#dev got fired

[penvisions]

i have a job interview today, send good vibes pls 🥺

[mawchops]

Redrew some characters from my flipnote era

[woolysstuff]

hey dandy worlders

[thefirstknife]

New article with more details (from Jason Schreier who first broke the story). If you can't see it, I'll copy the whole text under read more.

About 100 employees were laid off in total (8%) and one of the main reasons listed is "underperformance," "sharp drop in popularity" and "poor reception of Lightfall."

So you know when for the last year and a half content creators have been shitting and pissing on the game as a full-time job and the amount of negativity and ragebait content became the only thing to make content about for them? Well they certainly won't take the blame, but I will let it be known. These people either don't understand the influence they have or they do and they're doing it on purpose, and I don't know which of these two options is worse, but I am 100% confident that their campaign of rage and hate contributed to this.

You don't base your entire community around constantly hating everything about the only game you play (despite clearly not enjoying it anymore) and somehow avoid galvanising thousands and thousands of people into perceiving the game negatively. Imagine being employees who have barely worked there for 2 years and the only community reception they've seen is 24/7 hate train for their work and then they get fired because of "poor reception" and "drop in popularity." How can they not take that personally? I am absolutely devastated for these people who delievered a banger product and who were met with an unrelenting barrage of toxic gamer children which ended up having more sway over their boss than them.

Which brings me to the next bit and that's FUCK THE CEO. He is now my mortal enemy #1. I am projecting psychic blasts directly into his brain. What an absolute spineless coward who is more willing to bow down to fucking gamers than to protect his own employees. This is absolutely rage inducing because this has happened before. From the article from 2021 about the toxic culture at Bungie:

Reading this shit from the new article absolutely fucking sent me into blind rage because I immediately remembered this. Another instance of employees suffering because of comments on reddit. And because of toxic players. And proof that leadership is not protecting employees and is instead siding with players.

Match made in heaven. Asshole gamer content creators and asshole CEOs, all of whom sit at home on piles of money made from someone else's labour. I hope they all explode. None of the people that worked on this game deserve this.

Another article with an infuriating comment from the CEO:

In an internal town hall meeting addressing a Monday round of layoffs that impacted multiple departments, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons allegedly told remaining employees that the company had kept “the right people” to continue work on Destiny 2.

"Kept the right people." Really. Veteran composers weren't the right people? Die!

Bloomberg article in full:

Bungie’s decision to cut an estimated 100 jobs from its staff of about 1,200 followed dire management warnings earlier this month of a sharp drop in the popularity of its flagship video game Destiny 2. Just two weeks ago, executives at the Sony-owned game developer told employees that revenue was running 45% below projections for the year, according to people who attended the meeting. Chief Executive Officer Pete Parsons pinned the big miss on weak player retention for Destiny 2, which has faced a poor reception since the release of its latest expansion, Lightfall. The next expansion, The Final Shape, was getting good — not great feedback — and management told those present that they planned to push back the release to June 2024 from February, according the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The additional time would give developers a chance to improve the product. In the meantime, Parsons told staff Bungie would be cutting costs, such as for travel, as well as implementing salary and hiring freezes, the people said. Everyone would have to work together to weather the storm, he said, leaving employees feeling determined to do whatever was needed to get revenue back up. But on Monday morning the news got worse: Dozens of staffers woke up to mysterious 15-minute meetings that had been placed on their calendars, which they soon learned were part of a mass layoff. Bungie laid off around 8% of its employees, according to documentation reviewed by Bloomberg. Bungie didn’t respond to requests for comment. Employees who were let go will receive at least three months of severance and three months of Bungie-paid COBRA health insurance, although other benefits, such as expense reimbursements, ended Monday, sending some staff racing to submit their receipts. Laid-off staffers will also receive prorated bonuses, although those who were on a vesting schedule following Sony Group Corp.’s acquisition of Bungie in January 2022 will lose any shares that weren’t vested as of next month. The layoffs are part of a larger money-saving initiative at Sony’s PlayStation unit, which has also cut employees at studios such as Naughty Dog, Media Molecule and its San Mateo office. TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz wrote in a report Monday that “events over the last few days lead us to believe that PlayStation is undergoing a restructuring.” PlayStation president Jim Ryan announced last month that he plans to resign. Many of the layoffs at Bungie affected the company’s support departments, such as community management and publishing. Remaining Bungie staff were informed that some of those areas will be outsourced moving forward.

[itsmewahoo]

the woman (jackie) is back with me again! 😭🥳

[lavelans]

no but lrb. that’s gonna haunt me forever i think

[weedle-testaburger]

cursed moment from my job today: the students i was supporting had to do some research into a game to practice referencing people's opinions on them, and i jokingly suggested they could do theirs on yandere simulator and then they got so into it they almost did pick that

[penvisions]

dev was fired

ha, so yeah. this week was phenomenal with the plagiarism of three of my fics, anon hate, and now being FIRED. sorry in advance for the rambling

i literally just applied for a position at another location for the bakery yesterday. i am moving to my mom's residence in the next state over since my medical expenses have become so much and my mobility has diminished. but now i will have little to no finances to move and have no job lined up

the company is telling me i can appeal the decision after 30 days and be deemed able for rehire. i am trying to get in contact with the other store i applied to, to see if there's any way we can maybe move forward despite this. because it's retaliation from my direct management here, i would swear by it

but yeah, so i have to put myself into that weird, rent will be late because i moved out / broke my lease, stretch the prescriptions i have until further notice, still provide necessities for my cats, and move three hours away by the end of the month situation. my insurance was cancelled the second i signed the termination papers and my upcoming surgery will have to be cancelled

i'm just...feeling so lost and beat down. i really don't know what's even happening right now. i just....yeah. there is absolutely no pressure at all, i promise you, but i'll be linking my ko-fi in case anyone wants be kind enough to toss me a few dollars. but i love y'all so much anyway, truly.

buy dev a ko-fi

the sheer support and outpouring of love in the wake of everything that happened this week has brought a smile to my face. i have so much love for y'all and this little community as a whole! droves of kind and loving people far outweigh the bad in my experience and for that i am grateful ♡♡

but i'll be taking a small break from being chronically online while i try and sort everything out as best i can (will still have access via mobile in at my new residence but need to get internet set up)

love y'all and hope the days are good to you ♡♡

[wymgreenteam]

going dark see you in october

[sunleaf-sims]

im honestly so happy to see such a hefty patch list again, even if it of course doesnt cover all our issues yet. i always worry ea will cut funding for maxis’ bug fixing team and that the fixes will fizzle out so its been really relieving to see that at least it hasnt happened yet haha…. 😭

[dirthenera]

Ok I need to get this out with the news about devs being fired dropping.

There will be spoilers for Veilguard here so proceed with caution.

EA fucked the game, and the more I think about it, the more angry I am with them.

It all starts with one choice- the devs wanted the veil to come down in that opening, and EA told them no. Told them they couldn’t bring the veil down at all.

It was never going to be a player choice- it couldn’t, it would create two entirely different worlds leading forward, so it would have to be something outside player control, and they were told no.

The veil coming down was outside forces and the veil staying up was Rook’s choice. And had to be Rook’s choice.

Because of that, our Rook could never see the veil coming down as a worthwhile option. Which means we could never engage with it as a reality. We could never ask what that would look like, or question the morality of the veil, either practically, or as a thought experiment. No companions will bring up what it might be like in any positive way or even just as an “I wonder.”

We only get to see veil =bad so Rook must be right.

They cut Solas’ elven followers because having even *one* npc on his side for noble reasons would make us question too much, and we were not allowed to have an opinion other than veil =good, because the devs were hamstringed by it.

No companions ever discuss what it could be like without the veil, and they *should*. Can you imagine Emmrich and Bellara debating it? Emmrich absolutely fascinated by how it would impact spirits and they wouldn’t need to possess anyone or anything, Bellara leery after seeing so much wild magic in Arlathan but wondering if uninterrupted etheric flows would create more stable magic over time. Taash surprising the party by being way more cool with it than expected due to their Rivaini upbringing, and more open to that than necromancy.

Lucanis and Harding being firmly against it to the point it causes some friction in the team, Davrin just staying out of it because he doesn’t get it and doesn’t want to. Harding has a moment of questioning at a weak point after reminiscing about Cole, and wonders how many like him there could be if the veil did come down.

Neve feeling extremely mixed about it, between it possibly allowing a reshuffle of power in Tevinter, removing the ability for mages to make deals with demons, but also upset at the potential raw chaos.

But we never even get to look at that. Because there was no option there. Even if each character landed on veil=good, we never even got to have the discussion, because we couldn’t do anything with it.

And we can see how that spirals out and created a much less morally complex game than we’ve previously gotten. Rook is the good guy because they said so, Solas is the bad guy who, despite being beyond willing to talk to anyone who will listen to him, refuses to expand on what the veil coming down looks like. Because he can’t. Because then we might agree with him.

We’re only allowed Varric’s point of view, which makes sense for the beginning, but there was never an option to expand it. There is one single dialogue option where we can tell Solas “whoops didn’t know that.” But that’s the beginning and end of that train of thought.

They even set us up as this FANTASTIC foil to Solas, having meddled in a ritual we didn’t understand and unleashing multiple blights and elven gods, essentially destroying the south, blighting most of the north, partially destroying a city, and a countless death toll. But taking actual responsibility with that isn’t allowed- because we may sympathize too much with Solas. Because we clearly did the right thing because the veil is still up. It’s not even addressed in the regret prison! Solas tells you thousands would still have died if he took down the veil, but thousands did die as a direct result of Rook meddling. And nowhere can you acknowledge that.

[turntechradiohead]

I wanted to make a joke about “beating off at pax east” this weekend but I was so amazed by the demo and the devs I talked to were so nice I completely forgot lol

I can’t believe everyone got to play for 20 minutes, I was expecting so much less!! five areas and an ending?!!! I like the new battles so much more than I thought I would tbh, I feel like the pacing was a lot better and there was more strategy involved than before!! I miss pepper steak obviously but the Toby Fox song is fire so I can’t complain, and they talked about the legal issues they would have run into if they kept it so I think the new soundtrack is for sure the right choice. there weren’t any new puzzles or areas in the demo, and the sound effects sounded the same to me which was huge bc how could they replace Zacharie’s lovely meow hehe

[mogwaipoet]

For decades, game devs have aspired to make their games more addictive, first as an explicit primary goal from when they were making arcade games

and later it got dragged along with all the other arcade tropes like lives and high scores when the culture moved on to PC and console games.

When I was growing up I constantly heard people say a game was "addictive" as a compliment, and the idea got conflated with "fun" and other things it's "good" for a game to "be." I think one reason we didn't see much pushback was that games just weren't that addictive yet. Nowadays player psychology is a literal science, and games are often extremely addictive, and many if not most players are just fine with this, even though it's now pretty clear that "addictive" and "fun" are axes that can be perceived, measured, and invested into fully separately.

There is absolutely a moral hazard in using addictive dark patterns in game design. It's easy to justify gacha mechanics because that particular trope goes all the way back to e.g. randomized loot drops in Final Fantasy, where it wasn't that bad because it was only kind of addictive. And short of having a moonshot hit, stuffing your game with these patterns is basically the only way make a living in the modern game ecosystem. When I last did the publisher rounds trying to pitch a game, they only wanted to hear about games that players would play forever. Roguelikes, PVP, etc. If it was a game you could finish once and be done with forever, they weren't interested.

I think the fun/addictive thing parallels how games have historically been both art and business. Like, Pac-Man is someone's personal expression of interesting ideas in an exciting new medium, and it's an attempt to expand the commercial audience and make a bunch of money. We're seeing the bifurcation of those two things. Nowadays the real moneymakers are games that lean hard into the addictive loops and gacha mechanics.

Then there are the pure art games made on no budget that make no money -- and remember, I'm using "art" really broadly here, meaning if someone makes a by-the-numbers run and gun because they grew up playing Contra, that counts. I expect that particular fire hose to spew full force at least until Gen X dies. But The hybrid of art and business, e.g. where the vast majority of AAA used to live, is disappearing.

I don't know what to do about any of this other than to hide in the Pico-8 community. It's cozy in here.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

caught my eye that jade thinks merpeople marrying humans are eccentric (pot calling the kettle black). of course, such marriage would have its difficulties due to intercultural conflict, yet i thought somebody as eccentric jade (and leech family in general tbh) would think of it as his cup of tea.

then again we did have floyd finding a story of a merlady changing into a human form for her lover strange, proclaiming that she is already cute as an octopus. hm. i wish we had some more lore on this, the differences in a way of living and how much it influences octavinelle's viewponts (what's beautiful? practical strength as implied with azul's lack of agility? some obscure trend of decorating one's body? something else entirely?) are so fascinating to me.

Welllll, my guess is the devs didn’t want the characters to give their commentary on who they would be romantically interested in, as that could conflict with who the players ship them with (whether it’s other canon characters, themselves, an OC, etc.). For example, having Jade express an interest in one race over the others (such as humans) might be upsetting to fans who ship him with fae, beastmen, or fellow merpeople.

Life in the sea and life on land is very different. I’d imagine there would be several cultural clashes as a result of this. Their food is different (food in the sea is usually raw, there aren’t a lot of sweets), merpeople don’t know about common land things like fire and clothing, even the concepts of breathing and walking are limited, humans may not understand merpeople values (such as for music, or worrying for the survival + safety of their children)… That’s why the mermaid princess established the land boot camp—in an effort to bridge this knowledge gap.

I don’t think it’s strange or out of character for the twins to find interracial marriages eccentric. It’s something that seems to be pretty rare in Twisted Wonderland when you consider that fae-human marriages are frowned upon (see: the Zigvolts), there’s only one merperson-human marriage per year (if any at all, according to Jade in Eternity Float), and there are cultural conflicts between different types of beastmen (stated in Tamashina Mina) so it’s likely that even within one race they keep to marrying within their species. Because it doesn’t happen much, of course the twins would see it as odd. That’s not to say that they aren’t also fascinated by it, but it’s just not something they may understand. While Jade and Floyd find different aspects of life on land interesting (mountains, fashion, etc.), they are still most familiar with the environment and culture they grew up in and use that as a means of comparison for what is “weird” or not.

I think Floyd calling octopi cute has less to do with actual attraction and more like… to do with him being a predator?? Like, wanting to actually CHOMP. Because he also calls Azul “cute” but also says he’s “squishy” and jokes about wanting to eat him. (Ominously, both he and Jade’s favorite foods contain octopus.)

It might be interesting to consider how the beauty standards vary for the different races. Merpeople don’t normally wear clothes, so I guess that doesn’t factor into “beauty”. Judging by how Azul got bullied in school for his size and speed, I’m assuming how well you can survive in the wild does factor in. Not sure about everything else or the other races though. If I had to guess, subspecies of fae or beastman probably factors into this; for example, the colors of a bird beastman’s plumage may contribute to their physical appeal.

[gootarts]

as of 8/3, the most recently updated version of this post is here (it's a reblog of this exact post with more info added)

as a lot of you know, limbus company recently fired its CG illustrator for being a feminist, at 11 pm, via phone call, after a bunch of misogynists walked into the office earlier that day and demanded she be fired. on top of this, as per korean fans, her firing went against labor laws---in korea, you must have your dismissal in writing.

the korean fandom on twitter is, understandably, going scorched earth on project moon due to this. there's a lot currently going on to protest the decision, so i'm posting a list here of what's going on for those who want to limit their time on elon musk's $44 billion midlife crisis impulse purchase website (if you are on twitter, domuk is a good person to follow, as they translate important updates to english). a lot of the links are in korean, but generally they play nicely with machine translators. this should be current as of 8/2.

Statements condemning the decision have been issued by The Gyeonggi Youth Union and IT Union.

A press conference at the Gyeonggido Assembly will occur on 8/3, with lawmakers of the Gyeonggi province (where Project Moon is based) in attendance. This appears driven by the leader of the Gyeonggi Youth Union.

The vice chairman of the IT union--who has a good amount of experience with labor negotiations like these--has expressed strong support for the artist and is working to get media coverage due to the ongoing feminist witch hunts in the gaming industry. Project Moon isn't union to my knowledge, but he's noted that he's taken on nonunion companies such as Netmarble (largest mobile game dev in South Korea) by getting the issue in front of the National Assembly (Korea's congress).

Articles on the incident published in The Daily Labor News, Korean Daily, multiple articles on Hankyoreh (one of which made it to the print edition), and other news outlets.

Segments about the termination on the MBN 7 o' clock news and MBC's morning news

Comments by Youth Union leaders about looking into a loan made to Project Moon via Devsisters Ventures, a venture capital firm. Tax money from Gyeonggi province was invested in Devsisters in 2017, and in 2021, Devsisters gave money to Project Moon. The Gyeonggi Youth Union is asking why hard-earned tax money was indirectly given to a company who violates ESG (environmental, social and governance) principles.

Almost nonstop signage truck protests outside Project Moon's physical office during business hours until 8/22 or the company makes a statement. This occurs alongside a coordinated hashtag campaign to get the issue trending on Twitter in Korea. The signage campaign was crowd-funded in about 3 hours.

A full boycott of the Limbus Company app, on both mobile and PC (steam) platforms. Overseas fans are highly encouraged to participate, regardless if whether they're F2P or not. Not opening the app at all is arguably the biggest thing any one person can do to protest the decision, as the app logs the number of accounts that log on daily. For a new gacha such as Limbus, a high number of F2P daily active users, but a small number of paying users is often preferable to having a smaller userbase but more paying users. If the company sees the number of daily users remain stable, they will likely decide to wait out any backlash rather than apologize.

Digging up verified reviews from previous employees regarding the company's poor management practices

Due to the firing, the Leviathan artist has posted about poor working conditions when making the story. As per a bilingual speaker, they were working on a storyboard revision, and thought 'if I ran into the street right now and got hit by a car and died, I wouldn't have to keep working.' They contacted Project Moon because they didn't want their work to be like that, and proposed changes to serialization/reduction in amount of work per picture/to build up a buffer of finished images (they did not have any buffer while working on Leviathan to my knowledge). They were shut out, and had to suck it up and accept the situation.

Hamhampangpang has a 'shrine' section of the restaurant for fans to leave fan-created merch and other items. They also allow the fans to take this merch back if they can prove it's theirs. Fans are now doing just that.

To boost all of the above, a large number of Korean fanartists with thousands of followers have deleted their works and/or converted their accounts from fanart accounts to accounts supporting the protests. Many of them are bilingual, and they're where I got the majority of this information.

[note 1: there's a targeted english-language disinformation campaign by the website that started the hate mob. i have read the artist's tweets with machine translation, and they're talked about in the second hankyoreh article linked above: nowhere does she express any transphobic or similarly awful beliefs. likewise, be wary of any claims that she supported anything whose description makes you raise eyebrows--those claims are likely in reference to megalia, a korean feminist movement. for information on that, i'd recommend the NPR/BBC articles below and this google drive link of english-language scholarly papers on them. for the love of god don't get your information about a feminist movement from guys going on witch hunts for feminists.]

[note 2: i've seen a couple people argue that the firing was for the physical safety of the employees, citing the kyoani incident in japan. as per this korean fan, most fans there strongly do not believe this was the case. we have english-translated transcripts of the meeting between the mob and project moon; the threats the mob was making were to......brand project moon as a feminist company online. yes, really. male korean gamers aren't normal about feminism, and there's been an ongoing witch hunt for feminists in the industry since about 2016, something you see noted in both the labor union statements. both NPR and the BBC this phenomenon to gamergate, and i'd say it's a pretty apt comparison.]

let me know if anything needs correction or if anything should be added.

[itzphynix]

Man. The Herobrine really is summat else. We got:

A glitch of a ghost in the machine that causes every error in the game

The White Eyes character, stemming from a texture error, which becomes associated with the cave noise & eventually leads to the creation of the Herobrine myth

Transgender swag

The fucken. Brocraft stream that links to that ONE image & implies that either you or Herobrine are "asleep" & dreaming

The way that Herobrine myths kicked up due to the TF2 influx, after the devs made mention of the game

Every single unexplained structure in the game, all abandoned, all without a clear group that created them can & will be associated with Herobrine

The mineshafts. The ruined portals. The deep dark. It's kind of like a story, told in three arcs, if you squint right

Like something that used to live there, toiled in the soil along with the worms

Like something that got locked away, that wants to go back

Like something that needs to be kept out

Every single zombie looks like Steve. Does that say anything? Does it imply something about Herobrine, another reflection, but maybe a bit more sentient? With teeth that are a bit more sharp, with a malice that is a bit more cold?

Mojang putting the "Removed Herobrine" note in for YEARS, then one day dropping it, only to bring it back 3 years later

N*tch being scrubbed from the game's lore, so he's also (sometimes) scrubbed from Herobrine's lore, leading to alternate origins

He is the first player. He is the ghost of a fellow player. He is an architect, a miner, a builder. He is a friend to all the mobs, & an enemy to those that take all the trees & never replant the saplings. He is a curious onlooker, probably harmless. He is a deep loathing. He is a danger, a legend, just a myth, but is he?

The way that people's opinions of Herobrine have shifted through years, like a litmus test for Minecraft players as a whole

It starts with the eerie feeling of being in a room you KNOW should be empty, but feeling eyes on you, anyways & ends with a sad type of goodbye, a dreamer seeking a dreamer condemned

The way he's more quiet, more calm, less prone to the griefing & attacks he was once known for, like his fire has cooled with time

The Minecraft end poem. Maybe. Do you think Herobrine ever got to hear those words? "I love you," & "You have played the game well"?

The person with the Herobrine username, which has had the catboy Herobrine skin on for years o7