Following the firing of twelve QA testers, Raven Software team members plan a walkout in solidarity. The team shared a statement with details
There are no thoughtful ads in Video Games, EA. Leave them be.
I think the only type of games that can gets away with it would be sport games, having those sponsors ads on the side like on real life.
But don't put freaking Doritos ads in Star Wars or something, it breaks the immersion. If it is a pop-up ads, then big no.
Bungie veteran and current CTO, Luis Villegas, has left the company after fourteen years and has joined Sony PlayStation as its new Head of Technology.
"I feel incredibly lucky because as part of my new role I get to still work closely with my Bungie family."
New role and more pay and still can work closely with Bungie
After its latest games didn't meet sales targets, Square Enix is going multiplatform but the company's track record isn't convincing.
Square Enix been multiplatform for decades, a few exclusively-deals doesn't make them any less multiplatform.
SE needs to go all in optimization. Broken PC ports won't help its case, especially with big releases like mainline Final Fantasy
It's actually simple. What doesn't inspire confidence is Square allocating their budgets on the wrong projects such as Forspoken, Avengers, Babylons Fall and Foamstars.
Square has always been multiplatform since PS3/360 days which 80 % of their games are. People kick up a fuss over PS exclusivity but not Nintendo which has more exclusive projects console exclusive from Square.
FF16 has done ok but not enough to fix the blunders that the past mistakes Square has made with some of their projects. FF7 Rebirth is unclear we'll see a PC release for sure so it's hard to say so far not as good as they would of liked.
Then again unrealistic expectations. If it weren't for Sony these games would at least had another 2 years development time. So some people need to be realistic in that regard.
Square Enix just really need to revise its expectations. Maybe consider a change in strategy on dev end as well. Multiplat will help for sure but only good games that are marketed well will sell
Good job raven
Other than Brian and Steve Raffel, the core Raven devs are not there anymore.
Its just a shell of its former self. Human Head/Roundhouse Studios is the new Raven Software.
Pre-Activision, Raven was the like the sister studio to id Software.
If they could, Brian and Steve Raffel should just uncouple Raven from Activision and just go back to collabing with id like they used to under MS.
The originality they were famous for is being Suppressed by Kotick's company.
I remember years ago on KindaFunny, Andrea Renee said something like "EA need micro-transactions to pay workers so they can feed their families, and to invest in amazing new IP." It's really disgusting how disconnected a lot that sort of coverage was from reality. Greed is just greed.
COD makes $3 billion a year (more than Avatar and Endgame). Firing these employees is just taking advantage of a lack of workers protections to bag a small amount of extra profit. QA testers deserve job security as well. Something is wrong if a workplace has more turnover than a call centre.
This is a series that needs near constant QA between Warzone and new entries anyway. We're not talking about a studio that puts out a single player game every 5-10 years.
Why were they fired? It didn’t say. “I was promised a raise but they fired me instead.” I mean that sucks but it happens. I’m sure the game industry is worse than most in that sense. What’s new I mean? If you are going to walk out for your friends jobs that’s on you but that’s all it is.
Given their recent atrocities they are in a perfect position to “restructure” in the guise of making a more inclusive environment. They are going to use this to cut fat for sure and bobby will be vengeful lol. Maybe these testers didn’t fit in the new structure. Maybe they brought a certain “frat boy culture” with them. They are going to run these dummies like Japanese corporations do. Just drain the life out of them lol. Maybe they will fire the walkouts too. I wouldn’t be surprised.
I just think what they are walking on is silly. The other shit was bearable but general layoffs cross a line lol? Defend your friends worth to your boss don’t go picket out front. In the case of activision you should have walked out and stayed out a long time ago.
I remember these guys were the development team behind Singularity, which was pretty much a poor man's Bioshock. These developers had potential, it's a shame it was squandered and the team was settled for being co-devs for CoD games. It's a damn shame, would've loved to see Singularity2 sometime.
They deserved better, glad to see them walking out.