyssey right now and didn't get any 'ads'....FYI I do have AC Mirage and there are ads for it in the main store but not ingame. I'm also pretty laid back when these things happen and would have probably laughed.
Yeah, Ubisoft programmed the Ad on the pause screen, that doesn't happen by accident... They can claim they wanted to disable it, but they still got it programmed AND activated. Accident my behind !!!
I just can't shake the idea if a suppressor you slide over your microphone to eat some chips... just envisioning it, a pistol suppressor you put on the mic of your headset has me cracking up
Love Falcon speaking the truth with point 3. Dump on corporations for actual crap they do. There's enough dumb stuff that they do that we don't need to sensationalize some error, and it really does undermine the actual issues
I've always found it strange when people attribute that quote to Miyamoto; the first time I've heard it was in the 90's, it was a quote from the President of Game Arts at the time, and he was referring to the constant delays of the game "Magic Knight Rayearth" for the Sega Saturn , if i remember it correctly. I don't know who said it first, though.
That was some pretty good analysis on these things. Idk if about other gaming pages, but I know none do it as good as yall. I don’t even care about most of the things on this episode at all but the amount of depth you put into it made me play it all anyways.
The fact that Bungie is laying off such tenured and super skilled people is indicative of either corporate mismanagement or a catastrophic financial situation (due to mismanagement) TLDR is that Bungie is circling the drain either in funds or quality which is a shame.
The delayed quote might be right but for most studios a game is released when you have no more budget. It might not apply to the odd company here or there but it does for most. So many games are chucked out the door now because they can be patched later. That only works if you can keep enough people engaged. CDPR might be able to do it with Cyberpunk, hell Bethesda will keep throwing patches for Starfield and probably turn it around. Try doing that if you are Redfall, or rather they are but theres virtually no point. Growing up it was so obvious time and again that devs had to rush a release and outside of PC there were never going to be patches.
Li Hao definitely got Isekai'd. There isn't a more stereotypical manhua start then dying while playing your favorite game and waking up in the game world. They are always the worst ones too. Poor Li Hao, he's gone on to be bullied by young masters and have a harem of nagging blushing 2d cardboard cutouts he'll never get to fuck follow him around as he commits war crimes but believes he is the best person in the world.
Ya, because having every new outlet display their 20% off ad for free wasn't Ubisoft's intention. I dunno, man. If this wasn't their intention, it's certainly something they're considering now.
The Doritos silencer is actually good. As a college student who plays games, a lot of my buddies will eat dinner on games. The amount of times I've heard people forced food down their throats over the headset is absurd
