From the article:
"We spoke with a Take-Two employee who wishes to remain anonymous on where it all went wrong...
Ken even said at one point that Gandhi would not have died if he had just played BioShock Infinite and retired before his assassination when he realized that his work was already done."
Is it April 1st already?
Quote from FuryoWe were three, all laid off in the first round of economic layoffs that happened in September last year. Patrick_H is no longer on Mapcore I think, vivi, and myself. All level designers.
As for talking about what happened, we can't so don't ask
I am still around. I don't post much anymore though- too busy crunching and getting layed off.
I am working with Hourences on a top secret project these days.
This rampant speculation over Irrational drives me nuts, but because devs are constantly signing gag orders when departing a company the Man gets to control the narrative.
In my experience, if you get a full time position in the industry, there is a good chance that your experience will be no different than a contractor- you just won't see the end coming.
It's about time...I think I see you in game whenever I log into Steam. Congrats on the your wife's new acheivement.
From Engadget...just found this quote by the director of the new interface design, Chris Jaffe: "What we saw was a mismatch in how Netflix worked relative to how regular TV works, where you just turn it on and things are happening."
This was actually why I ditched cable TV for Netflix. I liked the "video store shelf" like format. It showed me more video titles on screen at one time, speeding my search process. Then I read why it was changed:
"Jaffe explained that one of the first things Netflix did away with was the old, movie-poster shaped title cards - they just weren't a good fit for today's widescreen HDTVs."
Oh boohoo! Vertical images on a horizontal screen! The horror! He seems completely unaware that westerners tend to read left to right, and then top to bottom. The previous UI allowed you to highlight a title on the left and read the description on the right. Now I have to:
Look at the bottom of the screen.
Scroll left or right to highlight a title.
Look up to the top of the screen to read the description.
Get distracted by an enormous slide show to the right of the description.
Go back down to the bottom to highlight a new title. Disorienting!
Seeing the new interface boot up, we're inclined to agree: the queue is now displayed with shorter (but wider) tiles that span across the lower third of the 10-foot display. The selected title headlines the horizontal scroll with a brief description of the program and three splash images, rotating every few seconds to foster a more dynamic experience."
How the hell is a rotating slide show of random images from a film supposed to convince me in any meaningful way that I should watch a video??? That's a really shallow basis for a viewer to commit to viewing.
Rant! Rant! Incompetence!
Just started up Netflix on my PS3 last night. Hate, hate, hate it. It's a case of style over substance. It looks pretty but it forces me to spend more time browsing (and it seems the company wants me doing just that).
Am I alone on this?
Interesting. FRD was the first studio I ever interviewed with. I remember telling them how much I enjoyed TS series, and they thought that was unusual to hear from an American, since they were shifting towards a game with a more photorealistic feel. I realized afterwards they were hiring for Haze. I was disappointed I didn't get the job, but looking back I feel like I dodged a bullet!
They were out in the suburbs back then, did they move closer to the city proper?
P.S. Good luck to you guys in Nottingham! I hope you get your fair share of creative freedom.
I had a huge wtf moment when I read this..
Its an epic comic (or tragic) saga at this point... Not even counting the episodes from my time at Kaos.
LOL...I JUST saw this on LinkedIn a minute ago... that is awesome man. Congratulations!
Psssst...Adam Bromell is at Ubisoft Toronto now...
Congratulations to you too Chimeray. Go BF3!
I accepted a job at Irrational Games, starting in a couple weeks. Hellooo BioShock!
Dunno if this was posted here yet, but at the same time Eidos announced the release delay For Deus Ex 3 (February?), they laid off most of the whole staff except for some leads. Supposedly the game has been in a state of polish by a skeleton crew for the past 5 months. That really worries me... Note- I heard this second hand back then from a THQ applicant who was one of the casualties.
Yes, I did indeed get axed by THQ. In the middle of a job search now.
Avalanche Studios announced a new studio here in NYC, but it sounds like they won't hire anyone besides senior staff until sometime next year. Its not exactly easy to hang around NY without a job. More details to come...
I worked on this game (MP/SP), and a year of dev time gets you about that long of a campaign. It undeniably has its faults, but the only thing that chaps my ass is comparisons to CoD, where HF gets faulted for certain design conventions- CoD gets a free pass with every new release. Meh, what are you gonna do.
I am happy at how the MP is being enjoyed though. Crossroads is my baby. Number 6 on XBL!
Like I said, you can disagree with that point of view all you want. I personally disagree, but the industry at large mostly conforms to it.
I wasn't blaming it on consoles! I thought my meaning was inferred there. "Consoles" encapsulates the related demographic shift to blame...more developers work on console games because that's where the money is, and therefore they create level designs with that in mind.
Quote from JetsetlemmingThere is a legitimate argument over console controls, specifically analog stick movement, discouraging complex level design. With a mouse looking around and finding different paths is fast and thoughtless compared to panning your view over with the right stick. Playing doom level maps with an analog stick's speed penalty for turning around is really annoying, I've tried it. It encourages smoother flowing, more corridor-esque maps. You just don't really want a 270 degree turn in a console shooter, because the player will get annoyed by taking three seconds just to go around that corner.
Jetslemming, you described exactly the FPS designer's considerations for console FPS.
I work on console FPS games. I can tell from experience that when we interview candidates from PC backgrounds to describe the the differences for developing FPS between PC and console, if they don't answer accordingly then they are no longer considered. I started doing PC level design mods and I was asked the same question for my first job. It's fine to disagree with that philosophy but good luck finding a job. Never mind 270 degree turns, I had to fight to include 90 degree turns in my designs at work.
Are we having a chicken or the egg discussion now? I am confused...how does something happen both suddenly and over a period of 10 years.
Haha, don't kid yourself man. Although consoles have been around a long time, they are no doubt most of the sales pie these days, and design decisions are dictated by that.
This is mostly a product of console gaming. Let's face it, its a simply more casual kind of design, it takes longer to move your avatar around the world, so if the world is more geometrically complex, people can more easily become frustrated. FPS are an obvious casualty for sure.
Indie games are back in their own category. Yay!
I know this interface was made for Kinect-ability, but I don't like the overuse of white in the scheme. It hurts my eyes after looking at a display all day. Also the nice soft sounds of the old interface were replaced with a high-pitched noise that is a tad on the grating side. Netflix browser is more useable when you click on a title, but the red to grey-crap-brown gradation on the background looks awful...why not just have a shorter gradient to black? Dumbasses.
