Housemarque is famed for its downloadable console games including Super Stardust, Dead Nation, Alienation, PS4 launch title Resogun and now Nex Machina. The veteran Finnish developer has made a name for itself crafting, precise, polished, technically accomplished and visually striking titles in publishing partnership with Sony.
With its latest title, Nex Machina, launching for both PS4 and PC, Housemarque is taking its first step into self-publishing. Working in collaboration with pioneering developer Eugene Jarvis, who created arcade classics such as Defender, Robotron: 2084 and Smash TV, Nex Machina represents both a refinement and evolution of Housemarque's design principles, as well as an opportunity for the developer to directly benefit from establishing and retaining its own IP.
Here, Housemarque CEO Ilari Kuittinen and head of publishing Mikael Haveri discuss how the decision to self-publish has led to greater autonomy, a collaboration with Eugene Jarvis and how a game titled "Death Machine" could mean a new lease of life for the company.
"AI is not a substitute for human creativity. We position it as a technology that supports creativity. Creativity resides in people. We will continue to contribute to people's creativity through technology," the CEO said.
...not yet but 100% within the next 10 years!
..Then Sony will use it like the drop of a hat. They're no different to the others.
They used to be 😞 sure it was always a business, and money's always the priority, but they used to have a very strong stance on supporting artists and creativity. "Dont f#@k with the artist" was a phrase they touted a few times back in the ps1-ps3 era, a philosophy carried over from their music branch PlayStation was created from. It's not COMPLETELY gone, but it's barely there compared to what it was back then, i just want them to return to that.
I am highly encouraged by their statement about human creativity. "Dont f#@k with the artist" is exactly what they are saying. But at the same time, I don't think people understand that Sony is a corporation. If they don't realize growth, they don't get to exist. When you say 'Sony', you are talking about a bunch of investors. To speak about them any other way is a illogical and incorrect. They haven't changed. They have been a group of investors since they became a public business.
Ugh, i really wish people would stop gambling people's livelihoods by turning a project/game into their political soapbox. Im all for statements and having your own opinion, but there's more people working on this than just druckman, ham fisting your political beliefs onto just seems inconsiderate for everyone elses job security when it can result in a failure due to people avoiding it for that reason.
I play games for escape, im so tired of nearly every AAA game blatantly dragging real world issues to shove in my face when I'm trying to take a break from it all. They don't even bother to be subtle about it, quite the opposite, it's blasted and force fed to you and it's just getting exhausting
People are taking a whole interview and cutting it down to clips that make him look bad and take what he actually was saying out of context. For example he also said things like this AI has "ethical issues we need to address"
@Einhander
Why defend him at this point?
It’s not taking things out of context, he said what he said.
Old ND would never talk about soulless AI taking over so many creative things they are well known for. The whole “ethical issues” is just a good PR spin people who push this crap fall back on to make their statements not seem as bad. So many AI lovers do this.
AI has no place is so many creative based things.
Well yeah, because everyone else is using it so they need to stay competitive. It's the same as paid online, they didn't want to go that route but their competition was making so much money they needed to add paid online just to keep up.
People that aren't software developers just don't understand the benefits of AI. People who's only exposure to A.I is the Terminator movie and other related sci fi films won't understand the benefits it provides.
It's not about replacing human labor. It's about making human labor easier.
Many years ago, I had laser eye surgery done. It was performed by a robot. The doctor took my measurements and calibrated the machine to make sure it would do what needed be done. And then the robot corrected my vision in 10 seconds.
15 years later and I still have 20/20 vision.
AI in and of itself is not a 'bad'. Money is bad. Money is evil, and corporations will do whatever they can to get more of it. They will find ways to implement AI to replace as may jobs as possible. This isn't even up for debate. It is the charge of the corporation to maximize returns for the investors. They have no choice. I'm a developer and I know that my job will absolutely be replaced. Therefore, I have decided to become an AI dev. AI has a lot of potential to help us solve problem on a scale most can't even imagine. The issue, as ever is that our monetary system only ever allows us to focus on greed and fiscal growth.
But I am a pragmatist. Perhaps an AI model can be built to help protect us from our most dangerous instincts and habits. And perhaps Congress can pass laws to protect us from people who would use AI to manipulate and control us (spoiler: they wont).
Druckmann claims the tech could 'push the boundaries of storytelling in games.'
I’m more interested in what else he said.
“Neil Druckmann says new Naughty Dog title could ‘redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming’
Last of us 2 was still awesome. Did you like part 1? It was there as well it's just people hadn't brought politics into it yet so no one was really crying
Ellie was gay in the first. Abby is a straight woman. Burly for sure, but straight. People way over reacted to TLOU2. That's coming from someone who is tired of all the disingenuous pandering.
every time naughty dog make a game, you play it and get the feeling "this is not possible'
from the boulder running towards you in crash, on ps1,
to the massive open world of jak and daxter, on ps2,
to the QuickTime events sequences of uncharted on ps3/4
and now we will see what they do with ps5,
Arrogant asshole who sniffs his own farts bigs up next game…sounds like typical PR to me
You know what I find interesting? Almost every site reporting this as the main title where the REAL interesting bit of the interview is Neil praising AI and saying it will be used to help push story, characters, dialogue and more.
It’s super shitty to big up AI especially when it comes to story telling and other creative elements.
Just because someone says this type of stuff, it doesn't mean that it's guaranteed to be good news.
You can say this about microtransactions. MXTs revolutionised the gaming industry.
He also said it has "ethical issues we need to address" but of course that doesn't get the clicks.
I’m all for it. Cuts the time to make a game. Look, Hellblade 2 took 5 years to make, if AI can do that in half the time, as a consumer, I support it.
The Last of Us director’s next project is “perhaps the most thrilling yet.
When you start the game Neil will appear personally telling you about real world issues and call you all sort of names if you don't take action now and then you watch a whole movie and that's it
Too much credit.
A good dev doesn't need to announce how good his game is...he just shows it.
You don't see Kojima glorifying his ideas like this and you don't see successful developers glorifying their "great" ideas before release.
It's going to be a shit show...reserve some popcorn.
Its a hard pill to swallow but the naughty dog we once had is long gone. Most don't realize it but eventually just like with bioware and blizzard...it'll be hard to ignore.
Neil just wants to be Kojima so bad, meanwhile Kojima is just like a child enjoying the world, saying whatever comes to his mind and having so much passion, man I don't even like his games that much but the man is just passion incarnate!
And the popcorn is always ready for Neil
Ever since Bruce Straley left it was like Neil lost his leash and went on full ego trip, not unlike Kojima tbh but at least with Kojima you can see how much he loved video games and how he truly want to push the boundaries. Neil felt like he’s just strutting around..
Erm dude. Never played a kojima game before? He can absolutely come across pretentious to some people. He puts his name in the credits of every Mission you do in mgs5.
I mean...
Also naughty dog absolutely has the power to bring in people from a very different demographic unlike other gamecompanies. TLOU and Uncharted were absoolutely groundbreaking for gaming.
Also Druckman never said it "will" he said it "could"
Sounds actually very optimistic but also cautious to me.
Stop hating move on
@crow: “You don't see Kojima glorifying his ideas like this”
You mean like this👇👇
https://www.gamedeveloper.c...
ALL DEV HYPE THEIR NEXT GAME IDEAS so I call BS on your statement
Lmao please tell me this is sarcasm? Kojima is the epitome of a dev glorifying his ideas even worse than this.
Id like them to show something. Only doing 2 TLOU remakes this far into the PS5 life is disappointing.
ND games now are a political battlefield, it's allegory as a game, according to him even, it's so easy to say you don't care about politics and then love games that are only made by and for politics
Better yet, you start the game, go through what you just said, and then your PS is bricked, and your account is permanently banned!!!!!
please shut up and release a game, Naughty dog has not released a single title apart from Remaster on PS5...
People like to ignore reality because they dont like this guy. I really wish people could just accept that we all have different political leanings, and that is ok, we are not enemies. Especially now that people have already learned how social media algorithms prevent us from seeing eye to eye with people who have different opinions from us.
Personally, ND is my favorite developer, and I can’t wait to see what they are working on.
He's gaslighting us to want something that doesn't exist yet. This fool got demoted back to janitor status where he belongs for destroying the last of us franchise.
